cover your assets

Bill Bernbach, the thinking man’s thinking man of adland once said, “An agency’s assets all go down in the lift at the end of the day, it’s the boss’ job to make sure they all come back up in the morning.”

There are, of course, many ways to make sure this happens. “Nice offices, swanky, pointless titles and wads of lovely cash” my easily excited art director shouts, twirling in her slinky silk dress. Then there’s the chance to work on exciting, creatively inspiring business, this is a somewhat broader church being so open to subjectivism. Renault clients around the world have been briefing their agencies on the latest Megane incarnation. Someone somewhere, presumably in a brain-storm, came up with the line, “So you wouldn’t buy a Renault?” I can only hope this was supposed to be a positioning line and somehow it found itself on a local layout. Anyway it’s tedious nonsense. Out in the wide world other agencies are approaching the same task with a different slant altogether.
An animated guy, (that is one created by animation nit one who is hyper-active), drives through a small town, everywhere around him we see people who have had their heads replaced with toasters, wellington boots and plant pots. As he leaves town he drives through a forest of swirling knives, but because he is in a Renault Megane with ESP he manages to avoid them and survive to drive another day. I have no idea what ESP is in this context, the car has extrasensory perception and presumably brakes that think for you or something, but it’s a nicely put together spot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq2G5hvRlq0
In deepest France they used the old “modern car drives through historical cityscape gag, it’s all a bit tired and predictable since Guinness “Evolution” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t4sdgvy-pk), but it does have a rather quirky track by The Caesars rather jollily called “Jerk it out.”
Cover your eyes and listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQDUHdzE7WE&feature=related

From another source, a left hand drive one, we have another offering for this wonderful vehicle. Over a vaguely Dido-esque track a bloke drives around the countryside and is haunted by pictures of a pretty woman, after a night in a motel alone they meet up with a teenage child and take photos of each and the car. It’s all a tad vague and unexplained, maybe it’s a European metaphor, anyway, It’s not offensive but it is daft, take a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vdwCVqrac

If you’re going to use clients to try to keep your creative staff happy you might need something more enticing than a French car company, an Australian beer producer for instance. Tooheys for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yGJVnOwxz0 or maybe the latest in a long line of ads for VB Beer from droga 5 will do the trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfv6djceGnY&feature=related
or maybe even the Hahn beer commercials;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he4fBK3d8hk&feature=related

You’ll have noticed all these temptations are for breweries and, perhaps not too oddly, there has always been a direct correlation between beer and great advertising. I’d write something deep about cause and effect here but the agency bar has just opened, now that’s an incentive I do understand.