Weetabix campaign deserves better than `another Heineken'.(Brief Article)

First of all, do not send any cards or letters. This is not an interactive column, it's a rant. A rant based on a line in this week's Private View that dismisses the Weetabix ads by Lowe Lintas -- a campaign that any agency would be proud of -- as as "just another Heineken".

It's the kind of comment that reminds me of the hoards of letters we get from people saying: "Love that new Glossies shampoo ad, shame it's just like one I did at Smith Hunter-Smythe in 1971 for Shinies." They are usually accompanied by a page torn from Campaign and a photocopy to prove their point. It's enough to turn someone who has a higher-than-average interest in advertising into a raging anti-advertising bigot.

(Before we go on, let's pause for a disclaimer: copying other people's ideas is not good. And on one level, "just another Heineken" could be regarded as a massive compliment. The reason: Heineken was a great campaign, beer campaigns are known as centres of excellence and entertainment -- not bad for a breakfast cereal to even warrant the comparison.)

But we know that it's not a compliment. We've all met the "just another Heineken" types. Those overly earnest creatives who carry the world (and a well-thumbed D&AD annual) on their backs. Their only friends are other, similarly myopic creatives, since it seems no other humans can tolerate their obsession with who did it first. Because they have created a world where advertising is the centre of their lives, they fail to realise that to ...