Advertising/Marketing

Luxury isn’t about wealth—it’s about what’s missing. From postwar security to digital-era silence, what we call “luxury” keeps evolving. This essay explores how rarity shapes desire, how the luxury industry sells emotional scarcity, and why the most coveted experiences today are often the quietest.

Trump’s AI images and media theatrics aren’t signs of dementia—they’re a deliberate strategy. What happens when outrage becomes the operating system of politics?

That free cheese cube creates an invisible thread of obligation—the same primal mechanism that once ensured tribal survival now shapes your shopping cart.

How tobacco giants used addiction science to transform snack foods, engineering everything from Doritos to Oreos for maximum craveability.

In airports worldwide, a retail transformation is underway. This "phygital" revolution blends digital convenience with physical shopping, addressing the unique needs of travelers. As this change unfolds, it's important to examine how phygital strategies are reshaping airport retail and their impact on travelers and retailers. The Airport Retail Environment Airport retail operates under specific conditions: […]

Now doesn’t this make you want to emigrate? And people wonder why I chose to move to somewhere at least 100kms from the nearest Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC or any multinational fast food chain.

  As a flow-on from the Milan design fair, Ikea set loose a team of street artists in Milan to stick B&W stenciled figures on subway ads (it had already bought), turnstiles, steps etc.  It was all with agreement from the metro system and, one presumes, payment to them too. Not sure this really fits […]

SpoonLidz(tm) is one of those remarkably simple “why didn’t someone think of it first” innovations. Basically it replaces on-pack spoons with something which is : built into the packaging itself (so  less storage space required), more sanitary (you’re eating off a surface which has been totally sealed), has less impact on the environment (made from […]

In celebration of Coca-Cola’s 125th anniversary, they created an immersive “future room” concept at the Turkish modern art museaum Santralistanbul.  It was 90m2 with 270 degree projection mapping and a show lasting around 4 minutes showcasing Coca-Cola’s history.  Its a terrific concept and the work behind the presentation is spectacular but I can’t help feel […]

Airports are always looking for new ways to make money, improve wayfinding and make the airport experience more enjoyable. This example from Taipei creates some interesting ideas. I don’t know whether the airport is generating revenue from Hello Kitty branding these departure gates or whether they’d doing it purely as something fun. But consider for […]

The basic strategy for Hard Yakka ran for around 35 years and involved celebrating the hard working aussie working class.  The jingle, which if I recall correctly was written by Mike Brady, was mixed and remixed for a good 10+ years. From 1989 From 1995 Early 2000’s No longer using the original jingle And from […]

Pantone are pretty good at picking colour trends or perhaps its just that people follow what they say and therefore create products in those colours.  Either way we’re likely to see lots of turquoise in 2010, both in products and retail outlets. “Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from […]

The Holeproof series was another long-lived campaign concept built around a simple idea – “one day you’re gonna get caught with your pants down” – a slightly more contemporary version of what every mother tells their child (though normally accompanied by suggestions of being hit by a bus not what happens in these ads). The […]

Take me away please P&O was created by John Bevins but in the 80’s the account was handled by O&M. I remember another classic media planning gaff with P&O where a spot was placed in the Sunday Movie “Voyage of the Damned” – good placement though, everyone was in the boat, starving, looking up toward […]

This campaign was fraught with so much controversy. In the early 80’s everyone wanted to ditch it and create a new ad – after all it had been running for close to 10 years by then.  The agency thought it was tired, the client thought it was tired – problem was the consumers didn’t.  The […]

I love creative use of alternative media and this example from Germany takes the cake this month. A German book publisher Eichborn attached small ultra-light advertising banners to 200 flies using wax. The banners fell off after a few hours so no harm to the flies except of course that it made them easier targets […]

Before “I still call Australia Home” and the Australian Children’s Choir commercials Qantas were “the spirit of Australia, the flying kangaroo”. This commercial is from 1983.

A beautiful campaign from the 90’s which was just haunting in its music. The audio is of a classic Maori love song called “Pokarekare Ana” sung by New Zealand’s very own Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in her absolutely unique voice Another version sung by a little girl instead of Dame Kiri – also with amazingly […]

Many people think of the “Australian Made” campaign as being something relatively new. In fact its not and goes back to the very early 80’s and the height of the community service advertising boom (mostly brought about because TV stations had a manditory amount of CS ads they had to run). This campaign is from […]

I might like alternative media and applaud creative marketing concepts but I think this one goes a little too far perhaps. Right Guard developed a campaign using “Pitvertisers” who wore shirts with small video screens in their armpits.  When they lift their arm to expose their armpits it plays an advertising message about deoderant.  These […]

In the mid 80’s the commercials got a lot more adventurous and few more so than Decore particularly as it was a family product. This one has to rate as one of the best remakes of a song into a jingle – in my opinion anyway.  And check out about 4 seconds into the clip […]

Another one out of Perth and from the era of Mojo. Red Rooster was original created by the Kailis family in 1972. A few years later Frank & Joe Romano founded Chicken Treat in Perth and Nick & Phil Iana founded Big Rooster in Queensland.  Red Rooster was sold to Myer in 1981. Chicken Treat […]

British Caledonian Airlines were around in the 70’s & 80’s. Originally the Scottish charter airline Caledonian airlines, at the time Britain’s second largest, wholly privately owned airline, took over British United Airways, at the time the largest independent British airline.  The takeover enabled Caledonian to become a scheduled airline and with time the merged entity […]

A community service campaign out of Perth which ended up going national – actually I believe all these campaigns went national. And another one for “Dirt” And of course the memorable “Mum knows” Then there was “Dingalings”

This campaign launched in 2001, just months before Ansett eventually collapsed. That wasn’t the fault of the campaign because I doubt anything could have saved Ansett by that time.  What the commercial attempted to do was show the level of support Ansett had from very likable and iconic Australians – aligning itself a little less […]

This campaign from 2004 created a bit of a fuss, particularly the canoe ad.  The Advertising Standards Bureau issued a complaint based on ” “Because it is a bit ‘dangerous’.” “Some crazy person would get out there and do it just like that.”.  The agency basically responded with a polite and politically correct version of […]

The original Antz Pantz campaign was created by Mara Marich & Sarah Barclay from The Campaign Palace. Iain Mackenzie was the director. In 2003 the campaign was essentially remade or updated by Whybin TBWA and again directed by Ian McKenzie.  Rather than real live ants, this version featured a combination of live action & 3D […]

The Feminine Hygiene product category was probably one of the hardest to work on in the 80’s particularly as most of the product managers were men.  Having to sit through a bloke describing the benefits of a “silky smooth cover” was little short of hysterical – let alone the product benefit explanations of widthways vs […]

This was another campaign & jingle in the 80’s which just got into your head and wouldn’t leave. The campaign itself went on for around a decade.  From very vague memory (hey it was a long time ago!) this campaign was created when the Citizens Military Force changed its name to the Australian Army Reserve […]

Another classic from the early 80’s, though the campaign itself started in the late 70’s written (if I recall correctly) by Peter Carey. I remember scheduling this in a Sunday night movie without first checking what the movie was – turned out to be “Alice – Portrait of a teenage alcohol”. The ad ran straight […]