Andrew Chamberlain

So I am going to start an occasional series looking at marketing in general and advertising in particular. Let me declare an interest, I work in the marketing business, and I see a lot of material created by marketers and some created for marketers - and there’s a fair amount of nonsense out there.

The point of my occasional blog on this subject will be to identify those rare gems - the good ads, the good marketing campaigns; and these things are rare, there’s a sea of guff out there both products and ads. I am no friend of lame advertising or marketing. On the ‘products’ side you’ve got:

• desperate brands that need to be filed under ‘commodity’ and need to be bought on price and features only - most financial services products come under this category
• stuff that you need to get independent advice or do research on, and then buy - mobile phones, insurance, computers
• a whole bunch of supposedly cool internet sites that are trying to get traffic and bombard you with popups and banners and so forth, and loads of social network sites trying to get on the myspace/bebo/facebook bandwagon.

On the ad’s side you’ve got all those gimmicky car and beer ads, sports wear ads, endless bits of direct mail that can be smoothly transferred to the recycling with the minimum of fuss, and of course the worse thing of all, the unwanted sales calls in the evening, that’s the one that really get’s me - as if anyone wants to be sold double glazing or a new phone service in there own time. I could go on…but I won’t.

Never has a dose of healthy skepticism been so good for us all, but I will just occasionally see something that appeals to me. So I am going to start with an ad that I’ve seen a couple of times, and I even remember the product its for - a bottled water called ‘Drench’. I’m no fan of bottled water particularly, it’s just another product that needs to be treated as a commodity and bought on price, but in the this case the ad delighted and intrigued me. You can see it here:

The smart people at Drench even give you an easy way to put the ad in a blog, that’s impressive. The idea that we all need water to keep our brains functioning well is well and good, but what really lifts this above the crowd is the way it works as a wonderfully retro piece of mesmerizing art; a puppet from the 60’s combines with a dance track from the 90’s and the synergy works remarkably well. It’s the best thing out there at the moment.

So I award my first NABA (Not a bad ad) to Drench and the team from Clemmow Hornby Inge. Brains from Thunderbirds, never has he looked so cool.

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To the Lake District, and more specifically the Lakes School of Writing course at Eusemere House on the shore of Ullswater. If you are a budding Christian writer this really is a great opportunity to get with some like minded people, to learn something about the craft and, once you’ve been a few times, to catch up with some old friends. I am hoping to attend the next course in November for all these reasons and also because the course will be hosted by Nick Page who is good value every time; also because this might be our last chance to be based at Eusemere house, former home of Thomas Clarkson the Abolitionist MP

This time round we had some very good practical teaching and advice from Jan Greenough, Dave Hopwood, and my friend Ali Hull from Authentic Media.

Maybe the most significant thing was what I learnt about my life since moving on from being a pastor in June of last year. Since then I’ve been on a long journey, one that I think might last for a number of years. As a scale of time to achieve something I find ‘years’ very strange; I can understand days, or weeks or even months, but years? I left the ministry on good terms with my church and perhaps not so good terms with God, and yet he has been gracious to me as I have moved on from that time. I have not wanted to think about any of the gifts I may have had when I was a pastor, and yet I find God using me a little bit with people. I’ve been reminded of the fact that we have gifts whether we are in pastoral ministry or not; indeed I was reminded of this three times this week by people who have no connection with each other. I can, after 11 months look back and see that at least I have started my journey, I have covered some distance. So, on we go!

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Hi everyone,

If you’ve tried to reach my website over the past few days you will have seen a page telling you that if you were the owner of the site you should contact UK2 immediately. Well, that’s what I did when I saw it, and it turns out that there was some ‘abusive’ use of my website, and this blog. I’m really not sure how that’s happened, apparently I had: “IRC-demons from my Cpanel account”

Very strange! Anyway, my mate Barry is looking in to it, and UK2 have restored the site.

A.

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I’m reproducing a contribution to a blog that I put on to a forum in a national newspaper today. This is a subject I feel quite strongly about, partly because it should be of concern to anyone with kids, and partly because it’s the genesis of a writing project that I am working on at the moment.  The blog theme was the fact that some parents leave their kids at school as a kind of surrogate baby sitting service. There was some discussion about the difficulties parents have when the economic climate is hard. Here’s my view:

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It’s time we faced some truths about this issue.

First, we need to accept that it really is a good idea for parents to spend time with their kids, and that means engaging with them. There’s nothing wrong with putting the little ones in front of Pingu or Disney from time to time, but don’t confuse it with real engagement with them. It’s that real engagement, the creation of relationship with your child, that is the precious thing.

Second, it’s really really, really hard work sometimes to engage with the kids. It can be boring, it can be tedious…but if you accept my first point, you have to accept that it’s hard work to engage sometimes with them, but do it anyway. I think dad’s really need to hear this one. You don’t have to pretend that ever moment with them is a delight, but you do have to engage. And yes, work is actually an easier option that being with your kids, but don;t take the easy way out. Get home and engage with them.

On this subject, let’s dispense with this idea that every interaction we have within our family is some kind of nirvana - it’s only like that in the adverts. And I am not even talking about the problems of arguments in the family, I am talking about the day to day business of engaging with each other.

In my experience there’s a particular example of this that needs to be dealt with. I can only speak as a dad, so I do so here; you are a dad, you come home from work, you are tired. You have a small child, or children. THe truth is, it’s going to be hard work a lot of the time to summon up the energy to deal with them. Never mind, get a drink, get changed, and get in there. Ten minutes with them, fifteen minutes with them, every night. Go and engage with your kids. Yes it’s tiring - do it anyway.

Now there’s a third issue which is around the fact that families are busy and often, if there are two parents, both work. My wife and I have both had work for periods of time so I speak from experience. It is a tough act to deal with, I know, but don’t turn it in to an excuse. If you both want to or have to work that’s fine, but make sure you still have time with the kids. Anyone can do that; there’s no why you can’t, just choose to do it. Don’t stay late at work, you rarely need to; come home and get with the kids. If the cost of living is rising, cut back on something else.

So, let’s admit that for our ‘me’ focused, ambitious generation, spending time with the kids might not come easy and it’s hard work, but especially for dads the message is this - do the hard work, engage with the kids - regularly, and put effort in to it. It’s the best investment you will make in life.

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Yes there’s always the Wind in the Willows - which is showing at the junction in Cambridge in June. A great show for the younger audience and WitW fans alike. Details are here

Should be a laugh!

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