I have been commuting through Waterloo for 7-8 weeks now and for some reason everything changed this week - I am being targeted !!! Not by homeless people, Big Issue salespeople or terrorists but by agencies and in turn brands.

In 3 days I have been offered 5 leaflets, a badge, a pot of yoghurt, a mid morning snack, a ride to work, even an apple and today there was a guy drawing on the floor of the station for Sky HD

Now obviously Brand Experience is not going to go away, indeed it has become the mainstay of many brands plans but I am still amazed how a great strategic idea and creative approach can be completely ruined in execution. One case in point - Nurofen - are pushing their Nurofen Express - I assume a quicker way of getting rid of a hangover or various other aches and pains - and as such offered commuters a free ride to work in a cycle rickshaw ie an "Express" way of getting to work (I assume) but they placed these all in a row (about 7-8 of them) on the Strand away from Charing Cross and on a tourists route - as a result all I saw were Japanese tourists delighting in a free trip around London and lots of commuters either ignoring or missing it altogether ! Then today I was given an apple by "Little Red Riding Hood" or rather a lady in a red coat with a straw basket which upon inspection had a sticker on it detailing Stansted - New York American Airlines - then it dawned on me....The Big Apple (geddit) - the apple was tiny and was covered in bruises......does this reflect how I will feel when I get there ?

The defintion of irony where there is an incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result and this is the case here - if Brand Managers, Marketing Directors and Chiefs Executives could see the actual effect on their brand they would turn their back on this medium forever.

Irony is also usually associated with humour and tragedy and here's the rub .....it is in the delivery that this activity is letting down the brand - now I can't say whether this is due to inexperienced agencies being used or worse agencies that claim they can do this but just subcontract to make a few quid or Clients trying to do this themselves but it does demonstrate exactly why we at Gravity (http://www.gravitythinking.com/) have adopted the approach we do ie coordinated capabilities tm - that is we stick to the strategy and creative development and we then work with partners to deliver perfect execution or in other words perfect placement of the rickshaws and proper juicy "Big Apples"

I can't wait now to see what next week brings ...........