Economissed

Have you seen the latest Economist ads? If you have, do you share my sense of an almost inevitable doom being played out, like a Greek tragedy, before our eyes? One always hoped this wouldn't happen but, like a favourite sitcom that goes on that fatal series too long, it seems this once majestic campaign may at last have run out of steam.

'Sparks & Mensa' is not only a real groaner (it ought to say 'Geddit?' on the end), it's too 'on the nose', as screenwriters say. The classic Economist ads compliment the audience in elegantly oblique fashion. This one says 'You're really clever if you read The Economist', and sticks an Eric Idlean elbow in your ribs. (And what has Marks & Spencer got to do with The Economist anyway?)

'Avoid typecasting', rendered in OTT circus-style type, is another horrendous pun, this time visual, and now I'm not even sure what it's trying to say. How many business leaders worry about being 'typecast'? And 'Are all your ideas rough?', presented as a marker scamp, only reinforces the sense that the whole campaign feels like a bunch of scribbles retrieved in desperation from the AMV waste bin.

'Is your indecision final?' seems to strike a sour note. Rather than congratulating its audience on their intelligence (and implying that non-readers had better join the club), it says very clearly, 'You're really struggling, aren't you? Better read The Economist.' Economist readers (in the world of the campaign) don't read it because they're struggling - they read it precisely because they're not.

It's easy to knock, of course. I know this is the point where someone says, "Have you got any better ideas?" To which I can only reply, "I'd be more than happy to provide an estimate."

(Apologies to members of 26 who've seen some of this article already, in the 26 newsletter. That was an edited version, but here there's no-one to temper the excesses of my ego.)