Mrs Belmot's big bet

We all know the advertising industry is BEST when it comes to stealing things off the internet.

It's what puts us ahead of the common herd who simply look at things on the internet.

But how long does it take for an ad agency to steal a lovely piece of creative work?

Have a look at the animation below. I've bet Adverplanner that it'll take four months for someone to find this, claim it as their own idea, and then produce a disgracefully similar piece of creative work with a brand name stapled to it.

Adverplanner has gone out on a limb and bet it will take a mere two months for the theft to broadcast process/crime to happen.

What do you think? Place you bets in the comments section - the prize could be sensational if someone wins!

Mrs Belmot's Christmas party - LOCATION

Hi gang!

Everyone is champing at the bit for my Xmas party like a herd of crazed tinsel horses.

Come and nog yourself into the middle of next week at The Perseverance on Weds 2nd December:
63 Lambs Conduit Street,
Bloomsbury,
London,
WC1N 3NB

Yule-tide MP3s have kindly been supplied by Grand High Overlord of Xmas Music Henry Greenwood and Adland Suit eventually lived up to his title of Field Marshall for Venue Targetting.


Remember to print and wear the GREAT Xmas party badge at the top of this post to show your allegiance to the President of the Internet

Making GREAT advertising in the modern age

There's a lot of amateurs blundering around in this area, but only TRUE pros are following my three-point plan to making GREAT adverts:

1. Find something wonderous or at least humerous on YouTube.

2. Steal it.

3. Make it original again by replicating the first thing BUT adding a brand message to the end.

At the moment these are LITERALLY the keys to the kingdom. Ignore them at your mild peril.

Mrs Belmot's Xmas Party!

UPDATE:

My Christmas party is DEFINITELY on Weds 2nd December at The Perseverance pub in London:
63 Lambs Conduit Street,
Bloomsbury,
London,
WC1N 3NB

EVERYONE is very excited about my Christmas party this year. In fact, there's so much interest that there won't be room at my house, so DON'T buy a ticket to Dorking. It's full.

I've used logic (look it up if you don't know what that is) to decide to hold my party in London this year.

There's a LOT to organise and I'm TOO important to do everything. That's why I need my loyal patriots to help with a few things.

If you want to take charge of an area, email me: iammrsbelmot AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

Things which need arranging for the party:

An argument for everyone to have
Music
Party hats
Invitations (although it will be a massive free for all. It's not my house, so who cares)
Posters

Augmented reality
Games

Have a whip-round so Knorks can fly in from Australia

I think we need a central London pub (or better) on Wednesday 2nd December.

If you don't want to help, then just save the date to come along and feel Christmas shame for not helping.

Christmas starts here.

I'm down with the children

Everyone old knows that eating burgers is a lot of fun.

But are we doing enough to raise awareness of burger and chips as a FUN alternative to regular food for kids? NO chance. There's a very real possibility that kids are ignoring or avoiding YUMMY food.

And who's getting the finger of blame jabbed in its face for this MASSIVE failure? Advertising, that's who.

Strap in and brace for the impact - here comes the insight-solution.

McDonalds should rebrand as a children's catering company. My key strategy to achieving this is to ditch the nightmarish clown that's plagued their advertising for years. Instead they need to be "down with the children" and get a new brand spokesman. I give you MC Donald:

He's a blinged-out rapper, dropping funky rhymes and full of FLAVA (rap for flavour, which is appropriate in a restaurant context. Inappropriate elsewhere).

He's also got the head of Donald Sinden which gives him a commanding and clear voice with which to disseminate brand messages.

This idea is so hot you could griddle chicken on it, so I DEFINITELY want cash up front this time. I've already contacted Donald Sinden to make sure he doesn't "slag" me on the deal.

Protect yourself with social media

Hi gang! Blog-a-log-a-gog!

The media is mostly made up of hysterical stress-mongers convinced that the internet is rife with burglars scrutinising your every Facebook update to check whether your house is occupied or not.

This may well be the case.

However, only a stupid boot would tell the world things like "On holiday for 2 weeks. Valuables stuffed in all the toilet cisterns".

If you're still living in a state of panicked bewilderment, just follow my five point plan to using social media as a weapon against the thieving classes:

1. Make every status update "At home. Door double-locked. Alsatians loose in the yard. Guns loaded and within reach. Chief of Police popping round ANY MINUTE NOW"

2. Post up pictures of terrifying fortifications and imply that this is your house (see my picture above). This bungalow has been heavily fortified with TWO howitzers manned by British army soldiers. The grounds are patrolled by wolves and a hippo - I hear they can get well baity.

3. Create a game appp for the iPhone called 'Break Into My House' which shows anyone how to break into your house EXCEPT make the game impossible. Any potential vagabonds will be inflamed with despair and you can rake in the cash. Ha ha!

Have you got "it"?

Would you rate your singing ability as COMPENTENT?

Do you like to just ‘give things a go’ without thinking them through?

Has anyone ever “raised you up”?

Has a member of your family recently died?

Maybe YOU’VE got the X-Factor!

Can old morons learn new tricks?

Following on from my recent innovations in branded-meat marketing (BMM), no-one has been beating my door down with cash to find out more.

This is understandable as few people (i.e. only me) can FULLY comprehend the significance that branded food has for the advertising industry.

Any place I see left unbranded (eg paving slabs, wardrobes, animals, the sea, etc.) brings a tear to my eye. When will our industry learn that we could be cramming marketing messages in front of people ALL the time? I predict another twelve years at least.

If they read this blog, you can reduce that figure to eight months (seven months for the KEY insights to sink in + a month to do something about it).

The lack of creativity in a supposedly 'creative' industry is staggering and could potentially reach flabberghasting levels unless these old morons can learn some new tricks.

Witness the future of branded meat

Make frankfurters work for you NOW!

The picture should be self-explanatory, unless you're too thick to "get it". Basically it uses meat-writing technology to deliver a powerful brand message at the perfect moment.

Oscar Wilde gutter persuasion

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we're all in the gutter but some of us are persuading other gutter-people to buy things

Mrs Belmot's guide to NOT killing the planet

The internet is costing us millions, and who's paying the bill PLUS service charge? The planet, that's who.

To make matters worse, the tip isn't optional like it can be everywhere except America. You've GOT to pay, like when you go to America or an American puts the guilt on you with their judgmental eyes in a British restaurant.

Here comes the maths. Keep up.

I keep my computer on ALL the time. What's the cost of this in electricity? No-one can say for sure, so let's say £5 of electricity a day.

Now let's multiply this by 1,596,270,108 which is the total number of internet users.

That's a whopping £7,981,350,540 - nearly eight BILLION pounds a day. The biggest number I've ever written. Whatever that means to the planet is anyone's guess. MY guess is that it's terrible news. It's giving me sweats. BAD sweats.

To make matters worse, this ISN'T factoring in the cost of running all the servers needed to keep the internet full of clutter, like your photos on Facebook, or day-to-day banality sharers such as Twitter or Facebook again.

Let's factor that amount in with a conservative highly-educated guesstimate: let's double the previous figure and add four billion to make a round TWENTY BILLION pounds of electricity a day to run the internet. No wonder the planet is cankerous.

Now let's apply the insight. Keep up again.

We might as well just pour poison onto soil while paying a fortune in electricity. This is NOT advice, it's a metaphor. Don't actually do this. I do NOT need a repeat of the 'Milork' leaflet fiasco. If we keep on internetting at this rate, I safely predict a global catastrophe before the Olympics in 2012.

What to do:

Delete everything you've ever put on the internet to reduce burden-strain on servers. Stop using banality-sharers more than once a month. Turn off the central heating and wear more clothes. Clean your house using wind rather than hoovers. Microwave jacket potatoes rather than ovenning them. Check this blog on an hourly basis for mandates.

Case closed.

File under environmental FACT-mongering.

P.B (post-blog - DO try to keep up)
Herman has been strutting around the house claiming he was "born to drive steel", whatever that means. This has all the hallmarks of a 'whopper'. He's been listening to too much Johnny Cash and wearing "that" shirt again.

Mrs Belmot's shopping voucher

Shop staff can't be expected to keep up with current or even bygone internet trends (such as blogging and forums), so prey on their ignorance with Mrs Belmot's multi-purpose printable discount voucher:


The great boon is you can use it anywhere AND I've made it a socking great 75% off anything you want. DEFINITE takers include Budgens, River Island, WHSmith and Bennett's garden centre on the B2038. No-one is keen to accept it but they can't argue with the internet.

It's the kind of ROI which name brands can only envisage during fevered dreams or waking hallucinations.

The bacon is back.

Mrs Belmot's Guide to the Internet

KA-AAARK! KA-AAAARK!

KAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRK!

Mrs Belmot's blog is back like a phoenix from the ashes!

I have LITERALLY died under an avalanche of requests from everyone wanting to know how they should use the internet in 2009. Luckily my trusty St Bernard (brain) dug me out of the snow (did the maths) and gave me some brandy (vimto) before lumbering off (they're friendly but their attention span is woeful):

Mrs Belmot's Guide to the Internet in 2009

Blogging - don't bother. I stopped for ages and everyone else jumped off the bandwagon too, like sheep-moths following a flame going out. Puff! In the hands of amateurs (you) It's basically a long-winded waste of time and internet space. In the hands of a pro (me) it's a razor-sharp tool of insight and foresight.

Twitter - Like blogging for infants (see above for the pro/am distinction).

Facebook - I rarely go here and only check back to see if they've changed their colours to something less "IN YOUR FACE". Get OUT of my face, more like! Ha ha!

Voucher codes: a BIG thing. Anyone paying full price at Pizza Express is a berk-royale. They're everywhere and shop staff are too thick to comprehend how the internet works, so just make your own and they'll believe you.

Google - Slowly but DEFINITELY becoming pre-occupied with death as my picture-documentary on Google's search suggestions recently exposed:

Herman - embroiled in a Rocky Horror Show 'time warp' fight against the postman. A nasty mess left on the drive. DON'T tell the council or they'll go ballistics, when they should really go forensics. Herman keeps threatening to "do the time warp again" and sometimes invites me to join his sordid game saying "LET'S do the time warp again". A glassy look comes over his eyes when he says it and he goes all a-fluster. Sordid

Lunch - most likely a pie or 'toasty-soup'. NOT both.

I've moved on the internet

I'm NOT dead, so stop sending wreaths. My house looks like the Whitehall Cenotaph.

Chilling.

If you want to keep reading, go to TERWITTER!

Top brass haven't rumbled the spy!

If you're a regular drinker (reader) at the fountain (blog) of my knowledge (advice), you'll have DEFINITELY been going thirsty (not reading/learning anything new) lately.

There's no mystery, so don't try cracking the case. You won't. Also don't bother ask what I've been doing, just keep reading (drinking).

I REALLY need money, and that's no lie. NO-ONE ever pays the invoices I send out, so the only solution was to swallow the bullets and get a job.

None of the best advertising agencies (ones in the South East) bothered to reply to my CV, even though it CLEARLY told them I would be a great Managing Guru or Advice Director. It's rude and shameful because I know for FACTS that they reap my blog-advice like thieving harvesters. Their loss is also my loss - they don't get my massive kudos and I don't get their money. No one wins.

Taking an unsubtle hint from my husband's war stories/lies, I decided to spy on the industry... from the INSIDE! Can you imagine me in a balaclava and sunglasses like a REAL spy?

Anyway, forget that image in your mind because everyone who works on the checkouts has to wear the same uniform. Also, the application/interview process was non-invasive and they didn't probe how much I knew about advertising. Ha ha! Imagine what 'top brass' would say if they knew I was a blog-genius with even MORE top brassy skills than THEIR top brass.

At the moment, I'm biding my time on the checkout before presenting my plan to re-position the WHOLE supermarket chain for a Digital generation. I'll DEFINITELY present to top brass. My low-brow colleagues on the shop floor simply won't be able to grapple with the concepts involved. You need the ability to think metaphorically but most of them can't even think plain-phorically.

I really have to get off the checkout soon. The money is rubbish and it's literally an unwanted eye-opener to see what people buy to eat.

Let me fill the box

There's been nothing but rubbish on the television for days on end, so I've been working overtime coming up with GREAT ideas for new programmes which someone would actually want to watch.

"Fish and Fowl" - a fishmonger and a butcher who solve crime but the butcher is REALLY reluctant. The fishmonger (Darren) has basically got nothing else to do with his time because everyone's using supermarkets. So he turns to crime-solving with FUNNY results. The butcher (Samuel) is the brains. It's set in the 90s and it's got those two from Never the Twain if they're available/alive. First episode features a stabbing by a canal. Uh oh!

"Risen Damp" - a one-off TV special. Basically a funeral wake for Rigsby turns sour when his corpse is exhumed by the police for "tacky" reasons.

"Rappy Days" - Ritchie Cunningham and The Fonz, now living in Surrey, recapture their golden youth by staging a series of vitriolic rap battles in Leatherhead and Horsham. Promotes family values and The Fonz ends EVERY rap by saying "Eee!". You won't find out until the last episode if it's really happening or if the WHOLE series is from the deluded mind of Mr Cunningham, now a senile idiot working the checkout in Homebase. He ran a hardware store in the original series, so he would have transferable skills.

Do NOT be surprised if these turn up in the schedules later this year. If anyone at the BBC or ITV checks their emails today (unlikely), we might even get them next week!

I need to buy more video tapes.

The stench from the shed has now penetrated into the house. If Herman doesn't change his clothes soon, I'll have to hose him down! Ha ha! Like in a zoo!

I'm metaphorically bombing the neighbours - with ADVERTISING!

The neighbours have NOT yet bought in to my latest innovation in advertising, which is their loss for being naysaying fools.

Just when every old-timer will tell you that there's no new way to reach people, I've fitted a new tyre (come up trumps) onto a Honda Civic (the advertising industry) and pulled out of the lay-by (started doing it first before everyone else).

If you can brain-imagine this, it's a cross between television and radio advertising which reaches people NEITHER old-fashioned method currently does.

Basically, when the adverts come on in between programmes of the TV, I turn the volume up to unbearably loud levels, creating an invasive wall of bass-heavy advertising messages penetrating through the brickwork of the house and into neighbouring houses.

If you want a war analogy (most people do) it's less of a targetted sniper shot and more of a carpet bomb technique, indiscriminatly hitting EVERYONE. The great bonus is that it also hits civilians (people walking outside) as well as neighbouring buildings.

Anyway, next-door has complained every day of this week about the noise but I've blamed it on the difference in volume between programmes and ad breaks (VERY probable excuse). They'll feel the ROI when the messages seep into their thick skulls.

As it is, they're complaining to various industry bodies. Ha ha! They will NEVER guess I'm doing it on purpose!

I wanted to get Herman to connect the television to the stereo to reach a wider audience, but he's been slumped face down in the shed for the last three days under his tanning lamps with his radio receiver tuned to static. I don't pretend to understand the appeal of amateur radio, so I've left him to it.

The smell is getting abominable in there. If he wants any dinner, he'll have to "shed" those reeking clothes. Ha ha!

If the sun won't tan, I will

If I had to describe myself, the first adjectives through the door would DEFINITELY be positive, pro-active and a great resource for top-level advice on ANY subject in English delivered promptly.

It seems that my husband doesn't know me AT ALL because he was completely astonished when I came up with a turnkey solution to help him get a tan while the weather is rubbish. It's this kind of mistrust that makes him an idiot and rots our marriage from the inside.

The genius behind the thinking is that I've combined Herman's two favourite activities (waste-of-time amateur radio hamming and watching "the box") with getting a 'Cat Deeley'-style tan but WITHOUT the need to have his blood transfused from using fake tan.

Basically, I've set up eight angle-poise lamps with 100 watt bulbs in the shed pointing STRAIGHT into Herman's face when he's blathering away to other radio idiots. The light might not do much tanning, but the proximity of the bulbs (about 4cm from his face) should produce enough heat to effectively grill a fabulous tan onto his head.

I've also hooked up two car batterys to the television. The picture is basically un-watchable but the rays coming off the set push out a tanning effect you can feel from across the room, and that's ROI that money can't buy (although literally it can).

We're also keeping all the house lights on 24-hours a day. Our carbon footprint will be a disgrace, but every little helps the tan so do NOT blame me. I probably do more for the environment than you.

So far, no tan has developed and Herman's been complaining about eye strain, headaches and partial blindness. However, the BIG silver lining is that his eyes are starting to turn a milky white colour which will REALLY offset his tan when he finally gets it.

All the news that's unfit to blog

Don't tell me the title of this is wrong, because it's not. I'm in the steely grip of a stinker of a cold. If you imagine you're dying of sinuses, you'll be halfway to thinking of how I feel.

It didn't help my health that Herman's self-improvement plan has meant I've spent the last few days visiting him in hospital while he recovers from getting healthy.

He's become obsessed with his appearance and for some reason is aiming for a "size zero". I blame fashion idiots like Ian McShane and Wogan. I've made him take the posters down in our bedroom but I know he still idolises them. I've looked in his wallet

Anyway, he's an idiot because he believed one of his radio ham friends who told him that Cat Deeley always drinks fake tan then sweats it out to get a great all-over tan. The theory is 100% sound but I am DEFINITELY sceptical that Deeley would have her stomach pumped and most of her blood transfused every time she wanted to look lovely and orange.

Also, Herman ended up being treated for heat exhaustion after turning the central heating on full and sitting in the kitchen with the oven door open to "get the sweats going".

The only silver lining is that the smell in the kitchen is now wonderful, just like in Cat Deeley's house, I assume.

The smell of rotting wicker WILL return

The results of my week-long investigation into the unbearable noises coming from my garage are finally in.

If you want to brain-picture the noises, I'd describe them as wheezing and clanging. Also screaming and thudding.

The breakthrough in the case came when I discovered that the noises ONLY came from the garage when Herman wasn't in the house. Then I mounted a surveillance campaign by looking in the garage the next time he went in there.

Conclusion = he's guilty as sin and DEFINITELY "at it" again. I thought he'd got it out of his system but I will NOT cast stones because we were all "at it" in the 80s, but he's an idiot for starting again and will 100% do himself an injury.

I wish he would just stay in the shed where he belongs.

I'm bracing my eyes to start seeing him in gym shorts and sweatbands again. Last time he was into fitness (approx 1987 - do NOT quote me) he used to wear a sweatband on his head, two on each wrist and four on each leg = a total of thirteen sweatbands. The laundry basket had to be thrown out after it bore the brunt of a heavy "workout".

The smell of rotting wicker was unbearable.

I'm also worried about the state of his exercise bench. It's had the chest freezer balanced on it for the last 15 years and was only something Herman got from a garden centre in the first place, so it is almost CERTAINLY a deathtrap for anyone using it for bench pressing or sitting.

That reminds me: I must take some chops out of the freezer before Sunday. They'll be no good to ANYONE if they're "al-dentay".