Help! There's a Beatle in my Apple

Finally after 32 years, Apple corp. and Apple Inc. have resolved their differences. Which now means that The Beatles' music is available on iTunes.

Whilst this is a great thing generally; I'm a huge fan of The Beatles, I wonder if this will actually do the music any good; people will begin to lose the understanding of the context of the songs they're listening to when they can listen to each track individually without having to listen to the rest of the album. Many of The Beatles' albums need to be listened to as works of art in their entirety, each song just a small fragment of the bigger picture.

Maybe it will do more good than harm, exposure on iTunes means a whole new generation have access to their music, perhaps they'll be listened to forever.

Above all, great television ad. Understated, and classy:

A&E (Advertisement and Emergency)

When Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was robbed earlier this year, he famously left sporting less jewellery, but a huge black eye instead.

Most celebrities, were they in Bernie's position would have probably undertaken thousands of pounds of "emergency" plastic surgery treatment to rectify their facial inconvenience. Mr. Ecclestone however chose to bravely show the world his injuries, and ever the entrepreneur, decided to pitch to Hublot, the brand of watch that was robbed from him, for a different kind of ad (presumably for a new watch...).

Bernie said, “I rang them up and suggested this was a chance to do something different. I can understand people wanting to rob me when they are poor and they want some things for the kids with Christmas coming along, but what they did was unnecessary.”

Good to see Bernie is keeping his chin up, nice to know he probably didn't lose out too much, very cool circumstancial ad has resulted.

An old spice packs a punch

Ever since the recently rebranded Old Spice television ads came on earlier this year, I've heard a lot of men trying to impersonate the Old Spice guy. The truth is, they can't. They're not him, they don't smell like him...yet.


It's a great, humorous campaign that both men and women can relate to; the men, because they secretly guiltily admire the Old Spice guy, and the women, because they secretly, guiltily want to be with the Old Spice guy, or find someone like him...

For those of you who've been living under a rock for the past 12 months:

The Old Spice Ad

What's really cool about this campaign is that the Old Spice guy is just so likeable. There's nothing particularly extreme about him (i.e. he's not a meerkat, an annoying opera singer, or Iggy Pop), but his likeability gives him versatility. In fact, his relative closeness to average humanity means he's really accessible too. Not only has the tremendously successful TV ad (and it's viral effect) ramped up sales of Old Spice 107% (between the months of June and July 2010), but the Old Spice guy has been extending the effects of the TV campaign by appearing on Old Spice's Twitter, answering fan's questions, some of them through video.

Usually, when an ad is parodied a lot, it means one of two things. It's either a tremendously innovative ad that has sparked a creative flare within someone, or it's a pile of rubbish, that deserves to be ridiculed. I think everyone will agree with me when I say that thankfully, it's the former in Old Spice's case.

Another strong brand ambassador, the Page 3 girl(s) has parodied the Old Spice ad to celebrate 40 years of the Page 3 feature being in The Sun. The video features model, "Rosie" performing a tweaked rendition of the Old Spice script.

It's certainly an eye opener.

The bottom line is, it's a surprisingly good advert from a company who everyone thought had disappeared a long time ago. Perhaps it was the element of surprise that really put the magic into this campaign, either way, I know what I want in my stocking for Christmas.