you might find this hard to believe, but i’m not a big fan of IBM. so it makes it hard to appreciate what great tv advertisements they, or should i say their ad firm, have come up with. i love them, particularly the early eBusiness examples:

its a sustained effort, thematically and artistically, they say “we’re IBM we’re big, clever and professional”. i love the black and white and the action- it takes place in a static frame without too much jazzy music or sound fuddling up the nice neat corners. here’s another example. there’s always a smidgin’ of blue in there too which is an instantly recognisable hook for ‘old blue’ – right up to last year’s Innovation Man they’re on the same warpath.

IBM, commendably, never talk down to their customers (mainly serious corporate types you’d imagine) even in their sillier efforts, i’m thinking of a series of ads in which poorly formulated ‘blue sky thinking’ techniques replace productivity ‘STOP TALKING – START DOING’ is the simple commanding tag line. See: ‘Ideating’

‘Googlisation’ (i.e. dull business + chill out room and a drinks cabinet = productivity) is something i’m very aware of, probably because after years of being a mac user (cool kid and all round awesome guy!) i logged into a Windows Vista PC last year- and it wanted to be my friend. Rounded corners, a feedback loop, staff bloggers, dropping the ‘e’ in a verb and calling it your logo, having quirky language in your marketing material… this doesn’t make for a creative or profitable company- and i’m looking at you Virgin Media on several counts.

If your big and your blue, make big blue adverts.