OPINION: Mills on ... L'Oreal.(Editorial)

So, ten days to go till Mayor Ken's glorious C-Day Revolution. As yet, we can only guess what the impact of the congestion charges will be on poster prices in central London. Will they fall if passing traffic declines? Or will they rise because people can see the posters better?

Your average motorist won't care about that, of course. They're more interested in whether the congestion charge displaces traffic from the inner core of London to the outer core on vital thoroughfares such as, to take an example at random ... er ... Hammersmith. As I struggle daily round the gridlock known as Hammersmith Broadway, that cunningly placed and charming Mark Warner poster is beginning to have an effect on me. But next to it sits an unmissable 96-sheet from L'Oreal, which I've puzzled over for many hours and seems to be booked on to this particular site in perpetuity.

It's very easy to dismiss this Publicis poster as a completely average, verging on the naff, piece of work, especially if you know that L'Oreal's UK office is opposite the poster on the corner of Hammersmith Road and the Broadway. Hats off, by the way, for a smart piece of poster buying.

You can imagine how the chests of the top L'Oreal executives puff up with corporate pride as they fight their way through the traffic on the way to Heathrow. Equally, bored L'Oreal staff, wondering whether they can really get away with claiming that Cream X not only defies age-wrinkling but increases your brain power and makes you irresistible to the opposite sex, can look out the window and find inspiration in the poster. The message is clear: if in doubt, patent it.

But let's not be too glib here, because there's something interesting going on in this poster. On the face of it, making such a bald claim about patents seems absurd. Why would anyone in the target market for L'Oreal products care about that? And who cares whether it has 440 or 44 patents?

It also flies in the face of current advertising wisdom, which has ...