Ok, so first up, let’s me just say that of course what they did was bang out of order. Disgusting, grim, puke in the snow, just plain nasty. But was it shocking? From the paper that wheeled out the Fake Sheik? Well, it didn’t shock me. Or at least it didn’t surprise me.
 
It’s interesting that Twitter has brought down a media empire, but further to Martin’s blog below, I’m not sure if it’s all good. The NOTW was a poisoned brand and needed to close. Fine, and no doubt a replacement will ghost up from its ashes, built on new firm and unflinching journalistic principles. But here’s the thing:
 
I think we all knew that Bad Things went on at the NOTW and other papers too. We didn’t want this wafted up our noses but every morning we smelt it- and we quietly ignored it because we wanted the stories to keep coming. Partly because we are nosey, but partly because, in a world where politicians, the police, councils, companies and almost everyone in fact, is trying to cloak or spin the truth, it’s a relief to read the words of organisations who make money out of telling the you (largely) the truth.
 
It’s cracking that the press profits from getting its hands mucky on our behalf, and on countless occasions they have revealed things that the police and other public bodies have not been willing or able to do. They have done this by posing, hacking, lurking, lying and with a kickass dressing up box full of fake tan and adhesive goatees.
 
Fair enough, the NOTW got lost in its dressing up box and came out looking like Darth Vader. As the whole saga is tucked up to bed, I pray that, in this age of injunctions and twitchy twitterati, editors will have the balls to use their humanity as a lens through which to bend the rules. For instance hats off to Sunday Herald editor Richard Walker for putting Ryan Giggs on its front cover – thereby putting the poor sod out of his misery.

When the internet came about, some geeky types thought they might be able to remake the world online; make a better, virtual world. I’m not sure if it’s working. In a month where a wave of social change has rippled the Arab world, partly fuelled by Facebook it’s clear that the internet is changing the real world in ways never imagined possible.

More prosaicly, the latest ABC’s came out a couple of weeks ago, and once more the men’s monthly market took a terrific thrashing. FHM, once a cultural icon of British Manhood, now languishes behind The Week. In the late 90s Loaded and FHM used to sell over 1.2m copies combined. Together they now sell a miserable 200k. What’s changed? Well for one there’s internet pornography. Men don’t need to buy these mags any more – they come from a more innocent age. But attitudes have changed as well – it seems fantastically quickly.  Not many brands (apart from maybe Lynx) want to be associated with this kind of non-family content. Supermarkets became squeamish about showing their front covers. People just didn’t want to see it anymore. They’d had enough. “Put it away” they cried. And we have put it away – online.

So naked girls have packed up their things and gone online. I wonder what else will soon go down there. Gambling maybe? I just don’t want to see bookies on my high street, please,they devalue my house – put them away. For that matter I don’t want Chicken Cottage, the “breast is best” brigade, politicians, Palm Oil, Asbestos, The Weakest Link, or Colonel Gaddafi (why did he only rise to Colonel?)  out here in the real world either.  Put them all away.

There’s nothing better than a cracking bit of tactical advertising:

Veno capitalised on the trial of the cough-prompted major who cheated his way into winning on Who Wants to be a Millionnaire with cough mixture ads positioned around editorial covering the case. Burger King captured the public mood over David Blaine’s starvation stunt by running ads with an empty perspex box by Tower Bridge with the headline “Got the urge”… more prosaicly Pizza Express has begun to send half price tokens out online every time there is a tube strike entitled “we’re not on strike!” which the team here regularly swoop on: very effective.

On the whole though, tactical advertising is quite underexploited – it’s hard to think of anybody who does it very well. And its a shame because England is very predictable. It was obviously going to snow this year: where are the pop up Absolute igloo bars? I’d love to drink voddy in an igloo. Here are some sure fire bankers.

- Spineless England batsmen crushed by Aussies
- X factor final tearful breakdown amid voting fix as contested gives it “impossible” 111%.
- Turkey shortage as bird flu hits Norfolk. Cameron calls on nation to unite.

well, there’s a starter for 10.

On Friday I had the good fortune to potter around the Olympic park to get a sneak preview of how it looks.
Well, I’m pleased to report that it all in all it looks genuinely spiffing. No real lowlights, in fact, but some mediumlights (think Mid April, 4pm, high cloud cover) to go with the magnificent highlights. Let’s start with the mediums before we go living it up with the highs:

Mediums:

- The Chinese had the emblematic “birds nest” stadium. Our main stadium looks more pragmatic – it’s a very flexible structure, so that the stadium can be reduced in size after the games.

- Just hoping that the Legacy Committee that was set up last year does its job brilliantly – this probably should have been set up even earlier.

Highs:

- A belting aquatics arena (pictured) that looks like a cross between a manta ray and a cow’s tongue.
- A lovely central park that will join London with the river Lea – the perfect date spot for sporty types
- The fact that they had a “health centre” for the soil, which was lifted up, lovingly cleaned, brushed up smart and sent back into the ground with a proud new coat of tarmac.
A lot to be proud of here, and (astonishingly) all set to be completed well on time.

Yesterday evening in Regents Park
Midst gentle chatter, as it grew dark,
Balls rose and fell with merry thud
Onto gravel caked in mud

Twelve teams began, eyes lit up
With childhood dreams of raising the cup
But hopes stooped, crumpled and fell
While ours grew stronger, stately and well.

Until at last, in the fading light
Waghorn threw the shot of the night
By gum we’d won it! Triumphant cry:
“Maxus the champions!” Enscrawled on the sky

I’ve been watching a bit too much TV recently. I get home exhausted, give a cheery wave to my wife, kick off the shoes and settle in to the telly. No recordable TV for me, so it’s a diet of whatever the channels choose to serve up. It’s an old school, passive experience punctuated by lazy flicking up and down the Freeview channel list – glorious, mindless stuff. This is TV as it’s meant to be consumed – absorbed, not chosen. I watch a lot of TV ads – and though I love it, something’s been bothering me.

There is a terrifying chart from TGI that shows how many people now find TV ads more annoying, versus 15 years ago. And it shows that Britain has steadily fallen out of love with TV advertising in a very short period of time – 40% of us now profess to finding them annoying. There are a number of mitigating factors here: TV on demand services mean that consumers don’t need to see as much advertising as they used to, and there has been a proliferation of commercialisation generally in our culture. Consumers are receiving more and more commercial messages. But I wonder if there is more to it than that.. What if TV advertising really IS getting more annoying?

Everyone remembers the glory days when most ads had a decent punchline to keep us entertained. Now many of them seem to be deliberately set up to annoy me. And it must be working, because I see more and more of them – I swear if I see that cheeky chappy from the Jobsite ad one more time I’ll throttle him. My own father  started to sing “Go Compare!” when I saw him at last week.The people who make these ads aren’t stupid, so I can only assume that these ads are helping achieve business objectives, regardless of how they tear families apart.

As an enlightened marketer I believe in building relationships between brands and consumers, but there is something refreshingly anarchic about a marketing strategy built around the platform GET everyone TO buy brand x BY making them seethingly annoyed with our communications; and since the creatives are at it – why not us media planners?

It’s actually already begun: Crazy Frog pioneered the 30 OTS optimised TV plan, and pionerring media owners are catching onto the opportunity. Last year’s annoying media gold award goes went to ITV, who forged a neat partnership with Tic Tacs whereby they cut away from their live FA Cup broadcast stream to show a minty ad while Everton scored the only goal of the match. It’s a start. I’m hoping we can all raise the bar in 2010.