It's safe to say that there are many great charities in the world, pulling together for massive causes that could help millions of people. However it's just not possible to give money to them all, which is why charities have to go the extra mile with ads showing us the worst possible scenes; a beaten woman, a cat with no limbs or a child covered in flies. I think it is also safe to say that, as a viewer, we have become immune to these kinds of images. We all know what horror goes on in the world, but it's shown so regularly in the same ways that unfortunately it isn't as hard hitting any more. These ads rarely make us reach for the phone and act. A year or so ago I wrote a post about the first charity ad that had my full attention, NSPCC's - 'The Shit Kids Say' . Now I have been moved by Breast Cancer's Race for Life ad, 'Up Yours, Cancer'. Instead of the usual plee and sadness, it focuses on the strength of women and their fight for life. 

So Margaret Thatcher died and I never realised how strongly everyone felt about her. For the entirety of my life, no one I knew ever spoke of her. No one spoke of their hatred of her or their feelings about her impact on Britain. No one felt the need to bring up their seemingly extreme views on Thatcherism and 1980's politics. Yet, last week when Thatcher died, everyone suddenly exploded with opinion and became quite aggressive about it. I'm sure most of you have experienced some passionate updates in the past week, either for or against Maggie's death ('Ding Dong the witch is dead' springs to mind). I was seeing mainly pro-death ones; outbursts of joy, celebration, revelling in the death of an old woman who has been off the radar for 20 years. I didn't see even half as many raging statuses about Mick Phillpot, who recently got life for murdering six of his children. I was shocked to say the least, reading angry and hateful posts mainly from people who were

Four days ago, YouTube saw the release of PSY's new single, 'Gentlemen'.  Much like 'Gangnam Style', it has a simple beat, a simple computerised tune, and lyrics that no one understands. I watched this for the first time and wasn't very impressed, yet found myself clicking the replay..?! What do you think? You kind of want to listen to it again right? It's like you have been hypnotised by the repetitive electronic beat. Like you want to mumble more of the verse just to get to the four words of chorus you actually know. Like you wanna swing your ponytail and casually thrust your hips to the beat like a gentleman. 'Gangnam Style' was the first video on YouTube to reach a billion views and, with 'Gentlemen' reaching 122,175,143 views after a mere four days, I have no doubt that it is well on it's way to beating that record. But why? Why is it that the songwriters who sit for days, weeks, years, creating harmonies and melodies

Whenever I see a good or bad ad, I immediately put it into my iPhone notes so I remember to write a blog post about it. Unfortuntely there are times I forget and the moment passes - doesn't make me look very ad savvy writing about something that was aired 6 months ago! However, an ad that I loved and forgot to write about was last month's Oxo's Magic Cube. Well, better late than never! Oxo stock cube ads are something I think of as being really British. The cubes themself have been around since the mid 19th Century, and the ads have always stuck in my head. I'm sure you all recognise this one: Maybe it's the family banter around the table, maybe it's the nostalgia of being a kid, or maybe it's the  memory of the smell of mum's roast filling the house - whatever it is, Oxo ads will stay with  me  forever. But as you can see, I speak about Oxo being a part of my past, not the present, and I'd guess I'm not the only person who sees the Oxo

Thanks to my dad and sister being hardcore Chelsea fans, I was introduced to a football advert which I doubt I would have come across on my own. (As you read on, please excuse my ignorance about football!) Each year the Premiership teams have their kit redesigned and these new kits are advertised to the public at the end of each season (May). However, the ads for the new kits are always a mysterious and blurry teaser; a partial revealing that gets footie fans already reaching for their wallets. I'm going to talk about Chelsea's in particular, not just because I have to support them (or I will be disowned), but also because it's actually a great ad! The Adidas ad shows Juan Mata, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and club captain John Terry all being drenched in thick blue paint that is seeping from lockers, creeping across the floor, and exploding in their faces. The whole process is beautiful to watch, as the paint movement in slow motion looks brilliant. The players loo

A couple of weeks ago I entered a competition for free participation into The Climb . The Climb is a competition in itself, with the task being to solve a creative brief with your team whilst racing to the top of Mt. Snowdon, then pitching your idea when you get to the top. The competition I entered, for free participation and a bottle of Jaeger and Patron, was to come up with a quick ad for The Climb. This was my entry: Pretty simple and basic, but hey I won. I'm not sure if there were many entries at all.. but who cares. I won. So The Climb takes place on Saturday 20th April and I hope I can go (money/fellow team members/travel permitting), because I think it would be a great experience. If anyone is interested in joining my team of... me.... then give me a shout at lcrippscreative@gmail.com or @lauracripps on Twitter, and I'll try and get a good team together before I commit to anything.  NB: The Climb has now been moved to June 1st. So if anyone is up

I played the classic 'If you had 3 foods to take to a desert island...' game a few months ago and my friends were appalled when I revealed mine; ciabatta, steak and popcorn. I often have to defend my choices in life, but with popcorn I don't think I should have to. Pop, (my upbeat nickname for it), is a food that I will never get sick of, a food that I could easily eat endlessly forever and never be full. So imagine my joy and surprise when I heard of ' Pop ', a new shop in Notting Hill that sells many different weird and wonderful Heston-style flavours of popcorn. At last, the mothership. I imagined this place to be like the Willy Wonka's Factory of pop with a river of corn, pop flowers, pop lightbulbs, pop volcano eruptions where people have to dive and catch pop with their mouths. I visited yesterday and I was trembling with excitement. Is my phone charged to take photos? Will there be queues? How expensive will this place be? Well I ended up walking into a

It's time I talk about an ad that has been bothering me for a while now - The EE ads with Kevin Bacon from Saatchi&Saatchi. I'm sure you have all seen them; where he plays 6 Degrees of Separation of Kevin Bacon but with British familiars such as TV shows and slang. When I saw the first one where he babbled on about how he was connected to 'Ken Barlow' and 'The Rovers', it slightly annoyed me because there is no way that Kevin Bacon knew what those things were. I decided to break my silence and make it blog post-worthy when I saw the 'Spray Tan' ad: Firstly, he is not even playing the game right. How does 'Tango' lead to 'Amy Childs'? There are no proper connections between any of the subjects he brings up, they seem vague and weak. EE are trying to show that they are connected across the globe - a concept that is well portrayed in the advert and understood by the audience. However, I feel because the British are proud and pr