John Lewis ad creates controversy? ➜

The retailers new ad for its Home Insurance service has come in for some flack: The gammon wall was outraged by a young boy dancing in a dress and make up. Some within the LGBT+ community were upset by the overt stereotyping of a young gay male. Those interested in just-the-facts have questioned whether the intentional, rather then accidental, damage being caused would actually be covered by the insurance. A lot to unpack. In a nutshell, diversity is good, representation is good and while any brand challenging the status quo should be applauded, brands should also understand that important and emotive issues have many layers and they need to be prepared to scratch beneath the surface before taking flamboyantly to the dance floor.

Beeb rebrand – meh! ➜

Whilst we hate the term and dislike being negative about the work of others, both feel fitting here. The rationale seems sound. Modernise the BBC and its brands. Create better visual alignment across its service offerings. OK, we're in. But the execution doesn’t really feel very modern. Wolff Olins and BBC in-house team have simplified and standardised things (usually good) by creating a 3 block marque for each service, but in this situation the approach doesn't feel flexible enough and the sub-brands seem hamstrung by adhering to it. As a collective they do hang better together than the current offering, but individually they feel less relevant and almost inconsequential. *Cancels license fee direct debit*

Marmite making an impact! ➜

Love it or hate it – you can't deny it's a brilliant out of home campaign. Creative genius at adam&eveDDB, in partnership with Mindshare and Kinetic, have delivered a suite of explosive special builds to celebrate the launch of chili-infused Marmite Dynamite. We can only imagine the Health and Safety hurdles involved here, so caps off, quite literally, to them.

Come on in, the gate's open. Well, ajar. ➜

Gating content is a tool marketers can deploy as a means of converting website traffic into qualified leads and paying members. Paywalls and gated members-only content are becoming more and more commonplace. The issue these sites often have is how do they promote that all-enticing gated content through search engines, allowing it to be indexed and found in a users search returns, without making it fully accessible to visitors? This tidy article from Search Engine Journal explains exactly that.