Leveson Inquiry and blogging.

The Leveson Inquiry has thrown up some interesting tit bits as celebrities, journalists and grieved parties come before it. A narrative of the state of our media for those with a genuine interest and an addition to the tapestry of day-time televison. The ultimate soap and an extra episode of “Have I got news…”

The blogosphere has received little coverage, at least until a day ago. Richard Wallace editor at the Daily Mirror came out with this gem when asked about bloggers. "The out and out cowboys – I don't see in the long term they can survive … people want information that is competent and true."

A confection of ideas to feed off here then. People want information that is competent and true but he seems to have side-stepped the irony that the whole point of Leveson is to question the mainstream journalists' application of this in the first place.

Blogs can be amateurish with poor prose, questionable logic and inaccuracies. The fact is that, collectively, they are the grain of sand in the oyster. The number of authors, readers and commentators is itself a set of checks and balances. Something the print media lost track of. The blogosphere has democratised the publication of facts, views and opinions when the mass media was doing the reverse.

Rick Perry's gaffe. We all do it so why was there no plan for when things went wrong?

Republican candidate Rick Perry’s recent lapse of memory in the US Republican Primary debate will join the annals of inept political communication. Endless replays of his gaffe will be played back to aspiring future politicians seeking to hone their own presentation skills. Something to go alongside Nixon and Kennedy or Quayle and Bentsen.

We should stand back a bit and be more measured.

53 seconds of embarrassment may have been the result of tiredness and nerves. Sometimes you just run out of track.

More likely, it is a mixture of over and under-preparation, under-preparation, in the sense of his reported avoidance of interview. He had insulated himself from media and voter scrutiny. Glad-handing and kissing babies are not enough. He had little practice in dealing with real-time questions and what can be thrown up. He delivered the same speech and a monologue at endless stage-managed conversations. He should not have been surprised when confronted with the tighter inquisition in the so-called “televised debates” which are nothing of the sort. Equally, If oratory and rhetoric have disappeared from Parliament in the UK, it is because of the demise of hustings.

Funnily enough, Perry might have come out well if he had adopted the debating strategy seen in the fictional debate in the last series of the West Wing. Candidates threw out the “guidelines” and emerged from behind their lecterns. A fiction but perhaps what the new politics ought to be about.

Perry was probably over-prepared. Candidates use their policy wonks to shape lines of argument and rebuttal. They rehearse detailed responses but the casualties are the sacrifice of spontaneity and character. In their preparations, Perry and his aids forgot to deal with normal human situations when stuff happens: like what to do when you fluff a line.

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.

The political election leaflet - time for a makeover.

There is a thud on the floor in the hall. The post has arrived. No it hasn’t, it’s an electoral leaflet from one of the main political parties. Normally, I treat these offerings like the latest pizza outlet blurb.

Just for once and because there is nothing else pressing, I give the offering a tighter look. Things are even worse than I thought. This is a literary genre in real need of a makeover.

So what’s gone wrong? Assume that the voter has a cynical and sceptical view of politics and that the time from posting to binning is seconds. What's in it for the reader?

First impressions count. A strong strapline, imaginative use of graphics, colour and layout are the basics. Beyond that a mass of text is a no no – peoples’ eyes just glaze over. Tight copy with short sentences and paragraphs are the order of the day, if only because the reader may have English as the second language. Contrived grainy photos which make the passport variant look good add to the picture.

Cost is a consideration but handing out A3-sized folded leaflets which look as they have just been duplicated on a standard photocopier, is cost-cutting at its worst. They compare badly against a smaller A5 creation on glossy and heavier paper. Cheap business cards set the tone for your company, so don’t be surprised if the same ethic transfers to politics.

Finally to content. Voters can see through the fatuous leaflets dressed up as “surveys”. Politicians should already have a handle on the issues in their areas. A survey is a bit late in the day. Equally, a photo of the candidate with a broom in the hand comes across as crass. How many residents do we see sweeping up public space?

We want tight rhetoric and choice of words. We want a strong image of the candidates and what they stand for. We want the personality of the candidate to hit us.

Critically, we need to know what makes the candidates different as we lend them our votes.

Politicians should avoid the passive tense - it can damage your health.

As the Liam Fox affair unravels there is at least one upside. It has highlighted the inadequacy of the passive tense. It is something we should all avoid. It does us no favours and makes us look shabby. Budding politicians should make sure it is not in their toolkits, when they are addressing media and voters or designing their leaflets.

“Mistakes were made…” and “….it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred.” were euphemisms and snowing at its worst. This passive language isolated the speaker from awkward and uncomfortable realities.

The speaker is detached from events. We all became outside observers of situations which seemed to evolve on autopilot. It is academic and sterile language.

The rest of us have to listen to this ducking and weaving. We feel angry that we are being spoken to in a manner beyond our normal conversation. Ordinary language is messy, erratic and personal. The passive: legalistic, objective and anodyne. It gives wiggle room and avoids responsibility for what is being said.

The debacle over military policy and funding in Iraq and Afghanistan lead to phrases such as “We are where we are…” and “It is time to move on.” They were attempts to avoid explaining difficult resourcing and strategy decisions. We felt annoyed that our timetables for making sense of things were being hi-jacked by others who wanted to avoid scrutiny.

The current explanations given to us are doing exactly the same. We want a new type of politics where, for better or worse, we converse actively, precisely and personally.

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/)