Everything's 4-star, except the hotel...

Earlier this year, budget hotel chain Premier Inn claimed in its UK newspaper advertisements that it offered "everything you'd expect from a 4* hotel".

Having worked in the ad industry, I know there's inevitably a certain amount of poetic licence in the promotion of products and services. Sometimes, however, boundaries get crossed. I protested to the Advertising Standards Authority about the misleading nature of the claim and was pleased to see this week that the watchdog ruled against the Whitbread-owned business, saying that the ads breached three sections of the relevant codes of practice.

As I frequently tell my students, however, the British regulatory system tends to be rather toothless. The ads won't appear again with the same form of words. But the campaign is now over and some months have elapsed since the original insertions. Is there any way we could create a system that works faster and carries more clout?

Driving Fatigue advert from Driving Fatigue on Vimeo.

This film has been put together by two recent graduates of Kingston University. Works very well, I think, at a conceptual level. Also has high production values for a portfolio piece. Hope these guys get some agency work.

Can we turn back the tide of greenwash?



Advertisers have long been accused of brainwashing the public. Over fifty years ago, when Vance Packard published his famous book The Hidden Persuaders, people were already worried about the extent to which we're manipulated by subliminal messages.

Today, the worry is that we're peddled a load of soft soap on the environment by a bunch of skilled PR practitioners and experts in so-called 'corporate social responsibility'. This greenwashing phenomenon has been nicely parodied by two students I taught this year at Kingston University in south-west London. Eleanor Goodwin and Sarah Burnett have created a range of eco-friendly packaging for distinctly unfriendly products such as weedkiller and rat poison. You can now destroy vermin safe in the knowledge that you're doing your bit for the planet.

You don't have to be mad to use Twitter, but it helps...

On the courses I run for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and University of the Arts London, there's inevitably more and more discussion of so-called 'social' media such as networking and microblogging sites. Twitter has grown hugely in recent months thanks to high-profile endorsements by celebrities. These range from American A-listers like Demi Moore and Willie Nelson through to UK talkshow hosts Philip Schofield and Jonathan Ross.

But how exactly can Twitter and other similar sites actually benefit marketers and advertisers? A clue may lie in the work being done with AMC's Golden Globe winning TV show Mad Men. The series is set in Madison Avenue, New York in the early 1960s and features an array of glamorous but rather unsympathetic characters who populate an ad agency called Sterling Cooper. Viewers in the UK can currently catch the second season on BBC4 and BBC2.

Actors from the show such as Jon Hamm use the site in a pretty typical way, posting about everything and nothing in 140-word bites. What's far more interesting, however, is the way that the characters from the show interact in real time on Twitter. Neurotic housewife and former model Betty Draper, for instance, tells of the meals she's preparing for her husband Don. Recently she posted that the creative director had taken a trip to Austin, Texas and remarked on how far afield businessmen seem to get these days. These days, of course, being 1962 rather than 2009.

When I responded to the tweets of one of the other characters - copywriter Peggy Olson - and told her that she shouldn't forget her roots, she was sweet enough to reply. She'd never forget she came from Brooklyn, she told me, but her career in Madison Avenue was where the future lay.

At one level, this is all completely bizarre. I am a real person in 2009 communicating with a ghostwriter for a fictional character who lives in the era of JFK. Some people might tell me to get a life and perhaps they're right. I can't help feeling, however, that this ability to interact with the characters cements the relationship that the viewers have with the show. And what do the TV producers know? Stronger relationships mean greater loyalty, more viral referrals and higher viewing figures. And higher viewing figures mean greater advertising revenues.

Perhaps when the history of 21st century marketing communications is written, the book won't start at the Millennium. It will reach back to the days when smoking was a mark of masculinity, Vermouth flowed freely during office meetings and the Mad Men ruled the roost in Manhattan.

© Phil Woodford, 2009. All rights reserved.

Phil Woodford is a freelance trainer and creative who lectures in marketing and advertising at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Although this is a blog about advertising creativity, the world of marketing communications has been moving at a phenomenal speed in the past few years. If you're interested in exploring some of the newer forms of social and viral marketing, why not sign up for my new online forum?

Follow me on Twitter...

...where I'm posting a selection of corporate taglines and slogans from around the English-speaking world. Some well known, others less so. Every tweat's a treat: http://twitter.com/Tagspotter

On the 'ead, son: a simple, but striking poster execution for ITV1.

A belated mention for the ITV1 campaign which broke at Christmas, in advance of the new year FA Cup fixtures. The Cup, of course, is where the part-time, non-league Davids can take on the superannuated Goliaths of the Premiership. It's "where all men are equal". A strong idea, delivered without any fuss.