'By their fruit you will know them.'

Often I wonder what the point of advertising is.

The best answer I've been able to come up with is that it's an opportunity for commercial enterprises to show who they might have been if they weren't saddled with the tedious job of making products and could have instead followed their dream of devoting themselves to art - making pretty pictures, or amusing films for your entertainment.

Obviously the companies can't do this themselves, because they don't have the necessary skills to make anything apart from whatever it is they make - it's not their fault, it's an economic imperative. So they employ ad agencies, who employ artists and writers to make art for them.

However, since the company is just a collection of people employed using the money made selling the things they've been making there is no empirical difference between the employees of the ad agency and the employees of the company. The client, when he chooses his agency, and the account man when he manages his client manifest the corporate culture of the company they're working for. That culture might be attractive and permissive of innovation (like, say, Honda) or totally fascistic like, errmmmm, Microsoft.

The 'New Busy' campaign reeks of corporate misery. I quite liked the clouds execution above until I realised that the thing that the 'New Busy' notices in the clouds is a grinning cartoon mouse face. The sinister thing is that that is the only thing that you could possibly notice.

So the invitation to idly wile a way a couple of minutes gazing at a charming cloudscape is actually like someone grabbing the back of your head and hissing 'LOOK. AT. THE. MOUSE. FACE. FUCKER.'

They are the art equivalent of John Wayne Gacy.



See what I mean?