Companies pay a lot of money to get the right advertising space but I hope L’Oreal got some money back after seeing where their latest advert starring Cheryl Cole ended up!

Cheryl Cole is one of the nation’s favourite celebrities at the moment and is the face of L’Oreal’s latest marketing campaign, with the tagline “Because I’m worth it”. She recently admitted to wearing hair extensions in her latest TV and Billboard Advert, which was controversial as the advert implied the average housewife could get hair as lovely as Cheryl’s by using their Shampoo, when really they needed to spend £100’s on hair extensions!

Painfully Thick

Fortunately for Cheryl this didn’t hurt her reputation too much and L’Oreal has remained successful, but recently in Cheryl’s home City of Newcastle a badly placed L’Oreal advert may have done more harm than the extensions! Cheryl’s advert was on a huge billboard right next to a McDonalds advert promoting their thick milkshakes using the tag line, “Painfully Thick”. I wonder if this was strategically done as at a first glance you associate Cheryl Cole with being ‘Painfully Thick’. It just goes to show, you can pay a lot for advertising space but location and the advert next to yours can also have a big impact. I thought this image was fantastic and I am definitely Lovin’ It!

As expected, the eagerly anticipated X Factor final came to a conclusion last night with Joe McElderry winning the show. He was by far and away the best performer throughout the competition, although I have to say that the winner’s song did seem much more suited to his style than Olly’s. If the winner’s song had been more cabaret, something more bouncy, then I think Olly would have suited it better. There is no doubt that the better singer won, and I think both of the finalists will go on and make something of the opportunity they have given themselves.

It’s my last full week of work before Christmas, everyone is very quiet and sedate after the party on Saturday. The weekend flew by and suddenly it’s the 14th December! My sister is 20 on Wednesday which makes me feel ancient and then it’s only a week til Christmas! I can’t believe how quickly this month has gone. Last night I watched the final of the snooker, Ding Junhui eventually won 10-8 which I was happy with. I was also delighted that Ryan Giggs won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2009, he has been a credit to the game, won so many things for my team and he only lives down my road. So for a local lad (yeah he’s Welsh but have you heard him talk?) to win such an award was fantastic. Well done Giggsy, a real legend.

Well after months of auditions, live shows and arguments that still rein on between the judges, it is finally the end of this year’s X Factor. The show will end on Sunday with the 3 finalists Stacey Solomon, Olly Murs and Joe McElderry hoping to claim the winning prize. Apparently the ‘winners song’ this year will be The Climb by Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana show). The favourite for the show is Joe, who will be performing a song with George Michael over the weekend. Stacey will be performing with Michael Bublé and Olly with Robbie Williams. Unfortunately I will miss the Saturday show as I have my work Christmas do to attend however I will be tuning in on Sunday to find out who wins. I can’t look beyond Joe really, and although they all have a chance, he is the only one who has been consistently good and seems to have a good backing from all the judges.

We will have to wait and see. Other than that I’m hoping to have a quiet weekend, reflect on things before Christmas and get some wrapping and card-writing done. Right, back to work now.

Google recently held a competition for re-designing their homepage logo in the UK. There are a wide range of entries from ages 5 through to 16 and a lot of good ideas. Take a look at the entries here. My personal favourite though has to be the visually stunning design from a 15 year old who clearly knows how to draw! Take a look below:

Doodle for Google Entry

Google regularly bring out these competitions. You can vote for your favourite and it is great exposure for these kids talents. Not only are some of them great drawings but also really clever ideas. Well done to Google for  such a good way to get kids involved.

I have finally finished the Christmas shopping for this year! I took two days off last week to get it done so I didn’t have to face the Trafford Centre on a weekend. I managed to get most of the things bought on thursday which meant I could have a nice chilled out day on Friday. I went for an exciting day in Manchester – shopping, lunch at Nandos and saw the “Fourth Kind” film. It was a bit strange, quite entertaining but the storyline was a bit disjointed and hard to follow. It was a good day though, followed by Christmas markets (briefly) and a meal at Tom’s house.

The weekend consisted of more shopping, for food this time and watching football in the pub (and the odd game of pool). So my 4 days off had gone, but thankfully I had got all my cards and presents and all before the work’s Xmas do. I managed to sell my United ticket for the Villa game on Saturday which means I can get to the work do on time. The other thing I am looking forward to this weekend is seeing my sisters come back from Uni! The house will go from 4 people to 6, back how it was before! It’ll be good to have a full house again for a while. So there is much to look forward to this weekend, and I’m sure some other nice plans will appear somewhere too.