Will People Even Notice Your Ad?

I'm reading a fun novel called Babylon by Victor Pelevin - it's about a copywriter in newly post-communist Moscow.

Anyway, came across this passage last night. "None of the passers-by paid any attention to Gireiev. Just like a fire hydrant or an advertisement for Pepsi-Cola, he failed to register in their field of perception because he conveyed absolutely no new visual information."

What a great lesson.

We know from neuroscience that to prevent our brains being 'flooded' by the vast amounts of stimuli we receive, our visual cortex is programmed to only notice things that are new or different. Stuff we've seen before, like that rock, that building, we just don't notice.

So I applied that criterion to a random selection of ads from this Saturday's Guardian magazine. Rather than asking myself if it's a good ad, I asked myself 'does it convey any new visual information?'

Not an absolutely terrible ad. But I've seen pictures of food on stoves before, so by Pelevin's criterion, this won't be noticed.


No new visual information here. I've seen people sitting in aeroplanes before.


Likewise people sitting by the Christmas tree.


This is not an amazing ad, by any stretch. But I've never seen a 'butter advent calendar'. So by the Pelevin doctrine, this is the only ad of the four that might even be noticed.

A sobering thought.

Friday Poll No.2 - Agency Of The Year

Which advertising agency deserves to be Agency Of The Year?

WCRS must be favourite. Their Sky win will put them top of the new business table. And their work is pretty good. (118 118, BMW... they even did a half decent ad for Ferrero Rocher).

Or how about DDB? Top of the Gunn Report - that means the most award-winning agency in the world, not just the UK - and top agency at the IPA Effectiveness Awards too. Campaign always gives DDB a bad write-up; you can bet your house they won't give their Agency Of The Year award to the Paddington crew. Too focused on new business performance perhaps, to the exclusion of other factors like... how good the actual ads are?

Then there's Fallon. Probably the most admired agency creatively in London at the moment. And they won the year's biggest pitch - Orange.

If you think it should be someone else, you can vote 'Other'.

The results of the first Friday Poll - on Agency Pay - were nothing short of astounding.

AGENCY PAY Which department is the most overpaid?
Account Handling	77.4%
Creative	9.7%
Traffic/ Progress/ Production	9.7%
Planning	3.2%
powered by blogpoll

Very few votes for planners, I notice. Is it mostly planners doing the voting, and one rarely thinks of oneself as overpaid?

A whopping 77% thought Account Handling is the most overpaid department. An incredible margin. Why are they considered overpaid, then? Is it because the old-fashioned 'client interface role' is unnecessary, now that clients are less formal and creatives more collaborative? Or is it because the other discliplines need people with 'rarer' skills, who ought therefore to be paid more, according to the scarcity principle? Would love to hear, if you voted for Account Handling, why you did.

And if you're an account handler... what do you think the result means?

Latest Cool Stuff

The internet's not just for porn, you know.

Heard of 10minutemail? It's a nifty site that allows you to create a temporary e-mail address - ideal for when you want to sign up for something but not give out your real address to potential spammers.

Line Rider is fun.

Alternatively, why not Create A Bug. Then squish it.

credit to Pete Rogers, digital agent.

Blair As Hitler

This visual is from an ad opposing the introduction of ID cards. Full story in the - sorry - Daily Mail.

It's not a very good ad. (What do barcodes have to do with ID cards?)

But I'm slightly perturbed by all the comparisons between Blair and Hitler.

First it was a UK Muslim leader comparing Tony Blair’s treatment of Muslims to Hitler’s actions against the Jews.

Then Northern Irish Protestant leader Ian Paisley describes Blair as "like Hitler" for "selling Britain out to Europe."

Type "Blair" and "Hitler" into Google and you get 1.3 million results.

He's not that bad, is he?

Tuesday Tip No.2

Young teams often ask "Should I take a job in a not-so-good agency, or hang tough till I get hired somewhere great?"
The answer is it depends on your individual financial circumstances. If your internal organs are about to be called-in by loan sharks, then obviously you have to take the job. But if you have rich parents, or some money saved, a cushy part-time job, or have found a way to survive by eating everyday household objects, then it's better to wait.

Plenty of great teams started in not-so-good agencies. The key is what you do when you get there. You don't settle. You don't sit on your arse. You spend all your spare time working on the one good account they do have. And the rest of your time working on your spec book. When my partner and I were at a rubbish agency, we spent every night working on our book. Not once a week. Every night.

There will be lots of nice people there, and probably quite a few good creatives too. Don't get suckered in by that. Keep focused on getting out. Because the vast majority of great work, is done by the great agencies. And sooner or later, you want to get into one of those.

Tuesday Tip No.1

What Inspires You?

Saw a great new ad yesterday, for the British Heart Foundation. Here it is.

My first reaction was pleasure and admiration. 'That's great'. A second later, the jealousy kicked in. 'Wonder who did it... hope it wasn't someone I know.' And then the fear. 'Shit, I've got to work harder. Got to write better ads.'

So if I ask honestly what inspires me... the No.1 is probably good ads. Even if what they inspire is mostly jealousy and fear.

At No.2 I would put blogs. I've been exposed to more inspiring thoughts and concepts in the year since I started reading blogs than in three or four normal years.

At No.3 I'm going to put people. I'm lucky enough to have many people around me - colleagues, friends, family - who say inspiring things, and do inspiring things. Why they choose to hang out with me, I have no idea.

So - ads, blogs, people.

What are your 3?

Friday Poll

We have endless debates within agencies about the relative contributions of creatives, account men, planners and traffic.

But forget nuanced discussion.

Let's look at the issue in the simplest way possible. Who's overpaid?

Do account men deserve to earn what they do, for ensuring cients have sufficient coffee at all times?

Are creatives paid too much for searching YouTube to find clips to rip off?

Do planners deserve to earn that much for drawing a parallelogram balanced on a pyramid, with some words in?

Or are traffic over-paid, for informing everyone that the 4pm meeting is taking place at 4pm, and it's 3.50 now, so you really should think about heading to the meeting room?

You decide.

Applying Creative Thinking

We're creatives, right? So I was wondering, would it be possible to apply our creative thinking skills to other areas... like politics?

costofwar.com has a cool real-time ticker displaying the current total spent by the U.S. on the Iraq war. It currently stands at $344 billion.

Now... what if instead of dropping bombs on Iraq, we just dropped cash?

Think of the positives. Iraqis would be rich. They would feel much better disposed towards us. And much less interested in fighting each other. We'd probably get a lot of the money back too, because they'd spend it on western consumer goods. And it would be good news for the region, because rich countries don't tend to start wars. (With the exception of the U.S., of course).

I Swear That London Prostitutes Are Now Employing Copywriters

found in a Soho phone box

PS3 Not For Me

This film of the purchase and subsequent destruction of a PS3 has garnered 1.9m views on YouTube, and been favourited over 3,700 times. There's no doubt the launch of the new console is a very important event in the lives of a large number of people.

Which people? Well, judging from those in the queue to buy one... males aged 16-26. Sadly, I'm way older than that. And though I had a PSOne and PS2, I've decided I'm just 'too old' for a PS3.

But why? Why is it predominantly younger guys who are gamers?

Here's my five stabs at an answer. Feel free to add your own.

1. Time. Younger guys (especially those bloody students!) just have more time to play.

2. Open-Mindedness. When each new piece of technology comes along, a person has to decide - am I going to adopt this, or not? The 60somethings of today were enthusiastic adopters of the new-fangled 'television' when they were younger. And yet most (but not all) have 'decided' that they won't be adopting PlayStations. I suppose technology is like music. You get to a certain age, and you just 'decide' not to keep up.

3. Control. The true appeal of games is control. You are the manager of the football team, the leader of an elite squad of special forces, the builder and controller of an entire city. Younger men have less control in their lives. They've got parents telling them what to do, and bosses. As you get older, you become the boss, and you have your own kids to order around, so you don't need a substitute control fix.

4. Medication. Gaming is a form of self-medication, like drugs or alcohol. Men aren't generally as good at dealing with their emotions as women. Again, they get better as they get older. But for a young guy, dealing with gales of difficult emotions thrown up by relationship and work conflicts, the games console is a handy blockout.

5. Rebellion. Hey, where else can you steal a car and shoot cops, but in a game?

Tips For Young Creatives No.1 - Don't Over-Polish

Although there are many, many people in this world who are better at writing ads than I am, most of them don't seem to have blogs, whereas I do. So until something better comes along, I'm going to start trying to come up with a few tips for the young creatives out there.

And if the amount of wisdom a person has can be measured by the quantity of mistakes they've made, I have quite a bit of wisdom to impart.

So here we go with Tip No. 1

It concerns the age-old question... "when do you go in?" Do you wait until you have an idea that you would die on a sword for before you go in and see your creative director? Or do you go in when you have four or five ideas you like, and rely on him to pick the best one out - after all, "that's his job"? Or do you go in with 'just a few thoughts', and aim to work with him on turning one of them into something good?

Well, partly you have to be guided by the attitude of your creative director.

I remember one CD, years ago, telling me "I want you to run in". By this he meant, don't show me any work on a brief until you are so excited that you can't hold yourself back from physically sprinting into my office.

That much lack of guidance is rare.

But if you are getting too many insults - and a lot of creative directors seem to specialise in the finely-honed insult - then this is a clue that you are going in too early. (We once showed something to Jeremy Craigen when I was at DDB and he said: "That is a really good ad... for McCann's Frankfurt, maybe.")

At the other end of the scale is the "bring me your wounded, bring me your lame" attitude - i.e. show me anything you've got, and let's see if we can make it work. Apparently Dave Droga tries to see all of his teams every day. His attitude is that as a creative, time is your only resource. And he doesn't want his creatives wasting any. He doesn't want them working for more than one day on a thought that he might then not like. He'd rather see all their half-thoughts than one or two finished ones.

So be guided by the attitude of your creative director. But as a general rule, I think young teams should go in with more than one idea. Young creatives often have great ideas and they don't know they're great, because they don't have the experience to recognise it. So go in early, go in often, go in with anything you've got that's coherent, draw stuff up clearly but not beautifully, and don't spend hours crafting dialogue.

After all, you don't want to spend days buffing up some precious gem only to be told by your CD that you've been polishing a turd.

Christmas. Sponsored by DreamWorks.

So, the seasonal decorations have gone up in Soho. Fittingly for London's creative hub, they look like light bulbs.


The Regent St. lights look quite nice too, and apparently use 90 per cent. less energy than conventional lights, being designed from paper-thin panels that glow when a tiny electrical current is passed through them.


You can't get away from advertising though. These lights feature, integrated into the pattern, characters from the DreamWorks movie Flushed Away, released in the UK on December 1st, with voice talent including Sir Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis.

Sponsorship Rocks

Normally sponsorship deals are quite dull. Here's one that isn't. This BBC story describes how a boys' under-10 football team have got themselves sponsored by heavy metal band Motorhead. They have the band's logo (above) on their shirts, and even run out onto the field to the strains of The Ace Of Spades. Well that's one way to intimidate the opposition...

Be Like Jay-Z

The 48 Laws of Power is the book which has swept the world of hip-hop - Jay-Z and Kanye West have mentioned it in rap lyrics; Quincy Jones is making a documentary on it.

But could the book be useful to us advertising types?

Take Law 1 - Never Outshine the Master. “Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.”

Seems pretty sensible. Don’t outsmart your creative director. (Not that I could). He won’t like it.

Then there’s Law 4 - Always Say Less than Necessary. “When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.”

Now this is one I would like to see become more widespread. Imagine how much shorter meetings would be if everyone was determined to say less than is necessary!

You can find all 48 laws here.

My reaction? Well, I suspect author Robert Greene is basically a charlatan, who has simply cobbled together the best bits of Sun-Tzu and Machiavelli.

Then again, someone whose blog is called Power, Seduction and War can’t be all bad I suppose.

Bond Misses Target

The new Heineken Casino Royale ad is not good. That much is obvious. But I thought it might be interesting to analyse exactly who muffed up here. Was it the client? The director? The creative team? The account team?

For me, the client has done a good job. He has briefed the agency to link his brand to an appropriate property. James Bond is global, suave and premium. Just like Heineken should be.

The account team too have done a good job. They have delivered an ad that delivers this link. The branding is clear, relevant, and not overpowering.

The creative team can't be blamed either. The script idea is sound. James Bond's girlfriend worries that a waiter delivering a Heinken to their room has in fact come to kill the celebrated British agent, so she decks the unfortunate minion... who in fact turns out to be completely innocent.

No, the guilty party here is the director. First off, he fails to establish that the woman is Bond's girlfriend. (He could have done this by showing them in bed together at the beginning, for example.) As a result, the viewer has no idea that she wants to protect Bond. For all we know, she could be wanting to kill him herself.

Then he fails to establish the misdirect that the waiter plans to kill Bond. Yes, the receptionist and the waiter are a little bit sinister, but there's not nearly enough false information to genuinely make the viewer suspicious of them. If anything, the viewer is just mystified as to why the girl is so worried.

Finally, he bungles the end gag. The part where she takes out the waiter is well handled. But then surely there should have been a reaction shot from the girl, a 'whoops' moment, where she realises she's just knocked an innocent man unconscious. Without that, the ending is flat, and phoney.

So in summary it's not the client, account team, or creatives who get the turkey sandwiches, but the director, Stephen Gaghan.

(Actually, this isn't his first over-confused strip of celluloid. Anyone seen Syriana?)

This Is Wrong

The Letterman 'Balls' clip has generated lots of interesting comment. I haven't changed my view that it's OK to borrow though. Especially if you're building on an idea, improving it, making it your own somehow.

(Having said that, I do take the point about acknowledging your sources. You look a bit mean if you don't. Like the creators of Honda 'Cog' always claiming their inspiration was the game 'Mousetrap' rather than the short film by Fischli & Weiss.)

But no debate about this one, surely. Compare the 2007 D&AD Student Awards Call For Entry with the promotional materials for the 4th Annual One Show Exhibition at the Ad Museum of Tokyo from 2005.

Listen closely, graphic design consultancy Lippa Pearce. You can steal from a movie. You can steal from a promo. But you can't steal from another ad. And that's just the way it is.

Fallon Are So Busted

But if you really think about it, does it mean we should lower our opinion of 'Balls'? It's the same ad as it was before.

And after all, it's not the first great ad 'borrowed' from another source - Hamlet 'Photo Booth', Honda 'Cog' and Guinness 'Dancing Man' are just the first three that come to mind.

For me, the debate about whether it's right or wrong to borrow is not the right debate. Everyone borrows - Shakespeare ripped off the Greeks, and Picasso was 'inspired' by African art.

In my opinion, the debate should be solely about whether it works. The point of advertising is to sell product. If you borrow something that people know well, it won't feel fresh, so it won't appeal, and won't sell.

But if you borrow something that people don't know about, or change and adapt what you're borrowing so that it's presented in an unfamiliar way, then it will feel fresh, and it will sell.

The Return Of Guest Suit

Account Handlers. They’re always there. Making coffee, laughing at the client’s jokes… But what’s actually going on in their heads?

I’ve asked Guest Suit - a senior account handler at a Top 20 London agency – to come back and straighten a few things out for me. (N.B. this is a real interview, not one of those comedy ones.)


Scamp: You guys are supposed to be the 'make it happen' people… so how come in reality you behave more like the 'No' department?

Guest Suit: I can understand that it may feel that way to creatives. It's your job to come up with ideas, and inevitably, not every single one is going to be right for that piece of business at that time, so we do have to say no quite a lot.

Scamp: Why can't you just take the idea to the client and let the client be the judge?

Guest Suit: That wouldn't be doing our job. We’re not just there to jump up and down clapping our hands like seals when you show us the work, you know. In reality, the client briefs us on what they want, and they expect us to get it for them. They don't want us to bring them things they don't want. If we did that, we would quite soon have no clients. However, we do work for the agency – the agency pays our salary, not the clients - so we're always trying to sell the best possible work, that they will buy.
Scamp: Why do clients so often ask for 'more than one route'?

Guest Suit: They don't like to be painted into a corner. And they want the best chance possible of seeing work that is right. The fact is that what we do isn't a science. There is always more than one answer. One may be more right than another, but there are always different ways to go. It's a game of subjective judgements and the clients like to be able to participate in that judging too.

Scamp: What can creatives do to help get their idea sold?

Guest Suit: Lots. Collaborate with the account team along the way - take them on the journey that you're going on and listen to concerns, barriers and issues as they arise. They're unlikely to go away. Present your work to them in the same way that you would expect them to present it to the client. Give them the strategic rationale, the creative leap, visual reference, everything.Scamp: Do you treat all creatives the same?

Guest Suit: Probably not. After all, no one treats everyone the same way. There are people you like more than others and your attitude and actions towards them will vary accordingly. Friendliness and an appearance that you're listening and being reasonable goes a long way to getting an account team on your side.

Guest Suit's previous post

Americans Do It Better

This viral ad for the Democrats is way better than any political advertising I've ever seen in Europe. It's 4 minutes long but well worth watching to the end.



They just seem to have a handle on how the medium works. Unlike the most recent effort by our own David Cameron. (And if you get to the end of this one, I'll give you £20.)

Tone Of Voice Is Everything

Here's a lesson in the importance of having a strong tone of voice - you can get people to believe anything.

Click to play A Telemarketer's Nightmare

Thanks to Feargal for the tip.

Will It Blend?

It's been said that the most powerful kind of ad is a demonstration, and that if you can do one for your product, you should. Here's proof. Via Seth's blog.

We're In The Wrong Job

Yesterday's Campaign reports that Martin Sorrell earned £2.7 million last year. And two other unnamed admen (one at Aegis, one at Omnicom) earned £1 million+.

It's a lot of dough, for sure... but that's only 3 people in our entire industry. The BBC reports that over 4,000 City boys will be getting a £1 million bonus this year.

It's not fair.

Have We All Gone Crazy?

The most viewed video on YouTube today is a clip of John Kerry's comment about getting stuck in Iraq. It has been viewed 515,725 times.

That's not bad.

But what if you're not the most interesting thing happening in the world today?

What if you're - God forbid - outside the top 3?

The number 10 video is called "Marilyn Monroe on NCIS" and has 39, 218 views.

You will get more viewers playing out a TV commercial in the far north of Scotland in the middle of the night.

Are The PR People Writing Better Ads Than We Are?

Saw this ad in thelondonpaper yesterday.


Not bad. Relevant. With a striking and mildly funny visual.

Actually, there weren't many ads in the paper. But there was this.


Victoria Beckham, AKA Posh Spice, buying a dress in Oxfam (second-hand clothes store chain run by a charity). Now, don't tell me this is news. It isn't. (How come there were cameras there?) It was surely originated by Oxfam's PR agency.

And it communicates brilliantly. "Hey, Oxfam clothes are so stylish, even Posh shops here." I don't imagine an ad could do the job better.

Well, in a way this is an ad. It's got a 'visual', with a small 'headline' underneath it. (Oxfam... the new Gucci? The Oxfam marketing department must be cock-a-hoop).

But it's way better than an ad. For a start, it's ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NEWSPAPER. Plus IT WAS FREE. Media spend zero. Plus it's under the radar. It's not ignorable like ads are.

Then I saw this. Page 2.


A stunt from PETA. Shocking, visually stunning image. Gets the message across. And there it is. A PR 'ad' on page 2 of the newspaper. Cost them nothing. (Presumably the ladies taking their clothes off were volunteers).

Then this.


It's a 'news story' about audience-members fainting during the movie Saw III. Yeah, right. Of course they were. But no matter, it's a powerful advertisement for the film.

Are the PR people doing a better job of promoting products than we are?

Is There Something Wrong With Capitalism?

Hilarious deleted scene from the new Borat movie, via American Copywriter.

Thank God for advertising, I say. How else could we choose between all those cheeses?

Is There Anything You Wouldn't Work On?

A Fly In My Soup reports that he has been asked to work on a cigarette account. (Last I heard, he accepted).

Would you?

His argument - and incidentally he is a non-smoker - was that if cigarettes are legal, then it should be legal to advertise them.

Are You Responsible?

>I was speaking to an old college friend yesterday who is one of the creative directors at WCRS and commiserated with him about the 3 review.

He told me it wasn't true!

He said the client is perfectly happy.

And to think I read it on the front page of Marketing magazine. I suppose journalists make things up all the time.

And why not? There's no come-back. The worst that's going to happen is they have to print a letter denying the story.

This set me thinking... how much responsibility do we ad-folk have to take for our cock-ups?

Traffic / Project Management: responsibility score out of ten - 10
If an ad doesn't get delivered on time, or is printed upside down, or all-yellow, there's no one else to hide behind. The project manager has screwed up, and is probably going to get shouted at. They're aware of this, which is why they all drink at lunchtime.

Account Handlers: responsibility score out of ten - 8
If an account walks out the door, it's the account handlers' fault. If a script doesn't get sold, it's their fault. Stuff not delivered on time? Their fault. Agency not making money? Their fault. Client not happy? Their fault. Actually, this score would be a lot higher, but they do have one get-out of jail card they can use. "Well, the work wasn't right."

Creatives: 3
Not much seems to be our fault, luckily. The only time the finger gets pointed is when we come out with a real turkey. Even then, you can normally blame bad clients, bad briefs, bad weather...

Planers: 1
Let's face it, if something goes wrong, you ain't going to see the planner for dust.

Would We All Rather Be Making Movies?

Probably.

Most ad directors go on to make movies if they can - Ridley Scott and Alan Parker being the pick of them.

Paul Weiland's record up to now is not so hot - City Slickers II and Roseanna's Grave.

But this week he has a chance to redeem himself, with the release of Sixty Six.

Apparently autobiographical, Sixty Six tells the story of how no one comes to a young boy's Bar Mitzvah, because it clashes with the 1966 World Cup Final.

Brand Republic maliciously claims that Weiland was stood up yet again, at the premiere, when the film's star Helena Bonham Carter failed to attend.

Though another news source points out that this was due to her 2 year old son breaking his arm.

Hopefully I'm being unfair to Brand Republic and they go on to mention this further down the article, in the part that's accessible only to subscribers.

Despite their cruelty to Weiland, Brand Republic is actually not a bad site. They are currently featuring the very interesting brain shop ad from Mother.

No Justice In The World

Marketing magazine reports that mobile network 3 is conducting "a major review of its brand strategy" which could lead to it putting its £39m account - currently held by WCRS - up for pitch.

Is this fair?

I'll answer that. No.

WCRS totally rescued that brand. And their advertising for it has been consistently brilliant (see latest example below)



So why the "if it ain't broke, fix it" approach?

The only conclusion one can draw is that the creative work - the actual ads - is just a small part of what matters to clients. We creatives are (sadly) very small cogs in one big big wheel. Or onion. Or pyramid. Or something.

P.S. surprise surprise the review is being led by "director of brand and marketing communications Gary Pepler, who joined the company in June".

That's right.

The first rule of advertising: new client=new agency.

Despite the fact that most great campaigns are the result of long-term agency/client collaborations, that survive many changes at each end (e.g. Economist, Volkswagen, Nike etc).

Blogosphere Welcomes Director

First it was digital types.

Then planners.

Finally, a few creatives began to blog.

But now I'm very happy to be able to announce the first blog (that I know of) by a commercials director.

It's called A Fly In My Soup and not only is it very amusing, it also provides essential insight into the mind of a top director.

(He's pretty good - here's one of his films.)

Flintham & McLeod Split

One of Flintham & McLeod's greatest hits

Campaign reports that Andy McLeod is leaving Fallon, to become a commercials director.

Scamp wishes him all the best.

McLeod and his long-time partner Richard Flintham were arguably the best creative team in the UK over the last 15 years (other contenders... Paul Belford & Nigel Roberts... Tom Carty & Walter Campbell?) and they were superb creative directors too.

Yes, there had been rumours for a long time that they weren't getting along. (These were always denied).

Perhaps they were getting along, and the Campaign story is true, and Andy just wanted a new challenge.

Who knows what really goes on inside a team...

I quite often get comments or e-mails asking 'what is the secret of a great creative partnership?'

The conventional view is it's:

1. Two people who get on well
2. Two people who have the same view of advertising
3. Two people who share the same goals

On the other hand, you could argue that the two members of a team should be very different. After all, if they think the same, why have two of them?

The cynical view is that a creative team consists of:

Two people, of whom only one can draw
or One thinker and one talker
or One writer and one pacer
or Two people called Matt & Phil, Matt & Steve, Matt & Pete, Pete & Steve, or Phil & Steve

The analogy I always make is that a creative partnership is like a marriage, and just as there are many different types of successful marriages, there are many different types of successful creative partnership.

In the end, all one can say is that the proof of a good partnership is in the ideas that come out of it.

And Flintham & McLeod produced some of the greats.

Who Needs Media Spend?

As you probably know, Russell Davies won the APG Battle Of Big Thinking contest.

One of his points (as summarised in Campaign yesterday) was: "the genius of the original brief Wieden & Kennedy got from Honda was 'We want to pass Volkswagen in sales and reduce media spend every year'... the corollary of this is that you eventually get to a media spend of zero."

Bizarre?

It immediately took me back to last week, when the Nike/Rooney poster won Gold at Campaign Poster.

The poster only ran once.

But it got millions of pounds worth of free media, making the sports pages of every British newspaper, even the front pages of some - one or two even printed it as a pull-out poster for their readers.

So maybe Russell is right.

If he is, then let's face it, this is the best news of the year for us creatives.

If media spend is going to go right down, clients will need more creativity, so their brands can capture people's attention using less money, instead of ramming a dull message repeatedly down our throats.

P.S. at the end of his talk, Russell apparently played We Are The Champions and said something along the lines of how it is planners not creative directors who are the future of creativity. Okay. Let's lock Russell and his big-domed buddies in in a room with a few layout pads and magic markers and see if they come out with the next Wayne Rooney poster or Honda 'Grrr', shall we? Hmmm? Shall we?

Sign Awakens Grammar Fascism

So go ahead and apologise then.

(spotted in Soho, London)

New Sony Bravia Ad

So is it any good?

Faulty Product

I saw Flightplan on DVD last night. (Wait! This will become relevant, I promise).

In case you don't know the plot of the film, IMDB sums it up thus: "A bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobody admits she was ever on that plane."

The premise sounds intriguing, and that's what hooked me in to renting it. But the execution is very poor.

One reviewer (again on IMDB) comments that: "the plot ultimately makes no internal sense... you find yourself sitting in the theater snorting at the improbability of what's happening. The big twist that's supposed to shock doesn't make sense."

Another says: "the fantastical, convoluted storyline cannot be realistically reconciled. I left the theater feeling somewhat cheated... the more you think back, the more you become frustrated with how inconceivable the whole charade was"

A third reviewer, listing the plot holes, reckons "we may have some sort of record."

So my question is... could any brand get away with being so bad? Could any product (other than perhaps a book) be released that was so unfit for purpose?

How come we tolerate movies that are poorly made - basically defective - and fail to entertain us, whereas we are quick to complain about a glue that doesn't stick or a battery that won't power a torch?

Here They Are

Yesterday I asked "where are the creatives who blog?"

Well, you already know about Copyranter and American Copywriter.

Here are four 'new' ones.

1. onewomanrunning has started fake it until you make it. Today, she ponders the etiquette of eating lunch at your desk in an open plan office, wondering "are crisps allowed?" She worries about "being extra noisy". onewomanrunning is an aspirant creative, so we wish her the best of luck in breaking into our wonderful feet-up-on-the-desk world.

2. Lazbash, another aspirant, is a self-confessed art director, and newcomer to the UK. He provides this wonderfully odd clip, on his blog whatamidoing?

3. Joao and James, yet another start-up team, have created AdBook, which even (cleverly) links to their very promising portfolio.

4. Finally, do have a look at diablogue, whose co-writer is a regular and valued commenter here called Sean. Sean is digital creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney. His blog is stuffed full of gems. Here is just one - an advert for a design book.

Fred & Farid Quit Marcel

Fred & Farid have resigned from Marcel, to do a start-up.

It will be called Fred-Farid-Lambert, since their partner is an account guy called - like the Highlander - Christophe Lambert.

Here's the report in Le Figaro*

The move has stunned the French advertising world, because the enfants terribles only set up Marcel 18 months ago, on their return from Goodby Silverstein.

Still, the news provides me with the excuse to trot out my five favourite Fred & Farid stories. (N.B. these may not all be true... those guys have a way of accumulating hype & myth...)

1. They once shat in someone's bin

2. They once stuffed an account man into a bin (not the one they had shat in, I'm hoping)

3. They once walked into a creative's office, shut the door, told him: "Your work, it is shit" and walked out again.

4. They once pushed everyone's desks back against the walls one lunchtime, to clear a space so they could practice their kickboxing - right in the middle of the creative department.

5. They once halted a commercial shoot so they could be interviewed by Shots

*N.B. article is in French. I learned that in France the creative department is called the "creation" department. And a rebranding exercise they call "le rebranding". Like "le big mac", I suppose...

My 100th Post

Seems a suitable occasion to look back. So here's 10 things I've learned since I started blogging:

1. Russell Davies is a lot smarter than the rest of us.

2. Writing a blog 'proves' you are up-to-speed on the modern world. When I went for a job interview at an agency in San Francisco, they were as interested in this blog as they were in my reel.

3. Don't publish photos of people doing things that are illegal or semi-legal. They don't seem to like it...

4. For some reason, creatives don't blog (the only others I know of are the excellent Copyranter and American Copywriter. (If you are a creative who blogs, let me know).

5. Just as it is on e-mail, irony is very hard to express in a blog. Steve Hall of AdRants pulls it off. Copyranter pulls it off. And that's it.

6. Writing a blog takes up quite a bit of time.

7. Learning some HTML hasn't killed me. Though it did take quite a bit of time...

8. Ideas have become truly global. This makes a creative's job much harder, since now you've got to come up with things that have never been done before anywhere in the world, not just your own country.

9. A cameraphone is a blogger's best friend (belated new friend, in my case)

10. The lag between a funny clip appearing on YouTube and the idea being released as an ad is now down to just a few days. (See the latest H3 work below.) Sigh.

The Rosenbauer Panther

The mighty Rosenbauer Panther - an airport fire engine - features in this year's D&AD annual (product design section, p.343).

My question is - why didn't it win a gold pencil? Surely it is the coolest thing of the year, if not ever?

It even has electric swing-forward doors.

Press Advertising Today

The new D&AD annual arrived this morning. So I was a bit depressed. Nothing of mine in there. Everyone is better than me. Should try another screenplay. Our industry's finished anyway.

But at lunchtime, I was reading The Independent, and I noticed... quite a few good ads.

This was probably the best one. Great use of irony to make the case.

Then there was this one.

Nice little insight. Strong argument for going wireless. It's an excellent campaign, this, for AOL.


Then this.

I really like the 'Valuable thinking time' thought. A great benefit of taking the train. And this is a witty execution. Hard-working too. It's offering fine food, space to think, and an intelligent funny tone - all in one ad.

Beautiful illustration on this new Orange ad. Seems Mother aren't going to be shifted off the account in a hurry.

Another nice insight. This time for Norwich Union insurance. We all have a cautious side, don't we? It made me read the copy, anyway.

A funny visual. Raised a chuckle. Caught my attention. Not bad for an ad from the government that's literally telling me to sit up straight.

George Bush has just been shot. You can't not look at this image. And one-eighth of a second later, you have taken in the message that there's a programme about this delicious fantasy on the telly tonight.

Of course, there were a few bad ads too. Like these.

OK, it's retail.

V. patronising

Oh well, pays the bills I suppose.

See me beat my chest!

This can't be good, can it?

Huh? It no make no sense.

But all in all, I was pretty encouraged by the day's crop. Who says newspapers are dead?

There was even one further item to cheer me up - a Q&A with one of the legends of our own industry.

He would have enjoyed one or two of the offerings placed around him today I'm sure, being in his day a noted exponent of the print advertising medium. Shit at TV, mind.

What Makes A Good Suit?

Interesting article in Campaign about suits.

Here are some of the qualities that various industry figures say are required of a good account handler:

Patience, diplomacy, negotiation skils, ability to get bills paid on time, breadth of experience, eclectic, ability to do strategy and channel planning, helping stimulate good creative work, make things happen, drive change, clever, fun, to be around, sociable, likeable, rigorous, relentless, fearless, immune to pressure, unfazed by complexity, clear vision, truth-telling, respect confidences, sense of humour, keep things in perspective, don't try to take credit, no whinging, create, lead, manage, make it happen, be on top of everything, be ruthless, respect authority, know when you can flout convention, recognise the primacy of the idea, have a view on advertising, know everything possible about the client's brand.

Phew. Is it any wonder we slag them off, when we expect them to have all these qualities? Nobody has all these qualities.

Let's make today "cut a suit some slack" day.

The Science Of Signs

Hey, no need to thank me.

But I wonder why it's locked during lunch time. Is this cafe so popular that it risks dangerous overcrowding if it allows entry between 12 and 2? Or is it to stop people leaving...?

Merkley

Discovered the super-cool blog of American photographer Merkley. Here's 3 reasons to visit:

1) Pictures like this one
2) His tagline is "I may not be God, but at least I'm real"
3) He has just posted the entire first episode of hilarious new American comedy show "It's always sunny in Philadelphia."

See you there.

Gondry Video Homage On The Simpsons

The original was for The White Stripes 'Hardest Button To Button'

Location, location, location

First, an interesting post by the wise and likeable Northern Planner about his visit to London's soulless Canary Wharf financial district, which is also home to a single ad agency - Ogilvy.

Then - spookily - yesterday's Campaign reveals that Ogilvy is leaving Canary Wharf for that hotbed of creativity... Victoria. (If you've never been to Victoria, you have missed out on a big railway station. And lots of civil servants' offices).

Ogilvy just don't get it. If you want to attract creative people, you can't be in Victoria.

You have to be in Soho, NoHo or the wild East.

Or whatever the trendy/media district is in whatever city you're located. (Is this true, international readers?)

Just as individuals are influenced by their surroundings, companies must be too, mustn't they?

Geography is destiny, as Jared Diamond so brilliantly lays out in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Are You English?

If so, you'll want to have a look at this wonderful new blog about queuing. (via in defence of the ordinary)

It reads like Alan Bennett crossed with Larry David, if that makes any sense.

New BBC one Idents

Apparently there are eight but I could only find this one. It's okay. Nothing earth-shattering.



But they have caused quite a controversy, mostly over the £1.2m cost.

I did enjoy this quote from someone called Luke Crawley of the broadcasting trade union BECTU: "They won't encourage people to watch. That can only be done through quality programmes."

Sure thing, Luke. Just like you buy a brand of running shoes purely on quality, ditto cars, and you buy beer purely on taste and airline tickets purely on price. Oh, and you don't care what clothes you wear either. And your girlfriend doesn't wear make-up and your kids don't want to go to McDonalds. Image is completely irrelevant. Sure, Luke. Sure.

Here's a fun ad from Y&R New York, via Copyranter that self-deprecatingly demolishes this archaic argument.



We add value, people! Let's be proud.

Russell Davies 1 Maurice Saatchi 0

I am sure you read Russell's blog. Yesterday he (incredibly generously) posted what he calls his schtick, which is basically the presentation he has been giving for the last couple of years. It's the most interesting post about advertising/marketing I have read in a long time. Highly illuminating, and brilliantly argued.

Having said that, I do disagree with nearly all of it.

Mostly, he's arguing against Maurice Saatchi's one-word equity or "brutal simplicity" theory, and advocating complexity.

Now, the ideal way to resolve this is to place Russell and Maurice in a sand-floored arena, stripped to the waist, armed with tridents and nets.

However, this plan is fraught with logistical difficulties. Not the least of which is Maurice's packed schedule. In fact Maurice is so busy, I'm going to do him a favour and take on Russell myself.

1. Russell uses this funny video to ridicule the idea that the consumer is just sitting there, waiting to receive our messages. His alternative model is this other funny video portraying ad messages as interruptions to something more interesting that we're doing. I think he's only half-right. He's right that we're not 'waiting to receive' a message. But he's wrong that we're doing something more interesting. Often we're not. We're ironing when a radio ad comes on. We're slumped in front of the TV after a hard day at work when a TV ad comes on. We're staring into space on the underground, when our eyes rest on a poster. And in those situations, if your ad can do something like this then that's fine.

2. Russell shows this ad:

and wonders "What would you say the 'message' of that ad is? No idea. Me neither. Because it doesn't really have one... it's not about a single, clear message." Hmmm. Surely it's just saying "Nike is cool"? " It does this by associating Nike with basketball players, fancy basketball moves and hip-hop, which are cleverly connected by the 'idea' of having the players and moves create the track. Simple.

3. Russell says that "this:

is the model of idea creation that most agencies (advertising, digital, whatever) sell their clients. A bunch of smart strategists narrow down the strategic possiblities (with their clients or without) getting to a simple, smart, sharp, focused strategic idea which forms the basis of a controlled explostion of creativity. (Not too big, not too small). This idea is then implemented across a number of media channels to the happiness of everyone . This model is, of course, complete bollocks, and it's designed chiefly, to save money by a) keeping the really expensive people (the creatives) working for the minimum amount of time and b) making the process look calm and predictable. No good idea has ever happened like this.

The reality of any good process that produces great work is more like this:

It's a mess. A good strategist involves the executers as soon and as often as possible. She allows execution to feedback into strategy and vice versa. Something that happens at the end changes something you thought of at the beginning. It's chaotic, wasteful and unpredicatble. It involves lots of people, lots of dead-ends and wastes lots of ideas. But it's the only way to produce stuff that goes beyond the everyday run of communications. Something that people actually want to engage with. Something that works."

Brilliantly argued. But completely wrong.

"No good idea has ever happened like this."

Really?

So M&C Saatchi have never had a good idea? Not their road safety work? Or Vogue.com poster?

There were never any good ideas in the old days, before Honda, before complexity, before the internet?

And ruthlessly simple ideas like 'Lemon', 'Snowplough', the Hamlet campaign, the Lynx/Axe campaign, and Apple '1984' are no good?

Speaking personally, the (admittedly very few) good ideas I've ever had came from a simple brief.

Creatives spend ages sitting around discussing briefs. And all the creatives I know prefer simple ones. Our number one complaint about briefs is that they are confused, unclear or complicated.

Yes, Wieden & Kennedy do produce great work. And yes, it apparently does come out of complexity and chaos. (This no doubt explains the place's nickname - Weekend & Kennedy). But they are not the only people producing great work. And theirs is not the only way to produce great work.

Is The Future Finally Here?

Two brilliantly executed and very 2.0ish items on AdRants have convinced me that maybe it is. First, NBC's hilarious Bill The Promo Guy ad on YouTube. Second, an anti-smoking website from Colorado (pictured) that is so under-the-radar it may even work. Neither of these could have been done three years ago. They're great. And they're for big, mainstream advertisers.

Find Your Tribe

Fun game, maybe more relevant to the UK than other countries, which supposedly identifies which urban subculture you belong to, e.g. Goth, Indie Kid etc. In case anyone's interested, I was a Blinger.

Who Goes? You Decide

We all know that ad agencies, as currently structured, just aren't making enough money nowadays. So the question today is... which department do you axe? Account handling? Creative? Planning? TV? Traffic/Progress/Project Management? Or do you combine some of them, like Mother has done? Vote now.

Mufftastic Viral For Remington

Here's the link.