"You shall have a Phishy when the boat gets in..."

Yesterday around noon my time, I 'logged on' to a MySpace account but not via a real MySpace page. About ten minutes later, a friend at Hairless Heart Herald sent me a note alerting me that I'd been 'phished' and that someone was posting Gift Card spam bulletins and comments in my name. John Murphy of Shite'n'Onions was next to call in and then Gerry from Bushplant (a contributing artist to the CBH site.)

A swift change of password and a basic bulletin of apology. There were several friends who wrote in saying 'thanks' for that and adding that they rather guessed it wasn't the real me promising to 'hook them up' or signing off with 'c ya.' Also in my favor is that I only posted on this account when I had Horslips news.

Forty minutes later, the fuss was mainly over. Things move fast on the Internet.

But to make further amends, I decided to send around a little vintage advertising that's available again on You Tube. Horslips promoting Mirinda, circa early seventies or so. Looking very much like the music festival it was, this free event was filmed at the grounds of Ardmore Studios in Bray (just south of Dublin). Also present, but not pitching Mirinda, was a support act by the name of Chris De Burgh.



For more about Phishing, visit the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

Hey Hey Mirinda

Horslips in the News

We rushed this item out on the local grapevine in advance of the other news we hoped to cover. But here's a story referencing our main infatuation: Horslips!

Fine-tuning the ad man's message: it's a jingle out there

IN the old days, life was so much simpler for marketers: Guinness was 'good for you', Bank of Ireland was 'a friend for life', Smithwicks was 'going for a pint', Irish Permanent was 'the sure, safe way' to invest, Carroll's was a cool relaxing smoke and Silvikrin needed only to ask 'are you the girl with the shining hair?' Procter & Gamble could run 'fighting brands' against each other on the basis that one was 'biological', while the other 'washes whiter'.

...

It's the nature of music that it's associated with memories and emotions of the time you first heard it or listened to it most frequently. This makes it hard to listen to old music with a fresh ear but can trigger a more youthful and naive mood among older, more cynical consumers. Matrons might be targeted with Abba or Bay City Rollers if you want to appeal to their teenage naivety, or Fleetwood Mac if you want to appeal to their pre-maternal freedom.

...

Hardened retail procurement officers are lads again when they hear Thin Lizzy or Horslips. If you are targeting a specific age group, you can be highly focused: Van Morrison has enjoyed a cult following since the 1960s but each vintage appeals to different age groups; his 1968 'Astral Weeks' is remembered by golden years consumers who were young when it was released...

More at link, which does require registration. But that happens to be free.

For the record, no Horslips tunes were licensed for use in advertising. There was a Mirinda ad, but the tune in question was not a Horslips tune. There's also the history of Horslips members who worked for an advertising agency, which can be glimpsed over at Mark Cunningham's history of the band. However, there were public domain jingles that were created to mimic the Horslips sound. This does happen to many artists.