The oxymoron of the fresh approach

For a fresh approach to your next ad or campaign, just add:
- some shiny looking fruit, preferably sliced and with a good few drops of water
- sometimes just a splash of water will do the trick
- any kind of cleaning product; soap, detergent, coca-cola, that sort of thing
- or, if you're really trying to be ca-rayzee, try the odd stylised dandelion - always synonymous with fresh stuff.

The 'fresh approach' gambit always comes in handy when the following has happened:
- your client has sold you short on what makes his or her product or service great 
- your account manager has sold you short on what makes his or her client's product or service great 
- neither of the two parties has ever heard of a proposition.

...In which case you can do one of the following:

- just go with it. Bang out the creative, artwork it up, send it off, go home and take two, preferably three showers followed by three stiff gins, knowing your work will join a kazillion other  ubiquitous fresh approaches in the same lame league

- refuse to even touch any so-called 'concept' with the remotest allusion to a fresh approach and ride out the 'creative strop' storm

- strongly advise the client of the irony of this tactic and the fact that not only does it probably not do their offer any justice but that it also treats the customer like a corn-fed automaton.

...Then sleep safe in the knowledge that there's only one kind of product or service owner who should be pleased with this kind of oxymoron:*

the marketing moron. 

* Yes, yes, for the pedants I realise 'fresh approach' is not an oxymoron in the true sense of the word, but the proposition of presenting 'fresh approach' as a new idea mostly definitely is!

Off the shelf, completely off the money

I just walked past a Thomson travel agents in north Leeds. I got as far as the entrance of the bank next door.

Then a lightening bolt struck. Something pulled me back. Something a bit Star Trekky... an unfathomable force, a magnetic field that sucked me, frowning and bewildered back to the travel agents - and to the banner you see here.

This dark force then proceeded to swirl around my right hand. Still not quite believing my eyes, the hijacked hand took out my phone and made me capture the banner in all its glory.

Now that strange energy is making me stick a post up about the event.

What is it exactly? I've always said to myself don't become one of those copywriters who bangs on ad infinitum about apostrophe abuse, split infinitives and copy cliches.

But I can't help myself. The Shelf Monster is making me do it, completely against my will.

You see, the Shelf Monster comes from a planet called Thatull Do, is a hairy beast of immense power and, once disturbed, can cause destruction of universal proportions - especially to otherwise well-intended marketing campaigns.

And boy, has someone pissed off the Shelf Monster with this humdinger.

Someone, perhaps a young marketing director, possibly also from Thatull Do, or a young copy monkey travelling the galaxy in search of inspiration has seen fit to sneak into the Shelf Monster's cave and nick one of the beast's most prized possessions: the word, 'passionate'.

Oh boy, that big fella's pretty damned annoyed now. So pretty damned annoyed, he's gonna rip the head off the campaign's impact, take a huge dump on its response rates and trample all over the Thomson brand for weeks to come.

Carnage.

My advice to anyone naive, lazy or pressed-for-time enough to even think of foraging around in the Shelf Monster's cave for effective copy?

Don't. It aint pretty. Then watch this short piece of film from the erratically brilliant David Mitchell.

You'll then hopefully never think of entering the Shelf Monster's domain - ever.

For more cliche-riddled nonsense, take a wander over to The Drum to see what Gabriella Cilmi has to say on the subject.

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