I am not a negative person, but when a bunch of really annoying things happen, I sometimes have to use this as a therapeutic venting platform. So here it goes. 50 Shades of Grey Imagine the following. You pay £15 to sit closely next to a middle aged couple who are holding hands, whilst you all awkwardly watch a film that very much resembles the painful, dragging feeling of waiting ages for a porn video to buffer, only to learn that when it finally plays, it's a shit porno. seconds before we're subjected to full bush 70's Fashion The early 2000's were very bad times for the world of fashion; footless tights, corset tops, satin halternecks, things with rhinestones, boho skirts, fur gillets and more. I remember back in 2003 when peasant tops were all the rage. Sorry Clare, banging bod but that top is horrendous For some really strange reason, these are back in fashion, and you can't move for seeing gypsy tops and flowery kaftans in every high ...

Another year, another half time performance, another winner, another bunch of British people staying up til 4am pretending to care about American Football. Gooooo Patriots! I'm here for one thing and one thing only - to tell you my Top 3 Superbowl 2015 ads (and one awful one). They've paid $4.5 million for the pleasure of 30 seconds airtime, so it's only fair I blog ya know. Ad that SUCKED So, there was a shit fast food one with Snoop Dogg, (I mean.. moneysupermarket, happy socks.... by God man, have some PRIDE.), then there was a depressing one from Nationwide Life Insurance about dead children, and there was one for some burger company with lots of hot naked women rolling around, but I will pick one I think was a genuine waste of air time. Geico is a car insurance company, so what better way to spend £4.5million than getting a decrepit Salt'N'Pepa to mime 'Push It' whilst people push things.   (click to watch ad) Like why...

Happy New Year! How are you getting on with your New Year's resolutions? Mine was to blog 3 times a month, but considering this is my first post of the year, I can safely say I'm not off to a great start. However, my other resolution was to 'shrug things off more' so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  I know someone who's trying to give up smoking in 2015 and it made me start thinking about UK cigarette advertising. How do cigarette companies advertise their product when they're not allowed to? What do the marketing teams do all day? Are there even marketing teams for the likes of Silk Cut and B&H? Advertising for cigarettes and tobacco was banned on TV in 1965, and then banned in print and billboards in 2003. bit weird After this, the best way to advertise the product and stimulate sales was to do it on the packets themselves... However, a law was passed in 2008 to add graphic imagery health warnings on the packets, covering 30% of the front and 40% of the ...

As 2014 comes to an end, I thought I'd write a post about some of the things I am proud of this year. Being British, if someone pays me a compliment or congratulates me, I awkwardly mutter thanks and sprint away from them, convinced that they are merely being kind out of pity. One of my (many) New Years Resolutions is to take a moment to soak in my achievements and celebrate them. So, before I decide to not write this (because I am cringing already), here we go.... Pimp My Summer Ball Earlier this year, Lucozade partnered with MTV so we could be more relevant to our target audience of 16-24 year olds. We created 'Pimp My Summer Ball', whereby selected Uni's could compete to get their summer ball pimped out by us. To vote, they just had to tweet #YESPimpMySummerBall plus their Uni name. This competition went above and beyond our expectations and KPI's. It organically trended not only in the UK, but globally within the first 24 hours We ended up with...

Here's a true story. Last week I read that a 14 year old boy had made £14,000 by selling crisps, snacks and energy drinks to fellow students at school. As part of his black market stock, he was also selling Lucozade, the brand that I work for. Obviously at this point the feelers were out. I heard murmurings in the office... ' should we do something ?', ' keep an eye on it '. don't hate tha player, hate the game Then as of yesterday this boy decides to sell a signed (by himself) bottle of Lucozade Energy on eBay. It's all over the news. Oh, and now the bidding has gone up to £2.5million. Suddenly, I'm having people come up to me left, right and centre. ' Are you jumping on this ?', 'So  what are you going to do on social ?', ' There's budget if we need to create a really cool response .' Me:  One of the main reasons we are not getting involved with this story is because we are a company that only markets ...

HALLOWEEN, aka the best time of the year, is right around the corner. I am squealing like a butchered pig at the thought of watching terrifying films, eating spider shaped sweets and carving spooktacular pumpkins - all whilst in fancy dress! Is there anything better? I think not. Me, my future hubby and the kids on Halloween I have a love of All Hallow's Eve and advertising, so you can imagine my excitement when brands start to incorporate the holiday into their marketing campaigns. Last year, Tide and Oreo both did these creative Vines which were fun 7 second videos recreating scenes from The Shining (click on the hyperlinks to view). This film seems to be the cult horror classic of choice, even this year with Ikea in Singapore. Take a look - I bloody love it I love how relevant the advert is, not only to Halloween, but that they've chosen a scene from a film that works so well in their own environment - The Shining really wouldn't have loo...