PRIVATE VIEW.(advertising campaigns)(Brief Article)(Column)

So how much does a designer who records most of the TV he watches and fast-forwards through the commercials know about advertising? Not a huge amount, it's true. But I do know a bit about what makes communication work and, in particular, the way that humour -- and its slightly more sophisticated elder sibling, wit -- can help to engage the sympathy and interest of an audience. So, sticking with what I know (and hoping to conceal my bottomless ignorance of your chosen calling), let's see if this week's ads make us laugh.

How funny do you find the idea of a seal having its skull caved in with a baseball bat? For me, it's something less than a thigh-slapper. So the 4 Nescafe Ice posters, appropriately enough, leave me very cold indeed. Presumably this is aimed at kids, so there's always the "hey, grandad, you just don't get it" defence. Er, no, I don't; and I also think the illustration is quite nasty-- falling quite definitely on the wrong side of the poorly drawn/naively charming divide.

2 Right, a little bit of politics next. And Labour would like us to join them in ribald hoots of derision at the thought of a Conservative government. But, really, film poster pastiches! If this had been a student brief, it's the kind of solution I would expect half of the class to come up with; the top-of-head idea that needs to be put aside before the real work begins. It's crudely executed, too, with a fraction of the bite that political cartoonists such as Steve Riddell or Peter Brookes get into their work, day after day. Laugh? I nearly took the Conservatives seriously.

3 The Fosters commercial shows us an Australian-drinking-and-thinking feng shui consultant at work. Quite a funny idea, I Suppose. But the punchline seems to be slightly thrown away -- with a wide shot of our hero's work that doesn't really register until you've seen it a few times. At least the lavatorial humour is appropriate, though.

6 The campaign for Fox's Biscuits is, frankly, mystifying. Whatever possessed the client to spend huge sums on a series of commercials in which dysfunctional people, maddened by modern technology, are treated by therapists from the Fox's biscuit factory? To make matters worse, the treatment doesn't even work; the nutcases remain nuts. I can only explain this campaign by imagining a newly promoted marketing director, brow-beaten by his agency into believing that this approach -- radical! Zeitgeisty! Off the wall! -- was the perfect way to make his mark. Sadly, wrong.

Just as you're starting to wonder why Campaign invited this curmudgeonly know-nothing to give his uninformed and ungracious opinions ... relief, 5 in the form of the Aero hula-hooping mouse ad. It's very funny, flawlessly executed (with a mini classic of a performance ...