The big and the small of it

Spotted on the Lucire website today, an advertisement for Consumer magazine.    It’s a Flash animation, suggesting that not all car insurance policies are perfect. The opening frame shows a car with oversized coins for wheels, and the wheels shrink to a more standard size at the end of the animation.    The copy reads, […]

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Retro moment: the first American Ford Granada

Above: The US Ford Granada in a contemporary advertisement, as posted at americangranada.com.   Not the European car, but the American one of the same name: the Ford Granada was marketed as a US alternative to a Mercedes-Benz. Not as overstyled as, say, the Ford Maverick, this was an extremely heavy car, and Ford’s marketing […]

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Eating Google humble pie

Today, I am eating Google humble pie, because it was right about malware on Autocade. Therefore: thank you, Google. (I’m not so petty as to not thank them for when they get things right.)    Since Google had cried wolf over this blog, which has never had malware issues, I had to question it. Nevertheless, […]

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Explaining to Lucire readers about my political ads

[Cross-posted at Lucire] New Zealand readers will be seeing a few advertisements around this site relating to the local body election in Wellington. And perhaps, thanks to programming not always being precise, a few more readers outside New Zealand will notice them, too, although we have targeted them for this country alone. I think it’s […]

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Deciphering geo-targeting on OpenX; and why Mediaplex is a cheeky sod

Between a few of us here and my friend Pete in the UK, we’ve spent nearly two weeks trying to get OpenX to work. We’re finally getting ad-serving technology put in in-house, after years of relying on the US ad networks we primarily work with. It’s also walking the talk: since I have advocated that […]

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Funny how the war keeps coming up

I could guess the entire storyline but my goodness, I still think this is hilarious. (Courtesy Chris Young at C7 Design in New Plymouth.) You may also like Is your favourite 1980s’ celeb here? Doctor Who’s Christmas ’10 special: US trailer On the subject of copying Steve McQueen, advertising spokesman, 1980 to date Trading identities […]

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On the subject of copying

Saw this old Mikado commercial a few days back: and, after searching on YouTube, it appears that it was repurposed in Germany for a completely different product. Either that, or this came first:    The top one seems to work better, probably because of the idea we have about conservative Japanese management.    Any idea […]

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The advertising career of Audrey Hepburn

I can’t explain why I like the Steve McQueen Ford Puma ad and dislike this one with Audrey Hepburn, even though I think the world of both actors. In terms of tacky, I reckon this one takes the cake as a celebrity endorsement: Come to think of it, this is worse. I believe the original […]

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Steve McQueen, advertising spokesman, 1980 to date

Found on Pete’s Tumblr today. Can you believe it’s been 30 years since the man died? A few weeks later, John Lennon was murdered. Very enjoyable, though I still like the old Ford Puma ad from a decade ago: My American friends prefer a later Steve McQueen ad promoting the Mustang:    I still think […]

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