Much like the best writers (as a rule) read lots of books, the blogs I love are often written by people who like to read books*. I spend my time filling a little book with words I do not know. I may not remember them all but one marked result is the word ‘accoutrement‘ occasionally littering my sentences. But this is neither here nor there.

I get excited by words and MichaelJon is an ad planner who puts words in good orders. I suspect he reads books. It’s a good combination. He once gave me some marvelously written advice about ad planning, both helpful and a little joy to read (“I am flanked by planners who drink industrial sized vats of coffee, and I think people respect them more for it.  Like they need it to keep up with their own mind.“).

So when he talked about two Nike & Adidas efforts recently, it made me smile a lot:

“On recent travels around London I couldn’t help but notice a new advertising trend in angry illiterate exclamation by sports brands adidas and Nike. And at first i didn’t think much of it.  Just, you know, it’s that sort of slightly wack attempt at building a “community” by repeatedly hitting people over the head with a message utterly lacking in substance.  “WE ARE LONDON!” it screams, “ARE YOU?”.  Obviously it’s nonsensical, but it’s got slightly “edgy” youngsters staring straight at camera so you’re tempted to mutter, “yes, yes, ok, i’m London, ok, fine, just leave me alone, i don’t want any trouble”.  Then you think, oh, maybe they don’t want you to “be London”, so you whisper “no, obviously i’m not London, no way am i cool enough for that”, by now quite confused and scared, like Dustin Hoffman’s Babe in Marathon Man, repeatedly being asked “Is it safe??”.”

*A love of Paxman is also a common theme.