"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to remain silent"

Beginning his article with that famous rallying call, a guy called Anubis has done a truly exceptional job of exposing the full extent of the scams of FP7 Doha (see post of two days ago, and thanks to everyone who drew my attention to this).

For example, he shows how they even doctored the packs in a series of print ads for a brand of mouthwash, to make them more aesthetically pleasing and hence awardable:

Read the full piece here.

As promised, I've been doing a bit of journalism - for you, my work-avoiding readers - and I've got in touch with an Asian ECD, to get a view from the region which is (perhaps unfairly) most associated with scam or ghost work.

He's a pretty big cheese - David Guerrero, founder, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO Guerrero in Manila.


This is what he has to say on the subject:

The FP7 situation is a debacle, and I don't want to look like their apologist... which I'm most certainly not.

However, there is a genuine distinction between what they did and the genuine push for innovation that agencies everywhere undertake for major clients.

I think there's a lot of self-righteous bullshit about Asia being a scam factory coming from London (and other first world locations).

A flick back through old D&AD's will reveal all kinds of dodgy executions for car repairs, fish and chip shops, TV repair shops, school plays, architectural historians etc.

However it does have to be said that Jim Aitchison, Neil French and many others since have made a lot of ads for a lot of smallish clients out of Singapore which picked up a lot of metal at global shows back in the 90s.

And since then a steady stream of Aussies, Brits and Yanks have made their way there seeking to emulate their stellar rise to international stardom or even just a nicer job when they go home after a few years. I interviewed Jim Aitchison about this a few years ago for Campaign Brief and he said that the secret of Singapore is simply that there's nothing else to do at weekends except work on ads and get them into shows.

However to write off the entire continent of over 2 billion people because of a few expats in one city-state is going a bit far. Thailand has developed a truly vibrant and highly recognized TV industry with at one point two out of the top 10 directors in the Gunn Report coming from there. There's no suggestion that this is scam because you can see the work on TV every night and clients have come to demand great work.

Basically small clients and initiatives to big ones are seen as ways of raising the bar for creative teams and for clients themselves.

Western Multinational clients (with some honorable exceptions) in Asia tend to be extremely risk averse and prone to formulaic work. There are exceptions obviously but they themselves are subject to a lot of regional and global controls on the process. Locally-headquartered Asian clients can vary greatly in their appetite for interesting work. Local entrepreneurs tend to be braver because they think (rightly) that it will work better for them. However as they get larger they start to want to imitate the Western Multinationals clients...

So as far as a 'philosophy' goes it's probably something like: the only way we're going to compete in international shows is to push work to mainstream clients when circumstances allow and keep one or two projects on the go with pro-bono clients and/or Small and Medium size businesses in the hope that a) they will allow the agency to do more interesting work and b) that they will someday get bigger.

Our agency just launched a pilot scheme where we approached a local business organization and asked them to put themselves forward for 3 months free work from a junior team of creatives, planners and suits in the agency. They then pitched to us and we selected three of them (a chain of car repair shops, a high-end boutique cosmetics firm and a small chain of clothing stores.) Our teams (composed of around eight or so 'rising stars' were then set loose on these accounts with minimal supervision from senior management. We'll see the work before it gets presented - and then catch up with the client at the end of the program. If they want to continue the relationship they pay us at our regular rates. If not then they are free to take the work we've done for them and use it.


Interesting how we're all very quick to brand "Asian creatives" as the worst scammers... then Guerrero points out that many of the offenders in those parts are actually ex-pat Brits or Aussies.

Anyway, we can't expect Cannes or the other awards organisers to do anything about the problem. They depend on entry fees. And on Agencies' honesty.

And I doubt individual jurors can do anything. If we throw out a piece of work because it 'smells fishy', we run the risk of undermining the efforts of people who've legitimately busted their balls to get an ad shot and run on their own initiative.

The name-and-shame approach that Anubis is adopting seems like the best course of action to me.

I applaud him.

Director of the Month: Steve Reeves

I always like working with directors who are ex-creatives.

They just get it.

Steve Reeves is a typical ex-creative of a director, in my opinion, in that he doesn't have a personal style that overwhelms everything he shoots, but instead adopts whatever approach will best serve the idea.

As a result, he has a truly excellent reel... but you may find yourself saying "I didn't know Steve Reeves did that one" at times.

The only ad on his reel I don't particularly like is the first one, "Child Orators" for the BBC, purely because children speaking in the voice of a dead adult freaks me out.

But he's racked up more than a few gems: Agent Provocateur "Kylie", which has got a mere 360 million views, the brilliant Anti-Drinking "Batman", the Anti-Drinking one where the girl sucks up her own vomit, which I like, and McDonalds "Ruby", in which the (lack of) expression on the face of the guy in the brown leather jacket just kills me every time.

So, let's have a chat about Steve Reeves. Have you worked with him? Was he nice? Did he do a good job? And do you agree with my theory that, on average, ex-creatives make better directors?

In My Day, There Were Rules For Scam

You had to at least get the Client's approval.

Last year's Cannes saw a new low, where a TV ad for JCPenney won a Bronze Lion... until it turned out that JCPenney had no knowledge of it.

But today comes a new new low.

An Agency called FP7 in Doha created this ad for Samsung, which ran in Lebanon.


Not only did they not get the Client's approval... it isn't even their client!

Sunny Hwang, the president of Samsung Electronics Levant, said: "At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns."

Full story here.

What next? Can I just mock up an Economist poster, slap it on a wall, and enter it for awards?

Fancy working on Nike? Or Honda? Don't bother getting a job at W&K. Just shoot an ad and send it out to the newspapers.

Someone needs to do something.

P.S. For tomorrow I'm going to try to get an interview with an ECD from Asia - the epicentre of scam - and hear their side of the story.

P.P.S. Thanks to Antony Mouse for drawing my attention to this unholy outbreak of wickedness

TV "Not Dead"

Sorry this isn't another post slagging off the latest viral, but I do think it's important.

Bob Hoffman (The Ad Contrarian) has written the best refutation I've ever seen of the "TV is dead" argument.

His jumping-off point was a story in The New York Times last week about a massive new piece of research conducted in America, which showed that “Even though people have the opportunity to watch video on their computers and cellphones, TV accounted for 99 percent of all video consumed in 2008."

If you're far too extremely busy to read Bob's full piece, here is the four-word summary:

TV still kicks ass

Fake Ones Are Better

I love this, but then I'm a sucker for all that post-modern shit. It's the perfect mode of humour for the smart-arse (because it's self-consciously 'clever') and the English (because it's indirect/ distancing).

However, it's well-recognised that the emergence of irony in a form indicates that it's no longer at the peak of its cool. Must we therefore infer that virals are no longer cool?

Thanks to GC for sending it.

Which LED Ad Do You Prefer?

Samsung




or Honda?



I feel terribly disloyal saying this, because the director of the Samsung viral is a good friend of mine (Hi James, sorry, really sorry, he is a brilliant director, everyone, he did Nike 'Torres' for example, check out his reel at Outsider.TV) but I think I prefer the Honda one.

I like the vibe of it, it feels more real, and doesn't feel like it's trying to explain everything to you.

My correspondent MM's view was: "Love the idea of sheep covered in LED lights, but the post looks like it’s been done on a ZX Spectrum."

Anyway. What do I know. The sheep have 3.5 million views already.

How The US Airforce Responds To Blogs

And if that doesn't work, bomb them.

When Real People Critique Adverts

This is a new viral for Stella, created by Mother, that remakes '24' in the style of 1960s French film director Jean-Luc Godard.

Other ads in the campaign feature Bruce Deville playing Jean Meqlain in "Dial Hard", and "8 Kilometre", in which two duelling literati face off in a war of words in a French jazz club.

I thought they were quite nice.

But on the Guardian Media website, comments from the public include:

"Has the credit crunch taken the talent out of advertising?" (this from kranl).

bumfight reckons: "That has to be the lamest spoof every made. It's also the laziest. And it's about as 'funny' as rectal cancer."

"Dreadful," reckons hitandrun. "The Truffaut one is quite impossible to watch till the end unless you're a severe masochist."

Crikey. And they say ad blogs are bitchy.

A useful reminder, I suppose, that we live in a bubble, within which "the latest new work from Mother" is very interesting. But outside of which, it's just so much more pollution.

When The Ad For The Ad Is Better Than The Ad Itself

You know those 2-minute films that Agencies put together, to summarise a multimedia campaign, to enter into awards? (Example above).

I know some people hate them, and would much rather judge the work itself, rather than a slick film that someone's made about the work.

But I must admit, they're a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Rather than watching an ad, looking at three print executions, some direct mail, some store designs... all of which fall out of the envelope and onto the floor... all you have to do is watch a movie.

And now there's a website that collects these little movies. Other examples on there include the Night Driving campaign, and Lynxjet. Who knows, one day they'll have their own festival - the case study film festival.

Thanks D for the tip.

Does Anyone Walk Around Any More?

When I was a youngster, you'd often see Creatives 'hanging out' in each other's offices.

In the last few years, I think that's declined.

I'm sure we've all got busier. But I also reckon the internet has permanently altered our in-office socialisation (would perhaps be surprising if it hadn't, considering the transformative effect it's had on our social lives in general.)

Think about it. Whenever you have twenty minutes' downtime nowadays, do you pop in to see a mate, or do you click onto a website?

Tell the truth. Oh, and vote in poll (top right of this page).

Sell! Sell!

Here's another blog I want to introduce you to.

It's called Sell! Sell!, is written by Creatives - good ones - and has cool stuff on it like these meatscapes.




And the Daft Punk console.

Enjoy.

Sympathy For The Boss

I do hope you've started reading The Ad Contrarian. I think it might be my new favourite blog.

Responding to all our unsolicited advice for Creative Directors, he has posted some thoughts of his own - not about how to be a good Creative Director, but how to be a happy one.

His most important tip is to hire good people.

If you have terrific people, the advertising business isn’t that difficult. If you have mediocrities, advertising is impossible. For your own self-preservation you must get rid of bad people and hire good ones. There is no other way to do good work and have a happy life. Talent is a rare and precious thing. The idea that "we're all creative" is absolute bullshit. Mediocre talent never makes terrific ads. Never.

This set me thinking how easy it is to whinge about one's CD/ECD. In actual fact, they have a pretty damn hard job... dealing with all the mediocre people around them like you and me. How many ads that you show your CD are actually any good? Not many, right? And he has to wade through all that shit... and then stroke your ego enough to make sure you don't go back to your office and sulk.

Read the rest of the post here.

Oh, I also like this cartoon of his.

Top Team

People used to discuss who is the 'top team' at such-and-such an Agency. I haven't heard the term in a while though... and that makes me wonder if it still has any currency.

Let's find out.

Who would you say is the top team at their respective Agency?

P.S. I can't really stop people from anonymously naming themselves. But just think how hollow you'll feel.

P.P.S. Also, no BBH nominations please, wouldn't be cricket

What Makes A Good Creative Director?

There's an in-depth post on The Denver Egotist on this subject at the moment, Part 1 here, Part 2 here.

It's worth reading, though as I say, it is long. And I have a short attention span. So I thought I'd throw the question over to you guys with a challenge to put it more concisely.

What would you say makes a good CD - or a bad one - using as few words as you can.

Here's my entry. A good CD "says no nearly all the time" (6 words).

Oh, I've got one for 'bad CD' as well. A bad CD "is woolly" (2 words).

What They Really Wear On The Today Programme

This is what happened when viral agency Rubber Republic were challenged by BBC Radio 4's Today programme to create a viral film for them, after one of their guys was interviewed on there. So far, it hasn't gone massively viral, but it's early days. I think it's quite funny.

P.S. Evan Davis wrote an interesting blog post on his experiences of advertising - apparently he finds us ad people "intimidatingly cool"(?!?!?), and also shares his thoughts on the film. But what do you think?

The Ad Contrarian

Here's a great new blog for you - The Ad Contrarian - whose writer is "the CEO of a pretty big ad agency" and yet is honest enough to complain about Clients who "don't wipe themselves without first researching which hand consumers prefer."

He's wonderfully cranky. In one post, he discusses a plan to cull his facebook friends down to 50, except "every few weeks I'll drop No. 50 and give someone new a chance. If they perform they can stay. If I find out they're branding consultants, or don't drink, or think Whoopi Goldberg is funny, they're gone."

And in another, on corporate brand campaigns, he points out that:

Nobody gives a shit that...

* you believe people are your greatest asset.
* you believe one person can make a difference.
* you think the world needs to be more connected.
* you think we need to preserve our precious resources.
* you think the children are our future.

If I might be allowed to summarize... they've heard it all before and they don't give a shit.

There's even serious stuff too. Check it out.

Oh, and the ad above... is a real ad. For the Ukrainian Army.

Straight8

Those of you who are interested in film-making may want to consider entering Straight8, the competition where you shoot a 3-minute film on a single cartridge of super 8 mm cine film. No editing allowed.

The clip above is pretty funny - it was the 2003 entry by Dave Buonaguidi, a talented creative whose career has encompassed stints CD'ing at St Luke's, 4Creative and Karmarama.

I do hope Stephen Hawking doesn't read this blog. Or his lawyers.

Return Of The 3-Day Week?

>We all know the recession is getting worse. I am hearing about good people - good people - being made redundant.

And now, I have heard that Creatives at one Agency have been put on a 4-day week. Better than redundancies, I suppose, but where will it end? Could we return to the era, last seen when Ted Heath was in power, of the three day week?

And would you go for that... or would you rather take a pay-off and leave?

Glamour

"Whenever I go abroad," writes Bentos, in a comment on the last thread, "all the billboard ads seem to simply be a picture of woman smiling next to the product. All of 'em. Not being able to read the copy probably emphasises the similarity. Then you come back to Britain and notice the exact same thing!"

What do we think about this type of ad? Well, obviously, we think they're shit.

But. I remember one time I went on holiday to Cornwall. It was raining, we were staying in a shitty B&B and feeling miserable. Just then, a L'Oreal ad came on the TV. It was so glamorous, so exciting... presented such an image of perfection... it made me want to buy. And I don't normally even use eyelash-thickening products.

Does sheer glamour sell? I fear it does, doesn't it. I like to think that Scarlett Johansson + Idea would sell more product than Scarlett Johansson + giant packshot, but maybe I'm just living in an ivory tower of idea-obsession, and don't understand the world of fashion advertising...

Top Three Cliches

It is said (by my friend AT) that Larry Barker (former ECD of BMP, and prior to that, WCRS) had only three rules for his Creatives: no chameleons, no mime artists, and no ginger-haired people.

Apparently a team once walked into his office and he blew out their ad before they had even showed it to him, because he could see through the paper that it was a chameleon.

Mind you, this story is a few years old. Maybe the Top 3 Ad Cliches of today would be different. What would you nominate?

Director of the Month: Martin De Thurah

Being tagged "the new Ian Botham" has hindered the career of many a promising cricketer. Even Freddie Flintoff.

So hopefully I'll not be jinxing Martin De Thurah, by labelling him as a possible new Jonathan Glazer. (He's even at the same production company as the G-Man : Academy).

This dude is Danish, and started out life as a painter, and I think I can see both those influences in his moody and majestically-lit films.

He's mostly done music videos and shorts so far, which all look absolutely incredible - if you're after something dark & cinematic, you could do an awful, awful lot worse.

So, watch the reel, and tell me what you think. Am I smoking crack with this Glazer comparison, or does it have some validity?

Mind The Gap

Every year, top headhunters The Talent Business produce the authoritative guide to what everyone in the industry is earning, which they provide to Agency management. However, I twisted the arm of one of the lovely people over there and got them to send me a copy.

Are you on the right amount?


Looks like salaries in Above-The-Line have hardly moved since last year. Though they could well be lower next year, what with the economy going the way it is...

Now here’s the table for pure Digital Agencies.


Holy Dropdown, Batman!

This is what caught my eye in the report - the hoooooooj gap between salaries for ATL and Digital.

Why do Digital Agencies pay their Creatives less? Is it justifiable?

And an interesting implication: a lot of Creatives in above-the-line Agencies right now are thinking that, for the future, it’s essential they get Digital experience - and are considering making the move across.

But is it a case of ‘gain some skills, drop some salary’?

Dubiously Useful Labels

Okay. Ambient Week is finishing early, because I've run out of things to say on the subject.

So here's the wrapper of a Snickers bar I ate last night.

It has instructions on it.

That's right. Instructions, on how to open a bar of chocolate.

Well, it is a 2-pack I suppose, so maybe that makes it a tiny bit more complicated, but... come on.

Reminds me of the label once spotted on a mattress - 'Do not swallow'.

The Three Bugbears of Ambient

After attempting to celebrate the Ambient medium a little, it's time to list my three 'Bugbears of Ambient'.

Daddy Bugbear:

There's a nice book called Guerrilla Advertising by Gavin Lucas and Mike Dorrian that has a great selection of Ambient work. But you know what that book should really be called? "Photos Taken By Creatives". Too many Ambient ads are scams. They're not done for a real Client. They're whacked into place by the creative team, snap, then removed. There are plenty of award-winning Ambient pieces whose media lifespan was less than 2 minutes. Example:

(click if you need to make bigger)

Mummy Bugbear:

Too many Ambient pieces only work as a photo! They only work because the photo is taken from exactly the right angle. In real life, they wouldn't work. Unless you happened to be standing exactly where the photographer was.


Baby Bugbear:

Clients never buy it.

Readers' Ambient

Scamp readers submitted over 100 Ambient ideas, here are some of my favourites. Just click on the pic if you need to make any of them bigger.

Ouch. By Stefan & Mark



Nice twist. By Rick & Barney


On a more serious note. By Javier


Fran & Chris placed these stickers in cookware shops throughout London. They say. Anyway, nice first use of the baking pan as a medium.


I think I may have seen this before. And I'm not too sure of the ethics of promoting anti-cellulite products, given that they apparently don't work. But it's a clever idea. By Cat

Front
Back

This student stuck a cutout of himself against the glass front doors of ad agencies he wanted to work at. Good wheeze. By Matthew

So... whaddaya think?

Tuesday Tip No.70 - How To Do Ambient

Here's my Top Five tips. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Avoid stuff that's been done. True of any medium, of course. But with Ambient - when you have the whole world for your canvas - it would be a shame to do an ad in washrooms, on coins, or on escalators... when these have already been used so many times.

2. Don't expect it to actually happen. You need an anti-rejection suit to survive in this business at the best of times. But with Ambient ideas, the attrition rate is even higher than for other media. TV spots are booked. Press schedules are booked. No one ever 'booked' an Ambient ad, therefore it doesn't need to happen... the Traffic people don't have to push for it to happen, and the Client doesn't have to sign off on anything they don't absolutely love. So manage your expectations accordingly.

3. Make the location fit the idea. An ad is not more exciting just because it's on a crane or a toilet. It's exciting if it's relevant.

4. How to judge them. My criterion is very simple - 'Would It Get In The Metro?' (London's free morning newspaper). Every morning, they run a couple of funny or weird pictures, and quite often these are advertising stunts. This is free PR for the brand, and gets seen by many more people than see the physical Ambient piece itself. If you think your idea is funny or weird enough to get in the Metro, draw it up. Otherwise, don't.

5. Do it yourself. As I already said in Point 2, Ambient ideas almost never happen. So why not do it yourself? You only need one location. You can often use cheap materials, and take the photo yourself. Then if nothing else, you'll have a nice piece for your book.

Previous Tips

What Makes A Good Ambient Ad?

This week is going to be Ambient Week on Scamp.

I hope it will be fun.

Let's start off by asking the most obvious question - what makes an Ambient ad good?

Mostly it's the same things that make any ad good: clever, funny, relevant, well-branded, powerful sales message etc.

But there are certain characteristics which the Ambient medium offers that no other medium can. And a truly great Ambient ad exploits them. I would suggest these characteristics are Disruption, Provocation, and Super-relevance.

Disruption. Much more so than a press ad, an Ambient ad can be right in your face. A Swedish coffee brand that had the tagline 'for unexpected visitors' built a submarine bursting out of the middle of a city square. And several religious organisations have used inflatable churches - if people won't go to church, let's stick the church by their office, or at the beach.





Provocation. The fact that an Ambient execution is 'real' - i.e. not just a picture of a thing, like on TV, but the actual thing itself - makes it more visceral. This means that Ambient work has a greater power to shock and awe. And at its best, it is wonderfully provocative.



And finally, Super-Relevance. Because an Ambient ad is situated in the real environment, it can be used in a location-specific way, thus giving it a kind of 'super-relevance' that other media can never quite achieve.

This was the first Ambient ad I ever came across - it was given to us as an example in college. And it's still one of my favourites.


The message is tied in perfectly to its physical location.

So those are three examples, I could have picked hundreds more. But do let me know what you think of them, and whether my criteria are the right ones, or if there are other criteria for judging Ambient you feel would be more appropriate.

And keep your own submissions coming in, to simon dot veksner at bbh dot co dot uk. They'll be featured soon.

Hello You. Now Please Die.

At last, definitive proof that there is no God. For if there was, he surely would not have allowed this commercial to be made.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who has sent me work for Ambient Week (see yesterday's post). Keep those Ambient ideas coming in to simon dot veksner at bbh dot co dot uk.

Taking The Ambient Temperature

Ambient used to be all the rage.

At one time, it was the world's sexiest medium... before the rise of Digital.

But is it still relevant today?

Mastercard's Valentine-themed Ambient piece, which I featured a couple of days ago, got a mixed reaction from readers.

Perhaps the medium's high point may turn out to have been Mother's wonderful Britart campaign - from 2002.

Last year, only 8 entries were accepted into the Ambient category by D&AD. And of those, only 2 were from the UK.

Can we still do Ambient? Do people care any more? Is it still something worth having in your student book?

I think so. I love Ambient. It's an opportunity to demonstrate pure creativity, unfettered by media restrictions.

So I'm making next week Ambient Week. Every day I am going to showcase the best of Ambient advertising. Feel free to suggest candidates.

And if you're a student and you have a cool Ambient ad in your book, I want you to send it to me, at simon dot veksner at bbh dot co dot uk, and I'll put those up too. (If you're looking for a job, it may showcase your work. Yes, some ECD's read this blog. Why they don't have better things to do, I don't know).

If you want to submit something and be anonymous, that's fine too. And if you're not a student but you just have a cool Ambient ad in your book that never got made, that would be great. Send it. I just think it would be fun for us to spend a whole week looking at Ambient.

For inspiration (or possibly criticism) here's a reminder of last year's Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix winner - HBO's Voyeur Project.

Tuesday Tip No.69 - The Truth Is Not Enough

If you're putting a book together to get your first job, you have to write your own strategies for campaigns, and I already wrote a tip about the importance of telling the truth, not for moral or ethical reasons, but because it leads to more powerful advertising.

I was reminded of this when a jobhunting team e-mailed me some strategies yesterday, which included:

Gola - Sporty, but not too sporty

Sky HD - Make the most of your sofa

In a sense, the team have done what I suggested - found an unusual and interesting truth about the product or target market. It is certainly true that Gola is for people who are sporty, but not too sporty. And if you get Sky HD, you will definitely spend more time on your sofa. These are good insights.

And teams gunning for that first job often have entire books of strategies like this. However, to actually get that first job, there's a level beyond this that you need to break through to.

Now, this may seem obvious, and it probably is obvious to even the most junior Planner, but it doesn't seem to be obvious to young Creatives, judging from the number of books I see which haven't yet grasped this principle, but... the truth is not enough.

When you come up with an interesting and unusual truth, you have to test it against whether it is also a good sell for the product. Good sell means makes it seem more interesting, desirable, better value etc.

So, taking the Gola strategy... I'm not sure that 'outing' me as someone who is sporty but not too sporty makes me want to buy these trainers. In fact it might put me off. It's like saying "Porsche - for rich guys who want to ensure everyone knows they're rich". A true statement, but not the way to get people to buy a Porsche. And for Sky HD, pointing out the fact that you'll be spending more time on the sofa may also come into the 'true, but a turn-off' category.

It's when you can find strategies where the insight is equally fresh and surprising, but which also does a job on making the product seem more desirable, that you've hit pay-dirt.

Previous Tips

Maybe I'm Getting Old

And soppy.

And sentimental.

But I liked this.

Bus Slogan Generator

My lovely colleague NT found this.

How it works: you type in a slogan, and it comes out in the style of the atheist bus ad.

Write one of your own in the comments, and if it's any good, I'll wack it up here as a pic. Can't promise to do them all though, as I am a bit hung-over.

Here's one, from 'Anonymous'



Here's three more. All from our old friend 'Anonymous'

You Can't Fake This Kind Of Madness

And if you don't know why it's good, I can't help you.

Tuesday Tip No.68 - What Hours Should You Be Working?

Our survey showed that the most popular time for Scamp readers to leave work is between 6.30pm and 7, having arrived, most commonly, before 9.

That's not a killingly long day, certainly compared to professions like banking or law.

I reckon there’s still a widespread belief that ‘a natural talent for it’ is the essential criterion for success in creative fields - like art, music and even advertising – far more so than in less creative fields like management consultancy, where it's believed that hard work is the key.

But are we Creatives really different?

In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers he explains something he calls the “10,000 hour rule,” which states that to become expert at anything, one simply needs to put in 10,000 hours practicing it.

The 10,000 figure comes from the research of Anders Ericsson, who in the early 1990’s studied violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music.

“The curious thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any ‘naturals’ - musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practising a fraction of the time that their peers did,” writes Gladwell. “Nor could they find ‘grinds’, people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn’t have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. What’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

Some Creatives cling to the belief that success is down to luck – getting the right brief at the right time, from a Client who just happened to be looking for great work. But if that is your view, you’ll be in a minority.

The pop culture quote: “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” attributed variously to movie mogul Sam Goldwyn and golfer Gary Player, is gaining greater and greater acceptance.

So even if you're a Creative who believes in the primacy of natural talent, or luck, you should be aware that attitudes are changing.

Hard workers are believed to be intrinsically more valuable.

Therefore, when you start a new job, it’s vital you establish a reputation as a hard worker - arrive before your boss arrives, and don’t leave until after he leaves. There’s an old saying that goes: “The man who has a reputation as an early riser, can get up at whatever time he chooses.”

However, if you are naturally a hard worker, my advice is don’t work hard gratuitously. Take your full holiday entitlement, and take your weekends – unless there’s a screaming emergency – else you’ll either burn out, fall out of love with the business, or end up depriving yourself of essential external stimulation, and your work will suffer. It’s easy to get into the habit of always leaving the office late as a matter of course. Don’t do that. Keep an extra gear in reserve, so you can kick up your work-rate when there’s a major crisis, or a major opportunity.

But the question of how hard you should work is partly answered by the prevailing culture of the Agency you’re working at.

In some Agencies, everyone works hard. “If you don’t come in on Saturday, then don’t bother coming in on Sunday” – words supposedly said by Tim Delaney. Wieden & Kennedy has such a reputation for long hours that it has acquired the nickname ‘Weekend & Kennedy.’ If you don’t work hard in an Agency like this, you’ll have a double problem – not only will you not produce as much work as everyone else, but also, you won’t fit in.

There are plenty of Agencies where Creatives normally work normal office hours. If that feels like what you want to do – perhaps you have a family, or other interests, you’re just not that into advertising, or you’re mentally exhausted by six o’clock – then you’ll be a lot happier if you work at one of these places.

I personally don't spend long hours in the office. However, I do seem to do a lot of thinking outside office hours. When I’m working on a brief it gives me a kind of psychological eczema, that I find myself scratching in the shower, on the bus, and on the toilet. So maybe that makes up for it.

Previous Tips

Kill Your Speed Or Live With It

I'm jealous of this ad.

Not saying it's the best road safety commercial ever made, ever in the history of the world ever, but it's very hard to come up with new angles on this subject. They have.

I also liked an anti-drink drive campaign I saw the other day, that was about how if you get caught drink driving, you get processed just like any other criminal. No car crashes in that one either. Just the humdrum reality of getting interviewed by a desk sergeant, and giving a urine sample.

Reminds me of what Richard Huntington (now Head of Planning at Saatchi's) reckons is the main thing planning should do for Creatives: "Start you in an interesting place."

Ever Ranted With The Devil In The Pale Moonlight?

Have you heard Christian Bale's rant at a lighting cameraman? There's now a dance remix of it (above) which is pretty funny, and as a bonus, reminds you of some of his cool movie roles.

The Bale rant set Scamp reader RS to wondering about rants that we in advertising have been on the receiving end of.

I don't have many to report I'm afraid.

A production company producer once sounded off at me for about 3 minutes after I suggested a change to the edit, which included the line "in my 24 years in this business, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

And a Creative Director once told me: "You think you're so fucking intellectually superior, with your university education and your long words" after I exposed his lack of understanding of the difference between 'surreal' and 'hyper-real'.

Oddly enough, following those blow-ups I became good mates with them both.

Come on then, spill it. What's the worst rant you've been hit with?

ComputerTan - Free Desktop Tanning App

I'm not going to tell you what this is, because that would spoil it.

It's good though.

After you've watched the film, the website is here.

Help Settle An Argument

Scowling A.D. has very kindly read the first draft of my book for me, but he disagrees with a bit I've done about the differing personalities of Art Directors and Copywriters.

I wrote that Copywriters tend to be the talkers, and the strategists, whereas Art Directors prefer to say less and do more (even if what they call 'doing' I call sitting in a photographer's studio reading the newspaper).

Scowling A.D. complains that "Art Directors aren't always strong silent types - just as likely to be stereotypically louder, more energetic, more colourful, harder-partying, more passionate than Copywriters."

Who is right? If you meet a team in the pub, can you always tell which is which? Or is there no real difference between the two breeds?

Revised Heat Chart

So I've revised last week's chart.

The biggest change is I've moved McCann's significantly to the right. Several people posted to say I'd been unfair on them; maybe they all work there, I don't know, but in any case I went to the website, looked at their output, and... you know what? It's really quite good. The Halo 3 campaign won a Grand Prix at Cannes.

When I was a nipper, the only certainties in life were that McCann and Grey were both big and both crap. No longer the case. We are all going to have to adjust to this new reality.

The other changes are fairly minor. One biggie is I've moved Langland way, way over. Their ECD pointed me in the direction of a TV ad they have done, warning people that medicines you buy on the internet can contain rat poison, where the guy pulls a rat out of his mouth - a fine ad. I also went to the Langland website. They are a healthcare-specialist agency, but I have to say much of their work is excellent, and it all looks fantastic.

I've also moved Big Communications over a bit, since I do rather like a couple of their WKD spots.

If you think the chart is still wrong, feel free to let me know in the comments, but I won't be revising it till next year now.

Note - the vertical axis represents income (not profitability), the horizontal axis represents creative heat (not new business success) and is based purely on my perception, not any awards tally, because that would take too long.

When Will Agencies Learn?

Stop making fucking wacky promo videos for YouTube.

It's not as cheesy as this, nor as tragic as the Ogilvy Athens one, and the girls are nowhere near as hot as the ladies of Provid Ukraine.

But it may just about be worth watching the first 60 seconds if you would like to see how bad the staff of Mindshare Paris are at dancing and lip-synching. Even walking backwards proves to be a struggle.

It was found by top digital planner and top chap ewarwoowar. Go to his blog for good bits like this:

As Jeremy "I-wish-he-was-my-grandad" Bullmore says: Preparation H is of limited interest to a bunch of twentysomething creatives, but it is of incredible interest to someone with piles. We should all give ourselves piles before we make judgements on the effectiveness of comms.

Is This Really The Best Press Ad Of Last Year?

Went to the ANNAs last night (national newspaper advertising awards).

I really like the do they put on. Superlux food drink & service, but in a nicely informal atmosphere.

The overall winner, however, was greeted with a resounding shuffling of the audience's feet.


Lovely campaign, and not a bad ad within that campaign... and yet... it took me a while to get, and that's a worry, since I'm a person who looks unusually closely at adverts.


I try to avoid bigging up work from my own agency, but heck it's not me doing it this time, it's the ANNAs. This is an ad from a really nice campaign by Brad Woolf and Dan Bailey, which won the 'Best Media Partnership' category. I think that means 'campaign that feels perfectly suited to the medium'. If so, that's very true.


Deserving winner in the 'Best Copywriting' category, from my main man Mr P McClelland.

So what do you think - did the best ad win?

Be Cervix Savvy

This ad was on a London bus.

It's not a good ad, but that's not the point. My question is - why oh why did they use a guy?

Does he look like the type of guy who just generally knows a lot about cervical health? Or is he the hot man that having a healthy cervix gives you the confidence to pull?

Tuesday Tip No.67 - VO or Super?

When it comes to finishing-up a TV advert, there always seems to be a big hoo-ha over whether to deliver the endline as a VO, a Super, or both. And Creatives spend endless hours sweating this.

Don't. It's really very straightforward.

'Super only' is the best thing to have, because it's the purest and the simplest.

The next best thing is VO and Super together.

The 'VO only' option? I can't recall a single ad that uses it. Reason being that the client will always want to see at least their logo on the ad. And why not?

This means there will always be a Super of some kind. Therefore, if you want your ad to be as pure and uncluttered as possible, you should focus your energies on trying to eliminate the VO. You will never eliminate the Super.

I don't think I've ever worked on an advert where we failed to try every possible combination of VO / Super / endline / brand name. So it may also be beneficial to simply stop worrying, and accept that you are going to end up having to try them all.

Most likely you will end up having to have both a Super and a VO. If this is the case, at least make sure they are saying exactly the same thing. There's nothing worse than an ad which is trying to have you read one set of words while they pour another set into your ear. It's like trying to rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time.

Previous Tips

Heat Chart

Here's the state of our industry in 2009, in the form of a Heat Chart, an idea I've borrowed from top Aussie ad blog Campaign Brief.

The vertical axis shows agency income, from the figures supplied by accountancy gurus Kingston Smith, and published in Campaign last week. Some might look a little off - for example, Y&R is at the top - but that's because these are group figures, so the Y&R figure might include things like their Direct and PR units. With that one caveat, this is an objective measure.

In contrast, the horizontal axis is entirely subjective. It's not based on any figures of awards won. It's purely my personal perception of how hot that agency is right now, creatively. (Not business performance, just quality of work).

I've excluded BBH from the chart, since it wouldn't be fair for me to sit in judgement on my homeboys and girls. But I think it's safe to say we would be somewhere in the top right quadrant - the 'big and good' area - or what you could call Powerhouses.

The bottom right hand corner - 'small and good' - shows today's Hotshops. There aren't many, are there? And BMB is growing so fast, it will surely soon be out of this niche.

In the north-west we have the Big Dumb Agencies. Again, quite sparsely populated. McCann has been on the uptick creatively, and Grey is improving dramatically, so the two bankers for this quadrant have let us down.

In the south-west we have the agencies which are small, and not currently setting the world on fire. If you work for one of these shops, I apologise. I admit that I have put you in the extreme cold, without actually knowing any of your work. On the other hand, the fact that I can't name a single one of your ads is not the best of signs. If you have done great work, please put me right.

That goes for every slot in the chart. If anyone thinks I've put an agency in the wrong place, feel free to say so in the comments. Back up your case with a couple of good examples and I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong, since that will give me an excuse to waste even more time mucking about moving these little boxes around.

Eyebrow Dancing

The new Cadburys ad is out, and like Gorilla before it, it's a Category Three advert.

What's a Category Three, I hear you ask?

Well, all ads can be divided into three categories.

Category One - shit.

Category Two - good. You are a bit upset, and want to hurt the team who made it.

Category Three - so good, you're not even jealous. You're actually happy. And the status of the industry you work in just went up a notch.

Do The Facts Matter?

Planners and Account Handlers seem to spend a lot of time gathering facts about the product, to put in the brief.

Personally, I don't really care about facts, and I'm sure the general public doesn't either.

Who gives a monkeys how beer is made? Or what type of metal is in a car? I just want products that are cool, fast, economical... etc.

In fact I can't think of one occasion where I've ever used a fact in an ad. And I find factory visits completely boring.

However, there was a brilliant post by Dave Trott yesterday, in which he describes how he visited the factory when he was working on Tower Pans (wonderfully '70s name, isn't it?) and discovered that whereas ordinary pans have a handle-stud welded to 95 psi, Towers are welded to 110 psi. So they're stronger. He then did a compelling magazine ad about an unfortunate woman who tips boiling water in her lap, when the handle of her inferior pan snaps off.

I love the fact that Dave didn't like the initial brief, so went out and found a better one - we Creatives are often viewed as the mavericks within an Agency but the truth is that we are saps, who rarely question the briefs we are given.

But to get back to the question of facts, does Dave's story mean that we should care about them? I still contend that no one cares about handle-stud welding.

But they do want strong pans. So maybe there is a use for facts after all. Not to actually use in adverts. But to make good briefs from.

What do you think about facts? Do they matter?

I Don't Normally Like Tactical Ads But I Do Like This One

Grandmaster Flashmob

No top international club DJ - not one with any credibility anyway - does requests. So it looks like I will never make it as a top international DJ, since all it took was a couple of people asking me to feature the new T-Mobile ad, and here it is.

In a way, what I think about it doesn't matter. In just four days, it has nearly 900,000 views on YouTube. It also has nearly 2,500 ratings - averaging the full five stars.

So it clearly works - people like it, and they're sharing it.

For the record, although I love to see agencies trying something different, I don't like this ad... purely because those improv everywhere / flashmob things give me the willies. It's just a personal thing. I also don't like horses or broccoli.

Midgets Are Funny. Fact.

This ad for the Shoreditch Short Film Festival made me smile.

Along with puppets, and talking animals, midgets are always funny.

This is my order:

1 Talking animals
2 Puppets*
3 Midgets

*Puppets No.1 if swearing. Like this.

What's your top 3 of "things that are always funny?"

How Much Can A Dog Know About Advertising?

There's an urban myth about a Creative Director who would critique students' books with a glove puppet. "Sooty likes this one," he would say, or "Oh dear, Sooty says he thinks he's seen that idea before."

This never happened to me. But I did once get a crit from a dog.

It was at Lowe in about 1994. My partner and I went to see a senior creative one afternoon... I'm not saying he'd been drinking, but he did smell of alcohol, shambled unsteadily around his office, and slurred his speech in the manner of someone who had been drinking. So if he wasn't drunk, he was a fine impressionist.

Anyway, after first telling us in a sinisterly over-effusive manner that our book was "completely brilliant" and that instead of looking for a placement, "you should go straight to setting up your own agency", he then proceeded to show our book to his dog.

Sadly, his dog was not so keen. "Oh dear," the senior creative informed us. "[Dog's name] doesn't like this campaign. Or this one. Sorry lads. I'm not going to be able to pass it on to our CD after all."

Well you know what? That dog didn't know shit. Because that exact same book got me a job at Saatchis a few weeks later.

So, that's the worst crit I ever had. What was yours?

The Chip Shop Awards

Regular readers will know my feelings about Cannes.

So I was delighted to be asked to judge the only awards scheme that admits all its entries are scam.


Entry into The Chip Shop Awards is only for work that has not been broadcast, printed or mailed. You do not even have to have the client. You just have to have a great idea. Rejected and rude work is fine too.

This was the ad that inspired the contest.


And here are some of last year's winners.





Please enter, and give me some decent shit to judge.

Real Men Write Long Copy

That's the title of an interesting new blog by a DM copywriter.

This chap (who so far, remains anonymous) "just got rid of my old, slightly broken art director" and has a new partner who is "competent, but rather demanding." As a result, he is beginning to miss his old art director. "The old one said embarrassing things, which at the time I felt reflected badly on me. But now I wonder if he made me look good?"

He also opines quite eloquently on the relationship between below- and above-the-line.

"It’s definitely true that we letter writers have an inferiority complex the size of Soho towards ATL-ers," he writes, before going on to point out that ATL-ers feel inferior to novelists, screenwriters etc.

Then he consoles himself with the thought that "presumably, there’s some group of professionals who feel inferior to us. Prison guards, perhaps. Or McDonald’s employees (the ones who do the rubbish and the toilets – maybe not the ones at the tills with five stars on their badge)."

Finally he concludes that "the reality is, there’s not that much difference. If you were magically transported into our department, then the creative department of WCRS downstairs, I’m not sure you’d be able to tell which one's which."

Good blog, this. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Do you agree with the writer? If you work in DM, do you feel inferior to ATL, despite that fact that the creative departments (and salaries) are really not that different?

No Escape

Nice post from freelance team Ben & James about a flight on Icelandair.

"When I first stepped onto the plane and noticed that my headrest had been branded with a little message, I was quite charmed," says Ben (or perhaps James).


But by the time he gets his meal... and finds that even his napkin has been branded, he's had enough. And lays into them.


It seems like airlines are particularly overcommunicative. I recall coffee cups on Virgin telling me: "Watch out, I may be hot!" and sugar sachets announcing: "I'm sweet."

Shut up already.

Director of the Month: Dan Chase

From now on, I am going to review a director's reel once a month.

Partly it's because I feel like championing some new talent this year rather than just slagging everything off, and partly it's to get us talking about the craft of making ads, and not just reviewing the actual ads themselves.

First up is Dan Chase, at QI commercials.

As you probably guessed, Dan works at Film4, where he is in charge of what the TV promotions world calls "On-Air" - basically trailers and idents.

I'm always interested in directors who come from TV promotions. It gives them a chance to make hundreds of little ads before anyone really notices what they're doing. Valuable practice. And no less a personage than Jonathan Glazer himself came from a TV promo background.

Dan is by no means yet in that league, but I do think his reel shows a hell of a lot of promise. It's high-style stuff, and he shows a great filmic eye - for example in the ident where the bottles are being shot. Some interesting touches on sound too, which suggest to me a more rounded talent than for the purely visual.

In terms of content, the man seems to have a mild chair obsession, but there is plenty to enjoy here. I love the shot where the cars smash into the street in slow motion, and I could listen to Maggie Gyllenhaal say the words "a little jolt" all day long.

The challenge for Dan will be to move beyond his film niche. There is one non film-related piece on the reel, but I don't think it's his best work. However, his high-style aesthetic does, I believe, give him an excellent shot at cracking the ad world, where we often need to make stuff look great. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a brilliant director's reel, but with an aesthetic so gritty that it's hard to imagine what one could use him for.

Please note I'm not being paid to big up this geezer, although I am mates with the people at QI, I'm mostly doing this Director of the Month malarkey as an experiment. Hope you like it. Feel free to share your own view of the reel, in the comments.