Who let the cat in? A blinder of a strap line from Wolverhampton City Council celebrating investment from Jaguar Land Rover.

In the competitive advertising and marketing world you really need a splash to catch the eye. Most ads just pass over you.

The private sector has the finance and time to buy in the consultancy necessary.

Councils tend to have a back seat when it comes to the creation of interesting copy for marketing their activities. Not so here.

Came across a startling item in the street today which caught the eye. An in-house creation from Wolverhampton City Council, celebrating the investment of Jaguar Land Rover in its new engine plant on the M54.

This is a city looking for all the good news it can get and the council have come up with a blinder here. "Who let the cat in?" is simple, succinct and savvy.

What makes it good? The initial question-answer device followed by the allusion to the Mafia offer for starters. Company logo and the courage not to use all of the space add a further dynamic.

Finally, the bracketing of the whole ad with the puzzle-solution rhetorical device highlighted in yellow is simplicity itself. This is an ad which really works and someone should be putting it up for an award.

Guest blog: Adman and Eve.

They say prostitution is the oldest profession. They, as usual, are dead wrong.

It’s the second oldest.

Let’s go back to the very beginning, to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. His task was a tricky one: to persuade an unconvinced consumer to try a product they had good reason to avoid. His job was to sell the apple; to make it seem so appealing, so tantalising, that Eve would risk a fall from grace for a quick nibble.

But succeed he did and advertising was born.

I pause here, partly for effect, and partly to decide where I’m going with this. As an advertising copywriter by trade, I bump into many people I could place into one of two categories: first, those who believe advertising is the work of the devil, responsible for many of the evils of the world and made by manipulative morons. Second, those who have seen the TV series “Mad Men” and are disappointed I’m not taller and more charismatic.

Both groups are somewhat deluded.

It’s not that the industry is particularly altruistic – it isn’t. It’s simply an industry that reflects society’s wider needs. Here are a few things to consider:

• Despite claims to the contrary, you can’t make people buy something they don’t want; you can make people buy more of something or maybe switch to a competing product, but that’s about it. What about children? Well, what about them - yes, they are particularly vulnerable to suggestion, but there’s a time-tested safeguard against this – it’s called parenting.

• Yes, many “bad” things have been advertised (like cigarettes). But so have many “good” things (like charities and public awareness campaigns).

• Without advertising it would be tough to make informed consumer choices because you wouldn’t know what was available (catalogues can be useful huh?). Also, you would end up buying local products rather than the best products. Why? Because potentially better products from farther afield would have no opportunity to generate awareness in your local market.

• Without advertising revenue, many enjoyable and useful things wouldn’t exist – lots of TV and radio stations, as well as free websites like Facebook, Google and Twitter to name just a few – and all the jobs that go along with them.

What am I getting at? I suppose I'm saying our oldest profession isn't all bad. So, maybe next time you hear someone ranting about advertising, you might spare a few moments to argue the toss.

We’re not the devils people think we are.

(This is a guest blog written by Phil from http://www.pifflepaffle.blogspot.com/)

Should councils be encouraging us to take our eye off the road?

Should councils be encouraging us to take our eye of the road? I ask the question as it becomes obvious that we now have a troubling addition to our street furniture. I refer to the commercial adverts which now festoon many of our roundabouts. And usually those in the centre of town where traffic flows are at their greatest.

The roundabout has now been sponsored by such and such company. Placards are posted at regular intervals around the circuit. Of course a logo and suitable strapline add to our delights. “ Glasses from 20/20 vision to help your driving” would suit.

Roundabouts were invented to smooth traffic flow, but with increasing traffic densities they have achieved the reverse. They acquired an extra helper - traffic lights. These junctions are places with the potential for real grief. Indeed a location where the heartbeat may rise and wits have to be honed.

This is a place for due care and attention. There are enough traffic signs to absorb as you negotiate white tramlines disappearing under your bonnet.

So how come our councils have been able to square the circle over road safety and the need to nudge motorists into behaving properly? Well they haven’t and it is lolly that tops the list. Sponsoring a roundabout brings in the coins and helps subsidise the traffic department’s budgets. In an age of contingency, risk aversion and health and safety, it is amazing that this advertising genre has even been contemplated.

We can ask what other locations can be found for our cash-strapped councils? Will our public toilets, public seating and litter bins be finding sponsors next? More importantly, who might the sponsors be? Whoever they are, the exercise won't be compromising our safety.

Dickensian advertising techniques for 21st century business and politics.

Is it time for some retro-advertising techniques for the business and political worlds?

You don’t get more 21st century than a Wolves-Aston Villa match. What is surprising, is seeing the style of one of the techniques used to advertise the event. In the last century and before, it was common place to see pedestrians walking the street and carrying display boards hung from the shoulders – a type of A board. They either advertised consumables or noted that the end of the world was nigh. So it was a surprise today, to see somebody doing the same and inviting one to buy tickets for the said match. Time, date, price and vendor details were read easily. You felt you were in a time warp and it certainly caught the attention. But this was not a one off.

A month before, I had seen something similar at various road junctions around the city. This time it was an entrepreneur and franchisee-holder advertising his fast food wares – a spoiling action to counter the opening of a competitor nearby. The imaginative spoiler employed forty students over the weekend. Recruited from a local college and paid above the minimum wage, the students worked in shifts at road junctions to convey the messages on their boards.

So what? Well, it was low key, simple, cheap – almost intermediate technology and in the slow-moving traffic flow, the message was put over effectively. It stood out from the usual marketing and advertising techniques with which we are bombarded. We have our trade fair vertical banners today, but somehow we don’t do just justice to the investment placed in their design and manufacture. Political hoardings are being ridiculed by subversive graffiti copywriters, whilst the rotating electronic devices lack a certain presence. Perhaps a revisit to Dickensian media might be worth a try. It really would be localism and if business is giving it a try why not politics?