Town Mouse. How to get ahead in advertising? Repetition. By Tom Hodgkinson

It may not be the most sophisticated advertising slogan ever invented, but I bet it will work. ‘Taste the tasty taste,’ it reads. And it’s been plastered all over London’s Routemaster buses lately, alongside a picture of a gigantic banana, and the logo of the corporate banana merchant who paid for the ad, Chiquita. I see it a lot as I cycle round town. The company that sells advertising space on London’s buses and Underground, Global, claims an awful lot of people will see this ad. According to its website: ‘Bus advertising reaches over 48 million adults over a typical two-week period, making it one of the highest-reaching marketing mediums available. Buses are particularly effective when targeting illusive [sic] 15-34-year-old light TV viewers.’ As a cycling mouse, I worry, as London councils have worried in the past, about the effect of these adverts on road safety, especially now that enormous...

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