Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
The 65 per cent rule
Finally, cigarette packets in the UK will look like this once the current stock has been sold! Brands will no longer draw in users. Only nicotine and addiction.
However, readers of this blog know only too well that in Germany, cigarette advertising continues for inexplicable reasons. But it is about to change considerably. The 65 per cent rule comes from the European Commission and states that 65 per cent of any cigarette packet must be covered with warnings about the lethality of the contents in all member states. So, take Marlboro, with it’s You Decide campaign (right).
The campaign posters and the packet is all about the brand. Currently, about one-third of the packet contains the warning Rauchen kann tödlich sein (smoking can be deadly). So, that warning will have to be doubled on both sides. How much room left for the brand? We’ll see how the advertising responds to this challenge. At the moment, there are no new posters on railway stations or on the side of the roads to evaluate!
The Gauloises naughty couple in a bath are back
Here’s a thing, this week I walked past a cigarette advertisement for Gauloises, as you do (in Germany, that is). I dismissed it as one that I already have cataloged and lampooned. But yesterday I was stood on the platform at a S-Bahn station in Munich and read the tagline on the displayed poster and thought perhaps this was not the original advertisement. And so it has proved (see below right). My take on the original was
that death by toxic tobacco seemed not to be enough for this couple, maybe a STD might help. This is because the tagline suggested they had just met and decided to have a bath together in a hotel room, as you do.
The revised tagline suggests that they already know each other and they have decided to have a bath together because of “stau in Badzimmer” – translated by me as congestion in the bathroom. I am wondering if this is evidence of the impact of this blog on the advertising industry. So shocked were they at my interpretation that they have reworked it to make the main characters seem a little less promiscuous? Or not.
It nearly slipped past me.
Pall Mall couples and trite taglines
Apologies about the quality of this photo, it even has my image in the reflection, but for the time being it makes the point. Advertisers are so inconsiderate putting their posters behind plastic.
Pall Mall again has a couple – handsome bearded man with cigarette and blonde woman. From what I understand of the tagline, the hole in the filter solves most problems, all wishes granted. Seemingly.
The wish of longevity, I sense, is not granted by this toxic innovation. But there you go.
Born that Way, JPS latest
Maybe the translation does not work, but JSP‘s latest “always upright, never overbearing/presumptuous” is a curious tagline. Three men, one woman, two visibly smoking. Clearly an engaging conversation, but as usual it is a bearded man leading the important discussion and discernibly impressing, if not charming, the woman. Bearded man at the back is the person when four people try to walk a pavement together who has to move to the back in order to avoid being run over by a car. Or maybe he is the poor one who cannot afford cigarettes so he stands behind those who can in order to get a passive hit? Just a thought. Not much else going on.
Marlboro’s You Decide goes raddled old man
Filed under: Cigarette advertising, Uncategorized | Tags: marlboro, You Decide
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Naturally I thought the point of advertising was to sell products. So, use beautiful people doing interesting things in the sunshine. Clearly, I am no marketeer. However, I need some guidance on the logic of Marlboro’s latest use of a raddled old man lighting up a cigarette (left). As for the strapline, will the world care what your name was (assuming he does not have too much life left in him)? No idea!
Marlboro has another You Decide poster current (right). This is more like it. Handsome, fit, bearded man with
cigarette looks into the camera. Another seemingly meaningless strapline, ‘Will you stay real’? ‘Will you turn into the raddled old man?’ strikes me as being more appropriate.
Das Brauneck from Lenggries
Das Brauneck is a mountain of 1540m accessed from Lenggries (left), a classic wealthy rural town in southern Bavaria. It does not have a pointy peak but in the winter it hosts a ski slope. And in the spring it persists as a ski slope, facilitated by snow-making machines dotted along the piste. 
Ask at the cable car ticket office and they will tell you that there is no open path to the summit. Walk the 30 minutes to the Reisealm (910m), a delightful eatery and hotel through the forest, and they will advise the same. My advice, ignore them, but be prepared. There is the false sense of security when one leaves the 
Reisealm. It all seems benign (right). But the snowline is around the corner. Unlike our walk on Monday, the gradient is starker. At various points one essentially has to climb the piste (left) and that takes considerable energy, poise and a bit of nerve (at least for a novice like me). It is also clear that there is no way back! And the signage is largely non-existent. There are yellow signs at the top and base, but the route is made up as one goes. Fortunately at this time of year, the piste is quiet. Seemingly the snow is just a little too wet. This is the time of year for higher altitude skiing.
Talking of which, it makes a difference. A number of years ago I hiked in the Moroccan Atlas 
Mountains. We peaked at 4000m. I suppose on that basis I thought 1500m would not cause a problem. I was wrong. The photo on the right is a relieved hydrated man at the peak with a sandwich inside him.
Getting back is a cinch, though not cheap. We took the cable car, itself pretty spectacular (left).
Equipment wise, I am wearing North Face Northotic Pro boots. My partner wears Salewa Blackbird Evo GTX (both bought as last year’s model – North Face from Millets in England, 
Salewa from TK Maxx in Gemany).
A couple of sticks are essential kit. Crampons maybe next year.
Hiking in the Alps
Regular readers know that I frequently travel to Munich and elsewhere in Germany. But despite being only an hour on the train from the Alps, a hike has been elusive. That has now been rectified (left).
It is March and there is still snow at quite low levels. Our starting point w
as Tegernsee,
south of Munich. An easterly path – nicely stepped – takes hikers up into the forest and to the snow. First stop conveniently timed on the ubiquitous route signs (right) is Neureuthaus; essentially a busy cafe 1200m up.
Wander further (left) towards Gildenalm along a ridge that allows the view north towards Holzkirchen and Munich. On a clear day, that is. Gildenalm (1355m) was open, unexpectedly. Tea and cake and the experie
nce of a torch-lit gravity toilet (right) renders the ascent (left) to Kreuzbergalm (still closed) feasible. Whilst this is by no means mountain climbing, the ascent does feel 
like it. One really has to strain one’s head back to see the top. The obligatory crucifix reassures hikers that the top has been reached. Safely.
From Kreuzbergalm the path descends and enters the Alpbach valley. At first a stream, by the time Tegernsee is again reached, somewhat more swollen.
It is only about 12km in all, but it is not to be rushed for novices. Having just bought some new boots, feet were returned dry. Signs are regular enough to navigate without detailed map. Out again on Saturday. Hopefully.
You Decide, the new Maybe
Filed under: Cigarette advertising, Uncategorized | Tags: marlboro, You Decide
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A few weeks ago Marlboro started posting up their blank You Decide. posters (left) in that marketing ruse to spark interest. You Decide. what? An urban mystery that is compelling. The next installment is then eagerly anticipated.
The theme is now developing well across Germany and presumably other territories where
cigarette advertising is still permitted. Here are two examples. First, we are asked “Is up the only way?” in hand-written red letters. An image of a mature blond-haired woman accompanies the slogan.
Men, by contrast, are asked “How far is enough?” in similarly fonted writing. The man is modern urban figure courting a beard and sitting on what seems to be a wooden box.
OK, this is an unfolding narrative. There are more to come, for sure. Though, let me re-iterate, there is only one direction for smokers and this point is far enough. Quit.
Camel’s own goal
Filed under: Cigarette advertising, Uncategorized | Tags: Camel
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Camel’s more recent advertising campaign has celebrated its lethal qualities with primary colours and brand. With the “New Red and Blue” marketing it is back to the simplicity of presenting the product to camera. A man in a checked shirt holds a packet exposing the logo to the camera.
However, it seems that the marketeers have not been following this blog. The strapline “Next Camel Generation” beckons my normal scorn. Has the previous generation succumbed to cancer and heart disease?
Gauloises spring campaign
It is Gauloises’ spring in the cigarette advertising race now on in Germany. Two new posters have appeared, both extolling the virtues of being young, as youth hides the fact that the product is lethal and makes consumers chronically ill. So, exhibit one (left) has a bunch of millennials demonstrating how difficult things are at the moment for them as the can clearly only afford one set of clothes. Hence, in order to wash their clothes, they have to take them off and expose their youth, the women particularly. And because they cannot read (the normal thing to do in a Launderette), they have stolen a shopping trolley in order to play with it, costing me, the supermarket customer, more money because it has to be replaced at some point. Strapline-wise, stuff about being wet and having fun.
Exhibit two (right) is clearly set somewhere warmer than Munich at the moment; but shares 
with its companion poster Millennials’ aversion to clothes. This time, two couples stand on top of a 4×4 with very little on. The light shining through the car windows suggests that they have parked close to an airport runway. They may well have a death wish? Better to be sucked into the engines of a landing airliner than succumb to chronic disease associated with the advertised product. If my hypothesis is wrong and they are actually in Munich, hypothermia will do the same trick for them. Strapline is something about freedom, brotherhood and serenity.
Finally, on the subject of death, Marlboro has come back strong with its You Decide campaign (left). Easy as ever. No!
Be informed 
