Here's what we covered in this episode:

• Who is Orlando and what is Lemon all about?
• Have the insights in Lemon changed on the back of the Coronavirus crisis?
• How emotion plays out in online video
• Why emotion is imperative online when you only have 6 seconds to capture people's attention
• Why you don't just need to be rational because your ads are targeted
• Brands should be using online advertising not only for activation, but also for brand building
• Examples of brands and ads doing this well
• How advertising is similar to writing a novel and art
• Why we've lost some humility in our advertising
• What the vital ingredients are to make online advertising work effectively

After sitting through over 100 Christmas ads we've come to our definitive top 10 of this year. John Lewis / Waitrose have come out winners this year but not without a fight from some worthy contenders in a very, very strong year of ads.

We've created a playlist with all the ads featured in this podcast for your viewing pleasure, but here's our top 10.

1. John Lewis / Waitrose - "Excitable Edgar" - 5.8 stars
2. Amazon - "Everybody Needs Somebody" - 5.4 stars
3. Joules - “Christmas At The Click Of A Button” - 5.4 stars
4. Disney – “A Disney Christmas 2019” - 5.0 stars
5. Tesco – “Delivering Christmas” - 5.0 stars
6. Argos – “The Book Of Dreams” - 5.0 stars
7. Cadbury’s – “Secret Santa” - 4.8 stars
8. McDonalds – “Reindeer Ready 2019” - 4.8 stars
9. Costa Coffee – “Wish Upon A Costa” - 4.7 stars
10. Aldi – “Kevin The Carrot: The Greatest Showman” - 4.7 stars

You can read our written round-up of the ads here.

Chapter four of Lemon "How the advertising brain turned sour: Creativity and Company Culture"

Orlando is joined in this episode by Sarah Carter, co-author of How Not to Plan, with Les Binet, and Global Planning Partner at Adam&EveDDB. In chapter four of Lemon, Orlando talks about a cultural change that’s taken place in the last 15 years that is responsible for a flattening, abstraction and devitalisation of advertising. The instincts that lie behind standardisation, centralisation and specialisation are the same instincts – or ways of attending to the world – that are responsible for this flattening in style.

Lemon offers not just a diagnosis, but a cure – and points towards a creative style that does work. What can we learn about creative development from those who have created great work?

Sarah was lucky enough to work with one of the great creative directors – John Webster – and has written a brilliant book about him (John Webster, The Earth People’s Ad Man). Sarah has also written articles about him and his working style.

You can learn more about Lemon here, where you can also pick up a copy of the book.

Today is the launch of 'Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour', written by System1's Chief Innovation Officer, Orlando Wood.

In this episode we go through each chapter and cover the following topics:

• A creativity crisis – what’s our evidence and how can we compare ad effectiveness when we don’t have financial data?
• The left and right brain – how does each side view the world?
• What this means for advertising and the core findings about left- and right-brain elements in advertising
• How the left brain has become more dominant over time
• How right-brain elements are more effective but getting rarer
• Examples of ads with strong elements of each kind
• Implications for the ad industry
• What should marketers do differently? The manifesto for change.

You can learn more about Lemon here, where you can also pick up a copy of the book.

Today’s podcast puts the spotlight on our divided brain, as we discuss Lemon, the landmark new book from the IPA by System1’s own Orlando Wood. We’ve got Orlando here talking with Tom about the science behind the book, his inspiration and what exactly marketers can learn from it. Think you know all about the left and right brain? Lemon will make you think again.

In this episode we discuss:

• What’s Lemon all about?
• Why is it called Lemon?
• How did you get interested in the left- and right-brain? Hasn’t that stuff been debunked?
• How does it fit in with the IPA?
• Why is it so wide-ranging?
• Have we got examples of sour/left-brained advertising?
• What effects do you want the book to have?

The book will be released on the 15th October available to buy from the IPA, from the EffWeek conference (or we might be able to obtain a copy if you leave a lovely review of this podcast on iTunes).

How do ads perform across different markets? We've conducted a study which took 5-star ads from the US and tested them in the UK, then took 5-star ads from the UK and tested them in the US to see how much of a difference it made.

We're also joined by Laura Swinton who is the MD and Editor-in-Chief of Little Black Book. LBB is an independent platform that brings together the best work from agencies, brands, post-production houses and more. They also run a yearly awards show called the Immortal Awards.

Here are the ads we discussed:

• McCain - Here's to Every Kind of Love
• Andrex - Puppy Life
• Branston - Pickle Me
• Subaru - Love and Pets
• Pillsbury - Blessings

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Tom and Jon get down to the nitty-gritty details about how some brands have been stripping away their logo and the impact that it's had. We talk about a few different campaigns in this episode, here are the links to everything referenced:

• Doritos No Logo
• Doritos Dog Ad
• FeelMore50
• Paddy Power Huddersfield Shirt
• Cadbury's Age UK Campaign
• Lucozade reformulation

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Free Trial of Ad Ratings

Joined again by our Head of Marketing, Tom Ewing, and a first appearance on the podcast from our Data Scientist, Nine Adler, we take a look at some of the strangest ads we've seen of past along with some of the more recent (and tamer) ones.

There are a lot of ads we talk through in this episode, so we've made a handy playlist of them here.

• Perrier "Caressing the Bottle"
• Orangina "Naturally Juicy"
• Liberty Mutual Insurance "Free Zoltar"
• Levi Jeans "Flat Eric"
• Eve Mattresses "#wakeupdancing"
• Coca Cola "The Magic Taste of Coke"
• Reebok "Belly's Gonna Get Ya"

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Free Trial of Ad Ratings

The Smash Martians. Papa and Nicole. The 118 118 runners. Alexandr Orlov and Gio Compario. These icons of British advertising have something in common. They are examples of what we call a Fluent Device - a recurring property or idea that drives the creative in a long-term campaign and makes it more profitable.

In this episode we discuss:

• What is a fluent device? 
• Examples of fluent devices 
  • The Honey Monster, Meerkats, Geico Gecko, 118 118 Runners and more.
• Why do they work?
• The demise of the fluent device
• How you go about creating a fluent device?
• Can brands get fluent devices wrong

The 2019 Women’s World Cup kicked off this June, sparking discussions beyond on-the-pitch performances.

Whilst the tournament has raised criticism around global encouragement, development and investment in women’s sports, it has also been a story of positive progress for the competition.

We tested WWC ads launched in the UK and US that showed some brands have been quick to capture this spirit in their advertising with great success.

Ads talked about in this episode:

• NIKE – “Dream Further” (UK, 4.6 Stars; US, 4.2 Stars)
• NIKE – “Dream with US” (US, 3.8 Stars)
• Budweiser – “Heart of a King” (UK, 3.5 Stars)
• Qatar Airways - "Newest Destination" (UK, 3.5 Stars)
• Visa - "Great Technique" (UK, 2.1 Stars)
• Visa - "Build Greatness" (UK, 2.9 Stars)

Jill's fantastic article on the ads:
https://system1group.com/ad-ratings/which-ads-won-the-womens-world-cup

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