Hands in my pockets - Capital One

This is a series of TV spots showing banker-types following normal folks around in all sort of daily activities with their hands in their pockets. Like they are stealing, continuously, every minute of every day, in every situation. Like pick pockets, but without the craftiness.

I think these ads are only in Canada because I can't find the video anywhere on the Web. But Capital One's "Hands in my pockets" series has not only delivered a memorable jingle, known and loved (and hated by those who can't get it out of their heads) by all, but they've made a stunning indictment of Canada's Big 5 banks, who charge higher interest rates than anybody.

The gamble is that "truth in advertising" doubles back and bites them, along with their targets, in the ass. Basically, everyone hates credit gouging and the greed, disrespect, narcissism, cynacism and corruption it represents. Note to Capital One, you want our respect (and business)? Live up to your promise of a real alternative.

Whatever, we this ad.

The great irony of it is that the song, by Jim Guthrie (link below) is plural, handS in my pocketS, not hand in my pocket as the images show in the ad, and is a very sweet song about walking around with your hands in your pockets. It's dreamy and the way the ad couples it up with a hateful thing banks do is... well... brilliant, the best advertising can do combining sweet and sour, threatening and securing at the same time.

"So I forced my hands in my pockets
And felt with my thumbs,
And gallantly handed her
My very last piece of gum."
- Bob Dylan 4th Time Around

who's got it totally wrong

sorry, you can't criticize advertising properly if you're trying to get a job in advertising

view and rate TV ads - this is great site, performing a great service... Thank you!

wierd cutting edge video shit

e.g. this is why we all LOVE to drive cars and won't stop, no matter pretty much whatever...

re: prison, see my last post on the Globe and Mail ad campaign

at least somebody is paying attention to Capital One ads in video

Yet more hands in my pockets stuff:

the song, by Jim Guthrie

about the ad

about the issues

funny-cute rip off...

Pity the poor CBC, the Canadian broadcasting service, aka "the mothership" for having some good, if beside the point info about songwriters and the commercial biz

permanent link

Criticizing advertising - Prison (Globe and Mail Ultimate Home Makeover)

I've been wanting to create a place for critizing advertising, so for the next few months this is going to be that place. I'm not interested in the moral-high-ground type of criticism, as important as that may be, but in criticism that sees the critical meanings underneath the obvious messages, in TV ads in particular.

To get things started: Some of you will be familiar with my text, Prison, presented at the Banff Centre last May. Well check this out; seems I'm not the only one who thinks the middle class is a form of prison, or that prison-culture is the reality of the future. And we thought debtors prison was a thing of the past.





Globe and Mail newspaper, Ulimate Home Makeover, February, 2007
the above TV spot is online here.
There are three TV spots all together in this series, accessible from here.

other resources:

Dr. Christopher Johnson's insightful criticism of corporate names:
TheNameInspector.co blog
about it

The kind of criticism my posts won't be like:

Suicide prevention group protests Superbowl ad.
The ad they are protesting and where you can also view and rate other Superbowl ads — about the ad: a poignant reflection on the current grim conditions of work (we are robots) and how self-esteem is wrapped up in employment (lose your job and you're going to want to commit suicide) and what motivates people (your daydream of failure, ending in suicide will drive you to become a perfectionist). As if that were not enough, the anthropomorphising of the robot, which is given an imagination (tries to find other work) and emotions (experiences despair), reflects something very creepy about technology.

defenders of advertising, essay

advertising and social values, esssay

permanent link

massive change

You've heard about it. The premise is that the world is changing massively. And that such massive change is necessary if we are to survive as species on this planet.

That's a lot to absorb. Personally you have to admit a lot of things are changing, and the pace and scale of change is pretty, well, massive, but...

two things:

1. massive change kind of assumes we need to change a lot in order to stay the same, e.g., the current climate-sort-of-situation; we want to keep that, or at least avoid hurricanes in New Orleans and windstorms in Vancouver, and

2. we are in control... this is the whole premise of the captital M massive and capital C change... that "design" will be the way we orchestrate and manage change, and design, being a function of control-types, like CEOs, and NASA, doesn't really have too much to do with you and me.

however, I predict it will be not long before them, named above, and us start talking not about how to control change, but about how to adapt to change... e.g.

- no warming Gulf Stream, i.e., a much colder Europe and UK...
- melted polar ice caps and higher ocean levels worldwide... stilts anyone?
- depleted oceans as a food source... pass the rice...
- no Oxygen producing rain forests (lungs of the planet)... cough, cough
etc. etc.

the fact is the disconnect between West and East and developed and developing worlds is too profound to be overcome within my lifetime... but, being an eternal optimist, let's consider some things that we (you and me) might, together, massively change, the first of which I proposed some time ago here:
dog treats and grooming pay for Katrina's costs

So, let's look at the stats and find the nickels and dimes among our millions and billions that can, actually, produce change.

For ref: www.massivechange.com/

permanent link