Caution: L&P's promo is awesome

Caught up with me old mate Brendan Boughen (not pictured here!) the other day.

Brendan's working for Ogilvy PR, and he told me about L&P's latest web promotion, Paeroa Tourism, which he described as a cross between Flight of the Chonchords and Borat.

He was right. This is hilarious.



The media kit was... awesome too. A typewritten cover letter from Maurice Morrison, badly photocopied fliers touting the seven wonders of Paeroa (that's two more than Thames, in your face Thames!), a bright yellow t-shirt like Colin's wearing in the pic above, and a six pack of L&P. Thanks Brendan! Good humour and bribery will get you everywhere. Check out the Facebook page.

On a slightly more serious note, it brings up two thoughts for me:

• Yes it's the age of authenticity, but you can still carry off fictional characters in an online campaign if you do it very well, and if it's very funny. (Easy as that, eh!)
• New Zealand's small towns have a great opportunity to use social media to differentiate themselves. We have some really neat, quirky towns around the place like Bulls, Taihape (where iJump clients Gravity Canyon are based) and Tirau. (By the way, those photos are from another iJump client, EyeballNZ.com). Could they (should they) do a Coos Bay? And what on earth is it with Ngaruawahia? Looks deserted every time we go through (which admittedly isn't that often).
  

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

I'd heard that The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was not for the fainthearted, but the cheerful opening titles lulled me into a forgetful sense of security.

It is full on. His life is a train wreck in slow motion. It is a tragedy. It is hard to like Sellers, which is a gutsy move for a film (you're supposed to like the protagonist).

I love most of Sellers' work. The Goon Show played a huge part in developing my off-beat sense of humour (made even more off-beat by the fact I was listening 30 years out of context).

But the life behind the laughs was a nightmare. Sellers was a boy who never grew up, who became entrapped in an industry that encourages emotional immaturity.

It's a very well-told movie, if you know Sellers and his work.

It makes me wonder: will the future enable the kind of big, but dysfunctional superstars like Sellers?

Or will the disruption that's happening in media and entertainment mean that vulnerable but gifted people like Sellers (and Michael Jackson, and many others) won't be able to insulate themselves from reality?

That's a long question. I bet the answer is even longer.