If Banner Ads Were Honest...

See more here.

Thanks for this tip are due to Doc Rogers (tagline: surfing the web, so you don't have to)

Tuesday Tip No.40 - Challenge The Brief

We Creatives like to think of ourselves as maverick uncontrollable rebels.

But we're not.

The truth is, we're all too compliant.

How many briefs have you rejected - ever? How many have you even challenged?

I've seen briefs where under "single-minded proposition" there were three adjectives. Linked by two uses of the word 'and'.

How can you possibly write a good ad to that?

Now, it's true that before the brief gets to you it will have been signed off by your creative director. Perhaps by a few planners and clients also.

Nevertheless, a brief is not a legal contract. It's a series of suggestions, a step in a process - and you're a part of that process.

So don't be like rabbits just sitting there in your hutch, happy to nibble on whatever you're given.

Be like the tiger cubs. Cute and adorable, of course. But alert and challenging also. Indulge in a bit of 'rough play' with your planner. Bat his brief around like a balled-up pair of socks. If anything doesn't smell right, scratch at it.

Above all, if you don't feel the brief is right, say something. You may be surprised how much say you can have.

Tip No.39 - Tell The Truth
Tip No.38 - Playing To Lose
Tip No.37 - How To Write Headlines
Tip No.36 - How To Do Direct
Tip No.35 - How To Do Radio
Tip No.34 - How To Do Press
Tip No.33 - How To Do TV
Tip No.32 - How To Do Digital
Tip No.31 - How To Do Posters
Tip No.30 - Look At Weird Shit
Tip No.29 - Presenting To The Client
Tip No.28 - Presenting To The Team
Tip No.27 - Presenting To The Creative Director
Tip No.26 - How To Deal With Rejection
Tip No.25 - Look Creative
Tip No.24 - Don't Be Afraid To Ask
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

Heresy Of The Month

Orthodoxy:
We all need to stop doing TV ads, because a) The young people are not watching TV any more, and b) The airtime is getting too expensive.

Heresy:

| View | Upload your own

via Diary Of A London Account Handler

Do You Like Horses?

Apologies for the 'unscheduled outage' earlier, a problem with blogpoll caused people trying to access Scamp to end up at blogpoll. They have also lost the most recent poll.

Doesn't matter. The results had been stable for a while, revealing that 61% of non-digital creatives are looking forward to getting involved in digital, while 39% would rather not.

It may seem easy to write off the 39% as idiots, but that would be hasty. Remember, the question doesn't measure "what do you think is going to happen in the advertising business" it measures "what do you want to spend your working day doing."

I think I understand where those 39% are at. Imagine you were someone who loved horses, and you got a job driving a horse-and-cart. Then they invent the internal combustion engine, and you are now forced to drive a van.

Now, this isn't an exact analogy, because digital is not going to exterminate other media in the way that vans eliminated horses.

But it does show that maybe it isn't fair to lambast the horse-and-cart driver as a "dinosaur" who doesn't understand that "the goods delivery business has totally changed now."

He's just a guy who loves horses, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Previous poll results:
Friday Poll No.18 - Does It Help If You Look Creative?
Friday Poll No.17 - Ad Of The Year 2007
Friday Poll No.16 - Do Difficult People Do The Best Work?
Friday Poll No.15 - Who Is Responsible For Ineffectiveness?
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?

More Jury Gossip - This Time About Gorilla

Juan Cabral, at last year's Pantene awards
When the ad first came out, a lot of people felt they'd seen drumming gorillas before. Or at least drumming babies (Magic FM).

I went on record to say I didn't believe Juan had lifted the idea from YouTube.

But I was wrong.

Jury gossip reveals he originally presented the idea in the form of a YouTube clip.

Not only that, but he had previously presented it to Cinzano (in Argentina), who didn't bite.

Please please please let's not have the originality debate again.

I want to make a different point here: NEVER FORGET THAT YOUR BOTTOM DRAWER IS YOUR BIGGEST ASSET.

Have an efficient filing system for your rejected work, because a lot of briefs come up time and time again (this product is simple to use, this product is inexpensive, or in the case of Cadbury's - this product will make you happy).

And have an efficient storage area for funny photos, YouTube clips, news articles - things that one day you may be able to make into an ad. Because as someone once said, "the worst time to be looking for an idea is when you actually need one."

Psychoanalysing Account Handlers And Planners

I'm lucky, in that relations between the departments are excellent at BBH, and were great at my previous agency too. But I've certainly experienced shops where that isn't the case.

A CD I met yesterday on an awards jury had a very interesting psycho-analytic explanation for inter-departmental tensions: he suggested that Account Handlers and Planners in fact hate Creatives, because unconsciously they are jealous that we can do something they're unable to.

Furthermore, since they are dependent on us to come up with ideas, they also resent us, just as all human beings unconsciously resent anyone they are dependent on.

Got a couch? Climb aboard.

Tuesday Tip No.39 - Tell The Truth

I don't think much of McCann's.

But I do like their logo.

And 'Tell the truth' is great advice for young creatives. Now, let me be clear : this isn't for moral or ethical reasons. But purely because it will help you create better adverts.

1. It's more interesting. Telling the truth can often make an ad nicely raw, fresh or edgy - especially in staid categories.

2. It's more persuasive. Something that contains a genuine truth about the product, the world, or the target will always be more persuasive than flim-flam. And persuasiveness doesn't just make an ad effective, it's a quality that awards juries value too.

3. It's quicker. The list of true things about the product is much shorter than the list of all the possible things you COULD say. So you save time in your workings.

4. It's easier to sell. Ads based on a truth about the product automatically have 'relevance' and are therefore easier for the client to buy.

5. It gives you more creative licence. If your ad is based on a solid truth, then executionally you can stretch it way, way far - and it will still make sense. Example: Carling have been able to set recent ads in the Antarctic, or even in space, because they're grounded in a solid truth about mate-ship.

N.B. It is possible to be EXCESSIVELY truthful. For example, the real reason that men buy Porsches is that they believe the car will make them sexually appealing to women. But this is an uncomfortable (possibly even unconscious) truth, that would be embarrassing and counter-productive to reveal. I call it 'saying the unsayable'. If you find yourself saying the unsayable, you have gone too far.

Tip No.38 - Playing To Lose
Tip No.37 - How To Write Headlines
Tip No.36 - How To Do Direct
Tip No.35 - How To Do Radio
Tip No.34 - How To Do Press
Tip No.33 - How To Do TV
Tip No.32 - How To Do Digital
Tip No.31 - How To Do Posters
Tip No.30 - Look At Weird Shit
Tip No.29 - Presenting To The Client
Tip No.28 - Presenting To The Team
Tip No.27 - Presenting To The Creative Director
Tip No.26 - How To Deal With Rejection
Tip No.25 - Look Creative
Tip No.24 - Don't Be Afraid To Ask
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

Battle Of The Epic Car Ads

Honda 'Problem Playground' from W&K London...



...utterly spanks the pants off Ford's 'Beautifully Arranged' commercial for the new Focus.



First of all, Problem Playground has a great piece of thinking at its heart: the original and rather resonant truth that a job you enjoy doesn't feel like work.

And a truth is always persuasive - I do now actually believe that Honda engineers enjoy solving engineering problems (even though rationally I know these are not the real engineers in the ad but just interesting-looking men with beards).

Meanwhile, the Ford ad contains no 'thinking' at all; it's based purely on a pun - "beautifully arranged". And as this is just a claim rather than a truth, it isn't believable or persuasive.

Then the executions are worlds (or perhaps generations) apart. Honda is fresh, fun, quirky and modern. The Ford ad could have been shot in 1957.

Also one ad is honest and the other isn't. The Honda promises a problem playground and it delivers a problem playground. It's 100% quirky fun out there in that car-park. The Ford ad promises beauty but delivers ugliness. Giselle Bundchen is beautiful. The paintings of Cezanne are beautiful. This Ford ad is not beautiful.

Even the music in the Ford ad is dull as dishwater. Whereas Honda's is ace. So good, in fact, that it may force me to reappraise my allergy to modern jazz.

Perhaps slagging off Ford is too easy. Ditto praising Wieden & Kennedy.

And yet, the sheer size of the gulf between them does tell us something, don't you think?

Our New Levi's Campaign

Copywriter: Scamp, Art Director: Scowling A.D. (contrary to what it says in Campaign).
Click to make images bigger

Very excited about these, which launch today. Scowling A.D. went to L.A. to shoot them, with a very good photographer called Joseph Rodriguez, who did a book called 'Gangs of East L.A.' that we had long admired.

What do you think?

The Ad Blog Charts For January 2008

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

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1     (1)	AdRants	31,260
2     (2)	Advertising/Design Goodness	52,627
3     (3)	Duncan's TV Ad Land	63,630
4     (6)	Bannerblog	69,745
5     (8)	Adland	79,875	↑
6     (4)	AdFreak	80,612
7     (4)	Adverblog	82,263
8     (8)	Adverbox	93,417
9     (11)	Coloribus	122,744
10   (9)	Copyranter	129,377
11   (new)	10ad	131,761
12   (10)	Logic + Emotion	136,131
13   (12)	AdPulp	190,096
14   (13)	Jaffe Juice	275,443
15   (14)	Ad Punch	310,215	↓
16   (15)	Experience Curve	341,196	↓
17   (20)	AdScam	359,453	↑
18   (17)	Agency Spy	374,408
19   (23)	BrandFlakes for Breakfast	440,806
20   (18)	Adliterate	441,659
21   (16)	Twenty Four	445,174	↓
22   (22)	Crackunit	454,556
23   (24)	Scamp	466,129
24   (21)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	470,943
25   (19)	Behind The Buzz	473,036

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)	Adliterate	441,659
2   (2)	Crackunit	454,556
3   (3)	Scamp	466,129
4   (5)	Faris	482,956
5   (4)	Welcome To Optimism	622,371	↓
6   (6)	Only Dead Fish	1.1m
7   (7)	Fish N Chimps	1.1m
8   (8)	TV's Worst Adverts	1.1m	↑
9   (re-)	Serendipity Book	1.9m
10  (new)	Lunar.BBDO	1.9m

A first appearance on the chart for my friends over at Lunar.BBDO. Okay, so their agency is not as famous as W&K, but their blog is much more interesting. Have a look.

UK means UK-based. Ad blog means ad blogs not marketing blogs, so that excludes Gapingvoid. Although Paul Colman is now a planner at W&K (how’s it going, Paul? Your blog seems to be locked at the moment) he doesn't class Life In The Middle as an ad blog and Russell Davies no longer blogs about advertising, although his Campaign column continues to be utterly brilliant. I'm only counting English language blogs.

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

Tuesday Tip No.38 - Playing To Lose

What should you do when you are given a shit brief that you don't want to work on?

This is a very important question, as your answer to it will define your whole career.

If you are the dutiful type, you will produce the best solution that you can, given the limitations of the brief. This will help your agency, and help the client's business. But it won't help you. All that will happen is that you will soon be given another shit brief. Do a good job on a shit brief for a second or third time, and your career is basically over.

Sure, you may be safe for a while, because you are doing a valuable job. But your book won't move forward. And when the next round of redundancies comes, the fact that you have been doing a valuable job will be completely forgotten. All anyone will notice is that you haven't done a good ad in a long time.

So it's absolutely vital to develop an ability to avoid shit briefs. And you have to do it cleverly. For the good of your reputation, you can't do it in a way that makes you look difficult, arrogant, or primadonnish.

In truth, a desire to avoid shit briefs doesn't mean you are those things. No one wants to work on shit briefs. And the best way to avoid them is what I call Playing To Lose.

Let me illustrate with an example.

Years ago, when I worked at Saatchis, some friends of mine (who were a very good team) got briefed on Oil of Olay.

They came back with a script about a woman who is dead. However, because her friends regularly apply Oil of Olay to her face, no one realises. (The idea was based on the movie "Weekend At Bernie's").

A fun and lateral way to demonstrate what the product does for your skin, but of course, not something that Procter & Gamble could ever buy.

K**** & C***** were never given a P&G brief again.

And yet, no one could say they hadn't tried, or hadn't done a good job.

And that, my friends, is Playing To Lose.

Tip No.37 - How To Write Headlines
Tip No.36 - How To Do Direct
Tip No.35 - How To Do Radio
Tip No.34 - How To Do Press
Tip No.33 - How To Do TV
Tip No.32 - How To Do Digital
Tip No.31 - How To Do Posters
Tip No.30 - Look At Weird Shit
Tip No.29 - Presenting To The Client
Tip No.28 - Presenting To The Team
Tip No.27 - Presenting To The Creative Director
Tip No.26 - How To Deal With Rejection
Tip No.25 - Look Creative
Tip No.24 - Don't Be Afraid To Ask
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

Friday Poll No.19 : Do You Actually Want To Do Digital, Or Would You Rather Not?

Most above-the-line creatives claim that most digital creative work is poor, and they will be able to do it much better, when they're asked to. However, my question to above-the-line people is... do you actually want to?

Did you come into this business to sell, by any channel necessary?

Or did you come into it to make 'films', and quite frankly you'd rather someone else took care of the banners, just like they take care of the DM?

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

Result Of Friday Poll No.18

Well shock horror. Image IS important in advertising. Who would have thought it?

Okay, a few counter-examples were raised. People like John Webster and Lee Garfinkel didn't/ don't look creative. They just dressed like a normal bloke.

Yes. But I'd say, consciously or unconsciously, they still had an image. When John Webster wrote a script for a lager ad about a pool-playing bear, and presented it dressed as a normal bloke, he was subliminally communicating to his audience: "Look, I know a pool-playing bear sounds a bit wacky, but it will appeal to regular blokes, and you can trust me on that, because I am one."

Previous poll results:
Friday Poll No.17 - Ad Of The Year 2007
Friday Poll No.16 - Do Difficult People Do The Best Work?
Friday Poll No.15 - Who Is Responsible For Ineffectiveness?
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?

Why Aren't We As Funny As This?

We spend quite a lot of our working lives trying to be funny.

And yet nothing we come up with is as funny as Porn For Girls By Girls.

Maybe no advert has ever been as funny.

Why is that? Does the product always get in the way? Or is there some other reason?

Two Hearts Beating With Just One Facebook Account

Fred & Farid once did a fascinating interview with Campaign in which they claimed they lived in the same flat, saw the same films, and ate the same food, at the same time... which they considered essential to function as a true team.

I thought it was a load of old bollocks. And yet, a clever piece of image-building.

Now I wonder if it might be true after all.

Look at this - they have the same facebook page.


Is it useful for a creative team to be this close? Or is there such a thing as too close?

Read more Fred & Farid antics here

Another Example Of My Least Favourite Endline

This was scanned from an art magazine, but that doesn't make it excusable. Maybe it makes it worse.

"Hmm, the ad's going in an art magazine..."
"I know, how about 'The Art Of...' something?"
"By Jupiter, Carruthers - you've cracked it!"

Feel free to post endlines that you despise, in the comments. I find it helps.


Previous 'Art Of's:

The Art Of Refrigeration

Friday Poll No.18 - Does It Help If You Look Creative?

Let's settle this.

My opinion, which I've expressed before, is that just as it's an advantage for a yoghurt billed as 'natural' to have a picture of a farm on the label, it's an advantage for someone with the word 'creative' on their business card to dress different from an accountant.

What you wear, like it or not, communicates something about you.

But what do you think?

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


Previous poll results:

Friday Poll No.17 - Ad Of The Year 2007
Friday Poll No.16 - Do Difficult People Do The Best Work?
Friday Poll No.15 - Who Is Responsible For Ineffectiveness?
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?

Who Is The World's Weirdest-Looking Creative Director?

I don't think it's Jon Williams (new CD of Grey), although one can only agree with commenters who have compared him to Charles II or a historic battle re-enactor.

But you know what?

I like CD's that look weird.

All hail Trevor Beattie.

All hail to US adman Donny Deutsch.

All hail Mr Pringle lookalike Piyush Pandy of Ogilvy India (illustration by Gwen).

And beware the normal-looking CD.

We're Creatives after all, and the essence of creativity is difference.

Tuesday Tip No. 37 - How To Write Headlines

I've already said that I much prefer print ads without headlines.

Nevertheless, it's worth getting good at writing them. Why? Because often you will fail to crack the brief visually. Happens to me a lot.

Or sometimes, due to lack of time, lack of money, yada yada, you may 'have' to use a stock-shot or product shot with a line.

So let's start with the basics.


How long should a headline be?

I’m not trying to lay down ironclad rules, and I certainly haven’t got any neuro-scientific evidence to back it up, but it does seem to me that there’s a certain length of sentence that’s appropriate for the kind of thoughts we typically try to get across in an advertisement. A length that can be inhaled in one breath by the reader. And that length is roughly 8 to 14 words.

If a thought needs a lot more than 14 words to communicate, it’s too complicated for an advertisement. And if it can be said in less than 8 words, it normally isn’t saying enough.

(Of course, words like ‘disintermediation’ or ‘supercollider’ might falsify the count, as maybe would lots of teeny words)

Here’s a great old campaign for Porsche by Fallon McElligott.

Nine words. [Sorry about the appalling quality of these scans]

Fourteen.

Eleven. I think of 11 as the magic number. I’m not sure why, but there just seems to be something particularly pleasing about 11-word headlines.


The best headlines don’t look like headlines

There’s a sure-fire way to get your headline ignored - make it look the headline of an advert.

No one actually wants to read adverts. So, it probably won’t get read. And it will be boring, and probably not win any awards either.

Making a headline look like something other than a headline is a very good arrow to have in your quiver.

In fact, many of the world’s best headline-writers are quite open about their secret weapon – a great art director.

With a really well art-directed headline, the idea and the execution are seamless. I like ideas where the headline is written in a place where type naturally occurs. Which means that your headline can be a photographed object - a visual element in its own right, which just happens to have type on it - rather than a boring old typeset headline.

So, think what your headline could be written on, that you could photograph as an object.


Or if there's no object you can put your type on, is there some object you can make your type out of, to make it more visually interesting? If it’s an ad for baked beans, why not make your headline out of beans?


Puns

Some Creatives will tell you that puns are bad and you should never use them.

I don’t agree with that, though I understand why they say it.

They say it because there is a finite pool of words that have a dual meaning. Hence, most are well-known and have been used in adverts before. And just as any joke becomes less funny the more times you hear it, so do puns.*

However, if you can come up with a play on words that feels totally original, I see no reason why it can’t make a good advert.

Here’s a great example for Timberland, by Leagas Delaney.


It was written by Tim Delaney himself. And if puns are acceptable to Tim Delaney, there’s no reason for you to turn your nose up.

Indeed, year after year, you will find ads in the awards books that are based on wordplay.

*Just as you could make an exception for jokes that are “so bad they’re good”, you might say the same of some puns. Like the old headline for the airport Hilton that read “Out of the flying plane, into the foyer.”


Punchline comes at the end

The construction of a headline causes some Creatives endless heart-ache. It needn’t. The principle is very simple: you put the punchline at the end.

Here’s an example:


Would this witty headline (and it’s a pun, incidentally – so take note, anti-pun people) have been as effective if it read: “My bitches and I love Irn-Bru”?

Not quite.

‘Bitches’ is the punchline so it goes at the end… just like the punchline of any joke.

For serious headlines, exactly the same principle applies. The key word or phrase goes at the end.

Tip No.36 - How To Do Direct
Tip No.35 - How To Do Radio
Tip No.34 - How To Do Press
Tip No.33 - How To Do TV
Tip No.32 - How To Do Digital
Tip No.31 - How To Do Posters
Tip No.30 - Look At Weird Shit
Tip No.29 - Presenting To The Client
Tip No.28 - Presenting To The Team
Tip No.27 - Presenting To The Creative Director
Tip No.26 - How To Deal With Rejection
Tip No.25 - Look Creative
Tip No.24 - Don't Be Afraid To Ask
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

Who Needs Words?

Berocca, by JWT (click to enlarge image)


Harvey Nichols, by DDB London (click to enlarge)

Two new bits of print that gave me a tingle. What they have in common is they're both really clean. Cleanliness turns me on. Always has done.