I like the Edelman bloggers. Read them fairly often. And, I’ve liked the concept of the me2Revolution team and Edelman Digital, since first learning about both. And, with personal ties to the UK, I was very interested to read the announcement that Edelman has acquired London-based digital agency Spook Media, with group founder Marcus Dyer becoming MD of Edelman Digital in the UK.
Now, I know British tabloid press has pretty well been in the gutter for a long time and loads of folks I know over there bemoan the low level of discourse in British media and society at large in the post-Thatcher era, but I was a bit surprised to click through to the Spook site and get a slightly nuanced “Page Three Girl” treatment with incredibly unsubtle subliminal seduction right on page one!
HI THERE. COME ON IN… reads the teaser, front and center. With the ellipsis leading the eye right over to … hm-mmm!
And, just as I was wondering if there was a connection between “come on in” and the “let’s go for a ride” graphic, as if to leave no doubt there was the kicker … “happiness delivered.”
Sorry, guys (or girls — no sexist, I …). But, it’s just so obvious … and it so smacks of that British schoolboy humor that made the likes of Benny Hill so popular for so long.
Or am I just reading too much into it … dunno. Have to say, in all fairness, that when you move to the site’s clients and case studies page, things do go upmarket very quickly. When it comes to web design, they are very good and, well … cheeky!
But, btw, allow me to segue rather unseamlessly into a diatribe on how Britain has moved so downmarket in the post-Thatcher era.
I was in London in ‘92 (when, I guess, some of the designers working for Spook were probably not teenagers, yet — explaining my old-geezer crankiness, I know) for the trouncing of Neil Kinnock and Labour and will never forget (think I still have a copy) the issue of the Murdoch-owned Sun with the front page headline, “If Neil Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.“
For those in the US who may think Uncle Rupert will improve the editorial quality of the Wall Street Journal, you may want to read up on how he moved his newly acquired Sun decidedly downmarket in various ways, including that remarkable contribution to Western Civilization and the history of serious journalism of the Page Three pinup girl. I guess it was that same issue of the Kinnock-bashing election-day Sun that featured a page-three photo of “roly poly Pat Priestman” in place of the usually shapely pinup babe, with the promise that this “would be the shape of things to come under a killjoy Labour government.”
And, over here, we think things are getting nasty in the Democratic presidential primary race … give over!
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