If Atheists Ruled The World

Graeme B. kindly sent me this clip, commenting that: "It's like they've stolen the idea from your Barnardo's ad [he means this one] and applied it to atheism."

Thieving bloody atheists.

I do like it though.

Placements - Golden Opportunity, or Blatant Exploitation?

I've had a few requests to do a post on the subject of placements, so here it is.

The industry is quite split on the issue.

On the one hand, there's the opinion (quite often held by the old-timers) that it should be a privilege for these kids to come in for two weeks, write some tactical radio ads or shelf-wobblers, and be generally ignored.

On the other hand, there's an equally ridiculous view that placement teams are an abused and down-trodden species, who deserve our support far more than pandas or polar bears do. In fact we should all be marching in the streets to save these emaciated creative geniuses.

And finally there's the (probably most widespread) shrug-of-the-shoulders type response, that while it's an unfair and demeaning system, there probably isn't a better one.

I'm in the last camp. Freakonomics pointed out that people are prepared to work for free (or for very little) in return for the chance to break into the 'glamour' industries of music, fashion, film etc.

We in advertising are only a second-tier glamour profession. Nevertheless, for as long as there are people prepared to be paid a pittance to get in, that is what the pay will be. Don't blame me. Blame whoever invented economics.

I actually don't think it's such a bad deal. Placement teams get free training (crits) whereas in a lot of industries you have to pay for training. You don't have to 'know the right people' like you do in some fields - our industry is pretty open and meritocratic. Placement teams aren't given a manservant to run a bath for them, but they're generally not treated badly by Agencies. They're certainly not ragged-on like a young 'un in a shipyard would be. And apparently even the wages aren't as bad as they used to be.

But what do I know. If you're on placement, tell me what it's like. Is it a fair deal, or a swizz?

And if you have an idea for a better system, tell us that too.

Two Weeks With No Internet

The most recent poll here showed that the internet is by far our favourite thing to do nowadays.


Can't say I'm surprised. It's so clearly better than talking to people, isn't it? I mean... what if you're talking to someone, and you start to find them dull? You can't minimise their window. And what's the likelihood they can give you the very latest news, and sport? Not high.

Personally, if I'm without internet access for longer than about 10 minutes at a time, I begin to feel anxious and unwell.

So I wonder how I'll fare for the next two weeks.

Scamp is going on holiday.

See you when I get back.

Nightmare Propositions

Okay. Last day of Planner-bashing, I promise.

I'm thinking of starting my talk by showing the Planners a few examples of bad propositions, while playing the music from John Carpenter's 'Halloween'. Not only will this be a fun way to start, I reckon, but also it's sometimes easier to see what to do, by looking at what not to do.

The biggest nightmare of a proposition I remember was one I was given many years ago, on the brief for the UK launch of scratchcards. It was: "The exciting way to win lots of money instantly." As you can see, this 'single-minded proposition' is really an embedded triple - exciting, wealthgiving, quick.

So... help me out... what's the worst proposition you've ever seen on a brief?

Oh, I've remembered another one - "the car for the individual". I shit you not, I've actually seen that. I guess the thinking was that 'not many people are buying this car, therefore the people who are buying it must be happy to stand out from the crowd, therefore they are individuals, therefore this is the car for the individual." The only slight flaw is that, last time I checked, we were all individuals...

Stop Me Cocking-Up The Next One

So it seems not many people liked my last presentation.

Well, I'm about to do another. This time it's to the nation's rising stars of Planning, at IPA 4.

One of the themes I've been asked to touch on is "what do Creatives want from Planners?"

My initial thought was something I got from Richard Huntington, that every Creative should be wanting the Planner to "start me somewhere interesting."

What else?

Childish Labour

This is a presentation I gave at a WARC conference the other day.

I've added some extra text, so hopefully it should communicate without me talking it through.

The goal was to give Clients, Planners and Agency managers some tips on how to get more out of Creatives, by means of an analogy that I hoped would help them understand us better, and would suggest some different behaviours in how they deal with us.

The analogy is that Creatives are a bit like children - both in the positives (curious, imaginative, playful) and the occasional challenges (sulky, fussy etc).

Let me know what you think, and then I can tweak the presentation... should anyone be foolish enough to ask me to do another.

The Ad Blog Charts For Q1 2009

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

Top 25 Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1    (1)	Ads Of The World	12,255	↓
2     (2)	AdRants	19,832
3     (5)	The Inspiration Room Daily	44,725	↑
4     (6)	Adland	48,746
5     (3)	Creativity	52,192	↓
6     (10)	Bannerblog	57,780	↑
7     (8)	Advertising/Design Goodness	60,487
8   (new)	Scary Ideas	63,258
9       (4)	Coloribus	64,365	↓
10     (7)	Adverbox	71,632	↓
11   (11)	Adverblog	72,714
12     (9)	AdFreak	73,249
13   (12)	Logic + Emotion	84,374
14   (14)	AdPulp	102,351
15   (13)	Ad Forum	107,323
16   (15)	ViralBlog	109,799	↑
17   (16)	Best Ads On TV	197,942
18   (17)	Jaffe Juice	218,359
19   (20)	AdScam	223,484	↑
20   (21)	Crackunit	244,182	↑
21   (18)	Campaign Brief	249,893
22   (19)	Scamp	262,988
23   (new)	The Denver Egotist	275,747
24   (24)	Only Dead Fish	287,856	↑
25   (re-)	Copyranter	301,845

In for the first time this quarter is Scary Ideas, a well-put-together selection of the 'latest cool shit' from the worlds of advertising and design.

New at 23 is The Denver Egotist a sparky ad blog reporting directly from the state where the Crispin Porter creativity department is now based.

The ‘Ranter is a re-entry at No. 25 - he's the world's leading barbecuer of bad ads.

Top 10 UK Ad Blogs		(world
		ranking)
1   (2)	Crackunit	244,182	↑
2   (1)	Scamp	262,988
3   (3)	Only Dead Fish	287,856	↑
4   (7)	Interactive Marketing Trends	365,570	↑
5   (6)	Rubbishcorp	425,481
6   (5)	Spinning Around	449,877
7   (4)	Welcome To Optimism	527,022
8   (re-)	If This Is A Blog Then What’s Christmas	583,219
9   (10)	TV's Worst Adverts	599,880	↑
10   (8)	Adliterate	633,397

Re-entering the UK chart is my friend Ben Kay’s blog If This Is A Blog Then What’s Christmas. If you read Scamp then you should read Ben, as his blog is basically similar to mine, but a bit better.

For those new to this quarterly-published chart, I might just re-cap that it’s drawn from the rankings of web metrics company Alexa, who measure visits by users who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Since that means mostly bloggers and techies, the chart is somewhat biased towards blogs which are popular with other bloggers, or tech-heads.

Some people say the chart is extremely boring, others say it helps them discover new blogs to read. I just like charts. I also like maps, and statistics. Come on, there are worse hobbies to have, aren’t there? Some people collect turtles.

An ↑ means a blog's traffic has gone up by 15% or more in the last quarter, and a ↓ means it's gone down 15%.

UK means UK-based. Ad blog means ad blogs not marketing or PR blogs. I would love to be able to include Dave Trott’s brilliant blog, but there isn’t a way to count its visitors separately from those visiting the website of Dave’s agency, CST.

I'm only counting English language blogs.

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

"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