Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” As they say.

Thursday, November 24th, 2022

During our recent travels, I found this old Guinness poster in Derry, Southern Ireland. 

This one was probably developed in the 1940s or 1950s and could have been illustrated by the famous British artist, John Gilroy. 

Unfortunately the available information is a little sketchy.

Around the world Guinness is an exceptionally strong brand and it’s advertising like this that has made it that way.

Arthur Guinness founded the company in St James’s Gate, Dublin, Ireland in 1759. However it wasn’t until 1929 that the Guinness family permitted the beer to be advertised. And that was with the stipulation that “The quality of the advertising was as good as the quality of the beer.”

The result is that Guinness has always differentiated itself from other ‘beers’ in a unique and interesting way. 

There are many stouts but only one Guinness. 

Right message, wrong place.

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

This poster can be seen along the roadsides around Interlaken.

A ‘cool’ looking Archangel Gabriel, imploring drivers to slow down.

The trouble is the motorists in this area don’t speed, well not as much as they do in many of the countries around Switzerland.

Placement is an important factor when buying media, so I think this particular poster might do a better job in Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Croatia, France and Italy.

After all Gabriel is honored by many faiths.

 

There’s no bad media just bad use of it.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Social media, whatever you think of it, has had a profound influence on the world.

Now more so than ever, considering the recent events in the Middle East and now in England.

The ability of groups to be instantly mobilised has proved to be a real headache for the British coppers. While they were in one place trying to gain control, the mob was in another looting and pillaging.

This wasn’t a real surprise as we have seen the same scenario, only reversed, played out in Egypt last February.

What was so surprising in the UK was the social media response, to the events.

An @Riotcleanup Twitter page was created by a London musician, Sam Duckworth, and now has over 85,000 followers.

They turned up with brooms in hand the morning after the London riots ready to put things right.

At the same time the London Metropolitan Police has published a set of photos of suspects on Flickr. While a Google group is using facial recognition technology to identify thugs from the photos.

Even eBay has promised to remove from their site any property that appears to have come from the looters.

How they will do that I am not sure.

Twitter has said it won’t shut down its service siting freedom of expression.

The interesting thing is that the same freedom of expression and social media tools will be used against the morons who started the whole thing off in the first place.

Like any media it has its good and bad uses.

It’s ultimately not the fault of the media but the way people use it.