So Who Deserved The Grand Prix And Who Didn't?

Outdoor


I love the idea of a solar-powered billboard providing electricity to the local community. Incredibly original, and truly altruistic. However, the line doesn't work at all. Since when did any bank claim to give power to the people anyway? Would have worked much better for a political party, or a power company.

Scamp Score - 5/10


Print


Not a vintage year for print. These ads are good, but not great. The fact that they're from Procter & Gamble is probably the most impressive thing about them.

Scamp Score - 7/10


Radio

The winning ad is an original idea, with rather witty writing. However, at 2 minutes it's a bit self-indulgent as an ad. Yes, the length would make it stand out. But unfortunately, it did start to drag somewhat. Also, I couldn't hear all the words clearly. I only got all the jokes when I downloaded a copy of the script (it's at the same link).

Scamp Score - 7/10


Promo



Bonded by Blood is complete genius. Playing rugby means being ready to spill blood for your brothers, so it fits the sport perfectly. There's even a sniff of Maori racial pride in there, which is wonderful. And the way it connects fans to the poster, by literally letting them have their heroes' DNA on their bedroom wall... phenomenal.

Scamp Score - 10/10


Titanium


The young people, they love burgers. And they love video games. Putting creepy icon The King into his own series of X-Box games is a perfect marriage of the two. Apparently the games were even quite good. They made a shedload of money for BK. And one of them became the 3rd highest selling X-Box game ever. You just can't argue with that. Watch the film here.

Scamp Score - 10/10


Film



Who were all these idiots saying this was a weak year for film? Dove Evolution is an absolutely incredible piece of communication. Subtle, beautiful, and powerful... I'm willing to bet this had a huge effect on the Dove brand, and what's more, on the psyches of of women worldwide.

Scamp Score - 10/10


Overall: some witty ideas, a lot of originality - albeit occasionally for its own sake, perhaps - and one piece of work (Dove Evolution) that will still be remembered in 30 years' time. Not a bad year at all.

Gems From Cannes

Been looking through the Cannes winners.

And what gives me the most pleasure - aside of course from the schadenfreude of seeing friends do less well than expected - is the Bronze winners.

They're often ads you haven't seen before, things that are maybe a bit more quirky and not totally immediate, like a Gold winner has to be.

Here are some of my favourite bronze-hued gems.

Just click on the image if you need to make any of them bigger

The UK: Are We Crap?

Grim news from Cannes, chaps.

British agencies are winning hardly any gongs at all.

Harvey Nichols 'Catfight' (above) is the only ATL gold so far.

We are on course for our worst-ever performance.

Does this list make you feel any better?

Winston Churchill, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Darwin, William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, John Lennon, Horatio Nelson, Oliver Cromwell, Ernest Shackleton, Captain James Cook, The Duke of Wellington, Paul McCartney, Alexander Fleming, Alan Turing, Michael Faraday, Stephen Hawking, Emmeline Pankhurst, William Wilberforce, David Bowie, David Beckham, Thomas Paine, Bodicea, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Sir Frank Whittle, John Peel, John Logie Baird, Aneurin Bevan, Francis Drake, Florence Nightingale, T. E. Lawrence, Alexander Graham Bell, Freddie Mercury, Edward Elgar, David Attenborough, George Stephenson, Charlie Chaplin, William Caxton, Bobby Moore, Jane Austen, Charles Babbage, Geoffrey Chaucer, James Watt, David Hume, Walter Raleigh, Barnes Wallis, Richard Burton, Tony Benn, David Livingstone, Tim Berners-Lee, Marie Stopes.

From the BBC poll of 100 Greatest Britons. N.B. I didn't put them all in, just the ones I like. For example, I left out Enoch Powell. And Elton John. Not that there's anything wrong with Elton - I just don't think he should have made the Top 100.

Man Gets Post-Natal Depression

The Vodafone campaign has been such a big part of my working life. Now it's gone out into the world I feel, well, a bit bereft. Does anyone else get this? How do you deal with it?


This is what Picasso would have painted, if given the brief 'Scamp was feeling a bit blue.'

Taken from a fun art mash-up competition.

Here's another entry.

My Babies

I've slagged-off plenty of ads here in the past.

Well, now you can slag off mine if you want.

Here are four press/poster executions, and a TV ad, all for the launch of Vodafone's mobile internet service.










Director: Simon Ratigan at HLA

Man Gives Birth

The campaign I've been working on for six months breaks tonight.

I'm 50% excited, 50% relieved it's over, and 100% too close to the whole thing to know if it's any good...

Swearing Is Funny. Puppets Are Funny. And So Are Big Flapping Willies

Oh man, I laughed so much. AND I'M A REALLY SOUR HUMAN BEING.

Go immediately to Fish 'n' Chimps to see this hilarious perversion of the Free Hugs campaign.

Voiceovers - Is It Better If They're Famous?

Sorry, still got voiceovers on the brain.

But this time I'm thinking not about what to say, but who says it.

Is it better to get a famous person? After all, I like the Tesco ads a bit more because I recognise the voices of people I like on them - Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett, Cilla Black.

Or is it only important to get a great performance? Louis Mellis and Garrison Keillor were unknown (in the UK) before they lent their voices to Guinness and Honda, arguably the two best VOs of recent years.

The only thing I'm sure of is there's no point using somebody famous if their voice isn't recognisable.

Here's an example of what I mean. It's the most recent Nike running ad.



Could you tell the VO is by Edward Norton? I doubt it. Great read. But... much money spent, and no star-power added.

How Long Should A Voiceover Be?

Currently finalising the voiceover on this commercial I've been working on for six months.

My initial instinct - make it as short as possible. Aren't voiceovers just some burbling sound that goes on in the background, completely ignored by one and all?

The Skoda 'Baking Of' ad doesn't have one at all. Nor does the new Sony ad. (Yes, I know some of you hate it. Screw you! Heavy-metal poodles rule!)

However.

A very influential person here at BBH thinks the public is now bored of what he calls "57+3", by which he means a 60-second ad that consists of a 57-second visual metaphor followed by a 3-second super at the end which explains it.

Also in the 'voiceovers are good' camp you might find the wonderful new Golf ad and, going back a bit, Guinness "Surfer".

(Although you could argue these are 'soundscapes' not genuine voiceovers.)

So what to do? Well, the fact is that our ad does need at least some explanatory voiceover (it's a relatively new product we're selling).

And given a certain groundswell here against "57+3", and a wholly understandable desire at the client end to say some impressive things about their product, it looks like the voiceover is going to be fairly long.

At first I was gutted. But then I realised that, if I could make the words interesting enough, maybe it can work.

To paraphrase Claude Hopkins: "People don't listen to voiceovers. They listen to words they find interesting."

So, fingers crossed. (When they're not typing the 100th draft of my VO...)

Better Than Balls

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in my opinion, the new Sony ad is even better than Balls.

Balls was beautiful and impressive, of course, but I always found it a little po-faced.

This new epic, however, has even more visual daring, but adds a delicious sense of humour - in fact it's camper than a priest in a disco. You can't beat a poodle getting his car washed to an Iron Maiden soundtrack, can you? Didn't think so.

Agency: Fallon London; Director: Pleix; Production Company: Blink

Incredible Flying Car

I've found a wonderful new specimen of that rare beast, the Creative Blog...

It's called Incredible Flying Car and is by Smollensky & Blake, a creative team at Y&R London.

Here's two examples of their consistently innovative and amusing content:

Homeboy or Homeless?


Jiffy Bag Disco


Keep up the good work, guys.

What A Smoke-Out!

I can't help it, I'm addicted to The Apprentice.

Last night's episode was classic TV drama. Sirallan first of all offered Katie a place in the final. Then more or less asked her to swear on her kids' lives that she really wanted it. Result? She pulled out. The man is a master.

And this story proves him right. Seems Katie was planning a media career all along.

One thought: any half-decent Account Man could win The Apprentice, couldn't they?

Looking For Music

As I've mentioned before, looking for music is the hardest thing in the world.

Why? Well, with your edit, you have a limited number of shots to choose from - you can more or less try every combination. But there are literally millions of music tracks in existence. Although I think we've found the perfect track now, you can never be 100% sure.

So although listening to loads of music is fun, it is also frustrating.

Especially with music sites as knowledgeable as the one above. Gratifying to see the search only took 0.334 seconds though...

Olympic Update

Here's the best comment going around about the new logo...



Thanks to Anna Tozer for the tip.

Worst Logo Ever?

This is the new logo for the 2012 London Olympics (by Wolff Olins), released today.

A sad day for our advertising/ graphic design industry, I feel.

Read Seb Coe's justification here.

Apparently, it comes in a series of shades of pink, blue, green and orange (euurrrgh) and will "evolve" in the run-up to the Games. Perhaps it evolves into a logo that's actually good...

Thanks to Paul Silburn for the tip

UPDATE: There's an unintentionally hilarious video that goes with it.

Digital And The Emperor's New Clothes

"handed out like candy bars in online"

I've been wanting to write a reaction to last week's D&AD awards.

Now someone else has done it for me.

Here's a wonderfully thought-provoking guest post, by award-winning DDB London creative Rob Messeter.

I know it's the future and everything, and everyone seems to be wetting themselves with excitement over it (particularly marketing people) but, is it me, or is most online advertising really pony.

I’m not just talking about the big shouty garish banners, or the annoying pop up things, I'm actually thinking of the supposedly award-winning stuff.

For instance the Virgin Casino campaign that last week picked up a silver Pencil in the online advertising category. Let me refresh your memory, you click on the word 'Spin' and a chap dressed like a croupier, wait for it, spins around. In another execution, you click on the word ‘Stand’, and a man stands up. Genius. If I presented anything so woeful to my creative director he'd laugh me out of the room.

Have a look for yourself.

Of course this is just one isolated example, so lets look at another. Another pencil winner in the same category. The Mercedes GL Banner. It’s a shocker. Car drives around bumpy terrain, and glass of water doesn’t get spilt. Ford made a TV ad like this almost a decade ago.

But, these campaigns are over a year old, and things move quickly in digital. Lets look at something current. A recent campaign from the same agency that created the Virgin Casino work.

This time the work is for COI/Anti-Smoking, 'There's never been more ways to get rid of cigarettes.' Now, lets skip the 10 word endline and move straight to the series of 'games' a term used very loosely as in fact they weren't games at all. One of the ways to get rid of cigarettes is apparently to drop an elephant on them, or lower them into a vat of acid. The hottest campaign from the hottest digital agency in town? Hmmm. A strategy that will never make a smoker stop smoking wrapped up in a series of 'games' that would only engage/ challenge/ interrupt a 3 year old.

I think we need to get some perspective. Digital is still relatively in its infancy. As time goes on I’m sure we will begin to see more maturity in the work. But for the moment, everyone please calm down. Clients, throwing all your money mindlessly into digital might not always be the best answer to your business problem. And awards juries, please try and be a bit more critical. In a year when the brilliant Nike St.Wayne poster didn’t get a look in at D&AD, pencils were being handed out like candy bars in online.

There’s something not right there.

That Richard Burton Fella Can Act A Bit

Lovely new Golf ad, from my former muckers at DDB London.

Great insight about the pleasure of driving at night, beautifully shot, and most of all, it's cool, which is exactly what the Golf brand needs.

But what really stands out for me is that voiceover.

It's just mesmeric, isn't it?

New Nike Ad

This latest blockbuster is well-directed, with a lot of nice narrative touches - even a half-decent performance from Ronaldinho - but... I just feel like I've seen it before.

In fact it leads me to ask a question that until recently was unthinkable.

Is Nike still cool?

Three Truths About Editing

1. As soon as you go to the toilet, someone will take your favourite shot out.

2. The person with the most power in an edit suite... is the person physically sitting nearest the editor.

3. The more different restaurants the group decides to order from, the longer the food takes to come. You all need to agree on one restaurant, and order from there. How hard can it be?

Editing

Six men. One room in Soho.

Yes, it gets smelly.

But at least they bring you cups of tea. And sushi.

And it's quite good fun really. We're all being friendly, and collaborating.

And the ad is looking better and better.

I will post some more interesting thoughts about editing when my brain starts to recover...

The Ad Blog Charts For May 2007

Here are the world's most popular ad blogs, as measured by traffic rankings from Alexa.

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1     (1)	AdRants	16,074
2     (2)	Advertising/Design Goodness	36,267
3     (3)	AdFreak	44,620
4     (4)	Adverblog	63,593
5     (5)	Adverbox	71,754
6     (6)	Logic + Emotion	89,238
7     (7)	Adland	106,962	↓
8     (8)	Coloribus	108,639	↑
9     (new)	Ad Punch	149,038
10   (9)	Jaffe Juice	155,737
11   (10)	AdPulp	174,787
12   (11)	Twenty Four	202,869
13   (13)	Copyranter	210,381
14   (12)	Experience Curve	220,807
15   (14)	Beyond Madison Avenue	266,374
16   (15)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	278,297
17   (16)	Hee-Haw Marketing	368,560	↓
18   (18)	AdScam	369,664
19   (21)	Make The Logo Bigger	377,108	↑
20   (17)	Advertising For Peanuts	407,265
21   (19)	Welcome To Optimism	428,001
22   (22)	American Copywriter	488,016
23   (24)	Scamp	518,520
24   (20)	Hidden Persuader	535,251
25   (25)	BrandFlakes for Breakfast	562,043

The Top 8 are unchanged. There's a new entry at 9, the slick 'see the latest good work' site Ad Punch. (N.B. it's not a new site, but it was new to me).
An ↑ means a blog's traffic has gone up by 15% or more in the past month, and a ↓ means it's gone down 15%.

Top 10 UK Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1   (1)	AdScam	369,664
2   (2)	Welcome To Optimism	428,001
3   (3)	Scamp	518,520
4   (4)	FishNChimps	556,598	↑
5   (5)	Adliterate	823,330
6   (6)	Living Brands	908,210
7   (7)	Beeker	1.27m
8   (9)	Faris	1.30m	↑
9   (10)	Northern Planner	1.82m	↑
10  (8)	What If...	2.19m	↓

The entire UK Top 7 is unchanged. FishNChimps is up more than 15% this month, after going down more than 20% last month. He's all over the place, like a mad woman's piss! Nice blog though.

UK means UK-based. Ad blog means ad blogs not marketing blogs, so that excludes Gapingvoid. Paul Colman doesn't class Life In The Middle as an ad blog and Russell Davies has announced he will no longer blog about advertising. Also, I'm only counting English language blogs.

If I've missed anyone out, please tell me and I'll put them in next month.

Doc Rogers - The Blog

My friend Doc Rogers has an amazing ability to find the coolest stuff on the web, including the amusing 'random ransom note generator' you see above. Visit his site for more.

And How Not To Do It

Above is a commercial for the new Alfa Romeo 159.

This bejewelled turd consists of a series of generic driving shots voiceovered with a list of utterly banal product benefits (self-ventilating disc brakes? wowzer!) held together with a flimsy, cliched, smug and meaningless premise. (The reason you bought this new Alfa? Because it's an Alfa).

I only mention it because I couldn't help noticing that the brief for this sucker must have been exactly the same as the brief for the totally brilliant Skoda commercial I featured yesterday.

So to me, it's an excellent demonstration of what makes a good TV ad versus what makes a bad TV ad.

Good - emotional sell; Bad - rational sell

Bad - laundry list of product features; Good - say one thing and say it well

Good - highly creative visual treatment; Bad - highly familiar visual treatment

More contributions welcome.

Interestingly, although I now know every feature of the new Alfa 159, I don't have any interest in it. And whereas the Skoda doesn't tell me any of its features at all, merely making a whimsical claim to be "full of lovely stuff" - I'm far more interested to find out what those features actually might be.

My guess is I'm totally preaching to the converted here - nothing wrong with letting-off steam, helps keep me sane - but if there was one individual out there, maybe the Alfa client or someone from the agency, who would step forward and take me on, argue that this ad is better than the Skoda ad, I would love it, just love it...

New Skoda Ad - The Baking Of

Really nice ad, this, which shows a team of bakers whipping up a Skoda Fabia from dough, berries, golden syrup and the like. Lovely tone to it.

My favourite shot is of the chap struggling to fit the rear stop-light... which is made out of jelly (see above).

Enjoy.

What Does Everyone Do?

Well, I'm back.

A seven-day shoot.

Completely knackered. Watching a film crew lift heavy pieces of equipment can really tire a man out.

As I haven't really written that much on my blog about the actual shooting of adverts, maybe now is an appropriate time to start.

And where better to begin than with the Director?


Creatives obsess about directors. I think that's because we know it's the director who has the biggest influence on the final ad. And whereas we can't choose our account team, client, or creative director... we do get to choose our director.

It's partly fear too. A script - like architects' plans and mathematical formulae - is perfect, in the way that no finished artefact can be. When you hand your script to a director, you are handing it to the man who turns your perfect Euclidean construct into rough-and-tumble reality. Of course, sometimes they'll make it better than the blueprint. But the fear that they'll cock it up is always there.

Over the years I've noticed that it doesn't really matter if you and the director have wildly divergent personalities. As long as you have the same vision for the ad, you'll probably get on well.

If you do fight a lot then A) you probably picked the wrong director and B) you probably won't end up with a good ad.

It's a strange relationship though. The director has ultimate power on the set. 50 or so people jump to their commands. And yet if the creative says "can we try it this other way...?" then they kind of have to listen. But you feel guilty. It's like giving orders to an emperor.

There's a lot of mystique around directors. Who's on the way up, who's on the way down. Who flies a runner from Iceland down to Soho to bring back a certain coffee bean for him. Who's shagging who, who's earning how much, who's moving production companies, who can't get work any more, who's getting 50 scripts a week.

Most of it's hearsay. I once thought of setting up a website - Ratemydirector.com - where creatives could log in to give anonymous feedback on the man behind the camera.

Until then, I'm happy to give this feedback in public:

Simon Ratigan of HLA has done a great job for us so far.

You'll Never Guess What...

That's Right, Still On Shoot

Oh Lordy This Is One Long, Long Shoot

Still Shooting And I'm Not Going To Say What It Is

Still Shooting

My Partner's Birthday Dinner Last Night

Happy XXth, Nick!

On a shoot

The New Honda Ad

Only one possible blog topic - the new Honda ad, which broke yesterday.

And only one question to ask - is it as good as Cog, Grrr, and Impossible Dream?

In short - no, it isn't.

Having said that, it is a very, very good ad.

It's brilliantly directed (by promo king Mark Romanek), with a really unique look, great atmosphere, and a couple of awesome shots - I absolutely love the scientist vaulting the barrel, which I take to be a sly reference to Donkey Kong.

However, when all is said and done, we've seen engineers in ads before. And the notion that "having ideas is hard" is not a new one (especially to us creatives, right guys 'n gals?); it's certainly not as original as "hate something, change something".

I hope I'm not being too critical here, but you know what? It's Wieden & Kennedy's own fault, for setting the bar so high with their previous ads...

Friday Dilemma

Your creative director asks you to recommend him a team. Do you suggest someone really good... who'll be a competitive threat when they come? Or do you suggest someone not so good - it will call your judgement into question when they don't do very well. Or do you just ring your mates?

Inside Her Pretty Little Head

I've been reading an interesting new book about marketing to women.

I used to work with the authors, who as well as being super-smart, are super-hot chicks.

Oh dear, I probably shouldn't have said that last bit...

Anyway, despite the complete lack of pictures (come on, girls, let's sex it up a bit for the second edition!) there's some great stuff in here.

Their answer to why creative departments are full of men? Because creatives have to fight uncompromisingly for their work, and "Boys always think what they have done is brilliant".

They also have a great bit on women putting down men in advertising:

There are a number of commercials in which some hapless bloke... is the butt of the joke for his partner and her bitchy mate. We think this is an attempt to make the women in the audience feel that the brand is on-side with them... the truth is that... observing a woman humiliating a man in front of other people in an aggressive way does not feel good to the female audience.

It's embarrassing, seems cruel and is not empathetic. We're not saying that women don't sometimes complain about men or their partners, but they usually feel guilty afterwards, and they certainly don't want it played out to the rest of the population in the middle of a prime-time TV show.

And a final point to ponder:

A masculine bias is evidenced not just in the worst work that the industry produces but in the best work too. When you look at awards lists, it is inevitably male brands that are picking up the accolates for the best work.

In fact, analysing the Cannes Gold Lion winners for the last seven years, they find it splits out like this: Male Categories: 82 Lions, Neutral: 43, Female: a paltry 9.

Time to steal that shampoo brief?

isobel Needs A Team

London-based ad agency isobel, creators of the print ad you see above, need a new creative team, and have asked me to put the word out, which I am very happy to do.

In their words, they are looking for "a quality middleweight team. Not the kind of middleweight team who’s always been a middleweight team, but the kind that go from junior to senior and barely even set foot in middleweight."

You can email dave@isobel.com or rob@isobel.com with CV’s, or drop your book into isobel, 4th Floor, 91 New Cavendish Street, London W1.

Dave and Rob are stand-up guys.

If you fit the bill, give it a go.

Awards Shows And Silos - A Comparison

The One Show finalists are out.

Not too much UK stuff is in. The Harvey Nichols and Marmite campaigns are. Plus the brilliant Billions from my own agency. (Bias? Hmm, probably. But it was done before I arrived, honest).

However, my point today is this.

Why oh why, in these days of 360 degree media, is there no award for best idea? Everything is siloed into press, poster, TV etc.

I guess Campaign organise their awards by medium so they can get the Poster awards (for example) sponsored by the poster contractors etc, but what excuse do D&AD and The One Show have?

Cannes used to award their Titanium Lion to the best integrated campaign, but last year they changed the rules and gave it to what they considered 'the best idea in any medium', which turned out to be designs for customised barcodes.

So therefore every awards show in the world is now rewarding 'best idea in this medium' and 'best idea in that medium' and no one is awarding 'best idea across multiple media'.

Can that be right?

David Mamet To Direct Ford Ads

Fascinating story a few days ago about the genius behind Glengary Glen Ross, House Of Games, and The Spanish Prisoner directing ads for Ford.

Can't wait to see how they turn out.

One other feature of the story I found interesting was just how much more intelligently they seem to write about advertising in North America.

Within a few short lines, there's a lucid description of the merits and demerits of comparative advertising, and an explanation of the exact division of responsibilities between Mamet and the agency copywriters.

I don't want to turn this into a let's-slag-off-Campaign post, but... would you get that in Campaign?

UPDATE

I found one of the ads on YouTube.



It's not that great.

Funny, that. Most ads by great directors aren't.

Don't Run. Drive.

This Suzuki ad from today's Independent is unbelievably behind the times.

In case you can't quite read the type, they are saying you are 'bonkers' to go running, when you could be driving their brilliant 4x4!

Don't these people read the newspapers?

Your Visual DNA

This website comes across at first like one of those yawny test-your- personality type things. But as it's purely visual (until the results) it did hold my attention for, ooh, two or three minutes.

There's No Such Thing As A Press Ad

I've let a week go by before writing about the Campaign Press Awards... long enough for my anger to dissipate.

That's right, nothing of mine won.

But there were definitely some worthy winners. Here are three of my favourites, which all have something very important in common: they're not press ads.





They're posters, that happened to appear in print.

And this is great.

It's a complete myth that people "have more time" or "are more relaxed" when they're reading newspapers or magazines.

Just because they're sitting in an armchair doesn't mean they're any more interested in commercial messages than when they're driving a car.

You still need to stop people, grab their attention, and reward it.

These ads do that.

Tuesday Tip No.20 - How To Discuss Ideas

This next tip for young creatives is an expansion of a point in Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner, that seemed to strike a chord.

Never say 'no' to one of his ideas. People hate being told no. Instead just say 'yes' in an unconvinced sort of tone. This one really works! Avoid hours and hours worth of arguments!

You see, in discussing ideas (or brainstorming, if you must, although the word sounds like David Brent will be there) they always tell you 'be positive - you should never say no to anything.' But they don't tell you what you should say.

Here's my guide.

What You Want To Say	How To Say It
Brilliant! You've cracked it!	I like it. I like it a lot.
Good, but I think we can do better.	Good.
Strategically sound, but not very interesting.	(neutral tone) Yes, that works.
Interesting, but strategically unsound.	(neutral tone) Interesting.
There may be something good in there, but right now it doesn't work at all.	Interesting, worth developing.
Off-brief, and pretty dull.	(neutral tone) Uh-huh.
Wildly off-brief.	Say that one again?
Still wildly off-brief.	Okay, I get it now.
Incredibly boring.	OK.
Rambling, dull, and uninspiring.	Shall we break for lunch?

Tip No.19 - Read Hugh's Tips
Tip No.18 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part IV - How To Turn A Placement Into A Job
Tip No.17 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part III - How To Approach Agencies (re-print of Tip No. 7)
Tip No.16 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together
Tip No. 15 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ
Tip No. 14 - Make Friends With Traffic
Tip No. 13 - Get Reference
Tip No. 12 - Don't Stop Too Soon
Tip No.11 - Be Very
Tip No.10 - Breaking Up
Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner
Tip No.8 - Finding The Right Partner
Tip No.7 - How To Approach Agencies
Tip No.6 - Never-Seen-Before Footage
Tip No.5 - Dicketts' Finger
Tip No.4 - Two Blokes In The Pub
Tip No.3 - Play Family Fortunes
Tip No.2 - Should You Take A Bad Job?
Tip No.1 - Don't Overpolish

The Engagement Model

Traditional advertising is dead. The way forward, rather than interrupting consumers, is to create compelling content that they will want to engage with.

Or is it?

Let's look at two examples.

First of all, Qashqai Car Games, created by TBWA.

This is an absolutely brilliant site. They've created an entire fictional sport, a kind of urban Scalextric but with real cars, and created genuinely funny short films profiling some of the events, drivers and teams involved in it. There's so much detail there, and the standard of design, writing and direction are all first-class.

But the site is only the 387, 125th most popular on the internet. In fact there are 17 ad blogs that have more traffic than Qashqai! Its daily reach is just 0.004% of the internet audience. Any media company achieving that kind of reach for its clients in traditional media would surely be fired on the spot.

Secondly, Bud TV. The content on Bud TV is a bit shit. I quite like girls in swimsuits, but even I was struggling to stay awake halfway through the 'exclusive' footage from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Launch Party (Including interviews with the models!) sample model opinion: "I looked up to Christie Brinkley, so to be in this issue is just crazy for me."

Surprise surprise, Bud TV is tanking. The complicated sign-up process is held partly to blame.

But I've got another explanation.

You see, I just don't believe that people who are looking for entertainment want to go to a beer website or a car website to get it. They want to go to an entertainment website, e.g. FHM.com.

Maybe I'm a lone voice in the wilderness here, but just maybe the interruption model is not dead.

I'm sorry that TV airtime has become more expensive, and that mass audiences are harder to reach, I really am.

But the solution is not to create a website that nobody goes to.

The Ad Blog Charts for April 2007

Last month I experimented with basing the charts on links, as measured by Technorati. But I've now decided to go back to my previous method - traffic rankings from Alexa. Why? Well, it's quicker to do, basically. So here we go.

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1     (1)	AdRants	15,547
2     (2)	Advertising/Design Goodness	39,910	↓
3     (3)	AdFreak	40,105
4     (4)	Adverblog	58,427	↓
5     (5)	Adverbox	66,788	↓
6     (9)	Logic + Emotion	86,514	↑
7     (6)	Adland	89,156	↓
8     (7)	Coloribus	125,948
9     (10)	Jaffe Juice	149,095
10   (11)	AdPulp	177,166
11   (8)	Twenty Four	198,861	↓
12   (14)	Experience Curve	208,822
13   (16)	Copyranter	214,430
14   (15)	Beyond Madison Avenue	240,175
15   (13)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	240,363	↓
16   (new)	Hee-Haw Marketing	289,516
17   (18)	Advertising For Peanuts	373,899	↓
18   (19)	AdScam	405,803
19   (25)	Welcome To Optimism	470,913
20   (new)	Hidden Persuader	491,690
21   (new)	Make The Logo Bigger	508,695
22   (17)	American Copywriter	508,726	↓
23   (24)	Ernie Schenck	550,625
24   (23)	Scamp	555,761
25   (21)	BrandFlakes for Breakfast	632,290	↓

The biggest riser, going up 6 places from 25th to 19th, was Wieden & Kennedy's Welcome To Optimism, a fascinating and candid blog, which this month included their controversial report on the Nokia pitch briefing.

In an exciting new feature on the chart, I've added an ↑ if a blog's traffic has gone up by 20% or more in the past month, and a ↓ if it's gone down by 20%.

Lots of ↓'s, you'll notice.

In fact only one blog bucked the trend and increased its traffic by more than 20% over the month - David Armano's ever-interesting Logic + Emotion.

Is the adblogging boom coming to an end?

Top 10 UK Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1   (2)	AdScam	405,803
2   (5)	Welcome To Optimism	470,913
3   (4)	Scamp	555,761
4   (3)	FishNChimps	650,371	↓
5   (6)	Adliterate	800,561	↑
6   (new)	Living Brands	1.01m
7   (9)	Beeker	1.30m	↑
8   (7)	What If...	1.57m
9   (10)	Faris	1.84m	↑
10   (new)	Northern Planner	3.46m

UK means UK-based. Ad blog means ad blogs not marketing blogs, so that excludes Gapingvoid. Paul Colman doesn't class Life In The Middle as an ad blog and - in the move that shook the blogosphere - Russell Davies has announced he will no longer blog about advertising, so sadly he's not in either. Also, I'm only counting English language blogs.

If I've missed anyone out, please tell me and I'll put them in next month.

Mother Placement Competition - The Final Three

I've written before about the competition for Bucks students to win a placement at Mother.

The challenge was to produce a YouTube film, with the original idea being that whoever got the most views would win the placement.

Here are the final three.

The Meat-Off - 7,443 views


Belly Dancers - 1,928 views


Cheap Thrills - 1,151 views


I hear that Mother may now be making the final decision based on 'creative quality' and not number of views. Shame. I rather liked the purity of 'most virally viral wins'.

Scamp On Scamp

My partner's parents have acquired a delightful new dog.

His name? Scamp.

Tuesday Tip No.19 - Read Hugh's Tips

Today's tip for young creatives is very simple.

If you haven't read Hugh's tips on How To Be Creative, do so.


Tip No.18 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part IV - How To Turn A Placement Into A Job
Tip No.17 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part III - How To Approach Agencies (re-print of Tip No. 7)
Tip No.16 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together
Tip No. 15 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ
Tip No. 14 - Make Friends With Traffic
Tip No. 13 - Get Reference
Tip No. 12 - Don't Stop Too Soon
Tip No.11 - Be Very
Tip No.10 - Breaking Up
Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner
Tip No.8 - Finding The Right Partner
Tip No.7 - How To Approach Agencies
Tip No.6 - Never-Seen-Before Footage
Tip No.5 - Dicketts' Finger
Tip No.4 - Two Blokes In The Pub
Tip No.3 - Play Family Fortunes
Tip No.2 - Should You Take A Bad Job?
Tip No.1 - Don't Overpolish

E-Mail Your Future Self

Have you heard about Futureme.org?

It's a rather nifty website that allows you to send an e-mail to your future self. So far, over 391,000 people have done so.

And of course, the best of them have been collected up into a book.

Myspace Now 11th Largest Country In The World...

...and other interesting facts, in this 'shift happens' web video, found via my friend Damiano's interesting new blog.


P.S. the results of the most recent Friday Poll show that Lord Lever was right.


According to readers of this blog, half of the money spent on advertising is wasted.

Sometimes more! Oh well. It keeps us busy, I suppose.


Previous poll results:

Friday Poll No.14 - What Do YOU Do In The Ad-Breaks?
Friday Poll No.13 - Which Department Is The Most Insane?
Friday Poll No.12 - What Music Do You Listen To While Working?
Friday Poll No.11 - What Time Do You Get In?
Friday Poll No.10 - Who Drinks The Most?
Friday Poll No.9 - Press v Online
Friday Poll No.8 - Success Or Glory?
Friday Poll No.7 - Is Reading Blogs A Waste Of Time?
Friday Poll No.6 - Job Satisfaction
Friday Poll No.5 - Festive Greetings
Friday Poll No.4 - Ad Of The Year 2006
Friday Poll No.3 - What's Your Favourite Medium To Work In?
Friday Poll No.2 - Agency Of The Year
Friday Poll No.1 - Which Department Is The Most Overpaid?

Mentos plus... Bitter?

Nice take on the Mentos genre.

Found at Tuff Sheet, a site made by one of London's leading production companies Blink to house their favourite spoofs and virals.

Gwen Gets Job

Great news for Gwen - she has been hired, and by a top agency too, W&K Amsterdam.

Of course, she's documented the interview process in her own unique and wonderful style.

Here she is meeting co-ECD Al Moseley, who she finds very noble.


Meanwhile Al's partner, John Norman, seems to have been pre-warned of her modus operandi.



Congratulations, Gwen! And very best of luck in Amsterdam.

Fetishisation of Doing

I'm belatedly a bit miffed by what Russell wrote in Campaign last week.

Ideas are the easiest, fastest and cheapest things to have in the world. It's getting them made that's hard, and for that you need traffic and production. Ladies and Gentleman, we salute you.

Let me start by joining Russell in saluting traffic and production. You couldn't wish to meet a nicer or more dedicated bunch of people.

But I got to stand up for my peeps. Having ideas is not easier than getting them made. Quite the contrary.

Come on, we're not going to place doing above thinking are we? Like, salute the guy who got Moby Dick to the printer on time, rather than Herman Melville?

Getting things made may look harder because you can actually see a person doing that job, whereas you can't see a creative's or a planner's brain working.

But thinking is still work. Very hard work, in fact. Thinking is not a crime!

I guess Russell knows that really, he's just trying to provoke a response. And he's succeeded, darn it...

Second Life Flooded

Really neat idea this, from Ogilvy.

To highlight the dangers of climate change, they arranged to flood parts of Second Life yesterday.

It's the best use of Second Life so far, I reckon, and a pretty original way to get the message across.

More details here

Tuesday Tip No.18 - How To Get A Job In Advertising, Part IV

Time for the final installment in this dubiously useful series, which will comprise ten suggestions on How To Turn A Placement Into A Job.

(Of course, placement is not the only way to get a job - you should also be looking for opportunities via friends, headhunters, Cream etc. But it's probably the most common way.)

1. Don't worry if you have been on a placement for a while, and haven't been hired yet. Some people get hired after being on placement at the same agency for up to a year. The rule is 'if you like it, stay'.

2. Unless they explicitly tell you there is no job for you at this agency. In which case make plans to leave straight away.

3. Some people get hired on their first placement. Some people do five, ten or more. Don't worry too much about this. A lot of it is down to luck - you have to do well, which is partly luck, and the agency you are at has to be hiring, which is completely luck.

4. Don't waste your time trying to crack the agency's big showpiece TV brief. These projects take months. Even if an idea of yours does get bought, you will be long gone by then so won't reap the benefits.

5. Be useful. Crack the small, dirty, smelly briefs - the ones that no one else in the department wants to touch.

6. But you've got to do good work too. Useful on its own isn't enough. Useful and good is what's wanted.

7. You should from time to time be doing ads that are good enough for your book. It's very disappointing to see a young team who, after a year of placements, haven't got any 'laminates' - real ads they did in an agency that ran. In fact to be honest it probably indicates some kind of problem.

8. Do the things the existing creatives probably don't do much of: digital, ambient, stunts, that kind of thing. Make the creative director think you offer something new to his department. That's better than just being a cheaper and more inexperienced version of what he already has!

9. Fit in. Go to the agency's bar if they have one, make friends with the other young people about the place. If you fit in well, you're more likely to get hired. That's just human nature. If you don't fit in well, you're probably in the wrong place anyway. E.g. if you wear cavalry twill trousers, Mother isn't for you.

10. In every moment of spare time, you should be working on your book. Why? Because if your current placement doesn't lead to a job, you'll need that book to get another one. And the better your book, the better the agency you can get into. Hey, what are you doing reading this? Go work on your book for Christ's sake!


Tip No.17 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part III - How To Approach Agencies (re-print of Tip No. 7)
Tip No.16 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together
Tip No. 15 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ
Tip No. 14 - Make Friends With Traffic
Tip No. 13 - Get Reference
Tip No. 12 - Don't Stop Too Soon
Tip No.11 - Be Very
Tip No.10 - Breaking Up
Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner
Tip No.8 - Finding The Right Partner
Tip No.7 - How To Approach Agencies
Tip No.6 - Never-Seen-Before Footage
Tip No.5 - Dicketts' Finger
Tip No.4 - Two Blokes In The Pub
Tip No.3 - Play Family Fortunes
Tip No.2 - Should You Take A Bad Job?
Tip No.1 - Don't Overpolish

Tuesday Tip No. 17 - How To Get a Job In Advertising, Part III

So, we've covered the FAQ, and How To Put A Book Together.

The logical next topic is How To Approach Agencies, which I realise I've already covered here.

So without further ado, I'll move straight on to the fourth and last download of whatever paltry knowledge I have about how to get a job in advertising - How To Turn A Placement Into A Job.

Tip No.16 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together
Tip No. 15 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ
Tip No. 14 - Make Friends With Traffic
Tip No. 13 - Get Reference
Tip No. 12 - Don't Stop Too Soon
Tip No.11 - Be Very
Tip No.10 - Breaking Up
Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner
Tip No.8 - Finding The Right Partner
Tip No.7 - How To Approach Agencies
Tip No.6 - Never-Seen-Before Footage
Tip No.5 - Dicketts' Finger
Tip No.4 - Two Blokes In The Pub
Tip No.3 - Play Family Fortunes
Tip No.2 - Should You Take A Bad Job?
Tip No.1 - Don't Overpolish

Nice Wonderbra Ad

Gwen At D&AD Congress

The irrepressible Gwen has been hired by D&AD to report from their Congress.

She spots W&K creative director Tony Davidson giving blogosphere genius Russell the old 'hamster-cheeks' treatment.



And Piyush Pandy of Ogilvy India reminds her of Mr Pringle.



God, but Gwen's drawings crack me up. It's the fact that they're in-jokes, I suppose. In-jokes are always funny.

See it all at the D&AD blog.

How To Get A Placement At Mother

Everything Mother do is pretty good.

But I particularly like their latest idea.

They are offering a placement to a 3rd year team at Bucks College. Each team has to make a YouTube video. And the placement will go to whichever film gets the most views.

Now who says creatives don't care about results?

Here are the films.

• Living with Pro Evolution 6
• Party Popper Russian Roulette
• Kissing a gran
• Up her Nose and Out again...
• The Magic Number 10
• Chew it
• Belly Dancers
• Fit Granny's
• My gran complaining about pigs and ham
• Panto montage
• Lift giving birth
• The meat off
• Cardboard box game
• How to look hot on the dancefloor

via CreativeinLondon

Proof

I thought Nike taking business out of W&K was inexplicable.

But maybe this article explains it (apparently Nike feel Wieden's lacks digital expertise).

I suppose this confirms my advice of yesterday to young creatives (in fact it probably means the advice applies to ALL creatives) -

You've got to be able to do digital.

I mean, who would hire a team that couldn't do, say, print?

Tuesday Tip No. 16 - How To Get A Job In Advertising, Part II

What to put in your portfolio?

Well, the answer to that used to be easy: 8 advertising campaigns, each consisting of 3 print ads, plus maybe an ambient execution or a TV storyboard (so long as it had no dialogue, of course.)

And such was the way it was for, ooh, years.

But it's all changed now. If your book still looks like that, you're doing it wrong.

Why? Because creative directors have gone digital crazy, that's why.

Most creative directors are surprisingly clued-up about digital. Remember, they're closer to the 'business' side of the business than rank-and-file creatives are - they know full well that clients are now demanding their agency start delivering great work in non-traditional media.

And as well as re-training their existing creatives, they're looking to the new generation to give it to them.

You must be that new generation. Your book must show compelling examples of how brands can exploit the digital space.

Heck, maybe your book shouldn't even be a book, but a website or a CD.

(Having said all this, you've got to show you can do all the traditional media as well. So yes, your 'book' still needs to have lots of great print work, and the odd TV ad, if you want a job in a so-called above-the-line agency).

But more and more you need to demonstrate how to reach consumers in new ways. That means new media, events, ideas for mobile games, TV shows, crazy shit... maybe even new products.

And above all, digital.

ADDENDUM. In case it's useful information for any young teams out there, the most recent student book that my partner and I have recommended to the creative director here looked like this: 9 campaigns, with a total of 21 print ads, 2 TV ads, 6 digital executions, and 31 (!) executions that are ambient/ new products/ crazy shit. Maybe there were a few too many of those. But you get the idea.

Tip No. 15 - How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ
Tip No. 14 - Make Friends With Traffic
Tip No. 13 - Get Reference
Tip No. 12 - Don't Stop Too Soon
Tip No.11 - Be Very
Tip No.10 - Breaking Up
Tip No.9 - Working Well With Your Partner
Tip No.8 - Finding The Right Partner
Tip No.7 - How To Approach Agencies
Tip No.6 - Never-Seen-Before Footage
Tip No.5 - Dicketts' Finger
Tip No.4 - Two Blokes In The Pub
Tip No.3 - Play Family Fortunes
Tip No.2 - Should You Take A Bad Job?
Tip No.1 - Don't Overpolish