High Five: Balance Is Key

I feel the need to balance Hamlet with an anti-smoking message. This could have been done in so many different ways, but the last way I would have thought would be as a musical. I hate musicals. Although pantos do say Christmas, so well. And, in this instance, this cracker makes an outstanding mockery of the tobacco barons. The lies, deceit, and dark arts are highlighted through a twisted and ironic showtime filter. It’s quirky, cool and feels as though the team involved fed Andrew Lloyd Webber some very strong acid. Hey, and it stopped loads of kids smoking too. Allegedly. Reckon they might want to look to this to help stop all those Gen Z’ers vaping their lungs to a bubbly death.

Ok, I’ll be honest, 'Double Life' changed me forever. It became my evergreen reference point for ‘great’. This was the ad that made me realise just how walloping and powerful a campaign could be. Yeah, take that marketing scientists and your assertion that ads are a weak force (yes, I know they are), but this cut spat the dummy on cliché, nerds and lonesome teenagers, gaming in their room. Instead, Ed Morris and James Sinclair, together with Frank Budgen, created something so beautiful and epic, so true, that a gamer’s life became one we all aspired to. It took gaming to the masses, and then some. And became that film that you always wanted to beat, whether working in gaming or elsewhere. A cult, crossover classic that grew a thousand feet tall, and won more awards than I thought possible as well as helping the console sell out several times over. If this were an album, it would be the first Stone Roses LP or Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. Duty-bound to be in everyone’s collection, everywhere. Transcendent and delicious.

This is my last of my High Fives, and the most recent choice in terms of history. A wake-up call that preceded '#MeToo' and '#ThisGirlCan'. An empowering campaign that weakened and redirected male and female bias by allowing it to consider an alternate point of view. I always think Behavioural Science struggles to underpin powerful advertising, but it’s played deftly and wisely here. The truth - when told in an unbiased way - wins out in the end. Every time I watch, and I mean every time, I want to weep. I am that cliché. A father of two girls (and a boy) who deserve better. The untainted nature of the young girl who of course doesn’t ‘throw like a girl’ but rather throws as a human, is exceptional and stunning. Values so markedly different from the erstwhile pharma nonsense and eww-ness of traditional period marketing. Female hygiene was a messy embarrassment rather than powerfully ordinary. Always put the 360 into integrated marketing too, from hashtag to community, retail to TV and well beyond. A gem that dented culture for good.