Tuesday Tip No. 24 - Don’t Be Afraid To Ask

When you’re a junior and you’re in the process of making an ad, whether it be TV, radio or print, and you’re sitting in a sound/editing/retouching studio, it's easy to feel pressured into saying ‘yes that’s looking good’, when your inner voice is thinking, ‘hmmm... i’m not sure... something doesn't feel right.’

Just come out and say it. Even if you’re not sure what’s wrong, it's better to register your concern there and then, rather than let it go. Because if you don’t, it’ll niggle at you, and you may regret it later.

And quite often... that little inner voice is right.

Thanks to RM for this one

Tip No.23 - Your Idea Has To Be 120%
Tip No.22 - Read Iain's Tips
Tip No.21 - Don't Behave
Tip No.20 - How To Discuss Ideas
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

Why No Scamp For A Bit

That Thriller Video

Is it more sinister than it appears?

Tuesday Tip - Your Idea Has To Be 120%

I owe this one to Andrew Fraser, formerly of DDB London, now ECD at Rapier.

I once showed an idea to Andrew - I think it was a print ad for The Guardian - and what he said was: "Yes, it's fine, it's good, it works."

But his tone of voice was a 'no'.

I asked what the problem was.

He replied: "Your idea has to be 120%, to survive the weakening."

I learned a good lesson that day. Here is a diagram of what I think he meant.



Tip No.22 - Read Iain's Tips
Tip No.21 - Don't Behave
Tip No.20 - How To Discuss Ideas
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

Two New Creative Blogs

Oh happy day.

Where's My Jetpack has been around for a while, and I really should have linked to him before.

Mr. Jetpack is a copywriter in what he calls the Sub South (Deeper than the Deep South) of the U.S.

In a great post about billboards, called "No One Is Writing Down Your Number", he points out that no one EVER wrote down a phone number while they were travelling in a moving vehicle. Furthermore, you don't need to put www. in front of a word that ends with .com or .org or .biz - it's totally obvious you're talking about a web address. Quite right. He provides a telling before-and-after using the Jetpack method.



The second new creative blog is The Toad Stool by a New York-based copywriter/creative director.

Toad, as he styles himself, has a nicely snarky tone to his blog, and brings us this funny story about the sadness of Second Life:

In real life Mr. Hoogenstraat is an aging hippie who suffers from diabetes and chronic joblessness, in Second Life he is a muscular young entrepreneur with a fortune of some 1.5 million Linden (SL’s virtual currency) and a hot young Second Life wife. (Mr. Hoogenstraat’s SL avatar married a female avatar in a ceremony that was attended by several dozen other avatars. Really.) Mr. Hoogenstraat is able to “employ” a virtual security guard for one of his virtual malls. Which means that someone is logging on to SL to pretend to be a mall security guard.

I doubt we'll ever catch the Planners, but it's good to see more Creatives tapping away out there.

Clients Sabotage Their Own Ads

Say readers of this blog.


I asked a couple of clients of my acquaintance to defend themselves. Here's what "Anonymous Female Client" said:

So clients are to blame according to a poll amongst advertising creatives...now there's a surprise!

In reality I think everyone's a little bit to blame when an ad goes wrong, but to even out the scores I'm
going to vote for account management.

Account management is one of the most undervalued roles in an agency. You have to be a revolving ball - representing the client to creative and creative to the client. They have to be a mediator and negotiator. They have to communicate and provide the clarity which prevents the need for compromise on either side later on (when it is often too late). It's not an easy job. But I would say that poor account management skills are often to blame when ads don't turn out the way you want them to be.

And this is what an account-man turned client known as "Boggy" had to say:

Planners always take the credit when a campaign has been proven to be effective (but then it's them who's collated all the evidence), so you could argue that they should take the rap when it is ineffective.  If only it was that easy.

Each department has a different role in the ad process. The thing is, ineffective advertising can come if any part of that process breaks down.  Creatives can seduce teams and clients into buying the wrong creative, planners can deliver the wrong strategy, account men can fail to protect the idea from worried clients, and clients can get any part of their bit wrong at any stage.  The trouble is, its easy for creatives to blame clients, because ultimately it's they who buy the work, or fail to buy the obviously brilliant idea that they should have bought.  

In an ideal world, clients should get the work they deserve - brave clients should get great work and dull clients get crap work.  We all know, however, that that is rarely the case.  Plenty of brave clients have been sold short by poor work, and supposedly dull clients have had very effective work (Cillit Bang anyone?).

Long answer to say that there is no one culprit, but perhaps a plea for agencies to understand a bit better the pressure a client is under buying work. 

The process most commonly breaks down when the client doesn't trust the agency.  That can be because he loses faith in the creative, or disagrees with the strategy, or feels that the agency is just interested in awards/glory, or because under time pressure, the battle lines become drawn when there is no time to debate the issues or search for alternative approaches.

Clients often ask for alternatives to give them confidence that there will be at least a viable solution, whereas agencies always want the one perfect solution.  This creates tension, and this can cause the trust/faith to break down.  If agencies accepted the reality of the need for alternatives, and managed the situation from that reality, then they could probably avoid clients forcing the wrong solution due to fear..  Also, creatives should learn to talk to clients as partners in the process, and not the enemy - this will help build the trust/faith/understanding!

My own view? I don't blame account management that much. Yes, maybe sometimes they fail to sell a great campaign. But not often. I think creatives like to believe that everything they come up with is brilliant. It isn't.

Clients sometimes play things too safe, and buy the more conservative of two routes, or water work down, so that it ends up being too boring for consumers to be interested in. So they must take some blame too.

But the group that must shoulder the most blame, in my opinion, is the Planners. And surely this is fair? Effectiveness is their explicit responsibility. And it is the strategy that makes the work work, or not work (the power of the creative acts as a kind of amplifier, in most categories).

Sorry, Planners.

I still love you.

Giant Fucking Rabbits Are Coming

As seen on Talent Imitates Genius Steals

Tuesday Tip - Read Iain's Tips

It would be remiss of me - nay, positively neglectful - if I failed to include The Seven Deadly Sins Of Digital (by Iain Tait from his Crackunit blog) as part of my Tuesday Tips series.

To be a successful creative you need more than just talent, Converse trainers, and the hide of a bullet-proofed rhinoceros.

You also need knowledge. Not a lot. But some.

And the most important knowledge you need is a comprehensive knowledge of what has already been done.

Why? Quite simply, so you know what not to do.

Iain Tait's 7 Deadly Sins is a wonderful primer for that. Make sure you've read it.

Tip No.21 - Don't Behave
Tip No.20 - How To Discuss Ideas
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 Hype Starts Here

It seems filming has begun in New York City on the latest Bravia ad, the follow-up to "Balls" and "Paint."

Not much is known about the script, except that it involves Play-Doh. I must confess that I (along with everyone else in adland) am eager for news.

Fortunately, one of the Sony clients is Twittering from the shoot.

She has already revealed that she spent her first night in New York sipping gin & tonic at the Soho House rooftop pool bar.

Let's hope Frank is ready for her incisive comments...

New Smirnoff Epic Really Delivers

Wow.

I'll say that again. Wow.

The new Smirnoff ad from JWT London is nothing short of a tour de force.

It's easily my favourite ad of the year so far. And a dead cert for a pencil / Gold Lion. No question.

The idea of the sea 'rejecting' man's pollution gives the ad a political angle that adds a satisfying depth to the special-effects bonanza. But it's not heavy-handed. Did you catch the shot of the guy filling up his 4x4? The addition of the Greek statues and 'epic' soundtrack make it timeless.

And this ad will sell vodka, there is absolutely no doubt about that. What young guy doesn't love second world war aeroplanes? The sight of them rising from the depths of the ocean is simply awesome, there's no other word for it. And is that a dead pilot I see at the controls of a commercial airliner? Daring. This ad has balls and a social conscience.

Plus, the logic is impeccably tied up at the end.

I don't mean to sound like some kind of groupie, but it's ads like this I come to work for.

1-18-08

Neat trailer for a forthcoming monster film.

Two things struck me as particularly interesting, though.

One is the extent to which the studio is pre-marketing the thing on the internet, by setting up several fake blogs, including Slusho, Eathan haas was right and Ethan haas was wrong.

And secondly... the famous monument destroyed, frantic descent of a smoke-filled stairway... is America re-imagining the 9-11 experience as a monster movie?

Friday Poll - INeffectiveness

A post at Adliterate urged planners to speak out if they felt the work wasn't right.

Because "account handlers get fired if the work doesn’t happen, creatives get fired if the work is no good and planners get fired (or should get fired) if the work doesn’t work."

I applaud his encouragement of 'speaking out'.

But should the planners really be the whipping-people for when a campaign doesn't perform?

Or is it those award-chasing clients? Or the creatives, with their endless insistence on 'budgets' and 'brand guidelines'?

Who do YOU think is most commonly responsible for ineffective advertising?

Vote now, in the top right hand corner of your screen.


Previous poll results:

Friday Poll No.14 - Your Personal Success Record
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?

Here Is Your Appraisal

>Russell writes quite movingly in Campaign today about how wounded he was by an appraisal.

The problem seems to be that it was very detailed. So instead of general comments about 'areas to improve on', he was told specific things like that he was "an arse" (joke I'm sure). Worse still, he was able to work out who had said what.

Shortly after this appraisal, he quit.

Now, Russell would be the first to admit he is a gentle, sensitive soul.

But even in the dog-eats-other-dog-for-lunch-on-expenses world of advertising, I don't think he's alone.

An account handler of my acquaintance was in tears after her appraisal. Although it was 95% positive, she found herself focusing exclusively on those one or two negative comments. Maybe that's human nature.

But it leads me to wonder... are appraisals a good thing, or are they actually the work of the devil?

Are they ever inspiring, or are they always demotivating?

Is it better for managers to drop little comments here and there throughout the year, rather than deploy the 'shock and awe' of an annual 360?

And is it better to live in ignorance? In other words, if you are an arse, is it better to be unaware of that fact? After all, arse-itude is probably something that you can't change anyway.

There Are Apparently Only 12 Types Of Adverts In The World

My friend Doc Rogers points me in the direction of a piece of research by Donald Gunn, he of the Gunn Report, who has determined that all ads fall into one of 12 categories - or "master formats," in his words.

This slide show presents some recent ads exemplifying each of Gunn's 12 basic categories.

Does Gunn have a point? Or are his categories meaningless? Well, even he admits they are pretty arbitrary, in as much as several of them blend into each other.

And if he does have a point, could his system be useful in any way? It feels more like a system for classifying ads after they've been written, rather than a technique that could help in coming up with them.

The very idea that there could be a "system" for creating adverts is laughable wishful thinking, isn't it?

And yet... maybe as a series of starters they could be useful, for when you're stuck for inspiration.

John Webster apparently used to pop down to WHSmiths and flick through the greetings card section, when he wanted to get his brain working. Nowadays, I suppose there's YouTube.

So I may just take one or two things from Gunn's list.

We all need 'starters' sometimes.

The Ad Blog Charts For July 2007

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

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1     (2)	AdRants	23,518	↓
2     (3)	Advertising/Design Goodness	44,404	↓
3     (4)	Adverbox	61,895
4     (6)	Adverblog	70,418
5     (3)	AdFreak	71,648
6     (9)	Duncan's TV Ad Land	90,986	↑
7     (7)	Logic + Emotion	105,680	↓
8     (8)	Coloribus	113,056
9    (11)	Ad Punch	135,534
10   (10)	Adland	142,577	↓
11  (13)	AdPulp	151,195	↑
12   (14)	Copyranter	175,872
13   (12)	Jaffe Juice	202,546	↓
14   (15)	Twenty Four	263,549	↓
15   (16)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	290,008
16   (18)	AdScam	332,305
17   (21)	Make The Logo Bigger	392,140
18   (19)	AdArena	395,206	↓
19   (re-)	BrandFlakes for Breakfast	399,518
20   (16)	Experience Curve	410,578	↓
21   (20)	Beyond Madison Avenue	420,758	↓
22   (25)	American Copywriter	424,300
23   (23)	Hee-Haw Marketing	435,440
24   (22)	Welcome To Optimism	465,353	↓
25   (re-)	FishNChimps	469,995

Big shock this month.

The reigning No.1 - Houtlust - has ceased publishing. Not sure why. But he promises to return at some future date.

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)	Welcome To Optimism	465,353	↓
2   (2)	FishNChimps	469,995
3   (3)	Scamp	560,088
4   (4)	Adliterate	692,070
5  (new)	Crackunit	836,311
6   (6)	Faris	840,035	↑
7   (7)	Northern Planner	1.1m	↑
8   (5)	Living Brands	1.4m	↓
9   (new)	Dan Germain	1.6m
10  (new)	TV's Worst Adverts	1.7m

A well-established blog but new to this chart is Iain Tait's Crackunit, a veritable beacon of quality content.

New in at No.9 this month is Dan Germain's blog, with the tagline "creative stuff, milky baby breath and some other rubbish". As you would expect from the man behind much of the wonderful stuff produced by Innocent Drinks, Dan's blog is warm, witty, creative, and shot-through with childlike wonder.

And new at No.10 is the blog that bites the hand that feeds us, TV's Worst Adverts.

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 insists he no longer blogs 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.

Ad-Man Crawls

Me and a few other people from BBH are doing a sponsored crawl to raise money for Barnardo's, the charity that helps vulnerable children get a better start in life.

Simply click this link to make a donation.

Donations are secure and sent electronically to Barnardo's. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will automatically reclaim 28% Gift Aid on your behalf.

It's an excellent cause and I've bought kneepads and everything, so I'd really appreciate your support, dear blog-reader.

A tenner is fine.

Go on. Click the link.

Scamp's Couch

Today I received this e-mail:

Yo Uncle Simon. I have a question for you: We have the worst client here ever! He won't even listen and eats up a constant conveyor belt of Account people. What should I do when I really want a client to get a fucking grip and stop being an arsehole? What I really mean I guess is, how far can one push it? Do you have any advice? You can stick this on Scamp if you want, but don't mention my name! Yours, Mr Angry/ Mr Coward.

My answer was this:

Being rude or angry to clients doesn't work - they just get defensive. The only way to get them to "get a fucking grip" by which I assume you mean "buy your work" is to explain, explain, explain. Explain your idea a thousand different ways. Get reference. Lots of reference. Make them see it. Show it in situ. Show them what their consumers are really like. That kind of thing. All the best.

Any better suggestions?

Did The Vauxhall Corsa Puppets Hire A Prostitute?

TV's Worst Adverts seems to think so.

In a post entitled C'Mon Out Of Bed he explains his interpretation of the latest Vauxhall commercial.

One of the C’Mons (the red one) has hired a prostitute for the *band* to enjoy. While he’s showering himself down after the event, the prostitute decides that the 20 quid she got for doing the dirty with a band of puppets wasn’t enough, so she steals their Corsa as a tip. This goes down particularly badly with the Red puppet who has to wake the rest of the band enjoying a post-orgy nap (in the same bed) to chase after her.

Do you agree with his view? Or is there some other explanation that fits the advert?

Tuesday Tip No. 21 - Don't Behave

Returning after a hiatus caused by running out of ideas, here is another in my long-running yet doubtfully useful series of Tips For Young Creatives.

What I want to talk about today is being well-behaved, and why you shouldn't be.

First of all, I must make clear that I'm not advocating 'bad' behaviour, like turning up late for meetings, being rude to people, not listening, being untidy or uncouth, and generally walking around thinking that you're the shit. All of that is not on.

What I am advocating when I say 'Don't Behave' is - don't do things just because that's the way they're always done, or to make things easier for other people, at the expense of the work.

Five examples to explain what I mean.

1. Behaving means spending 90% of your day on that retail radio brief you've been given, with almost no time left over on the big TV brief that's floating around the department.

2. Behaving means saying yes when the account team ask you to write an alternative 'safe' version of your script, which they promise they will only present as a fall-back.

3. Behaving means always coming back with ideas for the media specified on the brief.

4. Behaving means agreeing with your creative director even when you think he's wrong and is going to mess up the ad.

5. Behaving means doing an average job on a dull brief for a difficult client, aka "you're really helping us out here".

In short, DON'T BEHAVE.

It won't get you anywhere. And it's so much less fun.

Tip No.20 - How To Discuss Ideas
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

Creative Generalism Rears Its Head Once Again

There's a post today over at Serendipity Book asking "Is creative generalism the answer?"

Well, let me answer that question.

It isn't.

In fact the idea enrages me so much that every time it pops up I feel the need to reach for a hammer, like I'm playing a blogging version of whack-a-mole.

If you want to know more about this accursed theory - which is godless, anti-capitalist, and contrary to all good sense - then Rusell Davies has written about it here and here. There's even a whole website dedicated to its evil.

Here's my Top 5 reasons why Specialism is better than Generalism.

1. You go ahead and try to staff an agency with generalists. There just aren't enough of them out there. Think of it like football. How many players can defend, create goals, and score goals? Not many. Johann Cruyff maybe, but that's about it.

2. Great advertising requires different skills - creative, strategic, inter-personal. How often do you find lots of all of these in the same person? Not often. For example, who is creative and organised? Not me. I've just basically made the same point twice in a row.

3. You need different personality types too. Take the Enterprise. They had Spock, Bones, Kirk and Scotty. Ah, now that would be quite an agency line-up, wouldn't it?

4. The advantages of specialisation are well known. It's been over 200 years now since Adam Smith showed how "the main cause of prosperity... is increasing division of labor." Don't these people ever learn?

5. Let's get hypothetical. Here's my team of specialists - Johnny Hornby (CEO), Paul Feldwick (Head of Planning), Richard Flintham (ECD). Could anyone put up a team of three generalists, that would make a better agency than HFF? I doubt it.

Read A Book! Read A Book!

If all public service advertising were this funny, it would be a whole lot more effective.

The swearing is good too.

Swearing is the most funniest thing. Fact. And puppets.

Who Knew That Hitler Was A Sheffield United Fan?

Every other year, we suffer a summer without football.

Maybe it's that keenly-felt lack which makes this YouTube mash-up so amusing.



Once again via the excellent Nitmesh.

p.s. I'm Jewish so please don't tell me I can't enjoy jokes involving Hitler. I can.

W&K Still Quite Good

Wayne Rooney hits the target.



The whole 'is it real or is it fake' debate has actually become a positive now, in my opinion, as I reckon people show these things to their mates and ask them what they think.

Here's a superb tactical ad on the same theme, a poster that has just gone up in Liverpool (who recently signed Fernando Torres to be their new No.9)


Full story here.

Blogs Galore

Maybe I'm lazy, just posting about other people's blogs.

I'm certainly slow, because these two have been around, like, for ages.

Still... better late than never.

My friend Nitmesh points me in the direction of two truly spectacular blogs - crackunit by Iain Tait, who is the planning partner at super-funky web/ content / experience agency Poke, and rubbishcorp by Nathan Cooper, formerly of Poke, now ECD at RGA London.

Both of these blogs are much better than mine.

You should certainly add them to your 'blogs I check regularly' list.

Here's a few reasons why.

From crackunit, 'Daft Hands':



"You have to give it a minute or so before it gets going", writes Iain, "but have patience, it’s worth it. It’s just really simple and charming, but a great bit of technique and something someone’s obviously put a lot of work into."

I quite agree. Very nickable too, if you're a creative. Whoops, I didn't say that.


From rubbishcorp, this 'Second Life in the real world' film:



I do like rubbishcorp. Even his logo is cool.

Great New Agency Blog

Most agency blogs start out stupendously dull. And then quickly die. Of boredom.

But today I became aware of a cracker - Lunar BBDO.

It's not the kind of content you see on the W&K blog, like how we won the Nokia pitch, it's more left-field and eclectic, with opinion on matters ranging from Live Earth to Big Brother.

Up at the moment is this incredible Danish viral which you must watch immediately.

In Need Of Some Serendipity

A bit down today, because Raining Time didn't get such a great write-up in Private View.

But this funny T-shirt cheered me up.


It's from Serendipity Book, a new (to me) blog written by Lee McEwan, who is Head of Research at Leo Burnett in London.

Lee's blog is well worth checking out because he has an excellent sense of humour.

And if we stop laughing, it means the terrorists have won. (Irony).

Another Baby. Literally.

The guys over at Incredible Flying Car put every ad they produce up on their blog. I like their candour, it's inspired me to do the same.

Here's my latest.


I'm not saying it's the greatest ever ad in the history of the world ever. But I do quite like the misdirect (albeit brief) that Barclaycard are introducing a credit card for babies.

God-Botherers Where Are You?

Just started The God Delusion, really enjoying it.

In fact I'm now desperate to run into a 'faith-head' so I can have a good argument with them.

Problem is, I don't know any. Maybe there aren't any in our accursed industry...

Lasers Or Cats?

The new Sony Blu-Ray ad is rather impressive. I love muscle-cars, I love riot police, and I love blue lasers. So I like the ad. Who wouldn't? via Nitmesh.


But it's a bit on the serious side. Portentous even. So I only like it, I don't love it.

I do, however, love the current crop of YouTube films featuring talking cats.





via Incredible Flying Car.

Awful, isn't it? You spend £1 million making an astounding visual extravaganza, and some bloke in his bedroom makes something much more engaging putting subtitles on a cat.

Welcome to Web 2.0...

Sin Of Omission - Now Rectified

In my run-through of the very fine creative directors we have here at BBH, I forgot to include Alex & Adrian, which is very bad.

However, this now gives me an excuse to post their Lynx 'Billions' ad, which is very good.



p.s. Marc Hatfield and Pete Bradly are great too.

As are Steve & Ian, Paul & Adrian, Brad & Dan, Dale & Hamish, Chris & Gary, Wes & Gary, Steve & Justin, Ben & Nadine, Richard & Graham, Claudia & Verity, Jim & Toby, Matt & Dave, Vic & Will, Mark Reddy, Richard & Andy, Chalu & Glenn.

And all the Planners and Account Handlers.

And Project Management.

And TV.

And everybody else.

Absolutely everybody in the building, with no one missed out.

That should do it...

Boss Off

Russell Ramsay, the Executive Creative Director here, is leaving to take up the same role at JWT.

We only arrived at BBH recently-ish, so we haven't spent that much time with Russell - one curry and a couple of creative reviews - but after 5 minutes with the guy you realise he's a great bloke, and a great CD. He'll be missed here, and do well there. No doubt about it.

However, we do have lots of other talented creative directors...

Like Rosie Arnold...


...Nick Gill...


...and Mick Mahoney.


Then there's the small matter of Campaign's creative director of the year for the last two years, John O'Keeffe.

And someone called, oh... can't remember his name... it's Sir something. He's not bad either.

So you know what? I think we'll be OK.

3 New Planning Blogs

A commenter on yesterday's chart introduces me to three new planning blogs.

You may well ask - 'Does the world need another planning blog?'

Well, apparently the answer is yes, because all three of these are quite popular.

Neil Perkin is a big strategic cheese at magazine group IPC, and his thought-provoking blog Only Dead Fish (short for 'only dead fish swim with the water') offers "Thoughts on media, communications, planning, magazines and life". Today he features a rather nifty chart of webtrends.

Planning For Fun, from agency planner Graeme Douglas, is a nicely personal planning blog. A recent project for Cravendale gave Graeme the excuse to post the famous 'Accrington Stanley' milk ad, which I guess gives me an excuse to post it as well.

Charles Frith's Punk Planning is not nearly as nihilistic as the name might suggest, but consists instead of an intelligently-written take on current events in the world of communications and the world in general. A recent post asks 'Is Blogging The New Tamagotchi?' Check him out.

The Ad Blog Charts For June 2007

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

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1     (new)	Houtlust	2,769
2     (1)	AdRants	18,173
3     (2)	Advertising/Design Goodness	36,164
4     (5)	Adverbox	61,129
5     (3)	AdFreak	63,841	↓
6     (4)	Adverblog	64,913
7     (6)	Logic + Emotion	90,542
8     (8)	Coloribus	99,458
9     (new)	Duncan's TV Ad Land	109,208
10   (7)	Adland	130,410	↓
11   (9)	Ad Punch	141,768
12   (10)	Jaffe Juice	160,892
13   (11)	AdPulp	170,412
14   (13)	Copyranter	193,799
15   (12)	Twenty Four	213,048
16   (14)	Experience Curve	269,124	↓
17   (16)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	293,153
18   (18)	AdScam	300,520	↑
19   (new)	AdArena	303,179
20   (15)	Beyond Madison Avenue	336,889	↓
21   (19)	Make The Logo Bigger	360,726
22   (21)	Welcome To Optimism	394,562
23   (17)	Hee-Haw Marketing	414,128
24   (20)	Advertising For Peanuts	421,817
25   (22)	American Copywriter	455,291

Three new blogs this month.

In with a bullet at No.1 is Houtlust, a site I've only just become aware of but which is massively popular - even bigger than Adrants. It covers communications for not-for-profit advertisers. Must be a highly valuable resource for people in that sector I would say.

In at No.9 is Duncan's TV Ad Land. Duncan Macleod is an advertising enthusiast who lives in Australia. He keeps a very detailed record of what he considers to be the best new work, with commentary too. For a while I wasn't sure whether to class it as a blog or not, but he does post every day, so why not?

Coming in at No.19 is the fast-rising AdArena, from Radovan Grezo and his team in Slovakia, again covering 'best of new work', with a specific emphasis on new media, guerrilla and viral campaigns. Radovan sent me a wonderfully complimentary e-mail about Raining Time, so I'm happy to welcome him to the chart.

So three blogs drop out of the chart - Scamp, Hidden Persuader and BrandFlakes for Breakfast.

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   (2)	Welcome To Optimism	394,562
2   (4)	FishNChimps	516,586
3   (3)	Scamp	536,700
4   (5)	Adliterate	749,555
5   (6)	Living Brands	799,790
6   (8)	Faris	987,096	↑
7   (9)	Northern Planner	1.3m	↑
8   (new)	Meme Huffer	2.4m
9  (10)	What If...	2.7m	↓
10  (7)	Beeker	3.7m	↓

I've removed AdScam from the UK chart, as I've belatedly realised that George Parker is based in the US, so he doesn't count. Fun blog though.

New in at No.8 this month is Meme Huffer by Jason Lonsdale, a Kiwi planner transplanted to London. He keeps an enjoyable and eclectic blog, with the tagline "a deep breath of ideas, culture & stuff".

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 claims he no longer blogs about advertising, though the odd observation about our benighted industry does creep in. 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.

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...