Navel-gazers see bubble pierced

Belly-button piercing has been preoccupying the nation’s ad agencies for noticeably longer than it has been the nation’s youth.

Last week Cellnet’s mobile phone youth brand U went on TV with a “pierce it” or “don’t pierce it” execution from Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO.

Cherry Coke advertising last year invited us to “do something different” using a tummy which sported a ring-pull in place of a navel ring, courtesy of Publicis.

In fact, both ads were shot at the same piercing and tattoo parlour, London’s Into You.

If advertisers must persist with this body-mutilating obsession, the Diary hopes they will confine themselves to belly-buttons.