Sorry for ... adverts in london on tubes, trains and railway stations

You may like me have been puzzled by a couple of adverts appearing all over London with white text on a back background, with a symbol of Eros in the corner or more precisely the London Evening Standard logo.

The adverts are white text on a black background and are in various different text versions:

Sorry for losing touch
Sorry for being negative
Sorry for taking you for granted
Sorry for being complacent
Sorry for being predictable

The text is so generic that it could relate to a lot of different organisations, I guess the advertising agency are banking on the fact that Londoners will recognise the Evening Standard symbol. They have missed a trick though as I thought it was one of those adverts where you had to look up the text on line. However you do that and you find nothing. It was only when I remembered the symbol was for the Evening Standard that I got the hint, but then even when I went to the Evening Standard website I found nothing about it. Some missed opportunities there, some people will see the adverts and not even connect them to the Evening Standard.

Then there is another set of white text on a red background with a rose in the corner:

Sorry for putting Gordon Brown in Charge
Sorry for the MPs second home allowance
Sorry for the Iraq War
Sorry for Youtube announcements
Sorry for Hazel Blears

Then there is a third set of whit text on a blue / green background with a black horse in the corner:

Sorry for the credit crunch
Sorry for the housing crisis
Sorry for unfair overdraft charges
Sorry for investment banking bonuses
Sorry for a precipitous fall in our share price
Sorry for everything really

OK I might have made the second and third group of adverts up but it might be a good idea, anyone from the labour party or the banking sector (Lloyds was the bank if you didn't catch the colour / logo references) if your reading this or perhaps someone from McCann Erickson who came up with the campaign, feel free to borrow my ideas.

Back to the original Evening Standard adverts, this is unprecedented media territory with a media outlet effectively apologising for the style of reporting that I have long railed against. A newspaper is now suggesting that they might be positive about the news, be less sensationalist and maybe just maybe, more socially responsible. It has been a brave new world for the print media ever since blogging came on the scene. Is this change of heart driven by pure economic necessity or is it a drive to raise editorial or reporting standards and the start of an evolution in the print media?