Dixi-Klo: A brand in need is a brand indeed

 

I woke up in the night during the annual carnival carousing. On the way back from the comfort of our own bathroom I wondered why on earth I’d never blogged about what must be one of Germany’s absolute brand leaders.

It’s a brand whose name has become the generic here, like Tempo. I’m talking about the humble Dixi-Klo. From building sites to Fests of all kinds, here’s a brand that’s not going to save the world, but has certainly saved most of us from nasty spots of bother and embarassment.

The Dixi-Klo was invented, and given its name by a US soldier based in Germany, Fred Edwards. While on manoeuvres in 1973, he identified a gap in the market - presumably through bitter experience - as an alternative to the proverbial convenient grove of trees.

A German company founded Dixi’s main rival, TOI TOI ten years later. Toi Toi Toi  is best translated as “touch wood” - so a remarkably clever brand name all in all. The two businesses fused in 1997 and now give jobs (big and little) to over 4,000 people. TOI TOI & DIXI is said to be “the world’s largest portable restroom provider.”

On the company website, you can even find a Fan Shop, which sells everything from cool bags to drinking flasks to carnival outfits (could cause all sorts of kerfuffle for the inebriated and short-sighted as well as the wearer, I fear). And my favourite - an air freshener to hang in your car.

Who said Germans are short on humour?

I haven’t seen many case histories on TOI TOI & DIXI on LinkedIn, but both are brands that deserve a little more praise. 

The classic question on Meaningful Brands goes along the lines of “which brands would you miss if they were to disappear tomorrow?”

I rest my case. 

Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

A short and sweet post today as the weekend and the high summer outdoors are calling. For those living in Hessen, that will inevitably involve apple-based drinks, with or without that alcohol stuff.

Aren’t the designs for Possmann’s apple juice just perfect? There are so many sludgy, dreary colours around attempting to convey naturalness, making this burst of bright primaries shine even more brightly in comparison. 

Possmann have been making Äpfelwein and juice since 1881, under the slogan “the best thing that can happen to an apple.” The 5th generation of the family is now in charge, and they’re not only the largest apple processing company in Hessen, but the most award-winning cider company in Germany, too. They’re responsible for one of my favourite sights around Frankfurt, too - the colourful tram known as the Ebbelwei-Express.

An apple or five a day (in liquid form) really does keep the summertime blues away. 

BA: A quantity of quality

 

When I worked on the BA account, decades ago, the passenger survey struck me as one of the top reasons why quant surveys got a bad name. How could the categories of business or leisure really sum up the multiplicity of reasons for flying? Even (from memory) the third alternative, which may have been added later - visiting friends and family - didn’t add much. Well, that could cover anything from a wild and exotic party to your granny’s funeral.

I’ve been a bit sniffy about BA advertising in recent years, but since October last year, I’m sniffing no more. The brand launched their new campaign (by Uncommon Creative Studios) in October 2022. It’s based on the brand essence of “A British Original” - which is pretty neat, by the way, as the phrase can be applied to passengers, staff, journeys, innovations and the rest. The idea acknowledges that there are far, far more travel purposes than those described in the two boxes “business” and “leisure”.

This campaign is remarkable in its variety - 512 print, digital and outdoor executions plus numerous second spots. And, simultaneously, its coherence around one strong creative idea. None of the visual old or new cliches associated with airlines. Just great copywriting and clever art direction/use of media. The idea used contextual OOH - buses, tube stations - and also adapted to the weather, to the time of day, to news events. There were no surprises when it won the outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes.

 

This month sees an expansion of the campaign in OOH, print and social media with some clever contextual jiggery-pokery. From boat sails and jumpers ...

to cheese ...

And finally, BA isn’t the only big old mass-market brand getting it right with its advertising. I’m also a great fan of this cheerful follow-up to “Arches” for McDonalds.

Find your originality - then use it!

Bloomin’ lovely!

 

Now here’s an idea that takes outdoor advertising to a whole new level. It’s spectacular, good for the environment and right on-brand. And it involves collaboration between one of Germany’s branding giants and a small start-up agency. Plenty of boxes ticked aleady.

The project, “Magenta Blossom” is a nature sponsorship for Deutsche Telekom. Fields near Euskirchen, an area as big as 56 football pitches, have been planted with millions of wild flower and herb seeds. Come August, the whole lots will bloom in the form of a “T” logo in the brand’s distinctive magenta colour, as well as the sustainability hashtag #GreenMagenta.

 

The agency involved are a (as yet) small outfit from Munich who specialise in uniting the interests of framers, nature and companies. They’re called GEOXIP   and are whizzes at precision sowing, amongst other things. As well as looking magnificent and colourful, all those blooms will atrract bees and help to regenerate the land, improving soil quality.

Everything will be coming up roses. Or similar.

I’m also wondering how long it will be before more of those stories about farmers selling advertising space on cows will recirculate. Moo. 

RETROWURST: Public Holidays May 2005

 

Here we go on another trip back in time, to my reflections on the merry month of May in Germany, with its glut of public holidays. Off I went, following the tipsy processions through the fields and woods, slurping down Maibowle on the way.

I must have got bored of that topic as the article then lurched into the subject of greeting cards in Germany. If my memory serves me correctly, I had a project on the go on this theme.

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It’s May and that annoying time of year again, if you work in the UK, when every time you call your colleagues in Germany or other continental countries, they seem to be having yet another public holiday or, worse still, they had a public holiday yesterday, which was Thursday, and are having the Friday off for good measure.

 

Public holidays come thick and fast after Easter here in Germany; there’s the first of May, of course (although we don’t move this around if it inconveniently falls on a weekend as it did this year; it would be most un-German to call the third the first, or whatever) and then we’ve just had Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in quick succession. Mother’s Day is understandable enough; this is the same as in the UK (on a Sunday) except that it’s in May instead of March, possibly to provide a better fresh seasonal flower selection. Father’s Day is a little more difficult to understand- it is actually Himmelfahrt or Ascension Day in the Christian Calendar but has been hi-jacked somewhere along the way to celebrate all that is manly and fatherly. Typically, it is a good excuse for men to go out for a long walk through the woods and fields, pulling a little cart heavily stocked with beer and Schnapps. These expeditions start fairly early in the morning and the progressively drunken procession lurches from one beer garden to the next, occasionally topping up in-between from the little cart. Sons are often included from a relatively early age, usually as an insurance measure to pull the cart or find the way home once the fathers become incapable. All this is rather different from the genteel coffee, cake and flower arrangements that constitute the typical Mother’s Day. So much so, that, recently, in the spirit of equality, groups of women can now also be observed on Father’s Day, crashing through the foliage to enjoy the odd glass of Prosecco.

 

No sooner are Father’s and Mother’s Days over than is Pfingsten or Whitsun and another long weekend (elongated even further in Frankfurt with the celebration of Waldchestag, or Woods Day on the Tuesday- yes, you guessed it- more drunken lurching and frolicking in the woods!) upon us. Sometime in late May or early June is Fronleichnam (or Happy Cadaver as I once heard it charmingly referred to; actually Corpus Christi) then that’s the lot in most of Germany except a few extreme Catholic strongholds until the frightening-sounding Tag der Deutschen Einheit in October.

 

You would think, what with Christmas and Easter and birthdays to add to all this, that the greetings card industry in Germany would be huge, but there you’d be wrong. Whereas, in the UK, Hallmark and their ilk have capitalised on the North American willingness to celebrate or commiserate every possible event or non-event of human life’s rich tapestry in card format, the greetings card market in Germany is under-developed which may be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective. 

 

Starting with Christmas, the card selection is rather sparse. Maybe the Germans think that they are being damaging enough to the environment by insisting on real Christmas trees for all without then wasting the paper that’s involved in Christmas cards to every distant relative and acquaintance, including the dustmen. There are certainly no “bumper boxes” of 50 cards with the only nod to bulk-buying being packets of six postcards of snow scenes or candles. What cards there are have a very traditional flavour- you won’t find anything with “cool yule”, smutty poems about drunken reindeer or retro photos with 21^st century captions here. And these cards are mostly sold singly.

 

When it comes to birthdays, there is a market but it’s somewhat limited. Your choice tends to be amongst “funny cards”, which resemble those “funny cards” you used to get in the UK in the 1970s- tall and thin with very thin sub-Carry-On humour, cards that even most grannies would find too twee or the pre-teen girl selection featuring either Diddl (a mouse with oversized feet who I think hails from Austria) or those grey patchwork teddies who look like baby seals waiting to be clubbed. For younger children, there is little sign of the whole character merchandising industry anyway and especially not on birthday cards. Whereas you’re confronted by Bob, Postman Pat, the Tweenies, the old Disney favourites and the latest Disney/animation heroes from the first birthday onwards in the UK, you would be very lucky to find a birthday card that even has an age on it in Germany (unless it’s an age over 60 - as I’ve said before, Germany is a very old-friendly country where seniority is a badge to be proud of!). 

 

For other occasions (with the notable exception of condolence cards), the choice is very narrow indeed: even those “no text all purpose” cards are rather hard to come-by. In addition, what there is tends to be very bland and generally inoffensive, verging on twee. Cards for new babies, for example, are almost never funny but show, instead, rose- or baby blue- tinted symbols and images of unrealistic infant perfection. No jokes about stinks or embarrassing noises here!

 

Perhaps the reason for this under-development stems back to the German dislike of superficiality. Many of the card-giving occasions themselves (those that are not traditional German celebrations) are regarded as another ugly and blatant attempt for the US capitalist machine to squeeze more money out of us. Halloween and Valentine’s Day are two examples of occasions that have been “pushed” in recent years and are treated with increasing cynicism. Furthermore, the thought process in Germany tends to go- if you really care about the person who is celebrating, then put some time, money and effort into doing something personal and relevant to them- giving flowers, picking up the phone, making a card yourself and so on, otherwise, don’t bother. Card-giving tends to send out signals here of a “halfway house”; you’re doing the simplest, cheapest thing out of duty more than anything else.

 

In a way, they do have a point. Anyone who has suffered a deluge of those corporate Christmas cards signed in a rush by people who neither know nor care about you or has wondered how many two-year-olds really appreciate the full cast of the Teletubbies, Tweenies and Balamory in cardboard form may well wonder if we wouldn’t all be better off forgetting the card and enjoying the celebration instead, even if it does involve trees, rain and some very dubious Schnapps.

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Greetings cards are still pretty low-key in Germany, although there are loads around at the moment for Konfirmation. I wonder if the generation being confirmed at the moment (born around 2010) are a little bemused by these analogue relics. A popular alternative to cards for birthdays and the like seem to be those rather gaudy helium balloons. 

Fests are, thankfully, back on the calendar following Covid. Out here in the country, it’s not just Public Holidays, but almost any form of local produce, flora or fauna, from asparagus to apple blossom to potatoes that gets its own Fest.

I think I’ll give the Grillfest at the rabbit breeders’club a miss, though.

The pylon wears Prada

 

I’ve been known to come back from ski holidays with an Extrawurst or two hidden in my bag along with the smelly socks, and this year is no exception.

For 2023, it’s a very striking campaign spotted on ski lift pylons, of all things. For Prada, no less - and there’s something rather splendidly unexpected about the combination of high fashion glitz and heavy industrial utilitarianism. Like Gucci and trainspotters. The campaign for Prada Linea Rossa may already be in its second year, as the case study from the agency responsible is dated 21/22. alpdest position themselves as “the alpine media experts”, offering out of home advertising in ski resorts throughout Europe. Media opportunities include ski racks, branded gondolas and, yes, 150 lift pylons across Switzerland’s swankiest ski resorts.

Sadly, though, I don’t think I’ll be splashing out on any of the Prada gear, gorgeous though it is. A €4,250 ski jacket is a swank too far for me.

RETROWURST: Grillen August 2004

 

It’s going up to 36°C today and 39°C tomorrow, and I am rather wondering if our garden BBQ will fire up on its own accord. It was no surprise to me, shuffling back in the Extrawurst archives to find that I wrote about BBQs and Grillen from the German perspective back in August 2004. For more on this meat-and-mayo-fest, read on ...

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Now that summer has finally taken hold of Germany in a big way, after a couple of false starts, the season of barbequing or Grillen and general al fresco eating is officially open.

While we are used to a BBQ being a rather special event (and, out of necessity, often a moveable feast, with the moveable element often consisting of moving rickety old garden chairs, burnt sausages and a lukewarm box of white wine back into the kitchen to escape the unexpected downpour) the average German family will probably eat outside in summer four or five times a week. Given the frequency of this event, there is much bigger business to be had in Germany than in the UK with the food and accessories associated with Grillen. Just a cursory look at Heinz’ website dedicated to the joys of Grillen,the Heinz Mitgrillzentrale (www.unverzichtbar-zum-grillen.de ) will give you just a little taste of just how seriously BBQ-ing is taken here.

 

Let’s start with meat. In the UK, we’ll typically throw a few sausages, hamburgers and chicken legs on the BBQ to get nicely black outside and raw inside, accompanied by a few ‘grilled veggies’ as a concession to the trendy and vegetarian amongst us. However, steaks seem to be regarded as ‘a bit of a waste’ to BBQ by a lot of in the UK. Maybe it’s because our barbeques themselves are not quite up to the technical standards of the Germans (and any self-respecting German has at least two BBQs – from a rustic briquette burning device built into the garden to a sophisticated gas grill to cater for parties of fifty hungry people) or maybe it’s because we don’t get quite so much practice on this rainy little island at the art of barbequing, but somehow we don’t quite trust ourselves to throw anything costing a reasonable amount of money onto the barbeque.

 

In Germany, however, steaks are staple barbeque fare. Either pork or beef, they are bought in huge catering packs of at least six large steaks, even for a family of three. The steaks themselves are bought ready-marinated in a range of different flavours from herby-garlicky to spicy-peppery. In summer, butchers offer a wide range of ready-prepared steaks, including steaks stuffed or filled with mozzarella or bacon for example. In fact, apart from a few Bratwurst, usually just provided for the children or for adults as a sort of appetizer for the real feast to come, you won’t see much on a German barbeque other than steaks, more steaks and even more steaks.

 

If steaks have the starring role at a German barbeque, then the role of the best supporting player must always go to the salads. There is a whole strange culture relating to salads in Germany, with its own idiosyncrasies, rules and regulations. While ready-made salads are available in vast variety at the butcher’s, in the deli counter at the supermarket and pre-packed in the chill counter, it’s really not the done thing to turn up at a barbeque with a salad that someone else has made. In fact, there are some very close parallels with baking - just as every mother in the UK is expected to bake some creation for the school fair or nativity play, mothers in Germany are expected to produce a salad as well as a perfect Schwarzwälderkirschtorte for the Kindergartenfest. And there are many other occasions on which one is simply expected to appear mit Salat - at the local street party, for example, or at a Polterabend, which is a sort of informal pre-Wedding party where everyone smashes plates (don’t ask!) or even for someone’s birthday do – in the UK we have PBAB whereas in Germany it’s more likely to be ESMB (eine Salat mitbringen, bitte). I have even recently invested in an interesting device called a Salatkurier- a salad bowl with a lid and carrying handles which allows one to transport salads from one Fest to the next in complete safety.

 

Part of the salad culture involves a strange pecking-order which you are only likely to find out about if you contravene its unwritten rules. For example, you may make the mistake of providing a salad involving something quite acceptable to our tastes - a potato salad with new potatoes, skins on and a bit of mint - only to find that, in your circle, Frau Schmidt and Frau Schmidt alone is allowed to make her potato salad - a calorific concoction involving buckets of mayonnaise garnished with hard-boiled eggs - and that anything in the food and drink category other than tea involving mint is viewed by most Germans with deepest suspicion.

 

In typical fashion, while Germans are very proud of their homemade salads, they are also a little rigid when it comes to experimentation. It is often quite fun to slip in a slightly unexpected creation just to see how they react. It’s probably true to say that there is a fairly standard repertoire of salads to be had in Germany. There’s Frau Schmidt’s potato concoction as mentioned above plus its Bavarian cousin (no mayo but stock, oil and vinegar, bacon bits and a few radishes and certainly no potato skins), a Nudelsalat which I normally avoid - noodles with more mayo plus chopped ham and cold tinned peas, Wurstsalat, of course, which normally involves slivers of sausage drowning in more mayo (although there is a slightly healthier Swiss cousin with cheese slivers, sliced gherkin , onion and vinegar/oil dressing) or a plain Mix- or Bunte-Salat which is normally a mixture of leaves, carrot and tomatoes smothered in yoghurt dressing.

 

You’ll have noticed that few of these salads would win many prizes at Weightwatchers. Although you’ll occasionally see a green salad, or perhaps a Bauern- or Hirtensalat (which is rather like what we’d call a Greek salad, with peppers and feta), generally German salads are a bit of a mayonnaise fest, filled with danger for unsuspecting vegetarians (it’s difficult to find a German salad without some meat content). While there has been a bit of interest in flavours and ingredients from, say, Italy, the staple calorific salads still have pride of place.

 

Overall, taking the barbeque/outdoor eating category, it is big business in Germany. Aside from all the ‘hardware’ of barbeques, utensils, salad bowls, briquettes and so on, there is a huge market in sauces, dressings and ingredients, flavourings and other accompaniments. The big players in this area are partly the multi-nationals we know, such as Heinz, Knorr and Kraft, with the omnipresent Miracle Whip (see www.miraclewhip.de ) but there are also some local players who are onto a fairly sizeable portion of the cake (or steak!). These include Kühne (see www.kuehne.de )  Develey (see www.develey.de ) and Feinkost Dittmann (see www.feinkost-dittmann.de ). There seems to be an opportunity to help Germans to expand their ‘outside eating’ repertoire by taking them by the hand via countries and themes. For example, a huge range of Italian-influenced anti-pasti and ingredients from Deluna (Switzerland) has appeared in Supermarkets this year and the Greek flavour of this summer’s sporting events has clearly had an influence on the nation’s palate with supermarkets putting together their own displays of feta for grilling, tzatziki and stuffed vine-leaves.

 

While Frau Schmidt’s potato salad is unlikely to be completely usurped by Moroccan Couscous and Coriander salad in the near future, there certainly does seem to be an opportunity for food manufacturers to take advantage of the German love of eating al fresco for as long as the sun shines.

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Eighteen years on and there’s been something of a shift - but as with all these things, it’s been a shift to more variety and choice rather than a “From-To” thingy as beloved of strategy powerpoint charts, where stuff gets swept aside into obsolecence and replaced with new shiny stuff.

Turkish, North African and Mediterranean influence has grown, with the inevitable Halloumi and other cheeses for grilling, as well as Merguez and a wider choice of sausages that don’t involve pork. Plenty more lamb, poultry and beef cuts to grill are available.  And yes, couscous has made an appearance on the German grill accompaniments scene. 

Ditto vegan/plant-based alternatives to meat, for example from The Vegetarian Butcher  . But those marinated pork steaks are here to stay - you’re just going to need a bigger table for the greater selection of grilled goodies.

In 2004, it seems, I hadn’t discovered the mayonnaisy horror that is Schichtsalat, (or maybe I just blocked it from my consciousness) but that’s alive (probably with listeria) and kicking, too.

Grotto or grotty?

RETROWURST is taking a break this month because lazy little me didn’t write any articles in December back in the 2000s as I was probably too busy dashing and blitzing around doing Christmas shopping. But the series will be back in 2022.

Yes, Christmas shopping. There are reminders on the radio - have we bought all our presents yet? I have bought one, and was quite proud of having already done so in November before I heard all those smug so-and-sos with only one still left to buy. 

I am not relishing the thought. Somehow the magic of Christmas past and the twinkling welcome of Santa’s grotto is lost in a mire of masks, pandemics and it’s-all-easier-online-but-bad-conscience-haunting-me.

I’m not sure if the experience was ever that magical, anyway. My only memory of Santa’s grotto in Harvey’s department store in Camberley was being given an empty box. I think amends were made, but still.

But we can dream, and take a shopping trip through the streets, windows, lights and paper catalogues of the past:

There’s shopping in style, even when you’re on public transport. Just don’t spill mulled wine on those collars or cuffs:

Christmas didn’t have to be gaudy. Post-war shortages aside, this was a world where black and white was the norm, certainly as far as brand communications and broadcast media/entertainment went:

Hamleys was the mecca of tinsel and toytown. The 1926 ad offers a number of most suitable gifts for children including “The Crown Tavern”, a pup named “Looney” and what looks like an interrogation device. 60 years later, the store tried a "Teddy Bears’ Picnic meets 333 Men in a Boat” approach:

Does anyone have time or inclination in these pandemic days to linger looking at shop windows? Even war didn’t stop Selfridges in 1916:

This picture, of 1960s Regent Street, seems to sum up my earliest memories. A quick blast of Nina & Frederik, and I’m back there.

Polish up those tin signs

I was rather cheered to read in the JWT trendletter that analogue marketing, or the "renaissance of non-digital mediums (sic)", is back.

On closer inspection, the article is more about music and musicians - Coldplay and Radiohead's Thom Yorke, bringing new albums out on cassette and advertising them in quaint old-fashioned ways, such as small ads in local papers, or personally-typed postcards to fans delivered in the good old post.

But there's no reason to stop there. There are so many ways to advertise your brand or cause in real life, from posters to trams to vans to blimps - even on bricks and mortar.

I did learn a new word from the article that I'll have to use somewhere soon: anemoia - nostalgia for a time you've never known.

In the meantime, let's market like it's 1899!

How green was my valley?

In the last few weeks, I have noticed crosses by the side of fields while driving. The first couple, I probably didn't register - assuming they were shrines put up at the site of road accidents. But then I noticed something unusual - the crosses were green.

While walking the other day, I came across (ha, ha!) one by a local field, and attached to it was a notice addressed to walkers:

This campaign - Grüne Kreuz - is a "silent protest" from German farmers to lobby the government and powers-that-be to respect their work. It's about everything from dumping prices at the supermarkets, importing cheap goods and giving in to public pressure (maybe too hastily) on environmental protection issues, such as the use of fertiliser and pesticides.

The protest took on a new angle last week when thousands of farmers (and tractors) descended on Berlin. That, I expect, wasn't so silent.

Whatever your views on the issues regarding agriculture and the environment, this does strike me as a masterstroke in terms of campaigning. Using fields as a medium for the campaign and a symbol that immediately evokes interest. The mainstream press tends to be one-sided on this topic and I know I've heard a lot more in the last year about saving bees than I have about farmers' livelihoods.

Farmers for Future, perhaps?

Cruel to be kind

When I worked at Saatchis, the phrase "brutal simplicity of thought" was often used. Whether applied to strategy, media or creative ideas, it meant, in the end, hard-hitting advertising.

These billboards from Cancer Research UK are a brilliant example. It's a campaign to make people aware that obesity is the second biggest risk factor for cancer after smoking. The government has been effective in taking measures to reduce smoking, so the charity now wants to put on pressure to tackle obesity.

What could be a better stop-you-in-your-tracks-idea that mocked-up cigarette packets with the brand name "obesity"? Subtle it's not, but it's very clever, and can't be missed.

But "people" (as the news headlines always say) have been complaining. The complaints centre around "fat-shaming" and "weight-stigma".

Now, this isn't a fashion ad, or a cosmetics ad, or a diet ad. It's public information from a charity to raise awareness. It's neither sexist nor racist. It's the continuation of a campaign that has already proved very effective in raising awareness of the link between obesity and cancer.

Next time I hear ad people talking about the need for "bold" campaigns, I will remember this one.

Free Electric Van

I listened to Les Binet and Sarah Carter talking about their new book (one of those ones I wish I'd written) on a WARC seminar yesterday, and one point they reminded me of was: don't believe all those myths about traditional advertising being dead. Far from it - Facebook advertise in magazines, and both Apple and Google employ posters - yes, old-fashioned billboards - to communicate their wares.

Outdoor advertising still makes so much sense, especially if we really are going to be more and more concentrated into urban areas. And, this week, I also saw a new brand, a start-up in the area of electric mobility.

UZE Mobility, from Aachen are looking to smarten-up and relieve the strain and congestion in Germany's cities, via electro-power, AI, blockchain and all that modern stuff. Their flagship - or flagvan - offering is free of charge van-sharing. As well as running on electricity, the van runs on advertising revenue and data-dealing. The sides of the van are mobile billboards, which can even be bought as the van is in motion. In addition, data about road quality, traffic jams and so on, collected as the van drives around, will be sold to local authorities.

Perhaps the vans will soon be generating their own adverts, too. Also in the news this week was a commercial for the Lexus ES, written by AI:



I do wonder what the creative brief looked like.

A load of hot air?

The Trump Baby balloon is a timely reminder of the power of outdoor advertising and the potential of the biggest medium in (or around) the world - the sky.

Another aerial campaign that kicked off this month is from Hunter as part of the strategy to be recognised as a classic British export.

The 120-foot inflatable welly was launched in Scotland, and will appear at festivals, sporting and other events in the UK and Europe before crossing the Atlantic for some US appearances in the brand's biggest export market.

This is, I think, what's known as a "Big Idea."

I am sure there are some who would have loved to see the Flying Welly boot the Trump Baby up the backside!

Driving traffic to the stores

I'm still not a huge fan of McDonald's burgers, but I do find I'm liking (if not lovin') McDonald's as a brand more and more. Despite having been in the world of advertising for decades now, my heart still misses a beat (well, half - it's only advertising) when I see an idea I instinctively know is right. And damned bloody good.

Here's one:



"Follow the Arches" by McDonald's Canada, from their agency Cossette, has just won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes.

There's no heavy philosophy or high and mighty purpose here, but instead there's first of all an ingenious and brilliant use of the medium. Plus a nod to popular culture - all those "guess the logo" games. Human insight, too - who doesn't identify with tiring car journeys with hungry kiddies, driving round and round a strange city? And then, positive use of brand consistency, values, global presence. Stunningly simple.

Best of all, it's useful and helpful, which means it'll work.

It puts the ghastly phrase "driving traffic to the stores" in a whole new light!

Fearless Falcon

If you follow Cannes and Creative Awards, you won't have missed that a certain sculpture took a lot of the top prizes this year. But what you may have missed, if you don't live near Sheffield, is another sculpture which I think deserves just as many accolades is also really rather quite good.

IKEA have recently opened a store in Sheffield and part of the clever stuff dreamed up by their UK advertising agency, Mother, to accompany the opening was Allen the Peregrine Falcon, seen above. His creator is sculptor Jason Heppenstall,  a wonderfully talented chap whose forte is sculpture of furred, feathered and scaled creatures as well as marvellous mechanical devices, all made from scrap steel. So what could be more appropriate for Sheffield than the town's symbol, a Peregrine Falcon, made of steel?

But it's not just any old steel. The beautiful bird of prey is constructed from a total of 17, 126 IKEA Allen Keys - hence the connection, and the name. The connection with IKEA doesn't stop there, either. The vision of IKEA is to help create a better everyday life for the many people, and I should think that the sight of this beautiful bird brightened many an everyday in Sheffield over the last week.

This, to me, is the essence of a great brand idea: something that combines the smallest, everyday element of a brand with its long-term higher reason for being in a way that's totally relevant for the people it's communicating with.

Now, who can remember which brand or company is behind the Fearless Girl sculpture? Anyone?