Here’s £100M worth of Damn Good Advice on advertising Brexit Boris

The Boris announcement of £100M for an advertising campaign for Brexit struck a chord as I was rereading United States of Advertising guru George Lois’ memoir Damn Good Advice.

Lois famous for the passion of Muhammed Ali cover for Esquire magazine of The Louisville Lip struck by arrows in St Sebastian style for being martyred over refusing the Vietnam draft.

Lois, one of my advertising gurus along with Osborn (Alex not George), and even stuffy old David Ogilvy, and Drayton Bird DM guru.

I was pondering though the Lois 20 Times Square property branding (a number 20, a multiplication sign and a square - and a healthy dose of creative genius) for an article on the NYC Hudson Yards.

But the potential waste of £100M of tax funds on a Brexit propaganda campaign shovelled into less than 3 months before the Halloween exit of 31st October stuck out.

I would point out I’ve worked on various ad campaigns for Labour and LibDems, and Public Health and NHS too, but the vast majority of my advertising works for consumer goods whether tourism or planes, trains and automobiles along with washing powder and food.

The stuff of life.

And gaining every creative and effectiveness award in the world, from UK to USA and Europe (Asia soon) along the way, even the UK’s largest ad agency at one point although, as with many ad agency conglomerates, that was largely financial engineering rather than creativity.

So here’s £100M worth of free advice Boris.

Don’t. Do. It.

I’ll send an invoice for £33M per word in the post – the full stops are free.

Why not to do it?

Well, in all sincerity, who isn’t aware of Brexit in UK if not the whole world? New Foreign Minister Dominic Raab hardly needs to detail the topic to EU or world leaders as he start at the ASEAN-EU meet in Bangkok. And it’s worth a refreshing pause to see that Australia, Canada and USA and Eire and EU amongst the first to wish him well.

Although warm words apply no Kerrygold butter to Brexit parsnips.

And with 100% awareness you don’t need to spend £100M for 3 months worth of advertising.

And to persuade or reassure Remainers and Brexiteers? Again you don’t need advertising to do that in 8 weeks or so (American Princess Meghan’s September Vogue cover is already out to rival American Princess Soma – better hurry up Boris with those copy deadlines if you are going to do it).

Even if it would work.

Or the media owners didn’t stick up their prices, and the public, over such a bloated Autumn windfall that the PM has now alerted them to. Heinz baked beans might 57 varieties of reasons to be miffed at media space being held back or over-priced too.

By Xmas a failed Brexit may not amount to a hill of beans, but those unsold tins of beans and soups and ravioli, surely will, especially after stockpiling already.

Sure, some of the larger agencies would take the money and run ads day and night on television and online. And press ads and supplements along with posters on every billboard from Downing St to Acacia Avenue.

And it would hardly persuade one person one way or another.

At worst it would seem to be propaganda. At best it could help the advertising budget of the excellent Remain newspaper The New European – why no Eurostar ads or British Airways or AirFrance or Hilton hotels? Remoaners not likely to travel to Europe?

And it would be utter waste: most UK ad budgets under £10M for a whole year. Kellogg’s cornflakes for example spending $750BN globally on advertising. Presumably a sensible portion of that on in-box bioplastic toys (Disney or DC or both? that Carrie wouldn’t need to pick out of the Plastic Patch oceans.

£100M of a Boris Brexit would become heavy duty wallpaper covering UK eyeballs, and failing to make the case as to why such a short-sighted is clearly needed. Or not.

£100M could even fund a decent-sized Tom Cruise movie (in a Bozza wig?) – a Cruise Control Brexit rather than crash and burn? Sir Thomas of Mapother IV might do the acting gig for a gong and support for UK-USA media.

But such funding could even, with a General Election looming, be seen as yet another violation of UK’s increasingly tarnished election rules, and a bridge too far to USA money politics.

With 3 Prime Ministers in favour of Remain but floundering around like stranded kippers to pretend they want Leave beyond a few votes, throwing money at the problem won’t solve it. And certainly not with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and Trade Minister (cheese and pork exports Ms T?) with the G7 UK and world airwaves at their command.

And couldn’t £100M (or £90M: if you really, really, really think a Brexit campaign would be useful, just waste £10M) be better spent on say nurses and teachers – even a Teacher or Nurse Day as a UK bank holiday a la Thailand societal reforms– recruitment.

Sending the MOD/RN Prime Minister branded jacket off to a charity shop (to sit unsold next to the Hague baseball cap?) and begin nuclear disarmament talks. £30BN or so saved on rusty and warehoused nukes and subs might even fund a worthwhile Brexit ad campaign.

And what would that Brexit campaign cover? A picture of Boris’ face with a Macca-style thumbs up, and Brexit is Great slogan underneath his tousled haired fizzog, day after day for months and months on every television and website and newspaper front page?

Millions of Brits registering to vote (16 and upwards, no Battlebus or Russian or Yankee jiggerypokery please, although how would we know?) on www.borissaysbrexitisgreat.com or #bozzabrexit?

Perhaps not. And perhaps the charlatans of Cambridge Analytica have proved Govey right in his fear of some experts and election shenanigans as bad as the Battlebus fraud here in Kent and eslewhere.

Buy a Kindle for all 11M UK schoolkids – with a Brexit screensaver or, shades of 1984, Vote Big Brother Boris if you must – and review literacy standards of 8 years old at age 16 as somehow acceptable in First World Britain.

Unless slipping down the G7 league table to G25 or so now (those decades of Big Tobacco and HFSS Foods and Cancers and Social Care failures are already starting to bite into UK mortality and productivity aren’t they?), and tumbling further in a post-Brexit UK of Honda closures, Vauxhall Ellesmere Port closures, East Kent 007 Aston Martin cutbacks, EU Medicines Agency closed, 40% on UK lamb exports and 10% on cars is WTO viable.

Even here in Meiji Kent, just a stone’s throw from Calais and EU markets and tourism, and with Farage and UKIP demolished, the Japanese must be laughing up their kimono sleeves at Britain winning the war and Japanese mega-investment with Nissan Sunderland et al - but losing the peace and then losing the EU and largest and wealthiest trade bloc in history.

Perhaps those lamb export extra tariffs not so bad for Kentish lamb rather than trade with the Kiwi Killers of Infratil, or the monstrous stench of live sheep exports through Ramsgate port. And that port viable as a Discovery Park/Pfizer SEZ Freeport and Ostend ferry again as part of Seaside Sea Changes?

Certainly UK vaccines will need to be produced in bulk – shouldn’t that have been done strategically anyway rather than spaffing £100M up the wall on some frothy ads - or after heavy delays at Dover (£70M a day if closed) Port (UK and Eire's largest) work their way through the clogged arteries of the UK road system.

Even experts like Govey must see that his daily Brexit meetings are a fool’s errand and a waste of time – unless there’s free Jaffa Cakes and exceedingly good cakes.

Or, oy vey, perhaps Labour and Jezza C’s LatAm-lite revolution could win the general election, perhaps Govey’s fellow-Jock, Foxy has hidden a dram or three of his favourite breakfast whisky in the Cabinet filing cabinet to drown the win-or-lose sorrows of Brexit.

So here’s £100M of free advertising advice again, Boris:

Don’t do it.

To help, I won’t even charge for the full stops.

Time for Change
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