Pop stars in not exactly reduced circumstances

There's an odd little piece in the spitewrapper that is the Mail On Sunday this morning - it's a glorified puff piece for some sort of timesharey/homeswapping deal. But what's fascinating is that the frontman for the operation is Marcus Vere.

Marcus Vere.

"Eighties pop star Marcus Vere".

We'll save you the Googling - he was in Living In A Box. Which does at least allow the Mail a sort-of joke:

He found fame with a song about ‘living in a cardboard box’, but musician Marcus Vere can now live in a variety of what he describes as ‘grandiose and luxuriant boxes’ all around the world.

Oddly, this isn't the first time Vere has popped up to enthuse over the project. Last year he was trilling about it in the Telegraph:

One member is music producer Marcus Vere, a former member of the 1980s band Living in a Box, whose 17th century thatched cottage in the Cotswolds is almost entirely booked up this summer. In return, he and his family have enjoyed free accommodation all over the world.

“We save thousands this way. As a family of five, you’re looking at nearly £5,000 even for economy tickets to fly to the US these days, so we’re happy to take any benefits we can from having a house in the Cotswolds to subside our holiday accommodation costs. This summer, we’re staying at the Trump Hotel & Tower on Central Park.”

He also popped up in the London Evening Standard enthusing over the service:

London musician and X Factor songwriter Marcus Vere, the keyboard player in Eighties band Living in a Box, owns a striking five-bedroom holiday home in the Cotswolds with his wife Laetitia, where they enjoy time with their children JJ, Giselle and Nina, aged 13, 11 and nine.

Now, it's possible that Vere just loves the service so much he can't stop talking about it. Because if he was promoting the service in return for some sort of consideration, they'd mention that in the articles, right?

Montana life not so great: Miley wasn't happy

It's easy to forget when watching Miley Cyrus trudging through tropes that were probably best left alone just what a horrible childhood she had.

She reminds us in Marie Claire this month:

Covering the September issue of Marie Claire, the former Disney star opened up to the magazine about how she came to question her physical appearance after years of being "told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show."

"From the time I was 11, it was, 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing,' " she said. "Meanwhile, I'm this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like Toddlers & Tiaras. I had f—ing flippers."

I'm presuming here she meant that she had massive tantrums, rather than webbed feet. I think. Although if Disney had decided she should have webbed feet, you can bet that excess skin would have been grafted on pretty swiftly.

Cyrus admitted that she began to develop body-image issues from how she was portrayed falsely on the Disney Channel series, telling the magazine, "I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, 'Who the f— am I?' "

She added, "When you look at retouched, perfect photos, you feel like shit. They lighten black girls' skin. They smooth out wrinkles. Even when I get stuck on Instagram wondering, 'Why don't I look like that?' it's a total bummer. It's crazy what people have decided we're all supposed to be."

So, having felt this weight, Miley's not going to play along with those rules:

Despite societal pressure, the pop singer told Marie Claire she won't be conforming to traditional beauty standards.

"I'm probably never going to be the face of a traditional beauty company unless they want a weed-smoking, liberal-ass freak," she said. "But my dream was never to sell lip gloss. My dream is to save the world."

Which is both a wonderful sentiment, and also sort-of hard to square with the announcement last week that Cyrus has signed on for a second run of promotional work with Estee Lauder's MAC cosmetics brand.

Toyota: committed to crowd-sourcing bands and safety. Nowadays.

Earlier today, this tweet appeared:

.@ToyotaGB to create crowdsourced band with #FeelingTheStreet #digital campaign http://t.co/L26oP0XStz @saramayspary pic.twitter.com/D44inEuAaQ

— BrandRepublic (@BrandRepublic) March 19, 2015

God, it sounds horrible, doesn't it? It's not just that it's a terrible idea, it doesn't even seem like an especially original idea, being more or less a rehash of 2009's Josh's Band campaign.

So I made a snurkling noise:

@BrandRepublic @ToyotaGB @saramayspary oh, sweet Jesus why would they do that? Aren't repeated safety recalls toxic enough for the brand?

— Simon HB (@norock) March 19, 2015

I don't mind Toyota, to be honest. Their hybrids are alright, as cars go. But I just wished they'd stick to making cars rather than crowd-sourcing bands.

And I thought that would be it. Except... Toyota weren't having that.

@norock @BrandRepublic @saramayspary Our recalls are voluntary, a result of our rigorous testing. Read more here: http://t.co/Ygd3fs8uhC

— ToyotaGB (@ToyotaGB) March 19, 2015

Really, Toyota? You recall voluntarily, out of concern for safety, do you?

Really?

Just last year, you were pulling back six and a half million cars around the world after some of them caught fire. Presumably in Toyota's world, selling cars to people to see if they catch fire must constitute rigorous testing.

More to the point, a year ago to the very day, Toyota was making a massive USD1.2bn payment to avoid legal action following its decision to not recall cars where the accelerator could stick, even after ABC News had told it there was a serious problem:

ABC News published dozens of reports in the following months as Toyota said it investigated and announced massive recalls to address the accelerators being stuck under floor mats – repeatedly assuring drivers that the problem had been taken care of. But today Toyota admitted that the recalls did not cover all the cars they knew were in danger and said that they also concealed another cause of sudden acceleration they had found during their investigations – “sticky” pedals, which refers to the accelerator getting stuck partially depressed.

In December 2009, the court records showed the company responded to “media accusations that it was continuing to hide defects in its vehicles” by publishing a statement on Toyota’s website saying the company “has absolutely not minimized public awareness of any defect or issue with respect to its vehicles [and] [a]ny suggestion to the contrary is wrong and borders on irresponsibility.”

Toyota only announced the issue with the “sticky” pedals, along with another massive recall, just minutes before an ABC News report on “World News” in January 2010 told the story of one driver whose Toyota Avalon took off suddenly on the highway.

In fact, Toyota's "rigorous testing" somehow hadn't caught a situation where people could be killed - in fact, one man even spent three years in prison after a Toyota Camry he was driving spun out of control and killed three people.

In short, Toyota, if you want to burnish your image by crowd sourcing a band, feel free. But let's not assume that everyone has forgotten that time you knew your cars were dangerous and you lied about it, eh?

VH1 suffers advertiser walk-outs after sneaking Sorority Sisters onto air

VH1's series, Sorority Sisters - a reality series about black sororities in the US - was snuck onto the air with little fanfare, suggesting that even the network knew in its heart that it had got it terribly wrong, but couldn't quite bring itself to cancel the whole project.

Maybe it should have done, because the reward for its horrible portrayal of black Americans is costing it heavily: advertisers are abandoning the show like it's rancid eggnog:

A spokeswoman for Hallmark confirmed that the decision was made in response to public opposition to the show. The company, Linda Odell said in an e-mail, will not advertise during the show “because of consumer reaction to the program.”

Update: 3:50 p.m.: Several other advertisers including Honda, Crayola, and JBL, a subsidiary of Harman International, have also said they are pulling their ads from the show. State Farm has responded to inquiries saying that they do not air commercials during Sorority Sisters.

And it's not just the show, either. Carmex is walking from the whole channel as a result:

.@rolandsmartin Yes. We'll be pulling our ads from VH1 until the program is pulled in order to join our voice with many of our customers.

— Carmex (@Carmex) December 16, 2014

Yoghurt advert pulled after, but not because, Duran complained

So Yoplait were running an advert (presumably only in the US) which put Hungry Like The Wolf on the soundtrack.

Because, you see, if you were hungry like a wolf, a tiny little pot of fermented milk would fill you right up. Apparently.

Duran Duran were unhappy:

Many of you have written to us, voicing your dismay about the recent license of our song Hungry Like the Wolf, to a yoghurt commercial. Please know, Duran Duran do not support this usage of their music and unfortunately, this particular license was granted without any prior notification to any of us. Had we known, under no circumstances would we have backed it.

Thankfully, the ad has now been taken off the air and moving forward we hope to avoid any further situations like this.

Well, yes. The advert has been taken off the air, but not because of LeBon et al's objections. Slicing Up Eyeballs explains:

On the yogurt maker’s Facebook page, a number of people posted complaints in recent days about the use of “Hungry Like the Wolf” because of its connection to the Diane Downs murder case 30 years ago. In May 1983, Downs shot her three children in the back of her car in Springfield, Ore., killing one of them. “Hungry Like the Wolf” was playing on the car’s radio at the time.

Initially, Yoplait reps responded by defending the song’s use, writing:

“We chose the music because it’s a popular song that felt right for this ad. The Yoplait team has discussed this quite a bit and found that the large majority of people have only positive connections to this song, given that the Diane Downs incident was more than 30 years ago.”

By late this past week, though, Yoplait had changed its tune, saying the ad was being removed from the air:

“When we chose the song, we had no idea of its connection to this terrible event. We take your feedback seriously, and yes, we have decided to remove this ad from the air while we consider other versions. Please know that it may take a couple of days until the ad is fully removed. We’re again sorry that it’s upset you and promise there was no intention to cause such disappointment.”

Given the ad was pulled because someone killed their family while listening to the song, I'm not sure I'd have gone with the word "thankfully" if I'd been in Duran Duran. Mind you, if I'd worked for Yoplait I'm not entirely sure I'd have described the shooting of three children by their mother as an "incident", like it was the theft of a traffic cone.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Softcore porn is business

Ah, we hadn't heard from Gennaro Castaldo since he left HMV. He did leave HMV, although he hasn't updated his LinkedIn profile. Perhaps like other parts of the HMV social universe, the password was handed to an intern and never surrendered?

Anyway, you can't keep a good thought-wrangler down and we've got the first sighting of him in his new home, defending porny pop videos for new employers, the BPI.

He appeared on ITV news:

Explicit music videos should be made available to the public in a responsible age-appropriate way but should not be banned completely, Gennaro Castaldo of the British Recorded Music Industry told ITV News.

Now, obviously, there are music videos which are explicit because the music they represent is explicit - and banning things is bad. I guess that far we can go with Gennaro.

The problem, though, is that the music industry is using sexist sexy videos for songs they're aiming largely at kids. That's what we need to talk about, surely, and the conversation Gennaro didn't seem interested in having:

"We have been speaking to digital service providers about whether they could introduce age-based filters. That could be one way of solving this problem," Mr Castaldo said.

"Rather than trying to stop content by banning or censoring it, it’s about how to make it available in a responsible fashion."

You see? The problem isn't the music industry selling Robin Thicke by getting women to show their tits, it's the fault of "digital service providers" for not stopping kids from seeing it.

This is similar to the way that guns don't kill people, it's people failing to have bulletproof skin that kills people.

But, hey, just to drift further from the point, maybe a spot of meaningless cultural relativism could help?

Mr Castaldo said the industry takes the issue extremely seriously, but pointed out that "values move" on and that "back in the 50s, people were scandalised by Elvis Presley."

Yes, Gennaro. Values move on. Back in the 70s, people thought it was okay to sell any product - cars, nuts, shock absorbers - by sticking a woman in a bikini into an advert. We've moved on from there. When will the BPI join us?

Gordon in the morning: Paid-for advertisements

What news are you treated to today, should you pay to sneak past The Sun's paywall into Gordon's garden?

You'll read about how Rita Ora is going to do adverts for Rimmel.

Yes, you pays your money, and, er, get to read about other companies' promotional campaigns.

Gordon in the morning: Everything has a price

As you'll be aware, in order to read Gordon Smart's high-quality journalism online these days you have to pay.

What does your money get you?

Today, it's a story about how Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop is going to be used in a John Lewis advert.

Who wouldn't think it great value to dip into their pocket to discover exciting news about a television commercial, eh?

Just be thankful the Meerkats don't have a song...

The 20 most-played tracks on TV commercials last year? It's a chart:

Position Work Title Writer Advert Performed By
1 Over There George M. Cohan Go Compare N/A
2 Y.M.C.A Edward Willis, Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo Confused.com N/A
3 Eliza's Aria Elena Kats-Chernin Lloyd's TSB Elena Kats-Chernin (Wild Swans ballet)
4 Spinnin' Mike Lindsay, Corynne Elliott, Pat Marks, Jason Richards Sky Speech Debelle
5 Primavera Ludovico Einaudi Santander Ludovico Einaudi
6 The Universal Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Steven James, David Rowntree British Gas Blur
7 Shine Gary Barlow, Paul Donald, Paul Robson, Jason Orange, Mark Owen Morrisons Take That
8 Here Come the Girls Allen Toussaint Boots Sugarbabes
9 Rescue Me Carl Smith, Raynard Miner British Gas Fontella Bass
10 Have Love Will Travel Richard Berry LV Insurance The Sonics
11 Young Folks Peter Moren, John Eriksson, Bjorn Yttling Homebase Peter, Bjorn, and John
12 Bring Me Sunshine Sylvia Dee, Arthur Kent Coca-Cola Willie Nelson
13 Busy Olly Murs, Martin Brammer, Adam Argyle Marks & Spencer Olly Murs
14 Our House Graham Nash B & Q Amber State (cover of Crosby Stills & Nash)
15 Give a Little Love Damian Katkhuda Asda The Mostar Diving Club
16 The Snow Prelude No 3 in C Major Ludovico Einaudi Nationwide Ludovico Einaudi
17 Welcome Home Benjamin P Cooper Nikon Radical Face
18 It's a Good Day Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee Garnier Peggy Lee
19 Barcarolle Jacques Offenbach , Jack Byfield Barclays Arr: Keith J Blainville
20 Ain't No Mountain High Enough Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson DHL Created by Paul Epworth ft Vula Malinga.

I'm sure the massive royalty cheque will be welcome for Speech Debelle, who most people won't remember from having won the Mercury music prize.

Spotify to try TV advertising

In a bid to become the Kings And Queens of music streaming, Spotify are taking to the TV to advertise their wares.

Oddly, it seems Spotify have chosen an expensive, lush, produced advert, which compares strangely with the bursty, shouty adverts they host on their own service. Almost like they don't really think that approach would be very effective.

The advert is going to be flung onto The Voice, prime-time on NBC. So not really being targeted at anyone who cares about music.

Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the Mail

There's an interesting chance to see not one, but two, of our successful tabloids at work this morning, as Adele is linked to a sponsorship deal.

Gordon breaks the story - and I'm using "breaks" generously here, as it seems to be little more than a collection of things that, theoretically, could happen:

MOST bets on the only brand with a chance of signing up ADELE would have been on Diamond White cider.

But that could all change thanks to a £10million pay cheque.

If they've actually negotiated a price, then the deal must be done, right?

Cosmetics giants including Estée Lauder, L’Oréal and Dior are fighting it out to make the singer the face of their skincare ranges.

Or it could be Cover Girl. Or Number Seven. Or Superdrug.

The vagueness of the story is underpinned, solely, by an unnamed source:

A source said: “Adele is in big demand. She would only accept if the campaigns were to her taste and incorporate her music.

“The last thing she wants is a cheesy ad with a naff catchphrase.

“They would have to be in keeping with her personality.

“It’s going to take a lot of persuasion to get her to agree but, right now, it looks as if she’s close to signing a deal.”

The last sentence there swings violently between suggesting that coming to a deal would take a lot of work, implying it's a distance off, and then saying it's nearly a done deal. Like it was being made up on the spot.

And, given that L'Oreal solely make cheesy ads with naff catchphrases, either the "source"'s claim of the sort of ad she might do is wrong, or Gordon's list of adverts being considered is wrong. Or both of them are wrong.

Gordon reminds readers that Adele has, in the past, been fairly firm about not wanting to do such a deal:

Adele has previously slated fellow stars for taking up similar beauty deals — and said she was concerned endorsements could “taint” her image.

He is generous, though, at this change of heart:

You can’t blame Adele for considering the big money offers. Despite banking £25million from the incredible successes of her albums 19 and 21, an extra £10million in the coffers would be hard to turn down.

So, a fairly typical Sun filler story - vague enough that if nothing happens people will forget it, but if Adele ever does turn up in an advert a 'you read it here first' piece can be built on the back of it - "a source said 'Adele had considered L'Oreal, but chose instead to get naked for PETA...'"

But nobody with half a mind would read this and come away thinking that Adele is already mouthing "get the London look" into a mirror, and planning where to put the money.

Luckily, Lucy Buckland suffers from no such restriction, copying the story across to the Daily Mail website.

Except by the time it arrives in the Mail - with a cheerful admission that the only source is what Lucy read in The Sun - the story has become more of an attack, shorn totally of Smart's 'good luck to her, who'd turn down that sort of offer':

Adele 'tempted to sign $10 million cosmetic sponsorship deal and move to LA' - despite slating stars who 'sell-out'

Oh, yes, there's an addition to the story, which is that Adele is moving to LA. Apparently this is somehow bad, too - though, to be fair, the Mail has always been consistent in its hatred of the idea of migration:

According to sources renting a house in LA was relaxing and after making friends with Robbie Williams' wife, Ayda Field she is becoming more attune to shipping out of Britain for good.

Word together threw, half-assed punctuation attempting not work.

'Adele and her man Simon are looking at a pad in one of the exclusive gated communities of Beverly Hills,' a source told The Daily Mirror, 'because Robbie and Ayda have told Adele that she would be able to have enough land not to feel too trapped, and she could have the privacy she so desperately needs to enjoy life.'

Oh, yes, that bit the Mail lifted from the Mirror, so at least it's a story with two sources.

Naturally, the Mail is unhappy at the idea of a British institution becoming so enamoured of American audiences that she might consider putting their needs first.

Although, let's just look at that headline again:

Adele 'tempted to sign $10 million cosmetic sponsorship deal and move to LA' - despite slating stars who 'sell-out'

Oddly, the Sun's ten million quid has turned into ten million greenbacks - and elsewhere her earnings are rendered in American money. Almost as if that British institution has become so enamoured of American audiences that it's putting their needs first.

Still, the Mail does at least try to add some journalism to the mix:

Adele's spokesman refused to comment after being contacted by MailOnline.

Being contacted about which story? Both? What did MailOnline actually ask? When did the Mail contact them - after these stories appeared late in the day on rival paper's websites, and was the refusal to comment a 'we have no comment', or 'I'm not in a position to comment on this'?

So, from a vague piece in The Sun, the Mail has decided that Adele is on the verge of selling out. I often wonder who believes what they read in Bizarre. I think we've now got our answer.

Gordon in the morning: Canning One Direction

When even Gordon Smart is pointing at your work and calling it "cringeworthy", you must have really stunk the place up.

So it is with the One Direction Pepsi advert. Let's look at the advert, shall we?

There are so many questions here.

If all these people are so bloody successful, how come they're incapable of coming up with the idea of getting a Pepsi from somewhere else? "We can summon crowds of cheering people from thin air, but are incapable of looking for our PR - who, to be fair, is probably hiding in the corner - and asking them to sort out a can of soft drink."

There's only one of Man From The Sports. But there are more than one of One Direction - I suspect there might be as many as four or five, although they're so bland and indistinguishable it's hard to tell if there's lots of them or just a few moving about a bit. Are One Direction really planning on sharing a can of Pepsi between them?

The pay-off is crazy. Everyone knows you don't give the other boyband members the bribes to become a member of a boyband, right? It's usually the managers who you'd be offering the sticky, sickly treat to.

But mostly: what were Pepsi thinking? Is there anything more off-putting than putting a bunch of people into a room and getting them to bore on about how astonishingly brilliant they are? (And doesn't it make a nonsense of the very idea of having celebrities in your advert if they have to explain who they are?)

Nice to see the Pepsi tradition of 'awkward men dancing badly in the final frame' is upheld, thought.

Black Keys take on Hut, Home

Tracks from Black Keys' El Camino have turned up soundtracking Pizza Hut and Home Depot adverts.

Nobody asked them first.

Pizza Hut and Home Depot are now getting grumpy legal letters from The Black Keys.

Gordon in the morning: Who really won the Superbowl?

Not Madonna, who managed to be upstaged by MIA's finger.

Not MIA, who clearly thought she was subverting something; a bit like a seaside donkey pooping on the prom forgetting he's still carrying a tourist from the ghost train to the gift shop.

No, Gordon reveals the real winner of Superbowl Sunday:

Rock hero Justin Hawkins from The Darkness was given a 90-second slot during half time in a Samsung advert for the new Galaxy phone.

He appeared on screen in a pink and white jumpsuit. As his guitar dropped from the sky he sang I Believe In A Thing Called Love. Downloads of the song have gone through the roof since.

The Darkness. Number one in the "American rock charts*". In 2012.

I don't think anyone would have bet on that happening this time last year.

* - I suspect this claim is intentionally vague.

Every little helps

With everyone fixated on John Lewis' Christmas advert, this seems to have slipped by:



Really, Tesco? The Fairytale Of New York? I guess this means that the song has now melted so far in our national psyche that the lyrics have been replaced with just a chanting of "Christmassy Christmassy Christmassy" whenever we hear it?

Johnny Marr defends flogging song to shop

A lot of huff has been expended on the decision by Morrissey and Marr to let John Lewis write them large cheques this Christmas. Now Johnny Marr is fighting back. Speaking from, probably, a Jacuzzi of cash, Marr explained that letting the song advertise geegaws and whatnots wasn't a bad thing at all:

Writing 'Please Please...' one Friday in '84 is one of the best memories of my life. This ad has not sullied that memory one bit."

"And you know what", he continued. "If my memory had been sullied, I could have just popped it into a John Lewis JLBIWM1402 Integrated Washing Machine. That baby has an A+ energy rating, and can make light work of a six kilo load. That would unsully anything."

He then went on to criticise the fans who had been "bitching and moaning whilst, wait for it, watching X Factor."

"... almost certainly, though, not on a screen that could hold a candle to the John Lewis JL19 LED TV, which has pinsharp clarity on the picture but is small enough to make a handy second TV. Maybe for kid's room or the caravan?"

... before linking to a YouTube video of former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins, in which the punk singer dismisses the notion of using songs in advertisements as "selling out".

"After all" he concluded "if you really want to see selling out, get yourself down to John Lewis and watch the way the twig Christmas tableware is flying off the shelves. That playful but practical cutlery is going to be a talking point in smart households up and down the nation."

I think the taking the cash is alright, but the whiny self-justification for it is a bit much to take. You wonder who Marr is trying to convince; and to just dismiss the fans who made The Smiths concerns about something very important to them being used in an ad is ungrateful, to say the least.

But it's not like the travesty that Littlewoods have made of Terry Scott's My Brother, is it?

One: Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not

There's been a bit of squawking over the refusal of Clearcast to clear Bono and co's One advert to be shown on the television. Clearcast have explained they had no choice:

We have been unable to clear this ad to date as we believe it is currently in breach of Rule 7 of the BCAP Code, which is itself based on the provisions of Section 321 of the Communications Act 2003. This imposes a blanket prohibition on “political” advertising on television and it is OFCOM who have retained responsibility for applying these rules. If an advertiser or an ad appears to be in breach of these provisions, neither Clearcast nor BCAP have any discretion in the matter of approval.

These rules ensure that ads aren’t being broadcast by bodies whose objects are wholly or mainly political. ONE appears to be caught by this rule as they state that part of their raison d’être is to pressure political leaders. It also appears that a number of the claims are made in the version of the ad that we have seen are directed towards a political end, which is again against the rules. This ad is not “banned”; we are in discussions with ONE to see if there is any way that the apparent legal hurdles can be overcome and the ad cleared.

One are fuming at this, insisting that it isn't fair:

He said: "ONE is not a political party and we have no political affiliation."

You know, that's funny, because last year when people got upset that One raised sums of money, very little of which went directly to the people it was supposed to be helping, the One campaign spoke to everyone like we were stupid children saying 'of course we don't help people directly, because we're a political organisation:

The whole point of ONE is to combat extreme poverty by raising awareness and changing government policy - it has never been to directly fund charity projects in developing countries, work which is done well by other NGOs. ONE was created by philanthropists to tackle the structural policy issues such as debt, trade, and access to health care and other resources which make it hard to break out of extreme poverty.
[...]
As other examples of our work, ONE helped successfully press for debt relief for Haiti after the devastating earthquake there and we recently played an important role in the passage of a law in the US requiring oil companies to report any payments to government officials - an effort to end backhanded deals between energy companies and corrupt politicians that hurt people in poor countries.

When it's accused of spending cash on lobbying, One bristles and snaps "of course, we're a political organisation"; when told they can't have an advert because they're political, they then try and deny that they're political. Although not very well, as Adrian Lovett, the European director, says shortly after denying they're political:

[O]ur ad highlights the desperate plight of 750,000 people in east Africa who the UN warns could die before the end of the year. Unless we keep the spotlight on this crisis and the need for urgent action, those people will be forgotten. Who can object to that message?

Which is refreshingly simple minded: we're not political, we just have a political message, but it's a good one so can't we just have an advert. I'm sure the BNP think that no right-thinking person could object to their aims and objectionable objectives, so on the same basis, would One want their ads to be aired? How about a counterpoint to the One campaign - let's say a None campaign - which wanted airtime to argue that "it's Africa's problem, why should European money solve it?" Providing they weren't an actual party and just really believed in their message, would One support their ads popping up during Phil Spencer's new property show?

There's a sense here that the One campaign is more about the rich and the powerful wanting to be seen to be doing good, and the problem is that Clearcast is stopping Nescafe shill George Clooney and suitcase salesman from Bono from bolstering their credentials by showing their caring side.

Still, the upside is that One can spend the money they're saving in TV time by buying some more leather covered Moleskin notebooks to give to journalists.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: My part in the News Of The World downfall

I had been going to post this on Thursday, but events moved on and I spent most of the evening staring slack-jawed at the television. Train2Game had done a ring-round of companies to ask about their advertising plans:

HMV’s head of PR Gennaro Castaldo added: “As it happens, HMV has not advertised in News of the World for some time and have no plans to do so.”

To be frank, that's probably more to do with HMV not having money to splash about on fancy advertising than any moral repugnance, but it's nice to know they were on the right side for once.

Dead Kennedys: Getting too drunk is BAD

Kronenbourg 1664 has been getting bands to record slowed-down version of thrashy, punky songs. Unfortunately, nobody thought through getting the current iteration of the Dead Kennedys to record Too Drunk To Fuck. For a beer advertising campaign.

Drinks industry marketing watchdog the Portman Group, which operates a self-regulatory code of practice, received a complaint about the promotion and the use of the track.

The Portman Group's independent complaints panel said that while Kronenbourg had not "set out to promote irresponsible drinking", nevertheless the "track name and lyrics referenced drinking to excess, thereby associating the brand with immoderate consumption".

It added that this represented a breach of its industry code, which bans alcohol promotions from "encouraging irresponsible or immoderate drinking".

No word yet from the group which regulates the Punk Industry on charges that working for an expensive lager company brings The Dead Kennedys into disrepute.

Andre dumps his Costa chums

Last year, Costa coffee spent a lot of money getting Peter Andre to promote its coffee, complete with the clause:

"3am online, under all circumstances, must accompany the photographs of Peter Andre with positive text/captions/headings"

That's CAN Associates, making sure that everyone gets value for money. That Peter Andre is promoting the brand shouldn't be used to mock the brand.

So, Peter Andre really likes Costa Coffee, right?

Actually, no: he's opening up his own coffee shop.

So newspapers can't print anything negative about Andre promoting Costa, but he's fine to nip off and open up his own competition, implying he believes that even he can do better. Isn't PR wonderful?

I wonder if Costa can get a refund?