PRIVATE VIEW: Nick Bell is the executive creative director at Leo Burnett.(Brief Article)

Last time I wrote this column, I praised a Revels ad. So how about this for a segue?

Doing Private View is a bit like eating Revels. Six flavours - trouble is you dip into the bag not knowing if you're going to pull out something you like or something you don't.

Pork Farms - caramel, definitely caramel. What is at first a believable real life drama features a mother who, while preparing a meal, discovers an empty Pork Farms pork pie wrapper and enquires of her husband and son who is the guilty party.

The idea is that not only do both of them own up but pretty much everyone else in the neighbourhood also. I'm sure the Pork Farms client likes the idea of everyone eating his pies and I quite like it too. It's just a shame that the realness of the ad gives way to an 'addy' screeching camera technique in order to make the point. Caramel Revels are OK but I'm not mad about them.

Mini Jammie Dodgers. Peanut, I'm afraid. And I don't like peanut. What we see is lots of children diving into or being smothered in jam. I know the wackiness is aimed at a young target audience but I can't help feeling it's a little gratuitous and that there must be something better out there.

COI Communications' Adult Basic Skills. The issues being dealt with here are adult literacy and numeracy. In each of three commercials, an adult facing the embarrassment of being exposed as either illiterate or innumerate, is then taunted by a gremlin (portrayed by an actor in make-up and costume). At the conclusion of each commercial we are then invited to 'get rid of our gremlins' by telephoning.

What strikes me most is that the unsympathetic tone of the commercials is unlikely to persuade the target audience that sympathy is what they'll receive if they do pick up the phone. Certainly, I would have thought that the seriousness of the subject matter demanded less frivolous treatment.