aspire to enquire

Furry happy monsters

Inspired by Amelia Torode, something to cheer you up if you've had a bit of rubbish day.

Current TV

... it's good, isn't it?

We make the news, they put it on television. It sounds like some crazy Lily Allen and Friends 24 hour nightmare, but it actually works out ok. I sat down yesterday and watched some genuinely interesting programming (I think those in the know call them 'pods') on subjects that I would never hear about on other channels.

So as long as it can build audience share somehow (I think it's only on Sky in the UK?) this could be a medium worth keeping an eye on. Not just for left-leaning creative twentysomethings, who seem to make all the shows as well as be the main audience, but it could be really interesting for PR and advertising. 

Most commercial spots are already custom-made for the channel - think guy with video camera talking about how much he loves his toyota prius - but in the future I would have thought that it wouldn't be inconceivable for someone to develop the right story about their client and report on it for Current. Selection for 'traditional' broadcast is based on user votes, so it could be a really effective means of reaching quite a discerning demographic.

Expect to be bored

There's an advert I've been seeing quite a lot of here recently, for the 2008 Kia Borrego . I'm kind of glad it's come out because I've been meaning to write a similar post since I first arrived in the US and watched TV. 

If you don't want to click the links, the basic premise of the ad is that you'd expect to see certain things in a car ad, but not that it was an ad for a Kia. Kind of similar message, I guess, to the UK Kia ads, a little bit. Maybe. 

The sad truth of the spot is that yes, you do expect those things here. I don't think I've seen a single car 'commercial' here yet that hasn't featured at least one cliche - a slow motion pan around the car, a shot of it driving round some country bends against a dramatic woodland/desert/mountain backdrop, or any of the other things mentioned by Kia (who, incidentally, do a very good job).

I wanted to bring a few together for this post, but they're not on YouTube, which shouldn't be a surprise considering the adverts are stuck in the 80s. No one's told them about the internet yet.

Even Honda seem to be letting the side down with some animated bloke telling you about their sales events.

I guess my point in this post is how sad the whole situation is. Is the state of advertising in the US so bad that even if a new brand wants to stand out, the only way it can really do it is by copying everyone else but adding a disclaimer? By saying "Yep, this brand is just like everyone else, we just have a different name" ?

I'm not saying that UK car adverts never have shots of the car. But if you even dreamt of making a car out of cake here, or animated flying engines, you certainly wouldn't be looking forward to a career in US automotive advertising, if the current evidence is anything to go by.

Jonathan Ross

I usually really enjoy watching the popular chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and the last few episodes have really great guests. But a few things have kind of made me think a little recently, and I wondered if anyone else felt the same.

I know it's a little clichéd, but I've been finding some of his questions and his lines of enquiry a little offensive with some of his guests. Meryl Streep, on the last episode, particularly annoyed me, he seemed to only want to know about the great MEN that she had worked with, as if she wasn't a great woman in her own right.

And the first guest, Adrian Lester, off The Hustle, he spent ages asking about his parents' accents and their colonial heritage - it's all interesting but to me it smacks of "oh I've got a black guest on so I'd better ask them about their roots". The next chap, a nice, near-middle-age white comedian, gets quite an easy ride with an opportunity to talk about his work and his influences, his latest projects and an upcoming film. I didn't see anyone ask him about his parentage or excessively question about other peoples greatness.

Don't even get me started on last week's episode with Jay-Z and Will Smith. Or when he had the Temptations on. He just embarrassed himself.

I appreciate that a host needs to know what an audience will want to hear from a celebrity, and ask the right questions, and keep it lively, and make the guest relaxed, and let them open up, I'm sure it's a very tough job to think up so many leading questions and then be prepared to completely change tack if the answers take a turn. But, like I said, sometimes I found it a little ignorant and offensive, for want of better words.

Is it just me?

F*cking with the programme

Channel 4 pulls Primark show

A minor hoo-ha yesterday as Channel 4's decision to replace the screening of 'The Devil Wears Primark' with a film repeat was examined.

I remember seeing the adverts for this show, wishing I could watch it (I was out and I don't like 4OD much, although I do have it), and also thinking what a happy coincidence it was that 'Blood Sweat and TShirts' had aired just a few weeks prior. 

At the time, I had a little think about how good it was that mass media were beginning to campaign on the issue of cheap clothing, and thinking that a personality like Alexa Chung would probably be a good match. Even the trailer seemed to get a little of the message across. All good stuff. Tideswell, etc.

The Guardian article suggested that it may have been a legal issue between C4 and Primark that postponed the show, but also reported that programme makers claimed it just 'wasn't finished'. What's weird though, is that one of the worries seems to be that the BBC were working on a rival show 'so brought forward the transmission date'

I know not many people watch BBC Three, but surely someone spotted 'Blood..' , or did it only run on iPlayer? 

If it did go out on 'normal' TV, it's proof that a dedicated media-rich mini site and endless cross-promoting on a huge media network is not going to win you reach in itself. You still need that 'buzz' to get into the hearts and minds of the people you are trying to reach. If a whole TV production company working on pretty much the same show for a rival network can't spot your 6-part series, who will? 

For me, at least, it seems all Channel 4 needed was a one-off show featuring a presenter-of-the-moment, some shock footage of Indians and a dig at Primark. Job done.

The message I'm taking away is that audience is key - who are you trying to influence. when are you trying to influence them. what will they respond to? what are you trying to influence them to do? They're questions we're reminded of occasionally at Uni, but they're key to everything we're doing. I'll be reminding myself in every project from now on.

Blood Sweat and T-Shirts

I just watched it on BBC Three, I'd definitely recommend it if you were looking for something to watch. Not really sure where to start in describing it, the main plot is basically 6 young people who buy a lot of clothes, go to India to work in clothes factories. Lots to think about. It's on iPlayer, not sure how long the series is.

You'd be mad not to

No need to read that article, the answer is a categorical Yes.

I was discussing the show with an old teacher of mine the other night, and saying how amazed I was by some of the practices in the two episodes I've seen. The sexist language and behavior, how unsafe everything is for kids, the non-stop smoking, to name just a few. He was surprised how surprised I was, saying "well yes I suppose you wouldn't be used to that kind of thing", implying that for anyone in the generation above me, most of that was normal practice and they've had to get used to how things are now. That's a kind of weird concept to grasp, considering how wrong everything is. (I wonder what my generation is wrong about?)

It makes me think about things like gender pay gaps, which as we know are still pretty big in some industries. At first I kind of hypothesised that as a younger generation of people grown up with 'equality' started to take the jobs that are measured for these studies, the gaps would start to disappear over time. But didn't the reported gaps get bigger last year?

Did I mention that Mad Men is brilliant. Watch it now. It's on iPlayer.