Claire Beale on Advertising

Remember the last time you were totally rat-arsed? Off-your-face, stagger-happy, can't-lie-down-because-the-world-flips pissed? It might be a long time ago, but we've all been there. And what drove you to the demon drink? You were happy? Or sad? Or because that's what everyone else was doing and, hell, you're the social type?

Either way, it's unlikely you'd just seen an ad for Stella and decided to tank it down the local as a result. Advertising, we know, is a powerful force, but it takes more than 30 seconds of mini-movie magic to convince most of us that 12 pints of lager and vodka chasers are a good idea.

But in this crazy ad world we operate in, advertising is too often seen as the root of social ills. It makes us lardy fat, it makes our kids conspicuous consumers even before they can spell "overdraft", it's killing the planet by selling us cars. So the pressure groups shout ban and the vote-hungry government bows. And one by one advertising freedoms are falling.

The first domino went in 2003 when tobacco ads were banned. The ad industry didn't put up much of a fight-to-the-death. Maybe morally it was hard to, but there was a vain hope, too, that if adland went (relatively) quietly on this one, other advertising freedoms would be protected. Fat chance. Now the junk-food ad ban battle has been lost; Ofcom sealed its ruling last week and kids will no longer see television ads for certain foods that have been deemed, against some pretty dubious measures, to be unhealthy. Domino No 2.

So is it just coincidence that the day after Ofcom pushed its pawn home, the swell suddenly shifted to the issue of alcohol advertising? Domino No 3? Last week, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, Ian Gilmore, called for a total ban on alcohol advertising. Don't for a minute think this is a passing remark. I guarantee Gilmore's comments are already being sharpened up by a pressure group somewhere to spearhead the next attack on adland's freedoms.

For the record, there are already a hefty set of draconian rules, which the ad industry has imposed on itself, on what you can and can't do when you're advertising booze. So alcohol ads can't be sexy, or imply that a few pints makes you better in bed. And they must not appeal to under-18s or celebrate youth culture. And any advertiser that chances their luck and tries to duck the rules gets banned.

So far, though it's early days, the controls are working well. Clearly that's not enough for the anti-advertising activists, though. And the ad industry cannot drop its guard for a moment.

But for the business to survive further threats to its freedoms, it needs to do more than act responsibly. It needs to demonstrate its willingness to use the power of advertising as a force for good. Advertising as super-hero. And given the amount of money Whitehall itself spends on advertising (£309m, making it the country's third biggest advertiser), the Government is well aware that advertising can be a force for good.

Last week, the Drinkaware Trust kicked off a search for an agency partner to launch a new anti-binge-drinking campaign. Drinkaware is backed by a group of alcohol manufacturers, including Diageo and Scottish & Newcastle. They've each put money into an advertising pot to push responsible drinking.

Their financial commitment is relatively modest (£3m in the first year, £5m by year three of the campaign) when you consider the full financial implications that an ad ban would have on the booze firms. But it's a start, and one that all advertisers in vulnerable sectors should take note of.

What's really interesting about proactive, "responsible" advertising like this is that it recognises the impact advertising can have and celebrates it, rather than apologises for it. Advertising won't get you pissed but it can get you noticed. And for an industry under siege, advertising is the best possible weapon to deploy.

STUDENTS OF advertising will know well the name Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury. HHCL was once a great agency that seriously lost its way in the late 1990s. It was dragged into the dysfunctional Red Cell network a few years ago, and limped on under the United umbrella when Red Cell culled offices and re-branded. It lost its biggest account, Sky, late last year, and now faces final extinction via a merger with sister WPP shop Grey.

Merger talks are well under way, though far from sealed. United London's fate is, though. Survival as a stand-alone agency is no longer an option. I can think of few crueller fates for the once proud and exciting HHCL brand than to be subsumed into an agency as stilted as Grey.

There was a time, when HHCL was hot, that such a merger could have revolutionised the Grey culture; except that, of course, it would have been unthinkable back then. Now a merger seems more about putting United out of its misery. The benefits to Grey are hard to see beyond the parachuting in of United's chief Jim Kelly (the benefits to Kelly are a little harder to fathom).

As the embers of the old HHCL seem finally to be dying out here, and with full credit to former HHCL strategy director Jon Leach's Pattern Recognition blog, here are some reminders about what made the agency so special: HHCL were early in recognising the importance of corporate social responsibility; they championed multi-ethnic casting in ads; they introduced human resources people before most of adland cottoned on to the importance of looking after staff; they were one of the first agencies to have a futurologist; and they banged on about integration before it became a fashion statement; HHCL.com was registered in the mid-1990s and a virtual agency soon followed; they championed media strategy; they had an in-house PR operation; they hot-desked and ditched land-lines for mobiles; in fact, they played a tangible part in shaping what the ad industry is today. As Leach concludes: "HHCL - the name has gone. The ideas live on."

* WHEN NEWS broke that Publicis' CEO Grant Duncan had fallen on his sword after a dire run at the agency (recent losses: £44m Asda, £27m MFI, £12m Post Office), industry reaction was almost universal: "Shame, nice guy." Which it is and which he is. And as he bows out, Duncan must take top prize for honesty. "The problems happened on my watch," he admitted. Now how many admen, schooled in chutzpah, would say that?

So that's another agency looking for a CEO (on top of Grey, Jim Kelly notwithstanding, and Saatchi & Saatchi). The fact that the vacancies are at three of the biggest, stodgiest agencies won't help any of them attract hot new talent to the top post. But then if you stop to consider exactly who the top new talent is, it's a very short list. Which is probably why the industry's "talent managers" (who used to be plain old headhunters) are in the ascendancy.

claire.beale@haynet.com

BEALE'S BEST IN SHOW MCDONALD'S (LEO BURNETT)

I never thought I'd feel a twinge of sympathy for McDonald's. But when you get a PR kick in the balls by the heir to the throne and your brand gets trashed all over the papers as a result, well that's marketing hell. When Prince Charles called for a ban on the Big Mac as a solution to our national weight problem, you could almost taste the media's glee.

But at least McDonald's has some pretty strong marketing momentum to carry it through. The company has been churning out a seemingly constant stream of new television commercials recently and though there's inevitably a bit of hit-and-miss, it's agency, Leo Burnett, has found a nice groove of real-life vignettes.

The latest even verges on the charming. Called "Tache", it shows a man winding up his girlfriend about her hairy lip so that he can nick a bit of her chicken wrap when she nips out to the loo to check out her 'tache.

It's good to see Leo Burnett doing nice work, and it's great to see a fast-food brand investing so consistently in decent advertising. KFC and its agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, please take note.