Get your branding off my gadget

I've just picked up a new phone and for the first time used a third party to buy it - Dial-a-phone instead of straight from Vodafone. You know what? I'm never going to get a phone straight from the operator again.



It's not that Dial-a-phone are brilliant, in fact they were a bit weird and insisted I 'prove' where I work to get the phone delivered to the office. What's that all about? After they rejected the first letter-headed word doc I emailed (not my idea - it's what they asked for) I seriously considered mailing over a photo of me standing in front of the office with the front desk security guard and the date visible on that morning's copy of The Times...

Anyway, what they did to get me on board for next time is give me a phone with no branding, no Vodafone Live! no red apostrophe backgrounds and no attempts to get me to buy Beyonce ringtones every time I start the web browser.

What a lovely surprise!

Sorry Vodafone, you're a utility company. You own mobile phone masts and let me make calls. I don't want Thames Water branding on every drinking glass in my house and I don't want your corporate identity staring at me every time I text somebody. So until mobile phone companies give up on being lifestyle brands, I'm buying an unadulterated factory fresh phone without any crap on it from now on.

Oh and the phone? An LG Viewty Smart. Lovely bit of kit - I'd highly recommend it.

Designing ads by committee

I saw the new Santander TV spot last night and to be frank, it's a bit of a mess. It's definitely got the scent of an advert that will spark a row in a few months when somebody asks what it was designed to achieve. Raise awareness? Of what - Abbey or Santander? Shift current accounts? For who - Abbey or Alliance and Leicester? If it's supposed to do all of that then it's going to have to work really hard in fifty seconds.



There are so many things going on, it's hard to know what you're being shown.

There's Lewis Hamilton. Never mind that he's just been hauled over the coals in F1 for trying to cheat, he's looking suave, clean shaven and covered in Vodafone logos in his race overalls. In fact the Vodafone logo appears in the ad almost as much as Santander's does.

A voiceover tells us about Santander while he's racing round a Scalextric track, which supports the 'together we're stronger' theme, presumably because several people help him assemble it. Then the voiceover says there are great interest rates available at Abbey. Oh and also at Alliance and Leicester. Anybody else confused?

At best, this one's going to be remembered as "that Vodafone ad where Lewis Hamilton races a Scalextric car."

I normally try to stay away from commenting on creative, in the same way that I'd expect a creative not to question the validity of our analytics, but I really can't see how this concoction of different messages is supposed to work.