Tuesday Tip No.44 - Be Funny All The Way Through

A new tip for the new or newish Creative.

When given a TV brief, many teams come up with scripts that depict a normal or everyday situation, with a twist at the end.

This can work well. But the fact is - it has to be a helluva twist to compensate the viewer for the previous 25 seconds of boredom.

I believe you are much better off creating a commercial that is 'funny all the way through.'

In other words, a commercial where the entire situation or set of actions is inherently funny (or surreal/interesting/bizarre/beautiful/dramatic), rather than normal or familiar.

By way of example, here's two 20-second ads for the same brand. The first is an everyday scenario with a funny gag at the end; the second launches very quickly into a fresh and funny mode of behaviour.


WKD 'Bath'


WKD 'Drill'

Whether they are good ads or not isn't the point here, I just want to state that the second is clearly better than the first.

Recent awards juries back my view.

Looking at the Gold and Silver-winning commercials from this year's BTAA, here are the ads which (in my view) are funny from the beginning:

Skoda Cake
Sony Music Pieces
Cadbury Gorilla
Sony Play-Doh
Boots Here Come The Girls
Levi's Dangerous Liaison
Sony Music Pieces
Procter & Gamble Interview
Bryclcreem Effortless
The Big Yellow Storage Company Tide
Volkswagen Night Drive
Vodafone Time Theft
Vodafone Cartwheel
Volkswagen Toy Story
Adidas International Impossible is Nothing - David Beckham
Thorntons Stuck
BBC Amazing Music - Russell Brand

And here are the ones (all three of them really good ads, incidentally) that have a twist at the end or near the end of a 'normal' or stock situation:

Boots Moment of Truth
Carling Space
Carling Out

I think a lot of Creatives start out by writing ads that are jokes, naturally with a punchline. And of course there are many cases - Volkswagen 'Surprisingly Ordinary Prices' Lamp Post for example - where the normal-situation-followed-by-punchline structure works well. But... they're quite rare. Especially compared to the number of really bad ads that use that structure.

So my tip today is to try to think of a funny or interesting situation that has the brand promise woven into it, rather than just writing a joke.


Previous Tips:

How To Do Virals; How To Get A Pay Rise; Be Wary Of Punding; Challenge The Brief; Tell The Truth; Playing To Lose; How To Write Headlines; How To Do Direct; How To Do Radio; How To Do Press; How To Do TV; How To Do Digital; How To Do Posters; Look At Weird Shit; Presenting To The Client; Presenting To The Team; Presenting To The Creative Director; How To Deal With Rejection; Look Creative; Don't Be Afraid To Ask; Your Idea Has To Be 120%; Read Iain's Tips; Don't Behave; How To Discuss Ideas; Read Hugh's Tips; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part IV - How To Turn A Placement Into A Job; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part III - How To Approach Agencies (re-print of Tip No. 7); How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ; Make Friends With Traffic; Get Reference; Don't Stop Too Soon; Be Very; Breaking Up; Working Well With Your Partner; Finding The Right Partner; How To Approach Agencies; Never-Seen-Before Footage; Dicketts' Finger; Two Blokes In The Pub; Play Family Fortunes; Should You Take A Bad Job?; Don't Overpolish

Top Ten Creatives, Directors and Agencies

I love charts and graphs; maybe I should have been a planner.

Anyway, there's some interesting tables on David Reviews, which is a site (subscription required) run by Jason Stone - he's an interesting bloke and a real ad enthusiast, who's created a tidy business taping all the ads off TV, and selling them back to agencies when they ring up asking for all the latest car ads, soup ads, or whatever.

Visitors can also vote - here are the stats for the last 12 months:

Top 10 Directors


Top 10 Agencies


Top 10 Creatives


Agree? Disagree? Remember, it's just for fun.

News Orgy

Crikey, loads happening today...

Juan Cabral has just finished shooting the new Cadbury ad, which apparently features 'trucks having fun'. Canonisation beckons.

Ogilvy U-Turn - the four CD's will now report to Chairman Gary Leih, not MD Guy Lambert. Still embarrassing.

Nick Bell takes DDB global job. Great hire.

AKQA spoofs Guinness 'tipping point' ad for Pot Noodle viral. White swan.

11 Golds for Fallon at BTAA last night. Can't argue.

Media agency Mindshare plots creative agency launch. Wallpaper factory.

If you want to join in this possibly tedious two-word game, feel free.

Dothetestgate, Day 2

So I talked to Kit & Tom. I can assure you - neither is the Antichrist. They're good guys. For reasons I am sure you will all understand, they couldn't say anything about the situation.

A WCRS spokesperson did make this statement to Brand Republic:

"We are facing criticism relating to copyright on the cycling safety TV ad. We have been assured that this execution does not infringe copyright. We feel it is a powerful message and is one that will have an impact on this very serious issue."

I also got in touch with Professor Daniel Simons at the University of Illinois, who made the original film. Here's what he said:

"From what little I understand about British copyright law, the advertisement was probably within the letter of the law given that they made some minor changes from my version (e.g, 8 players rather than 6, a bear suit rather than a gorilla suit). In any case, I'm not interested in pursuing a legal or publicity fight with an ad agency or with the British government. I'd rather let this just run its course
without too much additional attention."

"That said, I am unhappy about what the advertising agency and TfL have done. Nobody from the advertising agency or TfL contacted me to ask about my work, and there was no need to duplicate what I did so closely. I have helped other advertising agencies in the past (for free) to come up with variants of this effect that would be closer to the purpose of their advertising campaign and less clearly duplicating what I did (e.g., I helped advise an ad agency developing a web-based
ad for Hyundai last year). It would have been easy to come up with a scenario that actually involved a failure to see a cyclist and that didn't involve people in animal costumes or passing basketballs."

"I do like the goal of the campaign -- I often speak about the effects of inattention on accidents involving cyclists and motorcyclists myself. I'm just frustrated that they didn't bother to contact me (I'm easy to find) given that they based their ad so closely on my work. Even if they were legally within their rights to do what they did given British copyright laws, it would have been a nice courtesy,
and I could have helped them to come up with a much more targeted ad for their campaign that didn't duplicate my work so closely."

And here's a very short list I've compiled off the top of my head, of ads that were inspired by a short film, comedy sketch or pop promo:

Hamlet 'Photo Booth'
PlayStation 'Life On The PlayStation'
Honda 'Cog'
Guinness 'Man dancing around pint'
Budweiser 'Wassup'
Levi's 'Flat Eric'

Please don't tell me an ad creative can't be inspired by a book or a film. If a 'real' artist can put a urinal in a gallery, then we commercial artists can certainly adapt a pop promo into a TV spot.

However, some of the above ads were made with the collaboration of the original creators, some not.

And maybe that makes a difference.

Not from a creative point of view (they're equally hard to come up with, don't be fooled by commenters on here saying it's easy) and not from a legal point of view (the creator of the short film that the Guinness dancing man ad was based on lost his case, on the grounds that you can't copyright an idea, only an execution).

The involvement of - or payment to - the originator gives a much better feeling, for sure.

But then again, if the goal of the ad is to save lives, as in this case.... should we really feel so bad?

The First Black Swan of '08

I predict a D&AD Silver, and 10 million YouTube views.

Bastards.

UPDATE. The ad has been removed from YouTube, but can be viewed here.

What Would Don Draper Do?

Never be stuck on a brief again.

Simply ask yourself - WWDDD?

Here's the answer:

1) Pour large scotch
2) Smoke cigarette
3) Nap on office sofa
4) Pour large scotch
5) Smoke cigarette
6) Throw research report in bin
7) More scotch and cigarettes
8) Have sex with beautiful bohemian mistress

and DING!

Idea appears.

I think Don Draper is my new hero.

Oh, and here's a choice quote from last night's episode: "Account executives - they're all really good at something. But it's not advertising."

Mad Men continues, Sundays 10pm, BBC4

Let's Talk About Some Ads

VW Polo 'singing dog' by DDB London.



Transport for London 'optical illusion' by M&C Saatchi



Mars 'Monks' by AMV

The singing dog totally rules. I've worked on that brief so I know it ain't easy; big props to the team. And just check the YouTube comments for proof of how much the public loves this ad.

The optical illusions one hits a completely different bone. Very clever. Very thought-provoking. I love the fact that they show a car crash without showing a car crash.

P.S. Now that we're seeing everything first on YouTube and not TV, an interesting test of an ad is "after watching it, do you immediately watch it again?"

I went 'yes yes no' on these 3. What about you?

Are Creative Directors Really Necessary?

First Ogilvy canned Malc. Full story here. Comments on it here.

Now Rapier have removed an old friend and colleague of mine, Andrew Fraser.

In both cases, creative work will continue to be overseen by creative directors, but there will be no overall Executive Creative Director.

The rule of thumb is it takes three similar events to imply a trend, but I'm so worried, I'm calling this after two.

There's a head of office services and a head of catering, for fuck's sake, so what makes them think the creative department can sail rudderless? And let's not forget, the ECD will often be the leader of the whole agency.

Plus you need someone at the top who fights for good work. It's no coincidence that all the agencies that have gone bust, shrunk or merged in recent years were doing poor work, e.g. Bates, DMB&B, CDP.

Do you really think this could be the start of a trend?

Tuesday Tip (day late) No.43 - How To Do Virals

Today's tip was written by Jerome Courtial, an engagement planner here at BBH in London.

Jerome is a very smart and interesting guy - I highly recommend you check out his blog, digicynic, from which he kindly lets me reproduce this post (his blog is quite new, you could probably read the whole thing in one sitting.)

Anyway, here's his take on virals.


HOW TO DO VIRALS, by Jerome Courtial

All virals are Black Swan. In fact, using past references and case studies might make you less likely to come up with the next big viral phenomenon.

I'm talking here, of course, about the uber-virals. The ones that have been seen by millions of people, that everyone talked about, that have changed pop culture and have redefined the way we do advertising.

I'm not restricting my thoughts to online virals as now, any piece of communication can become viral - the internet is just the facilitator.

I'm also not just talking about ‘advertising’ virals, but phenomenons that have ended up being virals (Chocolate Rain, Mentos and Diet Coke, Blairwitch…)

There are only very few real virals every year. The subservient chicken, Kylie’s Agent Provocateur video, John West Salmon, the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment are a few examples.

We’ve all analysed their success and come up with pretty solid arguments as to why they were so successful. Yet no one seems to have found the right formula to reproduce this kind of phenomenon.

But let’s go back to the Black Swan theory from Taleb’s new book:

What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

And here’s his argument summarised (whole article on Moneyweek here):

Taleb argues that humans are ‘hard wired’ to see the world through the lens of the ‘Platonic fallacy.’ We look for structure where there is none and comprehension where none is possible. Such people are condemed to live in the realm of ‘Mediocristan’. There, their understanding will be conditioned by “Platonified economists with their phoney bell-curve-based equations”. More, they will constantly fool themselves with the “narrative fallacy” – the human drive to impose a post hoc explanation on even the most shocking events.

Let’s come back to the last point. The “narrative fallacy”. Which is, how humans beings like to find patterns where none exist, trying to make sense of the unexpectable.

If you were to ask 10 advertising gurus why the subservient chicken was so successful, you’d probably get 10 different points of view. The surprise, the innovative use of the technology, the awkwardness, the comic factor… All making for a pretty sound explanation of why this one piece of work, out of hundreds of thousands, achieved such a grand scale success.

Yet, for all these explanations, no one seems to be able to use this knowledge to recreate similar effects.

Being able to understand and analyse great virals is in no way a factor in predicting whether a piece of communication will go viral, let alone trying to manufacture another one.

I will go further than that. I actually think it’s counter-intuitive. As soon as you have some big principles as to why communication have turned out to be great virals, you are even less likely to come up with the next one.

As I said, all the virals listed above had one point in common. Their success was totally unexpected. You could not predict that, overnight, kids around the world would start popping Mentos into Diet Coke bottles following an online video. It’s easy to post-rationalise why they did. But it in no way guarantees that you will be able to come back with the next one (especially if you are one of the two brands involved).

Some agencies or really talented people have a better feel for what will is likely to become viral. But they are just doing better work than the rest. No one has found a formula to consistently turn communication into virals. Crispin Porter and Bogusky have never been able to reproduce another viral of the scale of the Subservient Chicken. The Viral Factory has not done something as successful as the Trojan Olympics. (And I’m happy to be proved wrong), Fallon will find it hard to come up with something as hugely popular as the bouncing balls or the drumming gorilla.

There is a big difference between great work, getting numbers and people talking, and highly successful virals. Yes, having some principles help us get to better work, but not to amazing work. It is only 0.01% of communication that has a major impact on our industry and on our audience’s lives.

So when trying to turn a communication into the next big viral, don’t just look at what has been successful in the past: it will give no indicators of what will be in the future and will make you less likely to achieve it. You need to be brave and look into other areas, new directions, outside of advertising. Don’t try to predict success by comparing it with the 10 most successful virals, it just won’t work.

By looking at past examples, you are going to make contrived work that is never going to be any better than the originals you were looking at. You’ve put yourself into the wrong frame of mind. Therefore it won’t be surprising. Or unexpected. This behaviour could not have led to the drumming gorilla or balls, because they broke every single rule of what people thought a good viral was made of.

Which explains why it’s so easy to post-rationalise why something went viral (by retrospectively applying a pattern to it) yet so completely impossible to recreate one.


Previous Tips:

How To Get A Pay Rise; Be Wary Of Punding; Challenge The Brief; Tell The Truth; Playing To Lose; How To Write Headlines; How To Do Direct; How To Do Radio; How To Do Press; How To Do TV; How To Do Digital; How To Do Posters; Look At Weird Shit; Presenting To The Client; Presenting To The Team; Presenting To The Creative Director; How To Deal With Rejection; Look Creative; Don't Be Afraid To Ask; Your Idea Has To Be 120%; Read Iain's Tips; Don't Behave; How To Discuss Ideas; Read Hugh's Tips; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part IV - How To Turn A Placement Into A Job; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part III - How To Approach Agencies (re-print of Tip No. 7); How To Get A Job In Advertising Part II - How To Put A Book Together; How To Get A Job In Advertising Part I - FAQ; Make Friends With Traffic; Get Reference; Don't Stop Too Soon; Be Very; Breaking Up; Working Well With Your Partner; Finding The Right Partner; How To Approach Agencies; Never-Seen-Before Footage; Dicketts' Finger; Two Blokes In The Pub; Play Family Fortunes; Should You Take A Bad Job?; Don't Overpolish

Hair Force

Went to Creative Circle last night. A fine do, it was.

For some reason, I found myself wondering "who here, out of all these talented people, would I most like to swap places with? Not just have their talent, and their job, but actually be?"

The three I came up with were David Abbott, Juan Cabral, and Richard Flintham.

Not sure exactly why these three... but it must be something to do with having good hair, mustn't it?

Abbott: silver and surprisingly long
Cabral: mullet; not a trendy Soho one - a real one
Flintham: bald and flaunting it, no compensatory goatee or glasses whatsoever

Were you at Creative Circle last night? What did you think?

BBC 'White Season' Trail

Directly before 'Mad Men' came this trail for a new season of programmes on the BBC about the white working class.

I've seen this reviewed elsewhere, and it seems to stir up quite a bit of controversy. Let's not get into the politics; creatively, it's just great, isn't it? And its ability to cause heated debate is a proof of that, I would say.

Review of Mad Men

"You'll find account executives and creative executives all mixed in together. Please don't ask me the difference."

Mad Men finally aired at 10pm on BBC4 last night. I knew I'd enjoy it because it's set in an ad agency and I'm a sucker for any films or books about advertising. But I was surprised just how much I did. The creator apparently is a former Sopranos writer; the quality really shows. Great writing and performances - the lead guy is particularly good.

And so many memorable moments. Like digging out the agency's sole Jewish employee (from the mailroom) to front up to a Jewish client; Don Draper having a quiet think a.k.a nap in his office, or tossing the findings of the research lady right where they belong - in the bin.

Did you see it?

Malcolm Poynton Leaves Ogilvy

So apparently Malcolm Poynton has been kicked out of the ECD's chair at Ogilvy.

Great hair. What did he do wrong?

The Ad Blog Charts for February 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	31,684
2     (2)	Advertising/Design Goodness	50,019
3     (3)	Duncan's TV Ad Land	62,047
4     (5)	Adland	65,382
5     (4)	Bannerblog	68,994
6     (6)	AdFreak	85,691
7     (5)	Adverblog	91,426
8     (9)	Coloribus	106,725
9     (7)	Adverbox	110,589
10   (10)	Copyranter	122,861
11   (12)	Logic + Emotion	128,503
12   (11)	10ad	150,915
13   (13)	AdPulp	192,560
14   (14)	Jaffe Juice	271,802
15   (new)	The Kaiser Edition	321,725
16   (15)	Ad Punch	336,882
17   (17)	AdScam	338,455
18   (16)	Experience Curve	353,128
19   (18)	Agency Spy	381,589
20   (19)	BrandFlakes for Breakfast	429,376
21   (23)	Scamp	436,246
22   (24)	How Advertising Spoiled Me	449,587
23   (20)	Adliterate	472,324
24   (22)	Crackunit	489,985
25   (21)	Twenty Four	510,796

Included for the first time - Marcus Brown's The Kaiser Edition. Blogging 'live from Germany', Marcus is a man of many talents and figure of much influence - check out his international beverage tournament, the follow-up to the famous meat-off.


>

Top 10 UK Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1   (3)	Scamp	436,246
2   (1)	Adliterate	472,324
3   (2)	Crackunit	489,985
4   (new)	Behind The Buzz	528,959
5   (5)	Welcome To Optimism	601,747
6   (new)	Knitware	921,810
7   (8)	TV's Worst Adverts	1.0m
8   (7)	Fish N Chimps	1.1m
9   (6)	Only Dead Fish	1.3m
10 (10)	Lunar.BBDO	1.9m

The always-stimulating Talent Imitates, Genius Steals is no longer in the UK chart because writer Faris has embarked on a new adventure in the US. Good luck in NYC, Faris.

Meanwhile, Rachel Clarke has made the reverse journey, so her Behind The Buzz joins the UK chart.

This month also sees a first appearance for a relatively new blog - Knitware. It’s run by some people here at BBH, so in order to avoid allegations of nepotism, I haven’t written about it before. But now that it’s ‘made the charts’, I think it's over-due a mention. Billed as ‘where brands, content and technology collide’ there are some very smart people contributing to it. Indeed, my sole post on there – about space invader-patterned scarfs – is embarrassingly trivial. Go check it out, and let me know what you think.

UK means UK-based. Ad blog means ad blogs not marketing blogs, so that excludes Gapingvoid. Paul Colman is now a planner at W&K and sadly no longer writes Life In The Middle. Russell Davies no longer blogs about advertising, although his Campaign column is great. I'm only counting English language blogs.

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

Result of Salary Survey

More than 4,000 City bankers earned a bonus of over £1 million last year. (source)

Meanwhile, Liz Hurley and her tycoon husband paid their maid just £1.20 an hour. (source)

Us advertising folks? We're somewhere in the middle.


My own view is it's pointless comparing our salaries with those paid in other industries. We generate more wealth than doctors, but their job requires more training. We're smarter than footballers, but there are fewer people with great ball control than can write a decent ad.

But for your own happiness, it's important to feel you're being paid a fair wage in relation to your industry peer group. That's why - embarrassing as it is - I think it's well worth sharing salary information with a small group of trusted peers.

If you don't know what you should be earning, you could get screwed. Of course, you could still find yourself getting screwed even if you DO know what you should be earning. But at least you'll know about it.

Previous poll results:
Friday Poll No.19 - What Do You Think Of Our Trade Rag?
Friday Poll No.18 - Should A Creative 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?

What You're Supposed To Be Earning

London Headhunters 'The Talent Business' produce the authoritative industry guide to pay and pay trends, which they provide to agency management. And a friendly ECD let me have a copy to put up on Scamp.

Here's the key table -


Are you on the right amount? And do you think the bands are fair?

Tuesday Tip No. 42 - How To Get A Pay Rise

The sad truth is that no one will ever give you a pay rise. You always have to ask.

If you've done good work, you deserve a pay rise. But often, if you're like most Creatives, you don't actually ask for one. Instead, you sit in your office, stewing, thinking that your boss is taking the piss, he must surely know how under-paid you are, it's rude, cruel and frankly almost inconceivable that he hasn't called you in to give you a pay rise.

But you know what? He never will. You have to ask.

It's a shame that we Creatives are not more demanding, and often sit there stewing. Account Men never do. Account Men are constantly scratching at the door of their Head of Account Management saying "I want more money; I want better accounts; I want a promotion; I want to be in charge of something... how about graduate recruitment? Could I be in charge of that? Or what about the Christmas party? For Christ's sake I need to feel like I'm moving forward or I'll just die!"

You don't have to be like that. But you do have to ask.

Even when Scowling A.D. and I won a Grand Prix at Cannes, our boss at the time didn't say "hey well done guys, here's a raise." We had to ask.

And you know what? He was doing exactly the right thing.

A big part of an ECD's job is making the most of his budget. That means hiring good teams cheaply. Getting rid of expensive teams who aren't good. And generally paying each team the least amount of money he can, and still keep them. (That is if he wants to keep them.)

And this is the same for any boss, in any company, in any industry. It's called capitalism. If you don't like it, move to China. Scratch that. Even China is the same now.

So, to recap, as if I haven't said it enough times already: to get a pay rise, the first thing you have to do is actually ask for one.

But what do you say?

Don't say you've been working hard. He doesn't give a shit. He doesn't care if you work 23 hours a day, or 1/2 an hour a day. He just wants good work.

Don't say there are pressing personal reasons why you need a raise. You want to buy a flat. Who cares? Your wife is pregnant. Who cares? Is she going to write some ads for him? Probably not. Especially if she's pregnant.

Don't say you've had a lot of bad luck, near misses, great ideas that 'almost' got made. It doesn't wash. The quality Napoleon most valued in a general was that he should be lucky. For creatives it's the same. Some teams have a 'knack' of getting work made. If you've been writing good work but not getting it made, you don't have that knack, or you've lost it. Either way, you won't get a pay rise.

Truth is, it's not about what you say. It's about when you say it.

There is only one time to ask for a pay rise, and that is just after you have won an award. It's a cliche, but it works. Why does it work? Because remember, he will only pay you the least he thinks he has to so you'll stay. After you win an award (preferably a big one, or perhaps do some campaign that doesn't win any awards but is famous), your market value goes up. So if he wants you to stay, he has to pay you more.

And that is the only time you can ask for a pay rise.

There is one other way to get a pay rise (not ask for one, just get one) which is to resign. And I am talking about resigning, not threatening to leave. Threatening to leave is lame. Threatening to leave means you're thinking about doing something, you're considering doing something, but you're not actually doing anything. Are you.

So don't threaten to leave. For sure, subtly let it be known to the ECD's confidantes that you are putting your book together. That sometimes works. But don't threaten anything. Just do something.

Go out and get another job. Make sure it's a job you are happy to take. Then when you go in to your ECD and resign, he may offer to match the pay/responsibilities that the new agency are offering.

He may not. That's why you have to make sure it's a job you're happy to take. Because if he won't match the offer, a.k.a. calls your bluff, then you have to go.

Either way, you end up with a pay rise - from the only source that can genuinely give you one. The market.


Tip No.41 - Be Wary Of Punding
Tip No.40 - Challenge The Brief
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

Friday Poll No.20 - How Much Do You Earn?

I promised a post on pay.

But I'm not going to do that.

The subject is too big, and its influence too important (let's face it, no one goes into advertising to make the world a better place).

So I'm going to do a Pay Week.

Starting with a poll (top right of your screen). Let's see if Scamp readers are driving gold-plated Bentleys, or eating old bits of carpet at the end of the month. Please note that some publications ask people how much they earn because they want to use that information to snare advertisers. Not the case here. This is pure snoopiness.

Let's look at some attitudes towards pay as well.

Are you fairly paid? What about pay levels in the advertising industry in general? Is it unfair that we earn less than lawyers and bankers? Or is it ridiculous that we're paid (on average) more than teachers and nurses?

Let's hear what you think.

Result of Campaign Poll

I'm told this poll was closely watched at Campaign HQ. And funnily enough, the voting did swing sharply more positive on one single day. Still, MP's are allowed to vote for themselves so there's no reason why Campaign staffers shouldn't be.

I suspect they might have been surprised by some of the negativity in the comments. Does the anonymity of blog posting cause people to be excessively nasty? Or is it that when people are speaking to Campaign face-to-face they are excessively nice, because they want to get good coverage? I don't know.

Anyway, the final verdict as you can see is that Campaign is quite good, and that's how I voted so I'm happy.

Previous poll results:
Friday Poll No.18 - Should A Creative 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?

The Colour Purple

Sorry to post about Gorilla yet again... I couldn't help noticing that buried in the story of Cadbury's annual results is a quote from chief executive Todd Stitzer saying he "overrruled his own marketers" when they presented the idea to him without the "Cadbury cues" of the purple background and glass-and-a-half device.

This is surely baloney - just a CEO bigging-up his own role. I bet it was actually the Cadbury's marketers overruling Fallon.

Interesting, though, that someone thought it was a good idea for the spot to be virtually unbranded. Whoever did insist on the "Cadbury cues" made the right call, in my view. Misattribution is a deadly sin, and if the Gorilla is going to be sitting in front of a wall then it might as well be a purple one.

Why some creatives are so sniffy about branding I will never understand. For sure there's no need for packshots the size of alient spacecraft, and it's annoying when an ad repeats the brand name three times - I always fight client requests for 'branding that will hurt' - but if the brand's colours appear here and there in the ad, then so what? Nobody dies.

UPDATE: In today's Campaign school report, Fallon only got a 9. Despite doing the best ads of the year, and finishing top of the new business table. What would it take to get a 10?