Never mind the beef, where's the "Magic"?

Here's a new social media (Facebook) post by a crowd calling themselves CameraMagicsa. Now, I don't know about you, but I've been looking for some magic in this post and it eludes me.

The copy is bland and boring. I mean, "great prices"? Or how about "we specialise in..." and then list just about every camera type available today. C'mon dudes, you can't "specialise" in everything.

Instead of the boilerplate cliches, why don't you spend some time thinking about what makes your business different to every other camera outlet out there? And then telling us about it. Why should I do business with you rather than the jokers down the road?  "Great prices!?" I think you'll have to do a lot better than that.

Do you really believe the copy you have in this yawn-fest is going to entice me into your shop? Do me a favour, answer two questions John Caples would ask of every ad he ever wrote:

• Would this headline make me read the ad?
• Would this ad make me buy the product?

Now, some nitpickers will say "this is a modern-day online promotion, the old advertising rules no longer apply. This post doesn't have a headline per se, it's not even an ad in the classic sense of the word. It's just a Facebook post and it's not trying to sell anything directly."

To which I say "Rubbish!"

They are hoping, that upon seeing this post, I will "Like" their shiny new page. In that sense this is a classic direct response ad. But...if they want me to "like" their page, they'd better give a compelling reason to do so. Which, of course, they don't.

And because they haven't done enough to entice me over, I'll never discover if CameraMagicsa really is magic, or just another badly advertised camera shop.

Is this good advertising...or does it just resemble it?

Creative people in South Africa are currently fawning over the latest effort for Santam featuring noted actor Sir Ben Kingsley, or at least someone who resembles him. The celebrated star of the movie Ghandi only makes an appearance at the end of the commercial, although we are led to believe otherwise.

I, of course, take a contrarian view. I ask "what's the point?" First off, the commercial opens on the actor's look-alike but we are not supposed to know he is a look-alike at this point. He is extolling the virtues of real things as apposed to imitations. He waffles on in this pretentious vein for the first half of the 60-second epic set on a magnificent stretch of what I think is the Western Cape coastline. And then reaches the point..."like your insurance."

So, now we know what we are dealing with - a commercial for an insurance company. Time to leave the TV and go and make some tea. Because, let's face it, whether it's Ben Kingsley, a look-alike or Ghandi himself, why should we believe an actor (no matter how well known), or a look-alike, or the Mahatma himself when it comes to insurance? No reason.

Finally, at the end of the commercial the "creative bit" appears. A group of Ben Kingsley look-alikes gather on the beach and our lead actor asks "So, is your insurance the real thing...?" Now the real Ben Kingsley steps out of the group, looks at his doppelganger, turns to us and asks "or does it merely resemble it?"

What a load of pretentious rubbish. The commercial gives us no reason to consider the advertiser apart from vague generalities about being the real McCoy as opposed to the opposition who presumably are not. But why should we believe Ben Kingsley about this? No reason. Is he an insurance expert? No. Does he know more about insurance than the rest of us? No. Does Santam "do" insurance better than anyone else. Not presumably. Is this good advertising? No. Or does it merely resemble it? No.

Pepole who advertise parity products would do well to study the famous Clause Hopkins Schlitz beer advertising from the early 20th century...they might learn something.

KFC New Slogan...Not So Good

Just read a Yahoo News article about KFC changing their "Finger licking good" line to "So good". Huh? "So Good"??? What lunacy inspired this latest departure from commonsense.

In "Finger licking good" KFC truly have a brilliant property that has stood the test of time - not an easy feat in this throw-away, disposable era. "Finger licking good" is memorable, alludes to great flavour, arouses curiosity in people who are unfamiliar with the taste and taps into a common action we can all identify with. Best of all, it's associated with one brand, and one brand only.

"So Good", on the other hand, is about as bland as bland can be. Imagine this scenario: a bunch of peckish people are discussing which fast food to get. Someone suggests KFC. "Why?" "Because it's so good". Yeah, right. Can you think of even one restaurant in any category that would not claim its food is "so good"?

The article quotes KFC's head of UK and Ireland operations, Martin Shuker, who says "It's about becoming better at everything we do, including our great-tasting food, the work we do with our people, and the way we operate in the local community," Huh?

Have you ever heard such rubbish? If someone wants a quick bite of finger-licking good food do they really care about the outlet "becoming better at everything we do", or "the work we do with our people", or "the way we operate in the local community"? If you want us to know about all these things, KFC's PR company should be doing its job a lot better.

What I'd like to know is how many advertising agency man-hours (person hours?) went into the "creation" of this piece of rubbish. And how many dollars has it cost. I could have come up with (and rejected) this line in less than 7 seconds flat...and you can bet it would have cost KFC a whole lot less. However, I laud the skill it must have taken to sell this nonsense to KFC, who's marketing idiots, in buying it, show themselves just as stupid as the the fools who proposed it in the first place.

And does KFC really, honestly, truly believe the the non-slogan "So good" is likely to change anyone's perception of the brand one iota? Purleese.

The article goes on: "The company plans to put calorie information on its menu boards from September and launch its first ever non-fried griddled product called Brazer, as a lighter option." Fine. But is that any reason to drop a brilliant slogan?

And then this: "As consumers become increasingly concerned about health and environmental issues, many high-street food outlets have amended their menus and practices." Still no reason to change slogans and, possibly, even a reason to make more use of the "Finger licking good" property..."It's lighter, but it's every bit as finger licking good as always" (Time taken to think of this line...2.7 seconds, but I'm having slow day.)

Also, people don't appear to be so "concerned about health and environmental issues" that they are turning away from the brand in droves because, as the article concludes, "KFC has experienced 19 consecutive quarters of growth."

Read the full article here.

Loeries 2010...not much style, hardly any substance and the food was awful.

A bit late with this. Sorry. 

Once again SA advertising's annual wankfest, the Loerie Awards, fails to impress. I'm not going ramble on about the whiners, winners or losers. By now you probably know as much as anyone else about these things.

I believe it's a mistake to hold the event in Cape Town. My reason for this is simple. Cape Town is just too big a place, and too spread out to make it an attractive option. What's more, about half the people who attend are right there on home soil. When the ceremonies are over they head off to their own venues and mix with the same people they always do.

But when the event is held "out of town" (Sun City and Margate being the other two venues to date), everyone is out of town. Mixing and meeting is much easier and the there's a much more festive atmosphere to the whole gig. I've attended Loeries in all three locations and Margate really stands out as the best of the lot. Let's hope the Loerie committee comes to it's senses once the Cape Town contract expires and returns to this fun seaside venue.

As to the event itself, well, what can one say about that? Appalling is what one can say. This year, Saturday night was far, far better than Sunday's proceedings. An absolute highlight was Pitch Black Afro. What a pity he wasn't asked to do a few more numbers. He was far more entertaining and enjoyable than Arno Carstens and Springbok Nude Girls who assailed our eardrums for what seemed like far too long. Earlier, their first song, which opened the show, was much better...but then, that was a cover of a Brenda Fassie song.

The food at the reception was, sad to say, abysmal. About the same standard as last year. You must know that if I turn down food from the trays being carried around among the people, then it's really bad. You would think, after the 2009 fiasco, that steps would have been taken to rectify matters. Whoever approved the food ought be force fed a diet of it for 11 months and then sent out to find a better caterer. It shouldn't be difficult.

Saturday's MC was David Kau who was quite good, but not brilliant. On Sunday we had Nkwenke Nkomo, who ain't no comedian. But my heart went out to him as he was forced to share the stage with a prancing queen in hot pants who had absolutely nothing funny to say. I cannot for the life of me remember his name but he is, apparently the same guy who did the "Ayoba"ads for MTN. He was not very ayoba on the night.

The awards themselves were pretty predictable with the gongs going mostly to the usual people. One thing that always amuses me at these awards shows is the grave announcement, in a suitably stentorian tone, that "This year no golds were awarded in this category." 

Puurleeease...what bunch of wankers decides these things, anyway? I guess the poor dears feel that if they don't award a gold in any particular category they are helping to "improve standards". Bollocks. I've been attending awards shows for about three decades, so I can reliably inform you that in all that time the standard has remained exactly the same. The winning work today is no better or worse than it was 20 or 30 years ago, or than it is every year, year in and year out.

If a piece of work get's more votes than all the others in the category, give the luvvies who slaved their guts out to produce it their little gold gongs. What harm can it do? Because, when all is said and done, deciding to give gold or not is surely nothing more than a matter of opinion, and everyone's opinion is just as valid as everyone else's. To deprive someone of gold for producing the best work of the bunch seems somewhat churlish and a little too opinionated from where I sit. 

Not to mention the fact that these are only creative awards, anyway. It's not like the work being awarded makes a damn jot or tittle of difference in the world, especially to a client's bottom line.

Sorry to rain (fish) on your parade

Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it rains fish. What does this have to do with investment banking?

Nothing.

But don't tell that to the folks responsible a new radio ad for Nedbank Investment Banking. Somewhere along the line someone has not only managed to stretch a tenuous analogy too far, but they have managed to sell it to a gullible client, too.

Once again we see (hear?) an attempt at creativity-at-all-costs that completely misses the point and ends up confusing people. There are plenty of "rain" idioms in the English language suitable for bank clients..."saving for a rainy day" comes immediately to mind. But maybe that's not creative enough..."too obvious" I can hear you say. Perhaps. So, instead of coming up with yet another tortuous and inappropriate analogy, why not offer up a few convincing facts instead?

Hey! That would be original.

But what is it with these analogies? Someone else - a legal firm this time  - has been telling us how there are many similarities between itself a flamingo. They then go on to list precisely ... none. Haha. That ought to keep us guessing, eh? Except that nobody cares.

So, to save yourself a lot of trouble in trying to invent the next "analogy no-one has thought of yet" here are the three simple steps to creating powerful radio ads. Following these steps probably won't lead to creative awards, but as you're not going to win any with the kind of puerile drivel described above, you may, at least, attempt to make your next foray into radio a bit more profitable for your big-spending client.

Here are the guidelines for powerful radio advertising:

1. Identify your Prime Prospect early in the ad 
2. Make your Prime Prospect an offer only a complete idiot would refuse 
3. Make it easy to accept the offer.

And that, my dear friends, is that.

You "Do Broadband"...we "Do Nothing"

For the past several weeks Telkom has been running ads on TV and radio extolling their heroic efforts in taking the FIFA World Cup into millions of homes around the world. Fine. But...in one of these ads they claim a capability of 40 gigs a second! So the question is, where is Telkom's uncapped bandwidth option? So far it's failed to materialize.

We are not stoopid. We know full well that FIFA made damn sure the WC was going to run as smoothly as possible, hence the massive bandwidth capability put in place for the event. Does this capability still exist? No-one is saying.

In one of the radio ads we hear the stentorious voice intone "...and if we can do that for FIFA, imagine what we can do for your business". Well...I'm still waiting...just what can you do for my business, Telkom?

Hey, it's NOT funny, guys.

A couple of posts ago I bemoaned a radio commercial where the patronizing protagonist laughed at his own inane humour.

Now there's another in the same vein polluting the airwaves, this time from Speed Services Courier and extolling the virtues of their Counter-to-Counter service. In this one a group of guys is, presumably, sitting around and discussing the "C-to-C" service..."Oh, you mean Atlantic to Indian?" asks one dumbo. "No" replies someone else, "that would be ocean-to-ocean." This continues for a few seconds, wasting valuable "benefit time", until a quick announcer-type character gets a few miserable seconds to squeeze in a benefit or two. Not too much of that though, we don't want to spoil the flow of the "idea" now, do we? To which I would ask, "what idea?" Well, wait for it...here it comes (drum roll, please, maestro).

The "funny man" of the group now chirps up: "C-to-C. I wonder if they do china-to-china!!!?" I don't usually make use of exclamation marks to this extent, but I've used them here to illustrate the point. The "joker", and, by extension, the copywriter, thinks this is the funniest joke he's ever cracked - and maybe it is, poor fellow - and makes sure we all think so by laughing hysterically at his own "joke". Hey dude, IT'S JUST NOT FUNNY!

Point is, if you want someone to change their behaviour, in this case switch to another courier company, you'd better give them a pretty darn good reason for doing so, not try and win them with stupid, inane attempts at humour. Very few copywriters can write good humour. If you can't, your best solution is just to stick to the facts. You may think the facts are boring, but to someone looking to switch couriers, for instance, the facts may be diabolically interesting. Oh sorry, I forgot, you never researched the facts beyond what the bare-bones brief said. Shame on you.

MWEB Turns Blue When it Should be Turning Pink - With Embarrassment

Surely the most awful looking commercial to crack TV screens across the country in a long while. That's the new commercial for MWEB's uncapped ADSL offering. No doubt the casting session was a laugh-a-minute and whoever thought of having a fat, obnoxious blue-painted, horn-wearing couch potato (the sports-mads alter-ego of the main character) bemoaning his fate as his Internet coverage dies from lack of bandwith must have thought it was a stroke of genius. But the dialogue makes me feel like putting on a Leornard Cohen record to cheer me up. And of course, as we all know, skin of that hue indicates a serious lack of oxygen - and, sadly, oxygen is something this commercial lacks, too.

The Bosch Are Coming! And they're bringing bad ads with them...

I remember as a kid reading comic books about WWII in which the Germans were often referred to as "the Bosch". If the Germans were on the offensive, the allies, usually in the form of a beleaguered British squad, would call our attention to this piece of dangerous news by shouting "The Bosch are coming!"

Well, the Bosch have been here for quite some time and now they're adding some pretty irritating advertising to their arsenal of powerful weapons designed to force our immediate surrender.

I'm talking about the highly annoying little commercial from a major retailer for Bosch dishwashers currently airing on TV stations nationwide, for which at least some of the money, if not all, has come from the appliance manufacturer or distributor itself.

We see two women talking to each other in an undisclosed location. It can't be a home, because the setting just isn't right, but I think we are meant to suspend belief for a moment here. "I see you've bought a dishwasher," says the first one.

Some inanities follow until, and this is the part I cannot understand, a clipboard-wielding man, who has been lurking in the background until now (is he casing the joint?) springs into action to give us the low down on the deal.

Okay. They're clearly not in the woman's home. Women, at least those I know, are not in the habit of keeping snappy-dressing young salesmen in their homes just waiting for the correct offer to come along.

So maybe they're in the store. Can't be. Because the closing line - a hoary old chestnut - has one of the women say something like "I'm off to buy a Bosch, myself," as the pair head off for another round of extreme shopping. Now why, if she's already in the store, would she be "off" to buy herself an appliance?

So where are these woman? Beats me. I don't think the writer knows, either.

It's "let's laugh at our own weak jokes"week on radio.

Hall, the real estate company, after the ludicrous and unbelievable (in the sense of not believable) bell-ringing radio ads, now decide to try a knock-knock joke. "Okay, Nomali, are you ready?" See, we might not get this joke, stoopid people that we are, so thankfully they'll set it up for us.

Nomali affirms her state of readiness. Okay. We're ready, too.

Nomali: Knock Knock
Idiot: Who's there?
Nomali: Nomali
Idiot: Nomali who?
Nomali: Nomali selling your home can be really difficult
Idiot: [Childish snicker]

Apart from the patronizing tone of the ad, it's the pathetic snicker after the punchline that really gets my goat. I mean, are you so scared no-one will "get it" that you have to highlight the "punchline" by chucking in your own little laugh. Here's some news for you: people will decide on their own what's funny and what isn't. Mostly, though, we don't like people who laugh at their own jokes.

But even worse is the insurance company (I can't remember which one offhand - or is it a bank?) that thinks it's ads are so funny they've even added canned laughter. The "laughter" emanates from a supposedly live audience watching a stand-up "comedy" routine.

Let me tell you, if a real comedian did these "jokes" in front of a live audience he wouldn't be on stage as long as a 30-second commercial. Not sure what the connection with the product is either. Maybe it's that "finding the right insurance company is no joke" (then again, nor are the ads), or possibly "when it comes to insurance we're stand-up kinda guys".

Either way a dismal attempt.

Apex Awards, or How to Make Fudge

The creative. It's all about the creative, isn't it. Even when it's all about the results it's still all about the creative. At least that's what the Apex Awards judges would have us believe. I attended the show at Vodaworld on Thursday, 21, May. A good time was had by all. But I do have a few gripes about some of the winners.

For instance, the KFC milkshake ad that won something or other in one of the three categories. It's hard to remember exactly what because the disk that came with the handout pack at the end of the evening only has last year's case studies on it. Anyway, here's the deal; we were told their controversial "milkshake" ad, (you know, the one where the little girl lies and cries to get her hands on the little boy's milkshake), increased sales of the product (milkshakes) by a whopping 200%! Gadzooks! 200%. That's pretty effective, right?

Normally it would be. But if you've never sold the product before you only have to sell two of them to increase sales by any amount you care to name. Off course, effective is not just about sales, it's about profit. Unless you know how much was spent to produce and flight an ad, and how much was raked in over and above that amount in profit, you don't really know how effective the ad is.

So it's pretty easy to fudge the numbers.

Stuck for an idea? Just rip-off someone else's.

This morning on the radio I heard a commercial that I thought would be for Kulula airlines. It started off the same way the Kulula spots do, with a typically South African voice explaining in rhyme why they are such a special person. These spots are usually beautifully written and always good for a laugh - even if they don't particularly make me want to pick up the phone and book a seat - and I never complain if someone wants to pay a small fortune to entertain me for 30 seconds.

So, imagine my surprise when it turns out the spot's not for the jokey airline at all, but for a software company...an accounting software company! The ad attempts to sell VIP Payroll Software.

Maybe it's because accountants aren't generally regarded as the most creative kids in the office that the agency decided to rip off someone else's idea instead coming up with something original.

The thing is, when Kulula do it, it's funny. When VIP Payroll do it, it's embarrassing.

No doubt some bright spark in the agency thought that it's time to change the image of the accountant from dull, grey, bean counter to scintillating, bon vivant comedian. Instead, they've entrenched the perception of accountants as unoriginal and boring.

More drivel polluting the airwaves

I'm not sure why, but radio seems to be uppermost in my mind recently. Perhaps it's because I'm hearing so many ads, but so few voices.

It's not any one ad specifically, but a sort of genre, let's call it the "I'm a small business owner and I'm just like you..." style of advertising.

Sometimes the voices are supposed to be speaking "local", that is, pukka S'effricun, but they just don't crack it. We just know these are pro voices, and because we know, a bit of believability goes down the drain.

Fleet Steel springs to mind. Not only a naff script, but not great acting, either. Worse, today I heard one for Outsurance. This company was running some quite good testimonial ads recently. Clearly however they are battling to get business owners to extol their virtue as they've now reverted to carefully scripted and obviously acted spots.

The one I heard today revolves around a woman who owns a nail bar and whose greatest sense of achievement comes when she creates a perfect French nail. Outsurance then tell us that they are as passionate about insurance as you are about your business.

Poppycock.

Outsurance used to have a real point of difference but as they days go by they are beginning to sound like everyone else.

Their recent TV ad stretches credulity to breaking point as a family, depressed by the current state of the world (demonstrated by newspaper headlines on street poles) is suddenly cheered up by the sight of an Outsurance billboard advertising that one in every two Outsurance clients is happy with their insurance rates.

One in every two? That's only 50%. I don't know about you, but I don't find much to cheer about in that statistic. It doesn't say much about their premiums, that's for sure.

Instead of trying to foist dull advertising on us, Outsurance should be trying to come up with great, innovative products. Then great advertising would follow.

Nonsense from Nedbank

Another spot I heard today from Nedbank touts their business credit card. The bank claims that they really do understand your business needs and their card reflects this understanding. How? By giving you 55 days free credit.

In other words, it's the same as any other credit card. What's so special about that? Nothing. It's just more meaningless puffery.

If they really did understand business, especially small/medium business maybe they'd offer 90 or 120 days free credit. THAT would be something.

Saving Electricity...Really?

An ad currently running on radio urges us to explore ways to reduce our electricity consumption.

Nothing new there, except the voice in this one tells us that no electricity was used in the making of the ad - it was recorded on a cellphone.

No electricity, huh? Okay, so how was the cell phone recharged?

A CAR FOR DICKHEADS

According to a frequently flighted radio commercial here's where you should buy your next car:

Auto-al penis-rings BMW.

A very strange name for a business.

Didn't anyone listen to this commercial in the recording studio and ask if this is, indeed, the way the client wants to be known? Can't the client hear how stoopid this sounds?

Wouldn't it be better to say: "Auto Alpina BMW, Springs"? After all, most people would be more inclined to look for penis rings at their friendly neighbourhood sex shop. Why confuse 'em?

THERE ARE THOSE...

who write very dull, pretentious copy
There are those who think this is very creative
There are those who's ads are uninspired, unmotivating, uninvolving
There are those who decide we should hear this irritating "advertising" over and over again
There are those who waste huge amounts of money flighting this crap
There are those who could be using this money to give something worthwhile to their customers
There are those who earn enormous amounts of money flighting this crap
There are those who just don't get it.

More Pretentious Nonsense

The banks are at it again.

This time it's Standard Bank. Why, oh why, do they really think anyone will believe the things they say, or imply, about themselves.

Do we really think they operate in an environment of "free thinking"? Are they revolutionary visionaries who are enable global competitiveness?

Do we really, really believe that at the end of the day they sit down, maybe over a glass of Black Label, and ask themselves "What next?"

Yes, it's another interminably dull, droning Standard Bank corporate ad for their business banking arm...I think. I'm not sure about that because I can't recall staying awake long enough to see the end of the commercial.

And when, oh when, are copywriters going to learn that vague generalities are no substitute for hard-nosed specifics? I'm probably being unfair. In all likelihood the bank probably never supplied the creative team with any specifics. Did anyone think to ask?

Does this latest offering for Standard Bank make us believe they are inspired, motivated or involved (whatever all that means)?

I hate seeing so much money wasted on so little.

Power Crazy

Surely the worst-managed crisis in South Africa since the notorious "Info Scandal" of the 70s. Yep, that's the current electricity situation.

Though no fault of our own, Eskom is making us pay, and pay dearly, for their gross incompetence. But what really galls is their attempt to lay the blame at our door.

A few weeks back the electricity company began running ads extolling their valiant efforts at solving the problem. Buying in huge coal supplies (which should never have been allowed to run so low in the first place), commissioning new power stations (which should have been commissioned at least 10 years ago) are among the solutions they told us about in radio ads that polluted the airwaves only a little less than a coal-fired power station going full blast.

Of course, we're not as stupid as Eskom would like to believe and I doubt anyone was fooled by their pathetic attempt at damage control.

Now we are told that because we couldn't, collectively, reduce our electricity consumption by 10%, Eskom is left with no choice but to carry out its threat of enforced "load-shedding" (black-outs/power failures). And once again they are polluting the airwaves with their message, this time to induce a sense of guilt in you and me, their customers. The gist of the ad is "listen assholes, you didn't cut your electricity consumption so we'll do it for you. If you suffer blackouts it's your fault. Don't blame us."

Screw 'em. I won't feel guilty. I won't turn off my geyser. I won't switch off my lights. I'll leave my computer on all night. I won't do anything to help this arrogant government-controlled beurocracy haul itself out of the dung which it landed in with absolutely no help from me. They can take their fat, undeserved performance bonuses and shove 'em where it hurts.

I don't think Eskom realizes the damage this little crisis is doing South Africa.

Eskom sucks. Their radio ads suck just as much.

If this is the Apex, I'd hate to see the base.

Last night my "insider" connection attended the APEX awards, held at Emperor's Palace on the east Rand (methinks the Ekurhuleni municipality is fighting a losing battle to foist this ridiculous name on us).

According to my source, the food was fine, the entertainment was so-so, and the entries were dismal.

Of course the usual gang of idiots (I mean that in a loving kind of way) were all represented; Jupiter, Network, Ogilvy... (surprising by their absence, at least among the APEX recipients, was Hunt Lascaris , although I'm reliably informed they did have some people there).

Organized by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), The APEX Awards are supposed to be about effective advertising. There are only three categories:

• Launch - Brands or services which are new, or have no significant history of advertising.
• Change - New campaigns from previously advertised brands, which resulted in significant short term effects on sales and/or behaviour.
• Sustain - Advertising campaigns which benefited a business by maintaining or strengthening a brand over a long period.

These definitions come direct from the ACA website ( ACA is the organisation that runs APEX).

As you'll quickly fathom out, these are pretty hazy criteria for judging the effectiveness of any advertising. Nothing here about increased sales - except the somewhat vague, weasel-worded "significant short term effects on sales and/or behavior" - or about anything else that really constitutes effective advertising. Perhaps it's escaped the attention of whoever laid out these criteria that a "significant short term effects on sales" could cut both ways. So if my ad actually causes a significant sales slump, would that make me eligible for and APEX?

Because no-one actually has to prove anything, the usual suspects collect the gongs and can now trumpet about how "effective" their creative ads are.

Let me be absolutely clear here; I don't say creative advertising doesn't work. What I do say is that if your efforts are focused on awards then they are not focused on sales. Advertising that is sales focused looks very different to advertising designed to impress awards judges.

No matter how much lip service is paid by the creative agencies whose names crop up with such regular monotony at the black tie, mutual back-slapping sessions, they really have no way of proving anything.

So, the APEX, who won what? My contact can't remember. What the heck, does it matter anyway?

Sorry, I don't believe in fairies.

The net is home to all sorts of strange people. People like "Fairy Child", who lives and breathes for art and poetry. Of course, like many creative people, she has her vices, too.

Cocaine?

No, speed. But not of the illicit narcotic variety. You see, Fairy Child is into fast cars, Formula One. Wow! That's a pretty evil vice. You can, according to the TV commercial, find Fairy (Faerie?) Child at Polka.co.za.

Clearly Polka is struggling to get people to sign up. How can we know this? Simple - this is the second or third ad style they've gone through in just a couple of years.

First off we had the vignettes of colourful local characters explaining to friends about their new Polka internet connections. They were hilarious. Everybody was talking about them. If they didn't win creative awards they should have. If they didn't sign up customers in droves, it's not surprising. Would anyone looking for an Internet connection really want to associated with these amusing societal misfits? Ah well, at least they made us smile.

Next up was a straight hard sell. Get a Polka connection from R79 per month and some goodies thrown in with it. Trouble is, R79 per month is hardly an earth-shattering offer. The competition easily match, or beat it. So maybe the customers stayed away.

Now we have Fairy Child. Unconvincing and pedestrian. We don't really care about her or her obviously bland existence. Still no reason to sign up.

Polka's real problem doesn't lie with the advertising (although it's not helping). They are a Johnny-come-lately in what is a highly competitive and, possibly, highly over-traded market. If they want customers to switch, they'd better offer some compelling reasons to do so.

Maybe Fairy Child could ask Mikey to set her up with a blog.