June
I'm glad to say that I've found a TV ad with a mac in it in June, though I've only noticed one such ad in June that is new to me. I was beginning to think I'd have nothing to report this month.
I've only seen the ad once so far and it is for Bulmer's Cider. There is a strapline in there telling us that Bulmers will help us to make the most of the summer (or something like that.) This comes at the end of the ad. I can conclude that one member of the cast was certainly making the most of the British summer earlier in the sequence. Sadly she was only featured briefly, but there was no doubt that her own version of making the most of the British summer had involved slipping her arms into a biscuit coloured mac, which appeared to be single breasted. Equally sad for me was the fact that once her arms had slipped in, her hands had failed to complete the buttoning up task... She was hanging undone.... It just won't do (up?)!
May
May appears to have begun with a whole tranche (or should that be trench) of macadverts. I decided to watch "flood" over the bank holiday with the idea that any programme with such a title would contain rain, and that when it rains, people wear macs, and that therefore "flood" would not just be a thriller about London going underwater, but also be filled with people all buttoned up against the deluge that this would entail.
How wrong was I? Across ITV's 4 hours of flooding I saw not one proper trenchcoat within the programme. That can't be right can it? London always boasts a high percentage of its working population in the type of trenchcoats that make my heart flutter, so ITV got it all wrong - to say nothing of the fact that this programme featured a chap who made many calls on his mobile phone, irrespective of the fact that it had spent a good part of the programme underwater. Surely it would have stopped working?? This programme was not realistic on 2 counts at least then. The mobile phone that works while saturated, coupled with 4 hours of London footage of a downpour on a working day with a cast of 200,000 with not one mac between them. Shame on ITV's reearchers!
What about the commercial breaks in this programme though? First up came an Npower commercial that I hadn't seen before, featuring a lady who is going to have a new boiler. We don't get to see her entire torso while she is wearing it, but we do see from the chest up, a garment in beige which appears waterproof (drape, sheen and all that, though sadly no sussurus on offer within the clip). This garment appears to be double breasted as it has a button high up on either side, and I believe there may have been epaulettes too. It has to be a mac!
No sooner had we come to the next ad break and Actimel got advertised with all those lovely diagrams they use to show how their yoghurt does positive things for your gut. I found myself wanting to fast forward the ad as I figured it wouldn't contain a mac. I concentrated on improving the state of my own gut with the glass of Merlot I was holding instead of their damned yoghurt. Then. Lo and behold. the advert goes and ends with a woman in a short cream coloured, double breasted trenchcoat, buttoned up. She is walking towards us in it smiling, her gut mended and ready for action thanks to her trusty mac's power of combining with her pudding perhaps?
Another ad break took me to the dizzy heights of three coated campaigns in under an hour! This time we have some poor unfortunate lady suffering with diarrhoea - not on camera fortunately. She is going to take Imodium. Before she does, she steps in a big puddle (with no coat on). We are intended to believe that she is having a bad day. One dose of Imodium though, and all her problems are over. She appears again, smiling this time, twirling her umbrella against whatever the sky may be depositing. Best of all though, she is wearing a mac just like the one worn by the Actimel lady. Imodium has cleared up those horrid cramps and given her a style lesson too, as someone has now buttoned her up neatly into the trenchcoat.
So it is clear then, raincoats in a trench style are endorsed by Actimel and Imodium. They help the stomach. You should try selling your wares to Boots Lorraine, so that when people come in with tummy problems, a new remedy can be recommended in the form of a mackintosh. I don't suppose they'd listen would they?
Enjoy the sunshine.... But bring on the thunder!
April
Just when I thought another month might elapse without any macs on a TV advert in my sights, this one cropped up tonight as April's vote. It was for Laughing Cow with their rather tasty cheese portions. One lady in the ad has a mac slung neatly over her arm. How could she not wear it? I think we should all nip along to the film set, gently remove it from her arm and shake it noisily behind her....
"Now come here. Put your arms in the sleeves and do those buttons up... You won't feel the benefit dear!"
That's all for now
Andy Mac
March
Hope you are well and suitably buttoned up against all weather that is (thankfully) being thrown at us. For a while a few month's back I was able to send you large quantities of details of Macs in TV ads. Then they all dried up, probably hung in some wardrobe somewhere by someone with no idea how wondrous life can be in the trenches.
Normality returns though.. I have precisely no idea who is advertising/sponsoring the ITV National Weather after the ten o clock news. I'm just altogether smitten by the girl in the trenchcoat who can't get the comb through her hair when she eventually reaches her desk. Have yourself a little look at the strappy things on her cuffs. Is there a technical name for them?? Whether there is or not, have you ever seen "strappy things" as broad as that? They could have been used to advertise "fatty ahhh buckles.." GROAN............! What a lovely coat though? I just wish I could see more of it, feel it, hear it rumpling, and perhaps smell it!!
Then there's the ad with the two blokes (father and son?) cleaning the kitchen quickly at half time in the televised football while Mum is out isn't there? Are they advertising Flash? Once again, I've missed the brand because of the coat Mum is wearing when she comes home... She catches them cleaning the kitchen, which they have done in record time thanks to the wonder product. She acts all surprised that they aren't watching the football. They pretend to be surprised that it is on at all.... Even though all this is acted out we don't get to see much of her coat, but it has all the lines of a trusty trench from what I can see... Am I right?
Then there's another ad and I can't even remember vaguely what it is for but there is a pretty red coloured ladies trench hanging in the hall. What a waste... There must've been someone on the set who would have benefited from popping it on and giving those buttons some exercise.... I'll let you know what this ad is for next time it comes on.
In the meantime, stay dryish and encourage anyone who will listen into their macs. My local Asda has a big sign above the ladieswear saying that springtime is about macs!! They don't have any in stock though. Crazy!
October
It may make no sense that ads come and go so quickly, but that just
stacks up with the rest of the big bad world.
As an example, it makes no sense that some people fail to wear macs
on wet days, choosing an anorak, or perhaps just an umbrella with no
outerwear instead. It makes no sense that people sew buttons on macs
with the express intention that these will be fastened, only to then
have the same macs purchased by people who choose to go undone, flapping vigourously in
the wind.
It makes no sense that some towns are full of mac wearers and some
have very few. Now there's a new discussion point. The major cities are
full of formally dressed folks so it's no surprise that I find London,
Birmingham and Manchester to be mac hotbeds.
How's this though? Hereford is disappointing. You can drive right through
it on the wettest day and never see one. Conversely, Worcester and
Kidderminster (not that far from Hereford) always seem full of traditional
macs. Lincoln and Nottingham are good too in my experience.... But here's
the real stunner. 
Just up the road from Lakeland Elements, Morecambe
now has the proud boast of football league status. I came to the delightful
Christie Park as a visitor the other day.... I saw no macs in Morecambe
at all.... Is it just that all the ones in your locality are kept personally
by Lakeland Elements in Lancaster?
Incidentally, I believe Morecambe
have a goalkeeper called Steven Drench. Now there's a fine name to endorse
rainwear. You could sponsor him - with a drenchcoat perhaps.
I'm wasted. I should have been in Marketing!
September
It's magical. As soon as you put one lot up on your site, some more
adverts appear with raincoats in them.
Who gives us extra?? The Halifax of course....
Their latest TV ad has at least one girl stripping off a silvery mac
at the outset. She won't feel the benefit at all, which is terribly bad
form in my view.
Add to that the fact that Hiscox's campaign is on overdrive (in my area
anyway) and that the girl who likes the chap with the Kia car is well and truly
back.... Well, my summer is made. Kia think that she has fallen for his
car?? Maybe so - but not as much as he has fallen for her mac I'm sure.
Just when I thought that was it, Vodafone started airing "Drip drip
drop little April shower" again, in August.
I'm giving up watching programmes on the TV. I think I'll just Sky plus
all the adverts in an act of mad consumerism.
August
There is a new ad for Hiscox (an insurance
company I think but I got distrmacted in
mid-advert.) From what I can see there's just the one mac in it which
is very foolish of those being filmed and those doing the filming
as the ad is shot in an amazing thuderstorm, or perhaps a collection
of different ones. The macless actors must have got soaked, poor things.
Anyway, look out for the girl on the roof, with her back to you. She
is belted tightly (and in all probability buttoned up but we are left
to guess as we can only see her back) into an interesting looking dark
brown trenchcoat.
What about the Tropicana Orange juice TV advert?
Various people pick oranges from trees during this and one girl reaches
out of a bus window to pick one. I'm pretty sure she's got a mac on, despite
the fact that it is a hot sunny day. Actually, places that grow oranges
don't have much macsuitable weather do they? She must be a real addict
if what she is wearing is what I think it is... Have a look and let me
know if you think she's one of the rainwear crew.
July
Two TV adverts at the moment that do us all some justice.
Good old Vodafone. The Internet is now mobile? Actually, it was anyway with a laptop and one of those wireless cards of theirs in hand. Have you seen their TV ad though? Drip drip drip little April shower. Or is it drip drip drop? How many macs (or parts of them) can you count in the advert, without recording it? I'm up to 6 now, to say nothing of the girl who looks so pleased that she zipped her Parka up close to the end.
On the other hand there's the advert for the car (Kia I think) with the girl in the splendid brown mac. The bloke driving her capitulates at it's very sight doesn't he? "We should buy a house, get married, have some babies and get a dog??!" Actually that might not be word for word, but he says something like that doesn't he? She doesn't even pause for thought before agreeing. She wooed him and won him thanks to her trusty trench. Hoorah!
Isn't this weather blissfully, beautifully,
buttonuppably boastful?! I got positively soaked this morning,
or rather, my mac did. I stayed very dry underneath..
Following on from my earlier emails about TV ads and macs, how
about the current Kelloggs Special K campaign? Have you seen it?
There's a rather pretty lady on a damp day (buttoned up very properly
in a trenchcoat) who is trying to lose enough weight to get her
swimsuit on. After eating Special K we see her manage this. The
mac disappears and she wears a swimsuit instead, cavorting about
on a beach in the sunshine... We also see her in her mac again,
post weight loss, looking a bit thinner.
A couple of points of order here.. The reason she looks thinner
in the mac the second time around is because she has done the belt
up properly to draw her waist in. What a con! Maybe Special K didn't
help weight loss then... perhaps her mac did, once someone
had helped her to fasten it up properly. How very jolly?!
My second point is this. If she wants a day at the seaside she
could pick Morecambe. This would surely enable a visit to Lancaster en
route to be fitted into an even more tightly belted trenchcoat.
By the time she reached the seaside she could perhaps be a
size zero, if that's what she fancies. In order to maintain this
size she could keep her coat on whilst by the sea. Ladies in macs
are always more exciting than those in swimsuits - anyway in my
own biased view. It leaves macEclectics like me free to wonder
what else she might be wearing...
Anyway, I wouldn't care if she was a size zero or a size 30...
She'd still push my buttons when she fastened her own ones.
By the way. I've managed to get a mac like the one Harold Wilson
used to wear 30-40 years ago from a Vintage Clothing place. It's
amazing and weighs about 3 tons. It has a lovely smell when
wet too.
It probably makes me look quite fat...
Who cares?
As a non-smoker I've been pretty pleased with the controversial new law in that area - but a couple of evenings ago I found a whole new opportunity that this has opened up....
I stopped in Warwick Services on the M40 and delighted in their splendid coffee. Whilst doing so I noticed a lady getting out of a People Carrier in the Car Park. She took a troubled look at the grey, threatening skies above, and pulled a beautiful Burberry Trenchcoat from her back seat. She tossed it over her arm and marched purposefully into the Services. Like me, she ordered coffee... Unlike me, she was forced to drink it outside as she was a smoker........... I say outside. It's true to say that the tables out there had some cover as they had canvass above them, but she was still exposed to some degree to whatever the sky was going to deposit from the clouds moments later. Sure enough, the heavens opened with what could at best be described as an apocalyptic downpour. The temperature outside doubtless dropped accordingly.... I couldn't help but observe her as she clenched her cigarette between her lips whilst getting her arms in her raincoat sleeves. She then proceeded to prove an expert in the buttoning up stakes, smoking with her right hand, whilst buttoning up one handed with the left one.... Once finished she looked absolutely wonderful.
On driving away I realised that had the law not changed, or had I been there a couple of weeks earlier, I would probably never have witnessed this. I'd bet that her mac would never have arisen from it's slumbers on her back seat if she had been able to smoke inside..
Dear Andy Thanks so much for your interesting contributions! I must say I have been planning to do a few pages on which hotels in the UK make use of the loophole and make some rooms available for smokers, and which pubs, restaurants etc do their best with outside facilities. Your point opens a new dimension... Best LE |
This set off other thoughts. Surely coat manufacturers must gain from the smoking ban??? Smokers will need to wear their coats more now if they are to smoke in public, unless they want to freeze, or get soaked. What better coat for smoking outdoors than a Trenchcoat too? We all know there is nothing better for protecting the legs as well as the top end of the torso.
Looks like you'd better scale up production to me.
The glass is half full!
Andy
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