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The Tetley Tea Folk come back as Chavs!

By The Trickster on 16 August 2010

Am I a Great Prophet, or what? In my blog of June 4th I suggested that in these recession hit days, more could be done to reduce unemployment by bringing advertising’s best loved cartoon characters out of retirement.

Skinny Kate, or Busty Mad Maiden?

By The Trickster on 10 August 2010

There were rumblings in the press again this week about airbrushed photos of fashion models leading teenage girls down the road to anorexia. The latest salvo comes from Girlguiding UK, who say retouched images should be labelled to help tackle the “damaging and unrealistic pressures on young women”.

Getting an Eco-friendly Package Deal

By The Trickster on 2 August 2010

If I went on a bit in my last blog about advertising people being the white knights of the media, it was only to counterbalance the fact that we’re often held up as scapegoats for the worst excesses of the consumer age.

Trust me, I'm an Adman!

By The Trickster on 22 July 2010

There was a time when to admit that you worked in advertising was to be regarded as some kind of moral leper, like Orson Wells in the Third Man, prepared to sell lethal ‘penicillin’ to the critically ill if it turned a fast buck. The joke we used to tell against ourselves at the time was ‘Don’t tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse’.

Brussels spouts off again!

By The Trickster on 9 July 2010

When, a couple of years ago, Hackney Council prosecuted an East End stallholder for selling fruit and veg by the pound – and confiscated her scales – you’d have thought that metric militancy had been pushed to its absurd limits.

New Media? That's so last week!

By The Trickster on 25 June 2010

Print and TV are fast becoming poor relations to new media these days, and there’s a bewildering variety of it – viral, social, guerrilla and augmented reality – for clients wishing to bolster their street credibility.

Redesign BP logo competition

By Royston Simpson Creative on 24 June 2010

Greenpeace’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been to hang a flag sporting a redesigned BP logo – rebranding them ‘British Polluters’ – outside the company’s head offices in London. They’ve also launched a competition inviting the public to submit their own derogatory redesigns of the BP logo.

Trivial Pursuit

By Royston Simpson Creative on 18 June 2010

One of the joys of the internet is its quirkiness, the fun of surfing on a sea of trivia and exploring bizarre byways and stranger sites: dancing babies, piano playing cats etc. Not that, ahem, we have much time for such nonsense during working hours you understand – just a little dabble in the lunch hour! Glancing quickly over the shoulders of our staff (before they could click back to pouring over reports and accounts etc) I discovered them diverting themselves with the following:

The World Cup runneth over - with hype!

By The Trickster on 11 June 2010

So, are you ready for a summer of pagan face painting, primitive tribalism, public drunkenness, breast-beating tragedy and triumphalism? Yes, Wimbledon is with us once again. OK, just joking. I was referring, of course, to the World Cup, but just in passing whatever happened to Wimbledon? Like everything else it looks like being trampled underfoot by the mad rush to attend the South African event, live or on the box.

"I'm still great!" says Tony the Tiger

By Royston Simpson Creative on 4 June 2010

I was browsing in a second-hand bookshop the other day, leafing through an old Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue from the 50’s, when who should pop out smiling from its pages than my old friend Mr Therm, a sunny faced cartoon character who used to work for the gas board, but got pensioned off when British Thermal Units – from which he took his name – were superseded by the metric equivalent.

New Olympic Mascots are Mutant Teletubbies

By The Trickster on 28 May 2010

Remember ‘Dave the Cardboard Box’ – a character invented by Jasper Carrot – who went to interesting places and met interesting people? Dave was just, well, a cardboard box, but it was Carrot’s impassioned commentary that brought him to hilarious life.

The Honeymoon is Over

By Royston Simpson Creative on 21 May 2010

Not for nothing is ‘new’ the advertisers favourite word, an expression that retains its magic like no other. The implication is that new is better – ‘new, improved’ as us ad folk would say. But at the risk of being hung for heresy, that’s not always the case. Think of the enthusiasm with which Tony Blair and Barack Obama were greeted when they took up office, and the subsequent disillusion of the electorate and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

On the Late - Very Late - Departed Gordon Brown!

By The Trickster on 14 May 2010

My old boss always used to say that it is better to make the wrong decision than to make no decision at all, and I think that that was borne out by Gordon Brown’s surprise announcement last night. Right or wrong he took the decision that he felt needed to be made to free up the political impasse of the past few days.

Off with their heads – bring back the Monarchy!

By The Trickster on 11 May 2010

Well, what a result – or lack of it – the Election has turned up. And to top it off, Gordon Brown has gone off in a sulk with his ‘If I can’t play, neither will you’ attitude, upped stumps and taken away the cricket bat. Not really playing the game, but if it is to be resumed, it looks as if the rules will have to be bent or broken.

Word Power "How to Write Great Ads"

By Royston Simpson Creative on 10 May 2010

How to write great advertising copy by Royston Simpson Creative

Election is Victory for 'Green' Party - They're all Inexperienced!

By The Trickster on 7 May 2010

Phew! What a night! And not having got a wink of sleep, our party leaders now have to get into bed together and try to tug the sheets off one another! Stand by for another onslaught of platitudes and false promises.

Following the Twitter Election

By The Trickster on 30 April 2010

Time was when politicians were groomed by their wonks to speak in ‘sound-bites’, pithy little policy statements (or character assassinations of their opponents) designed to meet the needs of modern media, and the goldfish-like attention span of their followers.

ROYSTON SIMPSON CREATIVE

16 CHURCH STREET

BISHOP'S STORTFORD

HERTFORDSHIRE CM23 2LY

01279 755555

info@roystonsimpson.co.uk

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