The best new commercial of the past couple of weeks appeared in the UK, and I'm afraid I would not be allowed to tell you the headline in this family paper. You see it features a young man carrying a sandwich board on his shoulders through the streets of London and printed on it in large letters are the worlds: "F* the poor".
As he walks he calls out this slogan and passes out leaflets that repeat this sentiment, with a list of reasons why he dislikes the poor, homeless, addicted, downtrodden and the like.
His progress is followed by a candid camera as passers-by realise what he is proclaiming. A lady walks up to him and declares, "That's disgusting." A young woman snaps her head around when the words register: "What do you mean f* the poor?"
A black man tells him he's been homeless for two years. A Sikh says "I don't respect that at all." In the end a policeman books him for causing a disturbance.
The title comes in: "We know you care"
The clincher comes at the end, a little time later. Now our sandwich board says "Help the poor". The actor calls this out and shakes his tin. The crowds surge past without a glance, no-one even pauses. "Anybody got any loose change? Anybody?" But no.
Final titles: "Please care enough to give".
It was made for a small London charity, the Pilion Trust and aired on YouTube. You may argue about the effectiveness of its message and its rude language, but it's a commercial you won't forget. From our marketing point of view, it's a good example of how the best TV commercials seem to be no longer on TV.
Commercials on the telly seem stuck in a world of happy mums, happy car drivers, models wearing the new chain-store outfits that look a lot like last year's, and insurance companies outbidding each other.
If a commercial looks clever and polished, chances are it's the overseas ad with a locally-recorded voice over.
No, to find the clever ads you have to look at YouTube - here you'll find the funny ones, the sexy ones.
A particularly good campaign has just been launched by Audi and is viewed world-wide. It's what I call non-ads. You get barely a glimpse of the product logo, don't hear its name, and there are none of the helicopter shots of alpine roads.
They star comedian Ricky Gervais being unfunny, and he barely speaks two words in each commercial. The reason for this comes in the end captions: "Whatever you do - stay uncompromised".
It's like they're saying, "If you're interested in an Audi, find a dealership on your iPhone and go check them out. But don't expect a song and dance act from us."
This is the opposite to mum in the kitchen, and on YouTube there are numerous non-ads. It's a reaction to the modern blandness. But what is most missed is wit.
Ironically, the last series of Mad Men has just commenced, direct from the US. By now they have reached the 60s and early 70s. This was the golden age for advertising with giants like Bernbach, Ogilvy, Mary Wells in New York; in the UK Collett Dickenson Pearce and French Gold Abbott; in Australia the Campaign Palace. It was a flowering that came and then, alas, faded away.
Perhaps the answer is in YouTube after all.
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