Open happiness

Old charm, nostalgia…, it’s cola Christmas, tis the season to celebrate and to go shopping for presents, although unfortunately, as the 'little girl who has become a woman' in the ad does, you might have to carry them all around awkwardly in your hand (carrier bags don’t look so cool). But it’s okay, in spite of that and of the overwhelming crowds in Oxford Street, you are still in the mood to smile and make your rosy cheeks glow at the chance encounter with cola Santa; and lucky you, you still have a free hand to grab his nicely shaped cola bottle (Freudian connotations at work).

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Coca-cola: Open happiness
Lascotts Road, N22
London

Sometimes you need some extra cash...

If you frown upon the idea of our public space being sold to advertising, you’ll surely find this utterly disagreeable:
In times when the lack of regulation of the financial sector has arguably been the major catalyst of a global economic crisis which in turn has driven dramatic funding cuts in our public sector (education, health, welfare, local councils, etc.), it is precisely a high-interest loans company who sponsors London’s usual free-travel night on New Year’s Eve this year.
Transport for London and the Mayor of London must have agreed that there is nothing wrong with this.

This is London, I think containing a sigh, a city that sells its soul to the best bid.

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Wonga.com: Sometimes you need some extra cash...
Wood Green Station (LU)
London

Return to Narnia this Christmas

Christmas, that special time of the year to remember with nostalgia the time when street Christmas lights simply meant 'Christmas'.

Now sponsorship has altered that meaning.

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20th Century Fox + Walden Media: Return to Narnia this Christmas
Regent Street, W1B
London 

Holidays are coming

Well..., Coca-cola, the no. 1 global brand. So what is in this ad? Self-reference to previous and wider campaigns (TV); the substitution of the not so all-inclusive word ‘Christmas’ by the more politically correct ‘holidays’; the iconic simplicity and cosy familiarity of the glass bottle; the Americana of the eighteen wheeler truck; the hijacking of Santa Claus; and more subjectively, the rather unsettling dark undertones of the image, that half-night setting, the truck with its headlights on, rather menacing reminding me of that evil beast of Spielberg’s “Duel”, which in its Spanish version was more explicitly titled “El Diablo sobre Ruedas” (“The Devil on Wheels”)…, yes, holidays are coming, Coca-cola is coming…

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Coca-cola: Holidays are coming
Stamford Street, SE1
1 Dec 2009

Would cash have been a better gift? yes!

Now I know what I'm getting my family for Christmas: a money transfer through Western Union!
Oh well..., they know their target market better, this is London, you know.

[Wikipedia says that in 2006 London's foreign-born population was 2,288,000 (31%) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Demography)]

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Western Union: Would cash have been a better gift? yes!
Wood Green bus stop
London

Christmas Lunch

Bottom low level Christmas lunch menu in London -they are clearly not targeting gourmets, but mainly low income customers and dedicated social anthropologists as well.
It makes me remember that I have not lived a single day of hunger in my life.

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Café Morrisons: Christmas Lunch
Entrance to Morrisons Café
By Morrisons supermarket, Wood Green
London