These days I often find myself remarking that advertising is a dead art. Which is obviously enormously hyperbolic of me, but it is the case that a lot of contemporary advertising just doesn't capture my imagination the way it used to. In part, I would argue that this is because we're living in the age of the touchy-feely ad (for which we can thank the root of all syrup-slathered evil, John Lewis), and I do not, in general, care for touchy-feely ads. But I do also have to acknowledge that, yeah, it's probably not a coincidence that the advertising era that made the greatest impression on me was the mid-90s through to the mid-00s, back when I was in the process of coming of age. Of course the ads of the 2020s aren't going to have quite the same magic as they had back then. I became an old fogey, and the world in general lost a wad of its lustre. I'm sure that, in 1996, some codger was shaking their head and muttering about how advertising was so much more epic when they were using iguanas to sell cigarettes, and not maggots to sell booze. All I know is that, once upon a time, watching the ad reel before a movie used to be an integral part of the cinemagoing experience for me. Remember that shrill woman in the car in those cinema sponsorship bumpers (from Volkswagen?) who used to yell out, "We're gonna miss the ads, that's the best bit!"? Clearly you were intended to sympathise more with her husband (who, IIRC, got out and abandoned her with the vehicle in motion in the final bumper) but I privately felt she spoke a lot of truth. Going to the movies and seeing the ad reel was like getting a grab bag of bonus miniature stories before the main feature, some weird, some terrifying, some absolutely baffling. I'd sometimes emerge chewing more upon that advertising than the film itself. But now, while I remain a staunch proponent of the theatrical experience, I often find my feet dragging in the foyer as the ads are about to start. To me, they're no longer an indispensable part of the package, but these annoying things you have to suffer through before the real fun begins - sentiments that I fear are inevitable around the onset of middle age. I'd be curious to know if kids today still get spooked by theatrical ads. Anything can seem scarier when it's magnified and in the dark, and you're susceptible enough to the sensory overload - how else can I explain being so deeply unsettled by an ad about a Lloyds cashpoint that played before Free Willy? Even some seasonal John Lewis drivel that's bending over backwards to give you the synthetic fuzzies might seem utterly horrifying when viewed through the right pair of eyes. All the same, I'd contend that a major reason why cinema ads seemed so much more spectacular in my favoured period had a lot to do with the company they kept back then, when the promos of the advertising companies themselves were epic little serotonin-inducers in their own right. As long as Pearl & Dean keep using Pete Moore's "Asteroid" as their jingle, a sliver of that grandeur may be preserved for future generations. But we've yet to find a worthy successor to Carlton Screen Advertising and their flaming Carlton star, which was as singularly commanding a cinematic visual as they come. Nothing said "You will fucking pay attention to what we're selling!" quite like having a red hot iron shoved in your face. Those were the days alright!
What made the Carlton Star so special? For a start, I can't claim that any other logo enticed me into to role-playing that I'm a criminal in olden times who's been sentenced to branding. That may sound like a strangely masochistic reaction, but I'm not sure what other narrative I was expected to attach to the sequence in question. We see a star-shaped iron being dunked into burning coals, then before you know it the thing's upon you. I can only speculate what infraction could warrant the barbaric penalty of having a star-shaped scar singed onto my face, but Carlton inflicted it on me with every trip to Cineworld. What exactly was the symbolism there? Were creators Lambie-Nairn seeking to convey some sly commentary on how advertising seeks to imprint on and commandeer our psyches? Was it deliberately likening the process to an act of brutal assault, implying that, by violently searing its mark upon us (or at least, giving the impression of doing so) it was laying claim to us, and to the impulses and desires that could be molded to make perfectly obedient consumers of us? This implicit message, whether conscious or not, is echoed in the logo's stinger, which arrived at the end of the ad reel to give the star the final word. This add-on was less dramatic than the main ident, showing only the star-shaped brand still pointed at the screen in a visibly cooler state, but (thanks in no small way to the eerie background drones), felt no less threatening. This was my final ominous reminder, as a branded medieval criminal, that the pain from my punitive burns might eventually lessen, but the mark wasn't going anywhere. The star insisted on lingering. I belonged to it now.
Needless to say, the Carlton Star left a terrifying impression on the fleets of kids who'd trekked innocently to their local UCI to see Pokémon: The First Movie. By the time it started showing up, in the late 1990s, I personally was already old enough and had spent enough of that time hanging out in cinemas to have acquired a taste for their little terrors, so the star was all catnip to me. It worked so well because it was so purely cinematic, assaulting the senses in the way that only the big screen can. It was bold, intense and awe-inspiring, kick-starting our presentation with a full-on demonstration of all that cinema can do; you'd come because you wanted an experience that can only be fully understood on an enlarged canvas, and you got that in spades with this thing. The mere sight of that brand entering those red hot embers was enough to get sweat trickling down your brow. Those burning coals felt so real and so tangible that they might as well have rolled off and set fire to the cinema curtains that were drawing back right as the logo was starting. You could practically smell them. It touched on a whole cavalcade of nerves (the primal fear of fire, the uncanny uncertainty in not seeing who was controlling the iron brand, which might as well be moving by itself, the visual and sonic severity of that climactic sizzle) but that's what made it such a perfect appetite whetter for the journey ahead. When the lights go down, you want to feel a little unsafe, already on the edge of your seat in anticipation for where the experience could potentially take you. As a counterpoint to its aggressive intensity, it's also a stunningly beautiful logo. That final blend of showering yellows and swirling oranges never fails to make me gasp.
The Carlton Star enjoyed a healthy run, turning up the heat for UK cinemagoers until well into the 2000s. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and the light finally burned out in in 2008, when the UK operation of Carlton Screen Advertising was acquired by Odeon and Cineworld and rebranded as Digital Cinema Media. The Carlton Screen brand (and the star) remained active in Ireland until 2014, when Wide Eye Media (now Pearl & Dean Ireland) took its place. With the Carlton brand now obsolete on both sides of the Irish Sea, it's unlikely that the Carlton brand will be making a comeback any time soon. But like I say, once marked by its searing intensity, there was no way you were getting its imprint off you. Those of us who grew up with the logo will always bear the star-shaped scar somewhere upon our souls.
The logo had another curious legacy (of sorts), in that it was the seeming inspiration behind a 2002 campaign about how piracy would destroy us all. Was it as petrifying as the real deal? All will be revealed in time.
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