The Media Blog

New balls please! Sony spoofs its own ad with Wimbledon 3D push

You remember the ad: thousands of brightly coloured balls bouncing downhill in San Francisco to a Jose Gonzalez soundtrack. It was great, right - as adverts go? Well now Sony has shot an advert which spoofs its own lauded 2005 Bravia campaign:

Angry Birds: LIVE!

Those crazy cats at T-Mobile have done it again. This time the latest video 'viral' features Angry Birds (the world's most popular mobile phone app, dontcha know) live.

That's right, I said Angry Birds, LIVE!

A missed opportunity...?

Picture the scene: You are a coat maker. Your boyfriend's uncle is kind of a big deal on Twitter. In fact, he's got more than two-and-a-half-million followers and has just had an interview with Lady Gaga - the celebrity du jour - published in the FT. What's more, in the photographs he was wearing a jacket made by your own fair hands. 

And then he Tweets the following...

You couldn't buy advertising like that. The window of opportunity is now wide open. 

What a shame then that your website is unavailable ("New Version coming soon" - not soon enough I'd suggest) and your Twitter profile is a rather unloved affair that has not been updated for many months.

Oh well, that whole digital marketing thing was overrated anyway.

'Banned' Imogen Thomas ad gets free run on the Guardian

A number of newspapers have apparently declined to run this tasteful little ad (right), from bookmakers Paddy Power.

That is no doubt great news for Paddy Power.

Because while a good advert can help a company raise its profile quite considerably an advert that gets 'banned' works so much better. After all, not only has the Guardian run the full advert online today but Paddy Power didn't even have to pay them*.

Paddy Power clearly weren't about to point this out.

Speaking to the Guardian, a spokesman did a good job of pretending this exposure was somehow inconvenient.

"When an ad gets pulled at the last minute it's all hands on deck," he guffawed added.

 
(*Yes, we know we've run the advert too.)

Top 10 posts from the past month

1. Daily Mail: 'Penguins will make kids gay'

2. This headline is just wrong...

3. Melanie Phillips' Quiz of the Day

4. Another triumph for Fox News

5. The media's fickle relationship with "innocent until proven guilty"

6. When using Google Images attacks

7. Sky Sports duo spark sexism row

8. When is a "surge" not a surge?

9. This one time... at St Barts

10. What a Vader make a living...



What a Vader make a living...

Following the appearance of C-3PO and R2-D2 in a Curry's ad last October, it seems it is open-season on Star Wars characters for hire. Darth Vader is the latest to be loaned out by George Lucas, this time to German car manufacturer Volkswagen for an advert which is really quite sweet, as these things go: (continues) 

It is a choice which may raise an eyebrow or two among pedants, film buffs and amateur automotive historians however. After all, Darth Vader owed his existence to a despotic Empire builder who commanded an army of stormtroopers... and, well you know the rest. 

2010's most annoying ads revealed

Marketing magazine has this week published a list of the most annoying television adverts of last year, topped for the second year running, of course, by GoCompare.com. 

Second is WeBuyAnyCar.com. Inurylawers4u.co.uk and Cashmygold.co.uk complete a top four dominated by low-end brands aimed at people whose lives in austere times were surely tough enough before being subjected to these adverts.

But, despite the inclusion also of Moonpig.com, this list isn't reserved purely for tacky brands creating adverts on a relative shoestring. Also included in Marketing's top 10 was Microsoft whose advertising included a laughable demo of an 'in private browsing' facility which we were told was aimed at people surfing porn who might be buying a present for their wife and want to cover their online tracks. 

Fifth place went to Halifax, who will no doubt feel robbed not to have finished higher. However, they should be given bonus points in this rogue's gallery of advertising awfulness for managing to come up with a series of adverts even more annoying than the previous ones with Howard which ran incessantly for what felt like 172 years and are probably still screened to this day in the fiery depths of hell.

The full top 10:  

1. Gocompare.com
2. Webuyanycar.com
3. Injurylawyers4U.co.uk
4. Cashmygold.co.uk
5. Halifax
6. Foxy Bingo
7. Nintendo
8. Moonpig.com
9. Moneysupermarket.com
10. Microsoft Windows

'Two Jags' cashes in with TV ad

The latest TV advert from MoneySupermarket.com (below) sees John Prescott cashing in on his 'Two Jags'  nickname which presaged more recent controversies around MPs' expenses, all wrapped up in a weak joke about his penchant for boxing which came to the fore when thumping a voter in 2001.

But if this is the route the company is going with its adverts then we have to wonder what might be next? Perhaps we'll be confronted with Jacqui Smith's husband pleasuring himself on the sofa when Omid Djalili appears: "What are you doing? Why do you pay so much for broadband and cable television?"

Top 10 Media Blog posts of 2010

1. BBC calls its own Facebook fans "saddos"

2. Ooops! The Daily Mail falls victim to spoof Steve Jobs iPhone recall Tweet

3. Gazza and Moat: The radio interview

4. ITV News slams Nigella Lawson as unattractive

5. A "first class" performance by Cameron and ITV

6. The Daily Mail song

7. Boston Globe shamed by Hillsborough slur

8. And The Media Hero of 2010 is...

9. Rain with a chance of obscene gestures: Weatherman gives anchor the finger

10. Sun shakes its fist at 'posh wank' scandal

Non-sequiturs: Coming to a television advert near you

You may have seen a TV advert recently for Cow & Gate baby formula. It includes a giant beaker of milk being put down in front of a baby (right).

Cow & Gate has been in trouble previously for misleading claims, but now it is the non-sequitur which really offends.

Did you know your child would have to drink a whole bath tub full of cow's milk to get as much iron as there is in one serving of Cow & Gate baby formula?

Well did you?

Whether a parent did or not (and there is no reason they should) it's likely they don't simply keep forcefeeding their child cow's milk until they've hit all of the recommended daily amounts.

For all I know, I'd probably have to eat a whole water buffalo to get as much calcium and vitamin C as I'd get from a Berocca but that doesn't make me think "hmmm, I don't want to eat a water buffalo, so I'd better buy me some Berocca". Because there are more relevant comparables.

I may have to eat 300 Christmas party hats to get as much fibre as I'd get from one Shredded Wheat, but again these aren't my only choices.

You'd hope consumers would be impervious to this kind of nonsense advertising but it seems to be the direction advertising is going.

For example: "You wouldn't clean your teeth without a brush, so why treat your skin any differently?" asks and advert which is currently trying to convince us that mankind has been remiss for not scouring our skin all these years with the kind of self-foaming brush contraption we're more familiar with as a dispenser of shoe polish.

Consumers may notice however, that teeth and skin are not identical.

I wouldn't clean my paintbrushes without white spirit but I would heartily recommend against using it to clean your salad leaves before sitting down for lunch.

And then there's the advert for Susan Boyle's album.

Here's the problem: young children, we are told, want some crazy stuff for Christmas like a whale. But it's really hard to buy whales down the shops (damn you Greenpeace!). How awful then to let somebody you love down by not buying them what they really want for Christmas. But fear not, you can buy Subo's album.

Huh?!

Vote for your Media Hero & Villain

Below is the shortlist of individuals and organisations most commonly selected by readers of TheMediaBlog.co.uk for our Media Hero and Villain Of The Year awards. Read the nominations of fellow Media Blog readers and then have your say by voting, via the link at the bottom of this post - voting closes at midnight, Friday 17 December. 

The Heroes:

• Private Eye: For proving it is still possible for print publications to grow circulation through a commitment to quality editorial.
• Julian Assange: For "showing the power of the open internet", according to readers, and failing to be cowed by the threats of governments with a vested interest in silencing Wikileaks' revelations.
• Mitch Benn: He's proud of the BBC and reminded us all this year why we should be too.
• Dan & Dan: The brilliant 'Daily Mail Song' became a web sensation and perfectly satirised the editorial obsessions of the UK's most discussed newspaper.
• MyDavidCameron.com: This social media phenomenon was a creative, crowd-sourced victory for satire and humour that left traditional media playing catch-up.
• BBC 6Music Listeners: The online campaign to save 6Music not only advertised the plight of the station, it recruited enough new listeners to save it. You can't buy advertising like that.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE NOW

The Villains:

• The Press Complaints Commission: It sadly comes as no surprise when newspapers break their codes of conduct but the toothless nature of the industry's watchdog is both a cause for concern and a poor advert for self-regulation.
• Alex Beam: Poorly written and researched, an article by the Boston Globe columnist criticised the friends and families of those who died in the Hillsborough stadium disaster. If the content wasn't insulting enough, the total failure of professionalism was a dark day for journalism.
• John Witherow & AA Gill: BBC presenter Clare Balding understandably took offence when described as a 'Dyke on a Bike' by Gill and her offence was compounded when his editor, Witherow offered the clumsiest of defences.
• David Cameron: The Prime Minister has barely concealed his dislike of the BBC or his plans to limit its powers in favour of commercial, more on-message competitors. It came to a head when he described job cuts at the BBC as "delicious".
• FIFA: It's quite plausible, of course, that England failed in its bid to host the World Cup because the bid simply wasn't good enough. However, Football's world governing body has made no secret of its distaste for an independent media unwilling to bend to the will of political and commercial interests. 
• Panorama: The BBC's flagship current affairs programme raised eyebrows and ire when it further exposed the levels of corruption within Fifa on the eve of its vote on who would win the World Cup. The programme was branded "an embarrassment" by England's bid team. 
   

CLICK HERE TO VOTE NOW

Name the Media Hero & Villain of 2010

It's been another turbulent 12 months in the media and for the second year running The Media Blog is calling for nominations for your Media Hero and Villain Of The Year. It could be an individual, an organisation or a publication or broadcaster.

Just drop us an email, or post a comment below with your suggestions and a brief line on why they deserve either award (unless it's screamingly obvious). We will then create a shortlist and throw it open to a public vote in time to announce the winners before the end of the year.

In last year's awards the Hero crown was won by The Telegraph for its relentless exposure of abuses of Commons expenses, while the Villain of the year was Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir for her poisonous piece about the death of pop star Stephen Gately. Big shoes to fill.

Emma Watson, Louis Walsh, X Factor... it's the top Media Blog posts this week

1. Hermione casts a spell on newspaper editors

2. What next for Louis Walsh, the X Factor's cultural ambassador?

3. Masterchef: Remixed

4. Update: 'I'm a Celebrity' contestants reviewed

5. So X Factor was ‘fixed’… should we care?

6. Eamonn Holmes: Man of the people

7. Full time fact-Trekker needed...

8. @StephenFry quits Twitter… again?

9. Old alcohol bad, new alcohol good?

10. If you only go on one 'trianing' course this year...

That beer's got a bit of a Motorhead on it

There's no shortage of surprising celebrities cropping up in television adverts at the moment, but did I really just see Lemmy doing an advert for Kronenburg with an acoustic version of The Ace Of Spades?

Oh, I did...

A long time ago, in a brainstorm far, far away...

...somebody suggested putting R2-D2 and C-3PO in an advert for hairdryers and washing machines. And would you believe it, it actually happened.

This advert for Curry's and PC World certainly got people talking when it screened during The X Factor on Saturday. An angry mob on Twitter branded this a new low for George Lucas's duty of care towards the Star Wars legacy (...and you thought Jah Jah Binks was his nadir? By the time you've seen R2-D2 flirting with a vaccuum cleaner you'll be ready to give The Phantom Menace another go. But don't.)

You can't blame Curry's however, they were probably as surprised as everybody else when Lucas Arts gave permission for this advert to happen.

And the kind of sci-fi blasphemy not seen since Lieutenant Starbuck launched a chain of coffee shops notwithstanding, it's actually a pretty impressive advert - as these things go. 

Next week, Chewbacca in the new Allied Carpets advert.

So... what happened in the BT ad?

A frankly jaw-dropping 1.6 million people* have voted to decide that Jane, a character in an interminable series of BT adverts, is indeed pregnant:

*I have rarely felt so disappointed in my fellow man.

Top 10 Media Blog posts from the past week

1. Jon Snow v Zac Goldsmith: "A complete travesty of the truth"

2. Ooh don't tempt us... BT opens vote on what happens next to broadband couple

3. Daily Star: "FURY" erupts over made-up story

4. 'Unwanted' Nick Griffin shares address with Buckingham Palace press pack

5. Digital highs are a "made up" drug

6. Sexist! Racist! Non-existent Foreign Office ban on middle-class white males

7. Historic English Heritage site abused by lone doggie-fiddler

8. Jonathan Ross: 2001 - 2010

9. BBC boss Mark Byford expenses £5,000 World Cup flights

10. It's Lohan v Presley in National Enquirer death match

Ooh don't tempt us... BT opens vote on what happens next to broadband couple

They're the OXO family you wouldn't want to go for dinner with, the Gold Blend couple you wish had never met, the Papa and Nicole whose tyres you'd gladly let down: that's right, it's BT's depressing and ill-suited modern family, headed by Kris Marshall and Esther Hall; the latest in a string of done-to-death advertising serials.

Now, after five years (really, only five?) - during which time the words "Oh God, not them again" must surely have been uttered with a mass-despondency not witnessed since the Hundred Years' War - BT is making a change to the format.

You see BT has gone all 'Question of Sport' on us and is letting viewers vote on 'What Happens Next' in this interminable saga.

OK, now I'm listening.

But before you start drawing a diagram featuring the BT Tower and a stick figure marked 'Adam' half way between heaven and Earth (he's a fictional character, it's OK), The Media Blog can sadly report it's more of a multiple choice deal than an opportunity to exercise the darkest recesses of your imagination.

The gripping (in a polished leather soles on black ice kind of way) storyline features Jane lying on a bed rubbing her stomach and looking a little pensive.

Viewers are then urged to go online and vote for what outcome they are clearly being steered towards.

Furthermore, "fans" of the adverts are being encouraged to go onto Facebook and discuss what on Earth they think all this tummy-rubbing could be about.

A Media Blog birthday special: A year in the life of...

I'd like to say when TheMediaBlog.co.uk launched a year ago it was the result of months of planning. But the process can perhaps best be summed up thus:

"Bloody hell! I can't believe nobody owns themediablog.co.uk, I'm going to register that domain name and do something with it. Maybe a blog, about the media, in the UK."

That slightly abridged version of our early days belies a genuine desire and intent to get stuck into the many debates and conversations raging around the UK media, from the decline of print and traditional media's uneasy, love/hate relationship with social media, to the scandals, controversies and idiosyncracies unqiue to the UK media.

I was confident we'd have no shortage of material to discuss. And so it proved that our timing was fortuitous, a spate of major media stories hitting the headlines within weeks of launching. And these were not just stories in the media but stories about the media. 

In July 2009, within days of launch, Guardian investigative hack Nick Davies detailed a series of allegations against the News Of The World, accusing the newspaper of hacking into the voicemail accounts of celebrities and public figures.

Come August The Observer was on the rocks - with fans launching the first of several 'save the media' type campaigns that later would inlcude BBC 6 Music (successfully) and the BBC's Asian Network (less so). It was a stark reminder that one of the most pertinent discussions about the media is the one which deals with survival - no more so than in when freesheet The London Paper announced it would be printing its last issue in the September of last year.

But if anything made us feel like we'd arrived on the media commentary scene just in time for an all-you-can-eat-buffet at the Media Diner it came in October when Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir suggested, just days before his funeral, that Boyzone singer Stephen Gately had died the kind of unnatural death reserved only for homosexuals - and in so doing had undermined the notion that same-sex couples could ever lead a happy, 'normal' life. Moir's spiteful remarks brought the full force of almost every rightminded individual down on both her publication and her poisonous brand of journalism and almost single-handedly defined the word 'Twitterstorm' - a definite theme for 2009 (as the Guardian v Carter-Ruck proved. Cue appearances on both Sky News and Channel 4 discussing social media's liberal sense of justice.

In November came a juggernaut of a media story that would rumble on well into 2010. Rupert Murdoch announced he was to remove all News International content from Google in an attempt to ringfence his revenue-generating editorial from the prying eyes of web surfers. It was an analogue response to a digital problem but also the precursor to the erection of Murdoch's paywall around the websites of papers such as The Times and The Sun.

And so to December and another theme of the past 12 months - superinjunctions. In a flurry of salacious tabloid over-excitement it was revealed that US golfer Tiger Woods had been bagging a birdie or two but was keen to keep the details a closely guarded secret, with a little help from his lawyers this side of the pond.

Cue much ire about heavy-handed censorship of the UK media. Of course Woods wasn't the only sportsman to try, and fail, to enforce superinjunctions upon the media. Later, in 2010, former England football captain John Terry also found himself beaten up by the tabloids after an attempted superinjunction blew up in his face.

January brought a new year, and a General Election year at that. So cue much media coverage of manifestos, advertising campaigns and political debates and party broadcasts and the inevitable drawing of party lines among the UK press. The Sun went Tory (yawn) The Guardian went...er Lib Dem (oh!). But it was in social media that real change was happening in the way elections will be covered henceforth. MyDavidCameron - a campaign to spoof the Tory party posters became on overnight hit among users of Twitter and Facebook and in turn became a media story (and source of multiple picture stories) in its own right.

In February we examined the success of rare print title bucking the trend of downward circulations - Private Eye. The short-sighted claimed it was because it wasn't cannibalising its print revenue by giving stuff away free online. The more insightful pointed to an almost unprecedented year of political scandal and posturing for its unrivalled team of satirists to get stuck into. It really is the content, stupid. Elsewhere February saw a terrible earthquake hit Chile and a truly awful piece of editing hit the Guardian shortly afterwards - one of many blunders to find notoriety on the pages of TheMediablog.co.uk over the past 12 months.

Onto March and one of our best read posts from the past 12 months as we second-guessed the tabloid response to an injury for England footballer Wayne Rooney. There is a lot the tabloids do that could best be described as 'news by numbers' and in this post we outlined exactly the kind of coverage we should expect of the red tops as they fussed and fretted over whether Wayne would miss the World Cup (if only he had).

March also saw a new format come to UK television - the all-party candidates debate. Much talk followed of who 'won', with each party proclaiming their man triumphant. However, court of public opinion suggested first Vince Cable and subsequently Nick Clegg had really stolen the show for the Lib Dems. Disappointment followed though when those 'victories' failed to shift the needle in their favour at the polls, the Lib Dems slipping back despite their strong showing on TV. Becoming deputy Prime Minister will have softened that blow for Clegg but did little to suggest TV debates have any value beyond entertainment for those already planning to vote, as turnout at the polls was also far lower than hoped.

Speaking of politics, April saw TheMediaBlog.co.uk publish the full results of a major piece of research conducted among our readers to establish the level of percieved political bias among TV news broadcasters. Any pro-Tory bias on ITV was soon addressed by one viewer whose rather forthright Tweet about David Cameron was accidentally aired by the channel following their leaders debate.

Not above marking other people's milestones, May saw us celebrate YouTube's fifth birthday with a trip down memory lane, looking at some of the videos that have made the world a better, or at least weirder and more interesting place.  Meanwhile the Daily Mail was widely criticised for a rather weak kiss and tell story which appeared to have been published purely to undermine England's attempt to host the World Cup. Meanwhile our friends across the Atlantic were having enough trouble getting their heads around the location of the current 2010 World Cup.

And speaking of The Daily Mail and people struggling with some basic concepts - one hack got more than a little caught out by a fake Twitter account in June, leading to the publication of an entirely fabricated story about a recall for the Apple iPhone. It was excruciating reading for anybody with an ounce of common sense and journalistic training as the paper was humiliated online and across other media outlets for its single-sourced, fake-sourced, article. It was also our second best-read post of the year here on TheMediaBlog.co.uk.

Meanwhile with England drawn against 'Ze old enemy' Germany in the World the UK tabloids were showing their ugly and uncreative side with some predictable coverage (though even the BBC and ITV got in on the lazy national sterotype act). Here is your cut out and keep guide to being a tabloid editor during the World Cup.

Which all brings us right up to date - and a final closing mention for our best-read post of the past, the first, 12 months: BBC calls its own Facebook fans "saddos".

That story was picked up far and wide and showed in many respects the (small) sphere of influence I like to think we've carved over the past 12 months, from Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger tweeting about The Media Blog's end of year awards to the BBC's College of Journalism regularly linking to our posts and Journalism.co.uk including us in a list of 2009's best media bloggers and tweeters as well as their blog roll. Most importantly though we've enjoyed writing posts that anybody has found enjoyable.

Love it or hate it, we're delighted there are so many people who are as passionate about the media as we are. TheMediaBlog.co.uk is not run for profit in any kind of way, we do it for love and out of a genuine desire to be a part of UK media discussions.

Personally I am delighted that anybody reads our stuff, let alone the quarter-of-a-million people who have visted our pages over the past 12 months. And I must say a big thank you to everybody who has contributed, particularly those regular contributors on board since the beginning who give their own time to produce content for this blog. We're always looking for more contributors, so if you fancy getting involved, drop me a line will@themediablog.co.uk.  

Here's to another year. I really hope you'll keep reading and let us know what you think.

Happy birthday YouTube: Thanks for changing the world forever

So YouTube is five years old. And what do we have to show for it? A video of a baby biting his brother's finger, watched by 190 million people and counting, making it the most popular video ever on the site.

Yeah, thanks for that. But don't worry, it's not all rubbish. There's the sneezing panda of course, watched by more than 60 million people.

However despite such popular nonsense, there is no denying YouTube's impact has been profound - with two billion views per day currently - making embedded video on blogs such as this and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook an effortless, viral and widespread reality while turning bedroom creatives and online activists into overnight celebrities:

At the heart of much discussion has been the relationship between YouTube and the traditional media. This relationship has often been an uneasy one. Disputes over the use and abuse of copyrighted media have been a constant theme but at the heart is a wonderful, if awkward, symbiosis. We have seen television content become a YouTube sensation - see Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent - immediately bestowing greater success and global spotlight for the show and the channel which originated the clip.

It's no coincidence the mainstream shows that have benefitted most from the viral effect of YouTube are those programmes and broadcasts whose content can be broken down into short, easily digested clips - from song and dance routines to famous sporting moments.

In fact, it could easily be argued the popularity of YouTube and it's reduction of our collective attention span, has fundamentally changed the way we consume any form of video and the structure therefore of mainstream programming.

This clip from Charlie Brooker - for a while earlier this year the best-rated and most-reviewed clip of all time on YouTube - best reveals the revolution that has taken place. It's traditional broadcast content in a perfect, easily-digested two-minute chunk, which satirises its parent's obsession with formula, in a formula perfectly crafted for the ascending broadcast platform of the age. If you're still with me; if that ain't post-modern I don't know what is!

But if you want to really understand where the complementing ends and YouTube's own uniqueness begins, just look at the figures. YouTube may lack a single defining moment of mass audience engagement: compare the 190 million people who have watched 'Charlie Bit My Finger', spread over the past two years - at around 10,000 per hour on average - with the 715 million who all sat down simultaneously, during the same two hour period, to watch the last World Cup Final, or even the 600 million who tuned in for just nine minutes to watch The Grand National. But what it lacks in 'prime time' YouTube more than makes up for in relentlessness and breadth of content. There is no one definining moment; but rather there are millions of them, simultaneously, one after the other, one on top of the other. That is why it works, because we choose.

And then of course there is the democratisation of broadcast. You'd have thought with 500-plus channels and programme options available on many consumer cable and satellite services we wouldn't need this bottomless pit of random video. But traditional broadcasters could have a million channels and the mindset and heritage they brought to the table would determine that they'd still never have come up with anything so unnecessary yet truly captivating as 'Where the Hell is Matt' (28 million views):

And ultimately that's the greatest lesson we've learned from YouTube's unceasing rise. No matter how silly or surreal - and the odds still seem stacked in favour of the bizarre - anything can now get the audience it deserves, however you choose to interpret that.