Human brands

For a long time now, I’ve been wondering about why brands think it is OK to interrupt our daily lives with their messaging: people handing flyers out as you walk to work, posters in the tube, TV ads every 5 minutes when you sit down to watch the umpteenth re-run of Friends, ads on the … Continue reading »

Same old stories – the joy of repetition

As reality entertainment season reaches its peak, we find IACGMOOH striding into its 10th consecutive year, while X-Factor and Strictly are mid way though their 8th and 9th instalments respectively.    You’d be forgiven for wondering where original and new TV content will emerge from to challenge the domination of the Autumn juggernauts, as they roll … Continue reading »

Alan Turing, hero

On Monday night, I watched a preview of a forthcoming Channel 4 film called World’s Greatest Codebreaker (typical Channel 4 programme title. Possessive noun - Superlative Adjective – Noun). It was the story of the life and work of Alan Turing, the man who cracked the Enigma code in the Second World War and saved us from being beaten by … Continue reading »

Punters

Of all the words used to describe real people, ‘punter’ is one of the more evocative. There’s something about its sheer bluntness that appeals. Punters are grounded, down to earth, living in the real world and have no time for all that fancy advertising stuff. Punters tell it like it is. Punters drink strong builder’s … Continue reading »

Teaching children to share

I’m currently teaching my 3 year old to share. It’s not going very well – so we have set some ground rules. The first is: What I expect her to share, and what I don’t. I don’t expect her to share her bunny.  That’s hers – it’s personal.  It’s too important to entrust into someone … Continue reading »