Red C Account Director, Steve White, he’s a funny one. Not content with banging on about how Spurs are now effectively European champions following their victory over Inter Milan the other week (pffft!), he’s now on the verge of making an even bigger fool of himself with his “online is better than offline” tirade.

The thing is, what Mr White fails to grasp is that Online Vs Offline isn’t a boxing match, or a playground scrap, or a my-dad-is-bigger-than-your-dad-type argument. No, no this is bigger than that. This is about war.

Preparing for battle

See, your online marketing is like your infantry, your ground troops. These are the communications you send in to do a job and report back instantly. And that’s what they do. You send your email, people respond, you get results. Job done. You’re in and out and back home in time for cigars and a debrief.

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The classic advert for cigarette brand Silk Cut

About six and a half years ago I gave up smoking, having smoked for well over ten years. Giving up was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, and I take great pride in the fact that I did it without the help of plastic cigarettes, patches or funny-tasting gum.

To a certain extent I quite miss smoking. I used to love the chats that I had with Jim, Neil and Nick in the dingy smoking room. I used to love lighting up after a really good meal and savouring the tobacco with a coffee or Cognac. More than anything, though, I loved the advertising… that was until the Labour Party introduced the legislative bill known as the ‘Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002’.

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Saturday morning, whilst tucking into my crunchy nut cornflakes, I watched a rather interesting news piece on the BBC about how newspapers are essentially suffering from a failing business model; and are looking at new ways to raise income due to the falling numbers of people buying papers… mainly because of the Internet.

Their immediate solution is to start charging readers a subscription fee for looking at content online, an initiative that is being championed by Rupert Murdoch, and admit that one day, newspapers will no longer be around.

As an ‘Ad Man’, I find something incredibly sad about the migration of newspapers away from traditional print and on to online. Especially as it seems very real that one day newspapers will no longer exist… especially with the rise of e-readers… meaning we could one day say farewell to the beautiful art-form that is the ‘long-copy advert’, which these days is a rare beast, but when it appears it’s a compelling and persuasive one.

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I really like reading. My problem is I buy books faster than I can read them. The drawers on my bedside cabinet are buckling under the weight of unread hardbacks, paperbacks, novels and non-fiction. I’ll be honest it’s starting to get me down a bit. Too much to read, too little time. Your customers have the same problem…

They’re bombarded with things to read every day. So if you’re planning on adding to their pile, you’ve got to make sure it’s easy to read. And there is one very simple way of doing just that.

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Before we go any further… no… the 14 times World Darts Champion is not moonlighting as a Commercials Director… the Phil Taylor we’re talking about is far taller, skinnier and has considerably less hair! Phil recently finished filming a new advert for us for Cottages4you… an ad that everyone here at Red C is incredibly proud of and was brought to life by both Phil and Sharon Gunnel, the Producer at Velvet.

Our first introduction to Phil was through his reel which immediately grabbed us for his clever subtle use of humour and ability to capture some lovely moments on films as well as getting some memorable performances from his actors. On meeting him I was instantly sold by his passion for both our concept and his desire to stay true to my original idea and deliver an advert that had high production values and quite simply and beautifully converted a singular message in a memorable way.

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Holiday Cottages Group (HCG), the UK’s number one holiday cottage rental agency with more than 10,000 properties in the UK, is launching its first TV campaign in three years. The advert will premiere on Boxing Day and run throughout quarter one.

Holiday Cottages Group has reported sales of domestic holidays are up by 12 percent on 2008 and following this success it is looking to strengthen its position further in 2010.

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When I was studying Advertising I aspired to write an ad as good as one of the classic Volkswagen Ads created by the creatives at Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). Starting with Art Director Helmut Krone and Copywriter Julian Koenig, together with Creative Director Bill Bernbach… DDB changed the face of car advertising.

Instead of fancy photography, mansions, sexy models and heavy retouching… they used an advertising style that utilised realistic photographs of the car together with copy that talked to the reader as if it were a close friend and was self-deprecating rather than self-congratulatory. This approach meant that Volkswagen was seen as the first car company to offer a friendly straightforwardness and disarming honesty.

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It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that in September an edition of Entertainment Weekly in the US will feature the world’s first video-in-print advert. Previewing programmes from CBS’s upcoming season as well as adverts for Pepsi… the video advert will work by having slim screens inserted into the magazine that are activated when the magazine pages are opened – kinda like what happens on greeting cards.

Each chip that feeds the screen can hold up to 40 minutes of video with the battery that powers the chip and screen being able to play for about 65 to 70 minutes. This battery can then be recharged by plugging in a mini USB cord and once you’ve got bored of the content contained in the chip… you can download additional content from the Web. Sounds clever, and expensive… so will it take off?

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Johnny's work for Marisota

Back when I was a Junior I was packed off to Manchester on a photo shoot for Yorkshire Electricity. My Art Director had come down sick, so it was up to me to step into his shoes for the day and take control of the Art Direction for a lovely Ad concept we’d come up with.

The Photographer we’d had booked for us by my CD was Jonathan Oakes, and what I learnt on that day has stayed with me all these years. One of the most important things it taught me was, when it comes to choosing a Photographer, you need someone with a passion for every job they undertake and who is determined to deliver a quality product every time.

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How do you change the behaviour of an audience that is quite literally stuck in their ways? An audience that has got to the age where telling them what they can and cannot do, will only result in the failure of the marketing message.

That’s the task we at Red C faced when Manchester’s NHS Primary Care Trust came to us with regards promoting responsible drinking to the ‘Over 50s’. At the time of briefing there were wide reports of what were known as ‘Saga Louts’, with Alcohol Concern reporting that more than one million over 65 year olds exceed recommended alcohol limits – a 75 per cent rise in women and a 31 per cent rise in men since the early 1990s.

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