new matterbox arrives

Matterbox arrives from james_h on Vimeo. My new Matterbox arrived on Saturday. I loved the look of the first one, so signed up straight away to receive them. My verdict? It's not as fun as the first. There's nothing like a Wii sweatband or a pack of crayons that turn out to be soap, and it's almost just a collection of free samples. That said, a couple of playful bits were interesting. The roaring fire DVD that promoted Pimm's Baileys, Bell's and Gordon's winter recipes captured a bit of seasonal spirit. The other bit was of Cadbury's cranberry and granola Dairy Milk, which was elevated above the basic sample by a business card that points you to this digital toy, where you get to create your own taste combination.

shaking it up again

I've been thinking about changing the name of this blog. The hardcore few will know that this is something I do from time to time. Some of it has been prompted by all the talk about Gorilla after Scamp picked up on the fact that Galaxy is doing rather better than Cadbury. Mike is right that it's what you might call a category ad, in that it's not necessarily ownable by Dairy Milk. But I'm also with Dave, who, according to this logic, would argue that the idea is to be seized as your territory. But it's also to do with things like being interested in things that don't feel like advertising or other established communications disciplines. Stuff like what Faris has called transmedia narrative. "Draw the line" doesn't feel apt for what I'm writing about any more. It feels like I need to have a name which says more about my philosophy on these sorts of issues. So from now on, this blog will be known as Pushes emotional buttons. (Pic courtesy of this person.)

arf

Rob and Tom, the family with their fingers firmly on the pulse of advertising, also blogged about the Gorilla and Trucks ads the other day, rescoring a few familiar TV spots as they went. Look out for the "Born slippy" moment.

a glass and a half better

Better late than never, I saw the new cut of this the other day. I'm not fussed with "Total eclipse of the heart" over Gorilla really. But putting Bon Jovi over the top of Trucks is a whole lot better than the original, in my book. I struck a few poodle rock poses to this. And then a few more.

timing is everything

Saturday saw the breaking of a hotly anticipated new ad from Cadbury. Called Trucks, it's the follow-up to Gorilla. Yes, that one, with the ape playing drums to Phil Collins. This one has the kind of unusual vehicles you see at the airport racing down a runway to the soundtrack of "Don't stop me now" by Queen. It's beautifully shot and it's fun. I do really like it, but there's something of the magic of Gorilla that's missing. The thing is, this spot would have been great if it had been the first one. But the great idea card has been played and this one doesn't feel as strong. At the end you're not left thinking, how the hell did they get to that? To be fair, its predecessor, also by Juan Cabral at Fallon, was always going to be a hard act to follow. Gorilla was a complete media event, credited with a huge uplift in sales and plenty of mainstream news column inches devoted to it. And perhaps it's this success which led Trucks to be awaited with such gleeful relish. Lots of industry types were looking forward to laying into it. And lay into it they have. A bit unfairly, I think. OK, it's not got much to do with chocolate, but it does treat the viewer with respect and reward them for watching. And balancing out the idea and the execution, it's still better than 75 per cent of its peers. Perhaps more importantly, from a mainstream audience point of view, I can't help thinking that this was one of those unfortunate planning disasters too. After all, with the news all week dominated by the disastrous opening of Heathrow's terminal 5, how many TV viewers will enjoy a spot featuring moving stairs, baggage movers and other airport-related vehicles?