M&S goes big on Mother’s Day, Addis revival plan for Newsweek, Grey off to a good start with Vodafone

***Marks & Spencer is running a series of online films, via content agency Adjust Your Set, plugging ‘Mother’s Day’ on March 30 (in the UK).

And they’re a fitting tribute to this anniversary sent to haunt us, courtesy of Hallmark Cards.

Wonder who decided to get all the kids to wear ties? Makes them look obedient, committed etc but it’s a trick, isn’t it?

***I see that my old pal Richard Addis (former Daily Express, Toronto Globe and Mail editor) has been appointed as European editor of the new Newsweek, now owned by digital publisher IBT. Richard says he wants to bring back long form print journalism, with online too, of course.

Well good luck to him. It’s about time we read some proper journalism. Is the world ready for a good thing? Let’s hope so.

***We said we’d bring you Grey London’s first ad for Vodafone – and here it is.

Well it’s bold and brave, voiced by Grey creative director Vicky McGuire. And like all good ads it links back to something, in this case Vodafone’s heritage as a radio service (Racal) for the military and allied services.

Does the fact that ’77 per cent of the emergency services’ still use its network matter to people using mobiles for less exacting tasks? Logically, of course not. But that’s advertising.

The Vodafone client will absolutely adore it. But the next campaign had better reach out to, er, customers.

***Apropos of nothing very much, you might enjoy this.