The Vaginal Dialogues (15 July, 2014)

Language is a funny thing. But less so when we use it to shame women.

Driving home from a funeral last week I noticed a HEMA billboard for bras. In Dutch they're called behas and for some reason it suddenly struck me: Bee-Hah is simply the Dutch phonetic spelling of an abbreviation: BH. So what do the initials stand for? Luckily a friend traveling with us was old (and wise) enough to supply the answer: bustehouder (literally bosom holder).

It's the thing I most enjoy about learning to spreek in het Nederlands; the pleasant surprise when you learn how many things simply are what they are called.

Frogs are known by the action their legs make in water (kikkers), spiders are known for the webs they make (spins) and women's undergarments do what they say on the tin (so to speak). Dutch is a language ideally suited for advertising as the unique selling point (USP) is in the word itself.

And way before we advertisers invented shaming women to make them buy stuff (breath too smelly? thighs too fat? hair too limp?) the Dutch language was happy to refer to a woman's genitalia (more specifically her labia) as schaamlippen. Now the lippen part is easy to decipher (read my lippen) but what's always intrigued me is that schaam means shame in Dutch. Yes ladies, the Lips of Shame (and no, it's not a pornographic Indiana Jones sequel).

And it doesn't stop there: pubic hair is schaamhaar and naturally pubic lice are schaamluis. Now I can understand being ashamed of getting crabs but keeping the label stuck firmly on your pink bits doesn't sound much like the planet's most permissive people we all think the Dutch to be. And it isn't. Just because the word hasn't changed in centuries doesn't mean the people using it haven't.

But has advertising caught up? It seems when speaking directly to women we can simply call something that holds their breasts a breast holder but the closer we venture toward their nether-regions the more vague our language (and the more dire the copywriting) becomes.

On Dutch TV we have ads for a mysterious women's product called Lactacyd that talks about "protecting your intimacy". No, it's not a lock on your bedroom door but a "daily feminine wash" that seems to be designed specifically to make women feel anxious about using old-fashioned water to wash their vaginas. While Evian has for decades sold its bottled water off the promise of perpetual youthfulness, apparently if you wash your schaamlippen with it they'll shrivel up and fall off.

In a bold attempt to counter this squeamishness, one brave local agency decided to look hip and modern by filming their Lactacyd TV spot entirely from the vagina's perspective (I kid you not).

Now perhaps you're thinking the only c*#ts involved in this concept were the two agency dicks who thought it up - but ironically, it was two female creatives who had the balls to take a different perspective in the category (but not surprisingly, it was pulled shortly after airing and schaam is probably what the former brand manager of Lactacyd who approved it is still feeling).

But not all 'intimate products' aimed at women carry such shame and squeamishness. And in fact, two men are responsible for finding a unique way to talk to women (and their daughters) about the monthly crimson tide coursing between their legs without having to resort to ridiculous euphemisms like …er, crimson tide.

Their brilliant ad for Hello Flo is to promote a (wait for it) "tampon subscription service" that talks to women in plain language using a technique virtually unheard of in the category: humour.

Sometimes the best communication is like the Dutch language itself. Keep it simple. Period.

Thank You For The Nudists (1 July, 2014)

ABBA, nudists and shameless self-promotion

As a boy my very first love was ABBA; or more specifically, the blonde one Agnetha Faltskog. I used to stare longingly at the slight gap in her front teeth and imagine kissing her, marrying her and moving to our private island in the Swedish archipelago. As it turned out I married a 2 metre blonde Dutchman and moved to Amsterdam instead (close, but no cigar, as Bill Clinton might say). At the height of ABBA's fame in Australia one lasting image was burned into my adolescent brain: a story ran about how the four of them used to relax after a hectic tour schedule by that classic Swedish past-time of hitting the sauna and then 'swimming' naked in the refreshing snow outside.

And so I've always believed that of all the liberal Europeans I heard about growing up in the cultural backwater of conservative country Australia that the Swedes were the most liberal of them all - going about their daily business practically naked ALL THE TIME.

So I was greatly taken aback when we were planning our latest PR stunt for the Swedish launch of Daylong's sunscreen. Sweden has (remarkably for a country that spends half the year in darkness) one of the highest incidences of skin cancer in the world. So we decided to tell them about this sobering fact by creating a 'Nude Clock' on Stockholm's chic Norrmalmstorg area last Saturday. The idea was to lay naked people on the square arranged like the elements of a digital clock and have them change position every minute, keeping time all day long (see what we did there?) and ultimately, drawing people's attention to why it’s important to protect their skin from untimely sun damage.

Yet, in pre-production, when we first started talking to a PR company in Stockholm, their very initial reaction to our concept made it crystal clear that Swedish nudity was an outdated cliche. In fact, they strongly recommended dropping the stunt altogether due to the potential backlash from politically powerful feminists fiercely debating the use of objectifying images of women in the media. Such is the situation that even Swedish men sitting with their legs too widely apart on public transport are (apparently) being criticised as being "overtly macho".

So we had to compromise and go with a near-naked stunt.

Even so, a few female dancers felt uncomfortable enough with the skimpy flesh-coloured body-suits we had for them, to choose instead, to wear a more modest neck to knee version. Fair enough. We didn't want anyone to feel unduly exposed - but then, I wondered which part of the NAKED CLOCK concept did they not understand when they agreed to take part?

But what had happened to my boyish dreams of gap-toothed blondes swimming naked through the Swedish snow drifts? Is nudity - like ABBA and my heterosexuality itself - merely a quaint memory of a bygone era?

Not for everyone it seems. Some time ago my husband & I were invited to celebrate our Dutch cousin's 25th wedding anniversary. As it turns out, some friends that they had made while camping in Sweden were also celebrating their 25th in the same year. So a joint party was created for both couples, to be held at a 'health centre' outside the swinging town of Almere. And after 9pm it was "clothing optional" in honour of the nudist camp where they met. Er...clothing optional...WTF???!!!

"What could be more fun than relaxing with family and friends while naked" said the invite we received.
We could think of many, many things preferable to spending time naked with my in-laws and their teenage daughters so we graciously declined, saying we had "nothing to wear".

I guess I'm not as liberal these days anymore either.

Love To Hate You Baby (7 Nov, 2016)

So, my last blog post was about love. What better way to follow it than list all the things I hate?
No wait, I don't have enough time to write all that down. How about just one piece I really love to hate? And best of all, it's one of the ad industry's most loved & awarded projects.

As a patron of the Rijksmuseum (the Dutch National Collection) I was invited a few months ago to a special polo match on Amsterdam's Museumplein; a wide stretch of lawn flanked by the cultural highlights of Holland's Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk Museum and the Concertgebouw. Covered with sand, surrounded by posh marquee tents and filled with people so powerfully posh they all looked like shabby-chic stable hands, we enjoyed canapes & cocktails while men on horses artfully bashed a ball about for a few chukkas.

All very pleasant really. Until we stumbled into a tent behind the goal posts where ING bank's 'The Next Rembrandt' was proudly on display.

Scoring two Grand Prix awards at this year's so-called Cannes Festival of Creativity this project has a LOT of fans.

I'm not one of them.

Of course, I can appreciate all the work that ad agency JWT Amsterdam (in co-operation with Microsoft, the Delft University of Technology, the Mauritshuis and the Rembrandt Museum) put in to crunching all the numbers needed to analyse 170,000 fragments of Rembrandt's works to make a rather good copy. But that's exactly my problem: it's a copy
A fake in fact.

Let's just put aside the fact that a major international bank has funded the creation of a FORGERY (and ALL that it says about the moral motivations of banks these days). Let's also put aside the fact that a Festival of CREATIVITY also awarded two of it's highest prizes to a COPY. Instead, let's focus on what this project IS. Nothing more than a souped-up parlour trick.

Basically, it's the Infinite Monkey Theorem: throw enough monkeys at enough typewriters and eventually they'll create the complete works of Shakespeare.

Except they won't. Replication is NOT creation. Data mining is different to mining for inspiration.

And the thing I hate the most: that those fuckers have the gall to call it 'The Next Rembrandt'. To claim this lifeless piece of shit that's got data geeks and art director's creaming themselves over is anything close to a REAL Rembrandt is a joke, a travesty, a fucking crime. It's like teaching a bear to ride a bike around a tawdry circus tent. It's demeaning to art lovers and debases us all.

What's next: teaching computers to mimic the avuncular tones of David Attenborough so we can hear him narrate nature docos long after he's become extinct himself? Computer generated Marylin Monroes selling everything from knickers to Snickers? Every time they throw poor old Norma Jean into another crass commercial people rightly erupt with outrage.

So why aren't people crying out against this imposter - trotted out like some pantomime horse at the Grand National?

What were esteemed institutions like the Rembrandt Museum & Mauritshuis thinking when they were asked to willfully abet a bank in making a fake? Because museums & art galleries are just as much in the strangle-hold of the banks as the rest of us. Bills to pay. Exhibitions to fund. I guess they're just as desperate to suck in support & sponsorship as much as art patrons can be sucked into watching pointless polo matches while sucking up Caipirinhas in under 10 seconds on a Sunday afternoon.

Money talks. And it talks shit. It says anything & everyone can be bought - at a price a lot less than what we'd care to admit.

And the thing that really got me, that made me lose my shit, raise my voice in the presence of minor members of the Royal house? After all the money the evil minds at ING threw at making this Frankenstein's monster they had the balls to stand not one but TWO security guards in front of this mockery to protect it. Protect a fake Rembrandt displayed on the lawn in front of the very museum that houses his De Nachtwacht. Mother fuckers. I was so outraged I would've thrown my mini-hamburger at them.

But it was just so damn delicious.

#Love's #Labour's #Refound (2 Nov, 2016)

I love my job. I really do.

For the two or three people who regularly read this blog it may not seem that way. But why else would you stay in an industry where the bullshit is piled so high it reaches your bottom lip and you have to keep your mouth shut for fear of letting it pour in, to get inside you, to become you, only to look around and see some ego-maniac client screaming through the cesspool on water-skis? But, in amongst all the fear & loathing, there IS much to love. So be warned: this post is more loved-up than two turtle doves on oxytoxin.

Recently, we at Kingsday were asked to revamp the 'Favourite Flower' campaign for Bloemenbureau Holland (the Flower Council of Holland). And while it wasn't my project, I was roped in to help write some of the 'Hashtag Stories' that the new campaign would creatively centre on.

A contemporary update of Hemingway's legendary 'Six Word Story', we wanted to tell a full story in just six (or less) hashtags.

(BTW: it's now generally believed that Hemingway didn't write the above story to win a bet that he could make people cry using just six words - but hey, behind every great story are always facts that say it didn't happen that way)

So I spent the greater part of a day trying to write love stories with just 6 hashtags. And it wasn't until the Art Director responsible asked if my husband & I were ok did I realise what I had done: every single hashtag story was more tragedy than love story. Like the hoax Hemingway, the promise of new love suffered cot death. The most uplifting I could muster was #FavouriteFlower #WeLived #Happily #EverAfter #Separately.

Luckily, the rest of the team were having slightly better days.

But it got me thinking: writing a good story is difficult enough, but creating a great love story is even more of a laborious task. Now try fitting it into the confined space of an advert.

So here's a selection of some of ad-land's love stories I've really loved seeing.

SiriusXM got some flak for grossing out sensitive souls with their 'We Love Comedy' ads but I reckon they demonstrated a true understanding of what makes good comedy with a truly arresting visual.

And Kobold's 'Love Sucks' ad- made by Saatchi & Saatchi Dusseldorf is one of the finest, sweetest ads I've seen in a long time.

Of course, it's helped enormously by the choice of the perfect Burt Bacharach song to tell you all you need to know.
(BTW: don't let your pet take a dump in front of one or you'll end up with poopocalypse)

Speaking of pets: if you thought it hard not to fall in love with a love-sick robot, wait until they start putting cute puppies into the story.

In fact, imparting believable emotional states into inanimate objects or animals seems to be a lot easier than using actual people (see virtually any Pixar film for proof) but the following ad for Scrabble did, I think, a robot typed jog...er, a pretty good job.

Again, a simple boy-meets-girl story is elevated by the clever use of anagrams throughout the onscreen titles to perfectly match plot with product. If you’re a lover of word-play you’ll love this ad..

But you'd have to really love the product if this beer campaign by Jung von Matt speaks to you.

You do have to admire Bergdorfer's bravery at showing the real result of loving their beer too much.
Still, if you've spent any time in Germany you soon understand bellies are more a badge of honour than shame. But I guess that’s what real love is all about. Loving someone despite their flaws, down-sides and making you fat.

But the following 'Love Has No Labels' campaign for The Ad Council of America shows that not only is true love blind, it also expertly shows we should all stop judging what we see on the surface.

Hiding people behind an X-ray screen is a brilliant move to prove a very salient point. But sometimes you don't even need people at all.
While it perhaps over-simplifies the usefulness of a Google search, it's a beautifully modern interpretation of Hemingway's six (search)word story.

And I DO really love my job. I must do because I keep telling myself that over and over...

Self(ie) Delusional (17 May, 2016)

You know it's been a frustrating day when the most satisfying thing you've done is undo the top button of your jeans when you arrive home (and no, I won't be posting any selfies of that anytime soon).

The frustrating thing about working in advertising is that for many, many months you're busily spinning on the Merry-Go-Round of Make-Believe: pitching creative idea after creative idea, massaging endless Powerpoint presentations, refining them, presenting them again to senior management, polishing them, presenting to upper management, starting all over again to reflect new and often contradictory feedback, or, just because someone's new & wants to throw their weight around, they are all killed. All the once-loved ideas. A genocide of genius ideas, horribly and cruelly put to death after months of nurturing.

Young ad creatives bounce back from this kind of thing because of the so-called 'fire in their bellies'. We older types name it for what it really is: indigestion. The kind of heartburn you get from constantly swallowing the words "Fuck you" instead of blurting them at your captors...er, clients.

Some days it's hard to look yourself in the eyes. What have I done today/week/year except update yet another fucking Powerpoint deck? Powerpoint: so named for the very element that's pointedly robbed from your self-esteem every time it's opened.
But then (largely because the final of the UEFA Champions League is only a matter of weeks away) we're again rushing around shaping a campaign that should take months of preparation in a matter of mere days.

And, in the end, something has come out of it. And, most surprisingly, it doesn't make me cringe with self despair.

Last week we launched the first film of Nissan's Take Me To Milan campaign. Everybody (ok, those that do give a damn about European football) wants to be at the UEFA Champions League final in Milan. So we thought we'd offer people the chance of not only going to the big game, but to actually play a part IN it.

And all you have to do to enter is post a selfie.

Now I know what the world doesn't need right now is another fucking selfie. But hey, if there's an overly used meme or trend out there it's bound to pop up in an ad somewhere.

In fact, marketeers are way ahead of the game: now your selfie can pop up freshly branded on toast every morning, in the hope that those vain enough to actually buy one will choke on their bacon & egos.

But I digress. Our idea was to turn football fan's behaviours on their head.

So we asked FC Barcelona superstar Andres Iniesta to roam the streets of Barcelona asking ordinary folk for a selfie. Everywhere he went he was soon surrounded like a french fry at a non-catered seagull convention.

We'd have just enough time to film people's stunned reactions before the crush of the crowd would force us to put him back into the van & drive to another location, leaving women & small children weeping (I kid you not) for their missed opportunity to validate their impoverished existence by posting a pic with a man who kicks balls for a living.

Then two weeks later we launched the follow up film: this one featuring Paris Saint Germain's star defender Thiago Silva.

He wants your name on the flag waved at the Champions League final in Milan.

But the funny thing is Paris is so not Barcelona. We were faced with cold, grey & miserable conditions. And that was just the attitude of the Parisians.

Parisians are sooooooo fucking cool & arrogant...er, self assured no mere football legend is going to get their attention. At the first three locations where we filmed, poor Silva went either unrecognised, ignored or (worst of all) left facing classic Gallic indifference.

One construction worker (who clearly knew who Thiago Silva was when he approached asking for an autograph) disdainfully looked him up & down and then spat out "Porquoi?"

Apparently Egalite (if not Fraternite) is alive & kicking in Paris.

But, once we found a school yard full of teenagers their excited screams soon put the movie-star smile back on Thiago's face.

A smile that he wore for the rest of the day - even when confronted with some old, clearly self-delusional ad guy asking him for yet another fucking selfie.

Six-Pack Sexism (12 Aug, 2015)

As a way of illustrating how much advertising standards have improved since the 80s, last week's blog Beer Goggles featured a particularly sexist ad showing a woman being used as a cross between a beer coaster and a spit roast.

And it got me thinking: have we really moved on, or have we just grown so accustomed to sexism that it's only the most egregious cases that now get noticed? Or have we just replaced the tawdry tittilation of women's breasts with the equally tawdry man boobs, six-packs and whatever that part of the male body* is that points like a fleshy Vegas sign to his groin?

Recently, a Welsh bus company drove straight into a shit storm of their own making they could've avoided if only someone had spent just a fraction of the time it takes to wait for a bus to actually think about it.
Sure, Ride Me All Day is a great message, but using a naked woman holding a card like she's a homeless nympho just waiting for you to slip her your oyster card? Seriously?

What's truly surprising is that it got approved: not just by the clueless client New Adventure Travel Group, but every internal review process by their (I'm assuming former) agency. All involved need to be forced to ride a bus for a month wearing nothing but a Ride Me All Day sign.

Again, in the UK, another recent campaign should've known better. And, I suspect they actually did.

The expected media shit storm around shaming women who weren't "Beach Ready' launched Protein World - a brand no-one had heard of before - onto a national stage. It certainly created haters, but it certainly got them noticed. So much so they responded on twitter boasting that their sales have tripled, their PR team received a bonus and that they weren't "sympathisers for fatties".

But here's the thing: the poor Welsh bastard who came up with the Ride Me Bus ad thought he'd covered his arse by also including a male version. Surely, if there's a naked man saying Ride Me it's not sexist is it? But it was the objectification of women that caused the backlash. And if the Beach Ready ad featured a ripped male model would anyone have cared?

Would it be any different than seeing David Beckham posing prostrate in his overly-padded briefs?
So just who is being discriminatory?

Take BETC London's ad for Coca Cola Light. Is their Sexy Gardener TVC any different to a bunch of building site chauvinists wolf-whistling at a bit of skirt walking by?

Reverse the gender roles here and we're right back to the so-called bad old days. But for some reason, objectifying man boobs is not only ok, it's somehow empowering women. Let's call it six-pack sexism.

Check out the Dolce & Gabbana ad below. Is it really any worse than the Coke ad?

Ok sure, it looks like an overly-art-directed gang-bang. But, is a shirtless Ken hovering over back-arching Barbie only sexist toward women? And, as we all know the only men who buy D&G are gay, she's obviously just training sissy boys in how to be a proper top. It was (rightfully) removed for it's "violent, degrading imagery' but strangely, the below ad for Kolotex's Voodoo hosiery wasn't.

And even though the Advertising Standards Bureau of Australia received complaints, they were dismissed by saying "it represented a satirical comment on a patriarchal world" and that it didn't contravene their codes. Sure, crawling naked on all fours while your arsehole winks up at a leopard-clad woman holding you on a tight leather leash is satire.

Meanwhile, local Dutch men's clothing brand Suit Supply have been making suits almost as traditional as their brand of sexism for years now, and, by doing it so blatantly, they've managed to avoid too much criticism.

Sure, it caused a few predictable (and obviously planned) ripples, but, like the female models depicted, Suit Supply was obviously wanting the ensuing attention so much most people choose to simply look the other way. Or maybe that's just the Dutch.

So is that where we've landed in 2015: Equal Opportunity Objectification?

As a confessed connoisseur of man candy I'm certainly not complaining. It's just that I find the deafening silence from feminists I know funny (and we all know what great senses of humour they all have).

And, in full disclosure, we at Kingsday aren't immune to Six-Pack Sexism either.

For a couple of years now we've used sweet & shirtless young men to attract women into buying more flowers from the Bloemenbureau Holland- and it works, just like pollen-hungry bees homing in on well, sexy stamen. And with good reason: studies show consumers are 4 times more likely to respond to online ads featuring men than women. So ladies, get ready to see more shirtless, hairless disco-tits in tampon and lingerie banner ads.

But is it masculinity that we in ad land are appropriating or is it a gay sensibility of masculinity that's crept into popular culture? Check out all the men on this page: do they look stereotypically straight or gay? Even the guy in the Suit Supply ad seems to be lifting up the woman’s skirt more to finger the fabulous fabric.

But even more than the deafening silence of the feminists is the total disregard from men themselves. Can the reason be that there's no outcry from men about their exploitation is that they don't actually see themselves being exploited?

A recent article in The Guardian claimed that the reason why some straight guys occasionally dabble in same-sex activity is that they are so confident in their straight, white, male privilege that they don't mind the rules (and themselves) bending over once in a while. Because, to be straight but to perform gay acts - while always remaining uninterested - is the height of white masculinity (I can just imagine lines of gay men outside sports bars asking straight patrons how "privileged' they're feeling tonight).

But, do straight men see just another "weaker sex" to be objectified, and commodified? And, are they becoming as over-exposed to gay imagery as they are to exploitation of women that it simply reinforces their indifference?

Remember back in the 80s when the world got all hot & flustered when an under-age Brooke Shields suggestively asked "want to know what comes between me and my Calvins"?

Well, Calvin Klein are now using equally pretty young men & women to flaunt their homo/bi/tri and sexuality in their latest Fall 2015 campaign and the world reacts with barely a whimper. Just as it should be. I'm pleased that we've come this far.

Yet part of me can't shake the feeling that we're simply replacing one form of objectification with another. Already boys are growing up with negative body issues that never existed 20 years ago. Worse, dance-floors the world over are already filled with overly-tanned chavs that look like condoms filled with walnuts, thinking it's only the time they put into the gym that makes them men.

Every time I see them out at clubs I can't help but think of my boyhood He-Man toy and I look to see the word PUSH tattooed onto the small of their backs to make them swivel at the waist.

But I digress...

Don't get me wrong: there's still WAY too much horribly demeaning stuff aimed at women. On a level so all-encompassing we barely register it. Like why is it only women who give a shit what's lurking under the rim of the toilet bowl?

But what IS really heart-warming is the relatively new trend in advertising that is finally changing the way we're representing women.
Ogilvy & Mather's Real Beauty campaign for Dove has been going on for a few years now and it's still the benchmark for presenting positive images in the beauty/fashion industry. Instead of stick-insect thin models all their ads now feature a variety of 'real' women with a variety of real body shapes. And that's great.

But look again at these real women. Sure, they're not super models but are they really real? As much as I admire (and envy) many of Dove's campaigns, when they show someone truly ugly or morbidly obese and then tell me about their inner beauty then I'll think they're being really brave. They've simply replaced one stereotype for another (somewhat) more accessible one. But make no mistake: the 'real women' Dove features are still as carefully cast and art-directed as any super-model.

But what I really admire is the true 'girl power' ads of late.

The above UN Women ad, created by Mermac Ogilvy in Dubai, is so simple and so powerful, and, because the above Google search requests are all real, sadly true of what many women struggle against in too many places worldwide (and not just Muslim countries).

But it's the #LikeAGirl ads for sanitary napkin Always that I think are truly wonderful. By taking such a negative phrase that we all use so much we've become blinded by the sheer scale of its inferred discrimination, Leo Burnett created an ad that really speaks about what real beauty today should be.

Yet, I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's speech about longing for a time when people are judged not by "the color of their skin, but by the contents of their character".

How long will we have to wait before men's attitudes coalesce into the sassy attitude of 70s feminists and demand a bit more R.E.S.P.E.C.T.?

I long for the day when a #LikeAMan campaign is made for boys that shows them it's not the contours of their abs, pecs and *inguinals that make them truly beautiful.

Good Storytelling: Sinking Like A Scrolling Stone (10 Sept, 2014)

There's been an awful lot written about the power of storytelling lately. Especially in advertising circles where wanky job titles have hit an all-time high with nonsense like Director of Storytelling and Chief Communicator now outranking the Gurus & Evangelists of previous years.

The good news is that with such titles it's now even easier to tell who the idiots are in the room. That'd be great wouldn't it? If you could walk into any given meeting and see people's real job titles: Chief Ass-licker, Senior Whiner, Director of Shit-Stirring or that ad world favourite: Mr I've Seen It All Before.

If Google Glass is ever to become adopted in my world I want it packaged with an app that actually overlays people's performances when I first meet them like booking.com ranks hotels. Give me a star rating and a few reviews before I start talking, just so I know if more than two syllable word groupings are going to go down well or not.

But getting back to Storytelling. Today's ad men & women will try to make you believe that they've recently invented it. Cannes last year was full of news about how Storytelling was back. And we've certainly seen a lot of ads of late with great emotional content. But is it true that we're experiencing more 'narratives' in digital advertising? Has storytelling really regained precedence over technology? Or is it just that HTML5 has meant that if you want to tell a decent story it's either an embedded video or it's one of those fucking scroll down narratives that have reduced serious storytelling to the level of a children's pop-up book?

Sometimes when I look at what passes as 'cutting edge' narratives these days I yearn for the sophistication of paleolithic cave paintings.

Car companies have been some of the worst offenders. Mercedes Benz's recent "interactive website" (as opposed to what, a non-interactive one?) created by Jung von Matt called The Forgotten Roadtrip invites you to "help Ryan recover his lost memory and be part of a journey you'll never forget". While very slickly put together, this parallax scrolling site is about as interesting as watching Christopher Nolan's Memento backwards. You know exactly what is going to happen WAY before your finger scrolls down to reveal the ending (Surprise! He beats the bad guy! He gets the girl!). Is pulling on a tab to find out "what's in Ryan's pocket" really the best money can buy in 2014? I was hoping it was a gun, so I could blow Ryan's stupid fucking head off and put him (and me) out of our misery.

A considerably better version is a French lifejacket campaign Sortie en Mer that valiantly tries to replicate a sense of drowning while on a trip out to sea. It might sound daft but getting you to constantly scroll to keep your point-of-view head above water does make you realise how tired you'd soon get treading water in such conditions. Here the technology does work for the narrative, rather than against it and the immersion (sorry, couldn't resist) does feel quite realistic.

But I still have to ask: are these sorts of sites engaging our minds or just exercising our pointer finger? While I do love having to do something physical while stuff happens on screen (and no, I'm not just talking about porn sites) it's the stuff on screen that (mostly) disappoints me. I want my heart to move & my brain to jump, not just my finger spinning a wheel like some sad little hamster.

At Boondoggle we've been asked to create 6 interlocking stories using Oculus Rift so that Asian shoppers can experience the wonders of a virtual Dutch farm in 360 degrees (Green Grass! Fat Cows! Unbelievably Tall Blonde People!). And it's got me thinking about the possibilities of narrative structure within virtual environments. If you turn your head to look behind/above/around you when Farmer Job is explaining crop rotation to you should he stop mid-sentence, thinking you're being rude, or simply aren't interested? And is there a place for first-person fisting of a cow in the storyline?

I'm looking forward to the challenge of creating a world and relating a story where the viewer gets to move wherever they like. And the real trick (I suspect) will be balancing the desire to explore your own pathways with the desire to be led by a good storyteller.

Yet there's little out there that beats the more traditional ways of telling a story. Sadly, all the following examples are from quite a few years ago.

On paper BBH London's script for The Man Who Walked Around The World for Johnnie Walker probably reads as deadly dull: a series of historical facts linked together that trace the "humble beginnings" to the modern destroyer of livers the world over. But it's the simplicity that is so beguiling about the production. A single shot monologue by actor Robert Carlyle walking through the scenic Scottish Highlands with a few props (literally) thrown in. And believe me, you'll watch it for all of its 6 minutes, 31 seconds (well, those of you above the age of a Gen Y may).

Or watch Creative Artists Agency beautifully crafted animated film for Chipotle's 'Back To The Start' campaign. The combination of wonderfully simple farmyard characters and a great story arc from paradise to hell and back tells of the perils of big farming in a story with real emotional weight - helped in no small part by Willy Nelson's creaking version of Coldplay's The Scientist.

Or, for a masterclass in how to craft a striking character to really sell your brand's message, with a metaphor that's so wonderfully surprising you'll want to watch the ad over again, you can't go past Mr W by Nordpol+Hamburg.

I can imagine an Oculus Rift version of the Johnnie Walker film and a parallax scrolling version of Chipotle's story, but would it improve the story or just add a gimmick? I'm all for technology adding another layer of engagement, but never let it get in the way of a good story. After all, good digital storytelling requires much more than only engaging our scrolling digit.

Finally, here’s my favourite ad that amply demonstrates how a story with a great heart can even sell technology that really sucks.

No Country For Real Men (11 Aug, 2014)

Men, masculinity in lad-vertising and why a beard is sometimes just a beard.

Once upon a time in advertising land, men were Men. With a capital M (and not in a choreographed Village People kinda way). They were manly men who did manly things in manly settings.

I grew up in Australia with the Solo Man. From the 1970s to the early 90s he kayaked, climbed mountains and did many manly things while drinking that most masculine of drinks: lemon soda. And he did so in such a manly way he'd spill most of it from his manly mouth over his manly moustache and down his manly, matted chest hair. And when finished, just to prove how manly our manly Solo man was, he'd crush the can in a manly manner.

Now, the manly man is back. Or, at least, his facial hair is. 2014 will be remembered for one thing: the world domination and (hopefully) rapid fall of the Hipster. Men covered in hair. Beards, quiffs, moustaches, chest hair and that cheeky peek-a-boo of leg hair between the artfully rolled trouser cuff and sockless shoe.

In Stephanie Weaver's fantastic blog she rightly laments today's beards as being "the push-up bra of masculinity". Like the woman friend a closeted gay man takes on a date, are too many beards just beards: a cover for who you truly are? Now I'm sure there are many hirsute men out there who couldn't give two shits about what a blogger thinks about their beards. But those holding a single origin macchiato topped with just the right amount of home-made almond milk foam are right now risking certain death by composing a tersely worded Tweet while riding their fancy, fixed gear bikes.

And well they may complain. They've been copping quite the amount of flak lately. But I have two words to use in my defence of the decline of real masculinity: Butt Wipes. Advertising makes it's living by creating angst about issues that don't really exist to sell us products we don't really need. Traditionally, these have been aimed at women: Is the ebola virus lurking under the rim of my toilet seat? Does my vagina emanate the stench of black death? But we've exhausted almost all avenues. We ad men are so desperate for something new we've had to introduce REAL WOMEN into our ads ala theDove Real Beauty spots. Actual women. In an ad. Go figure.

But like sharks, we can smell the blood in the water, and now we've homing in on men flailing about, desperate for something to save their fragile egos. And what's the hot button issue we want them to be aware of? The appalling situation in Gaza? The economy? The environment? No, it's Dollar Shave Club's product One Wipe Charlies to make sure their arses are squeaky clean at all times.

And it doesn't stop there. Recently, while researching men's grooming trends for one of our clients, I came across (figuratively, not literally) scented men's underwear. Yes lads, if you'd like your boxers and briefs to smell more like musk & pears rather than the usual pissoire in a cheese shop you need to fork out some money for Le Slip Francais' unique crowdfunding project.

Or, if you've ever found yourself waiting for the bus or train thinking "If only my balls were dryer my life would be complete", then Balla Powder will ensure you'll never sweat the small stuff again. And if you use their Tingle variant you'll do so with a particularly queer smile on your face.

Masculinity has been under attack for decades now. Or at least the male equivalent. Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson are holding up their ends just fine. They're now more butch than any of us could ever hope to be. And what's more we men seem to like it that way.

Since the phenomenon of Old Spice's' Man Your Man Could Smell Like' campaign, today's depictions of masculinity have to be soaked in satire and the sweat of sagging, past-their-use-by-date action film stars. Parodies of masculinity such as Mr T, Arnie Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone are all now just hired guns for whatever wares brands want to peddle to our insecurity. Seriously, have we really reached such a low point that we have to be sold Remia BBQ sauce by being told that if you want to "act like a man, eat like a man" as in McCann Amsterdam's latest ball...er, sorry, blockbuster?

I suspect what men really want is more genuinely to be found in a new form of ladvertising: crowdsourced projects for products that haven't even been made yet. And what's on top of the Christmas 2014 wish list for every man? The coolest coolbox known to mankind.

But hold on a second: it comes with a built-in daiquiri maker. Doesn't that just scream butch to you?

But surely the sign that we're nearing The End of Days is the SexFit. Yes, the Rider's of the Apocalypse heralding the decline of real masculinity will all be wielding a Bluetooth-enabled cockring that turns your penis into a (sort of) pedometer. Now, manly men can not only share their jogging performances on Social Media with wearable tech like Nike's Fuel Band but their bedroom bravado performances as well.

Who knows, maybe before long those dicks on Twitter will soon be actual dicks bragging about reaching a new personal best? But if this gadget gets you hard, good luck keeping it that way when your date's rolling on the floor laughing at you.