Sex In Advertising

I was reminiscing the other day, with a charming and highly experienced agency boss, about 'when the industry was fun'. We agreed there were more characters, that it was easier to sell good ideas, and then he asked a rhetorical but extremely simple question:

"What happened to the sex?"

I couldn't answer him.

But I've been thinking about it. There certainly seems to be less of it about nowadays. 

Let's do a quick historical analysis:

1960s and 70s
Mad Women by Jane Maas has an entire chapter called 'Sex In The Office'. Remember where Peggy lost her virginity to Pete Campbell? That's right. On the office sofa.

1980s
Quoting from Neil French's hilarious and no doubt only partially-reliable memoirs, Sorry For The Lobsters: "I have to confess that I spent that night with the gloriously, fabulously, crazy girlfriend of a guy from the agency… she was, and probably still is, the sexiest lady I've ever met. And yes I've still got the Polaroids." Not much changed when 'Frenchy' moved to Australia. "I discovered that Aussie girls were a free-thinking, healthy, and energetic bunch who would happily run a chap around, and expect nothing in return but a barely adequate bonk. The demand was so great that I was, in the end forced to take 'em by the pair, and before breakfast."

1990s
A director friend of mine who worked at BBDO New York in the 1990s reports couples openly having sex in the creative department during parties.

Today
If two people in an advertising agency have a snog (Aus: pash), it's a major news event. If they have sex, they have to get married afterwards.

Is this accurate, or am I just getting old?

How much sex is there in your agency?

Has Bill's Big Idea Had Its Day?

Advertising agencies may be slow, but at least they're expensive.

That's a Client joke, by the way.

Yes, despite that fact that we're all all working longer hours for less money than ever before… Clients still think we're expensive. And maybe we are - after all, we've recently had to add a whole new raft of roles to service the digital side of the business, such as social media expert, technologist, UX guy… have you noticed there are now about 11 people in the room, where there used to be only 7? And they're all drawing a salary.

So margins are under pressure again.

And the only cost we can cut (since it's the only cost we have, other than the rent, and colour photocopying charges) is people.

This is nothing to be regretful about.

As the world changes, new roles are created (e.g. social media expert) and others (such as the guy who used to walk in front of automobiles waving a flag) disappear.

The last role to go was Traffic. The elimination of the traffic department has been happening gradually over the last five to ten years, and has reached the point where most agencies now seem to employ a single traffic manager, or brief allocation manager, whereas once there was a whole department. And yet life goes on.

So who's next?

We can't get rid of Planners - that's the department that Clients value most highly of all, and are most willing to pay for.

Perhaps we could get rid of Account Handlers?

A mate of mine who has recently launched a start-up has decided he isn't going to employ any Account Handlers. "They're just translators," he told me. "If you don't have them, then the Creatives and the Clients have to figure out how to talk to each other, which - believe it or not - they are perfectly capable of doing."

KesselsKramer, the renowned Dutch agency, has never had Account Handlers. According to their slyly brilliant new book, Advertising For People Who Don't Like Advertising: "KesselsKramer's issue with Account Handlers wasn't that they were bad people, or scary ones, or ruthless… it was simply that the role of account handler can be split over other departments."

Both come down to much the same point - why hire Account Handlers, when Creatives can do that job themselves? My answer to that question is another question - do we want to? I think not.

I challenged a very dear Account Handler of my acquaintance not so long ago to tell me, given that she wasn't coming up with strategies, and wasn't writing ads, exactly what was she doing all day? Her answer was succinct: "Shit you don't want to do."

And I agree with that. While agencies probably could do without Account Handlers, I don't see why we'd want to. It would just mean we spent more time talking to clients and less time being creative.

So my regrettable conclusion is that, if we are to be totally candid about which is the next role we can afford to lose, we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.

And that hallowed team of two.

Do we really need two?

Bill Bernbach's logic in putting a 'words man' and a 'pictures man' together was that we were becoming a visual culture - thanks to the rise of TV and magazines - and so it was necessary to have visual ideas, to make an impact on that culture.

The wannabe poets and novelists who filled the ranks of agency copywriters weren't naturally visual thinkers, so pairing them with the art directors (who at that time were mere visualisers) was a necessary step to create a team that, between them, had both visual and conceptual skills.

Bill's idea worked, but that was nearly 60 years ago.

Times are different today.

Would Bill (pictured, looking mildly cheesed-off) consider that today, the doubling-up may be unnecessary?

Today's copywriters are not pipe-smoking tweed-jacket-wearers who have the visual sense of Blind Lemon Jefferson. They've grown up in the age of Spielberg and Zuckerberg, and while they may not know every typeface known to man, they're accomplished visual thinkers. In short, they don't need art directors. Yes, they'll need designers, directors, or UX guys to bring their ideas to life… as they always have… but they don't need an intermediary between themselves and the execution people.

Now, before anyone thinks I'm going off on a rant against art directors, let me very quickly state that just as I think a copywriter no longer needs an art director… the reverse is also true: art directors no longer need copywriters. Don't forget, the role of art director evolved from the role of visualiser. It was believed that art directors didn't have strong conceptual skills, and so needed to be paired with a copywriter. Today, that no longer holds true. The kind of people who are becoming art directors are coming from the exact same background as the copywriters - ad school - and their conceptual skills are just as strong. They don't need a copywriter to prop them up any more.

Where I'm arguing we should go is nothing more than the way the wind is blowing anyway. I would guess that at least one-third of teams nowadays don't have a rigorous art director/copywriter divide, but define themselves as either or both.

So what we basically have is a duplication of roles. Yes, it's nice to have a mate with you at all times. Someone who's got your back. And it could be argued that a strong team of two can do more and better work than two individuals could, since they develop an understanding over time. However, the opposite could also be true - that their partnership becomes stale and predictable over time.

The other argument for having teams was that it was always said you need 'another person to bounce off' in order to have ideas, and a creative can't work successfully in a vacuum. But there is no vacuum any more. We're not 'left alone' any more, we're surrounded by stimulus, we're constantly working with clients, account handlers, planners, directors, designers, technologists, social media people… no one could seriously argue that the modern creative would be stuck 'on their own' without a partner. You're nearly never on your own, nowadays. Besides, many great writers, artists and musicians work on their own so it's doubtful whether this argument ever had any real validity.

Gentlemen, the bean counters are crawling all over us, like thousands of tiny insects, and the fact that they haven't yet noticed that we are employing two people to do the job of 'concept creator,' when it could be done by one, is a minor miracle.

The change has to be imminent. Already, the 'CD team' is all but non-existent. Yes, it's easier to make creative directing decisions when you're an individual not a team, so it makes sense from that point of view. But CD's have always had to have ideas too, and they're now doing that perfectly well on their own.

So the CD team is all but gone, and it can't be long before the regular creative team has to disappear too.

Cross?

Don't shoot the messenger.

Portfolio Review – the Psychiatric Method

"So, what do you think of your portfolio?"

When I was a young creative, the portfolio critique was a sometimes inspiring, sometimes intimidating rite-of-passage.

You got to see inside an agency, maybe even try out their toilets.

But nowadays, it seems that portfolio reviews more often take place remotely. Which is a shame in some ways - you don’t get as good a sense of the person behind the book, and it makes the process rather one-directional.

Young creatives often ask me to take a look at their portfolios, but being dissatisfied with how the online crit conventionally works, last week I wanted to try something different.

My mind went back to one of the best pieces of advice I ever got on my book, which was from Richard Myers, former ECD at Saatchi & Saatchi London. He just asked me: “Are you happy with your book? Because that’s all that matters.”

It took me a long time to work out what he meant. But eventually, I decided that he meant you can make your book anything you want. If you think it should have more digital work in it, you can do that. If you think it should be better overall, well then you can just work harder and make it better.

In thinking about how to do a crit differently, I considered Richard’s words, and I realised there was a psychiatric element to his approach. A psychiatrist doesn’t tell you what to do. They ask you to describe where you’re at, and then ask you what you think you should do.

Could a portfolio critique along these lines be effective, the way pyschiatrists can improve a patient’s condition, even though it’s the patient who does all the talking?

I decided to try the experiment, when a young creative called Brad Donovan asked me to critique his portfolio last week.

If you want to take a look, here it is. (Incidentally, Brad was very game in agreeing to the experiment, and having it discussed on Scamp. Three cheers for Brad.)

Here are some edited bits from the crit.

Scamp: “What do you think of your portfolio?”

Brad: “I like it (can I say that?), although it's quite plain, I'm the sort of person who likes to let the work speak for itself. The platform I'm using (cargocollective) has made things pretty simple to upload from the creator’s (my) point of view. What would I want to see if I was a Creative Director? I want to be able to navigate easily. I don't want to read a wall of text. I need the gist, but it has to make sense. At the same time, I don't want you to feel like you're reading a school report, I'm here to entertain you (in a good way). I want you to feel like I'm there in the room chatting away about each project.”

Scamp: “Talk me through some of your favourite stuff in it, and why you like it."

Brad: “Some of the better stuff I think is the personal things that I've added in. Although agencies can hire very talented people, there's a lot to be said about the type of people an agency brings into their culture. You have to be willing to put a bit of that on the line. Also, for me, it's the stuff I can point to and say, I did that, on my own, without an agency’s help. Ultimately, the folio should reflect the kind of place you would want to work next. And everything I put in my folio helps tell the story of who I am, and where I want to be. “

Scamp: “Tell me what you want to replace, when you do the next nice thing, and why.”

Brad: “I didn't go in with a set amount of work that I wanted to show. I want to show that although I can write an ok line, or perhaps come up with a concept or two, I think I just want to show that I get a sense of what the industry is about, but at the same time I'm still learning, I don't want it to look finished, I want it to look like I'm continually trying to improve and update it. If I were to be specific, perhaps I would replace the Charlie's print ads with another - more recent print ad. But then again, everything's on the chopping board if the new work is good enough.

Scamp: “What is it about the Charlie's print ads that makes you want to replace them?”

Brad: “When I refer to the Charlie's ad, it's not that I think it's bad, but perhaps out of all the work on the site, that's probably the one that will be first off the block, because any more of this type of work and I feel that my folio might cover much of the same ground. Plus, I personally think it's the least interesting, it's not pushing the boundaries of print per se - but it serves the purpose of rounding out my folio, so I think it's earned its place there.”

Scamp: “Tell me what you feel your portfolio is lacking.”

Brad: “Hmm, this is a hard one! This may come across as cocky, or whatever, but because I am in this state of constantly trying to get advice, constantly trying to improve, I feel that everything is potentially lacking. But I have to say, well folks, this is where I'm at the moment, here's my full stop - send it off to a few people - get feedback, take in what works, do away with what doesn't. That's my approach. To constantly improve. If I'm completely honest, I don't think my folio will ever be good enough. But that’s what gets me up in the morning.”

Scamp: “And what about the design? What look are you going for? What do you want it to say about you, and your work?”

Brad: “Design should add to the story of who I am, if you look at my site, it's rather plain. There's a reason behind that. I want you to focus on the content of the work, and the words. I'd say that's a good reflection of my personality as well, the design should indicate to you that I have kind of a no-frills sense about me.”

Scamp: “Other than work that reflects ‘the kind of place you would want to work next’ is there anything specific you would like to see go into your book, in terms of media, or product categories?”

Brad: “I definitely feel that as a young creative with not that much experience, I've got a gap in my folio where the personal stuff will have to come in to play. I get the feeling that as the communications industry evolves, we'll be seeing a lot more of the brands we work on becoming living breathing characters with thoughts and opinions of their own. So I think for my book, any product will do, I really have no preference, I just want to create honest useful communication that people can relate to.”

Scamp: “What is the obstacle between you and your dream job? What would you need to do to your folio to get that dream job, whatever it is?”

Brad: “I don't think there is a dream job out there. Every place has its perks. And downside. Of course there are places that I admire, but I think you can learn something from even the worst places in the world. I try to talk to a wide range of people and get their opinions so that I can form a more sound and rounded opinion of my own.”

Scamp: “What else can you think of that you could do, that would improve your folio?”

Brad: “I'd like to see a bit more digital in my folio, I know that's important, but I think if I'm plugging myself as a creative, first and foremost I have to understand how a brand thinks and acts, and talks. But immersing myself in new things such as technology and what the latest trends and vehicles to deliver these messages is also a really important part of being in the industry.”

Scamp: “So, last question. How did you find this crit? Different from a normal one? Useful? Not useful?”

Brad: “I enjoyed this process, it confirmed for me a few thoughts that I already had about the industry and where I'm at, it gave me a chance to reflect on the things I've learned and how far I've come since I began, I suspect this will continue to evolve, perhaps we could do this again every 2 years? I'd be interested in the result personally, anyway. I think this way of critiquing was quite useful as well, like you said, bit like a psychiatrist at work, where you just keep talking till you have the 'aha' moment and go on your way. I didn't have an aha moment, but it definitely solidified a few of my thoughts.”

Thank you, Brad.

So, what did you think of Brad’s answers. Do you think he’s insightful about his own work, and what he needs to do? Do you think he learned anything from this crit?

Would you like to get this kind of crit? Or do you think it’s just incredibly lazy of the critiquer not to give actual feedback, and expect you to do all the work…

Time

Time - he's waiting in the wings

He speaks of senseless things

His script is you and me, boys

(D. Bowie)

What is the optimum amount of time to give a creative team on a brief?
Well, first let’s look at what actually happens, before we get on to what ought to happen in a perfect world.
In the real world, creatives have been getting less and less time per brief. When I started in advertising, which admittedly was in the previous century, it was common for teams to get two weeks on a brief, before the client presentation.
Gradually, this went down to one week.
Now it has reduced to about four days. And once you factor in the need to schedule reviews with the account team, and the creative director, then the length of time that a creative team has before they need to show their ideas to somebody is probably about two days. And given that they will inevitably have other work on – another brief or two, plus bits of production - the actual thinking time that a creative team is able to put into any one brief is probably, in reality, just a few hours.
This seems bizarre, given that the marketer has probably spent weeks or months preparing the activity, and the agency planners have spent at least a week or two preparing the brief.
Do the client, the planners, and the account team really only want a few hours worth of thinking on the problem?


This short video, found via my friend Dustin’s blog Dingo’s Breakfast (worth a read, incidentally) makes a powerful case for giving creative people more time.
And for years, I stood in the same camp.
But recently, I’ve started going the other way.
And in fact I now believe that less time is better.
Why?
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that time is precious. After all, it’s the only resource we have. (Other than the internet, obvs). But it’s precisely because time is so precious, that I think we should go to client earlier. As early as possible, in fact.
You see, any minute you spend working on something that isn’t what the client wants, is a waste of time. You can’t ‘make’ the client buy an idea, however great it may be, if it isn’t what they want. The first requirement if an idea is to ever see the light of day, is that it has to meet the client’s needs.
On numerous occasions, I’ve spent weeks working on something, or teams working in to me have spent weeks working on something, and we go to client, only to find that it isn’t exactly what they were looking for. Weeks of work, is eliminated in 20 minutes. And that isn’t very efficient.
Like it or not, a client often doesn’t know exactly what they want until they have seen some work. And I don’t blame them for that. Even the most tightly-written brief has nuances, and sometimes it takes actual work to flush those out.
When I was at BBH, the creative managers kept track of the percentage of briefs that were cracked first time, and it was considered important to get that score as high as possible, since having to start again is costly.

But maybe they were measuring the wrong thing. Maybe total number of days worked is more important. What does it matter if you go back three times, if they’re all in the same week? Isn’t that better than cracking something first time, if it takes you two weeks?
If we worked on stuff for less time, maybe each meeting would be lower pressure. Maybe we’d waste fewer hours polishing and crafting scripts that are going to be dead at the end of the three minutes it takes to read them out. And maybe we’d all be less upset when our work got blown out, because we would have put less emotional energy into it.
Anyway, it’s just a theory. What do you think?

So, where were we?

Ah yes, I've moved to Australia.

And I like it here - I like it a lot.

You can't beat the weather, and the advertising's not bad either. There may be only 22 million people in the country, and another 4.5 million in New Zealand, compared to hundreds of millions in Europe, hundreds of millions in the US, and bajillions in Asia… but, Australasia punches way above its weight in world advertising (i.e. Cannes) terms.

So I left BBH - after which they've obviously enjoyed their most successful period ever - and came out here to be Deputy ECD at DDB Sydney, but I've now set up my own thing. Yes, Scamp has become an agency. Well, that's putting it rather grandly. At the moment, it's just me and a layout pad. So I'm more of a creative independent than an ad agency at this point, but in the future... who knows? I've registered Scamp Creative Pty Ltd as a company, I have a new logo (see above), I've opened a business bank account… heck, I'm feeling dangerous!

If you want me to work on something, do get in touch. I have two children, and they always need shoes, and food, and stuff like that. My email is simon dot veksner at gmail dot com. If you would like to see my portfolio, it's at simonveksner.com.

And what else have I been up to? The main thing is, I'm writing another book. It's for Laurence King, the same people who published How To Make It As An Advertising Creative, and this one's going to be called 100 Ideas That Changed Advertising. It'll be another in a very successful series they have which also includes 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design, 100 Ideas That Changed Architecture… you get the picture. Anyway, these books are great. Bite-size chapters (because there are 100 of them!) with lots of pictures. And they're not just sold in boring old bookshops, but also in fun places like Urban Outfitters, where the young people go.

Hopefully there's still a role for advertising books in 2012. Another good one has come out recently, called Advertising For People Who Don't Like Advertising, by the KesselsKramer people. They just contacted me to do an interview, probably in the hope I'd plug their book. Mission accomplished! It's a well-deserved plug though. The book looks great.

As you can see, I am re-starting Scamp. It's not going to be like before, though. I won't be doing a daily post of latest ads, news and gossip. There are others who are doing that extremely well - principally Ben Kay in the UK and Campaign Brief here in Australia. I am going to post once a week, an in-depth piece about some aspect of advertising and creativity, which will hopefully go up every Sunday night.

While I've been away, a lot seems to have changed in the blogosphere. Of the blogs I used to have on my link list, it looks like American Copywriter, Dan Germain, Diablogue, Gwen Yip, Happy Thought, JP and Tem, Minds For Rent, Not Voodoo, The Barry And Troy Show, The Ideas Brothers, 10 Ad, Ad Hunt, Ad Arena, Advertising for Peanuts, DigiCynic, Meme Huffer, Planning For Fun, Punk Planning, The Staufenberger Repository, Client Side, Creative in Kansas City, Digital Stuffing, Experience Curve, FishNChimps, Interactive Marketing Trends, Knitware, Nitmesh, and Room 116 have ceased trading. Maybe they found something better to do with their time. I hope they did.

Then again, Adland, AdScam, Brand DNA, Campaign Brief, Copyranter, Creative in London, Creativity_Unbound, Dave Trott, Hey Whipple, If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas, Logic + Emotion, Lolly And Nat's Whipple Squeezer, Real Men Write Long Copy, Rubbishcorp, Sell! Sell!, The Toad Stool, Where's My Jetpack, Welcome To Optimism, Ads of the World, Adverbox, Advertising/Design Goodness, Bannerblog, Best Ads On TV, David Reviews, Scary Ideas, The Inspiration Room, ViralBlog, Adliterate, Faris, Hee-Haw Marketing, Jaffe Juice, Life Moves Pretty Fast, Living Brands, Northern Planner, Only Dead Fish, Russell Davies, The Communications Room, Adbusters, B3ta, Bad Banana, It's Nice That, Notcot, PostSecret, VVork, Gapingvoid, Marketing Unleashed, Tom Fishburne, AdForum, AdFreak, AdPulp, AdRants, Adverblog, Agency Spy, Beyond Madison Avenue, Brand Republic, BrandFlakes for Breakfast, Coloribus, Crackunit, Creative Review, Creativity Online, Hidden Persuader, IHaveAnIdea, Joe La Pompe, Spinning Around, The Ad Contrarian, and The Denver Egotist are still going. Hurrah! If you can think of any new ones I should stick up, please let me know.

Meanwhile, it seems everyone has moved to Typepad. Is that good? And what about Twitter? Do I need to announce each Scamp post on Twitter also, or should I reserve that medium for a separate stream of pithy musings? So many questions.

Anyway, that's it for the re-introduction.

It's good to be back.

Blinking Flip, People Must Actually Be Buying It

If you have, thank you.

Copywriters Who Write (Not counting the dead or retired)

My book is published today. Woop!

Some authors might celebrate with a glass of sherry, but not me.

I'm making a chart. I have a fondness for lists and rankings, so I am treating myself by doing a chart of the UK’s most popular books written by advertising creatives (currently active creatives only, not retired or dead ones), as measured by their sales ranking on Amazon.

Here it is.

	Top 20 Books By UK Advertising Creatives	Ranking
1	E, by Matt Beaumont	3,030
2	Creative Mischief, by Dave Trott	3,761
3	How To Do Better Creative Work, by Steve Harrison	6,207
4	E Squared, by Matt Beaumont	6,733
5	How To Make It As An Advertising Creative, by Simon Veksner	13,204
6	Small World, by Matt Beaumont	14,794
7	Staying Alive, by Matt Beaumont	33,572
8	Where There’s A Will, by Matt Beaumont	94,854
9	Father Frank, by Paul Burke	138,178
10	The Man Who Fell In Love With His Wife, by Paul Burke	216,822
11	The Poison Tree, by Tony Strong	230,558
12	One-Track Mind, by Tony Davidson	240,022
13	The Book, The Film, The T-Shirt, by Matt Beaumont	244,906
14	The Life Of Reilly, by Paul Burke	249,844
15	How To Write Great Copy, by Dominic Gettins	253,218
16	The Decoy, by Tony Strong	313,338
17	Step On It, Cupid, by Lorelei Mathias	345,717
18	Lost For Words, by Lorelei Mathias	355,465
19	Untorn Tickets, by Paul Burke	397,084
20	Instinct, by Ben Kay	480,914

Obviously, this chart is completely ridiculous.

For one thing, I’m mixing fiction and non-fiction.

And for another thing, the Amazon sales data is all over the place like a mad woman’s piss. It varies wildly depending on what time of day you check it.

But what the hell. It’s just for fun.

Examining the chart, we see that Britain’s two most successful authors - at least, in the select category of authors who are also current advertising creatives - are Matt Beaumont and Paul Burke.

Matt Beaumont, who I believe is a creative director at M&C Saatchi’s luxury goods division, has an incredible six titles on the chart. What a fast typist he must be. I have read ‘e’ and it is pretty hilarious. I haven’t read any of the others, but E Squared is on my shopping list, and I will get round to it when I have cleared my current backlog of unread books.

Paul Burke is probably the UK’s pre-eminent radio advertising creative, a lovely bloke, and former colleague of mine at DDB London. I have read Father Frank and The Man Who Fell In Love With His Wife, and thoroughly enjoyed them.

The next most prominent writers, with two entries each, are Tony Strong and Lorelei Mathias. Tony Strong works at AMV (I think). I once heard that he does a 4-day week there, in order to give himself some time to write. Good on him. He writes thrillers. I haven’t read any, because books about people being murdered are not my cup of tea. But he’s had four published, so respect is due to the man.

Lorelei Mathias has also been (briefly) a colleague of mine at BBH. She now works at Glue. Her books have chick-lit style covers, but knowing Lorelei a little, as I do, I am sure they are highly superior examples of the genre.

Other notables on the chart – great to see Dave Trott in there at No.2. Fabulous stuff from the east London ad guru.

Another ECD to make the chart is W&K's Tony Davidson, whose 'One-Track Mind' photography collection is described by comedian Jenny Eclair as "a lovely book of boob-like things." All profits go to charity. So that's good.

And I expect my friend Ben Kay’s book to shoot up to No.1 on this list, maybe even to No.1 on the real bestsellers list, when it is actually published. Penguin have high hopes for Ben’s book, and will no doubt crush London under the wheels of their marketing juggernaut.

UK means UK-based. Advertising creative means current advertising creative, not retired ones like David Abbott, Indra Sinha, Salman Rushdie etc.

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

Three Days To Publication Date

And my publishers, Laurence King, have unleashed a Facebook marketing campaign. See it here.

Also, if you're the kind of ponce who - like me - enjoys books about art, design, architecture, graphic design, street art, and trainers, then you might be interested in becoming a 'fan' of Laurence King (same link), in order to get information about their books, and discounts and whatnot.

Commander Denton To The Rescue

Announcing some progress on plans to promote my book.

I have lunched the legendary Mark Denton - view his showreel here - and he has agreed to shoot a viral film for me, in return for me helping him with some ads he needs writing, and because he likes the idea.

The idea is: what kind of ad does a creative make when, rather than promoting someone else's product, he is selling his own?

I guess the inspiration was me thinking back to times when I have argued not to put a phone number on a car ad. Though when I was selling my own car, of course I put the phone number in the ad... and a massive pack-shot...

We are working on the script at the moment, but nothing has been locked-down yet, so you are very welcome to contribute.

Do you think the idea could work? Would YOU answer a brief differently, if it was your own product you were advertising?

The Bookseller

Apparently most authors dread the marketing process.

Not me. As an advertising guy, I'm thinking it will be a fun challenge for me to sell my own product for a change, as opposed to other people's.

So how do you promote a book? Obviously, good reviews are the best tool. So I'm getting copies sent out to all the trade mags and ad blogs, and begging them to say nice things.

In terms of above-the-line advertising, the book world seems unsophisticated. Media appears to consist almost solely of adverts on the underground (because people read books there?) and creative is normally limited to just a picture of the book, with perhaps a short quote alongside it (e.g. "An utter delight" - Stephen Fry).

No doubt because of budgetary constraints, you very rarely see an advert for a book on TV. And when you do, they are piss-poor. This is an ad for a new book by James Patterson. It's from New Zealand. There's actually an even worse one for the same book on British telly at the moment, where two women talk in a horribly stilted manner about how hooked they are on Patterson. But, mercifully perhaps, I couldn't find it.



Why do they always say "The new bestseller from XYZ" ...how do they know it's a bestseller if it has only just been published?

Anyway, here is my media and strategic thinking. Very happy to get feedback on it:

I reckon that most buyers of my book will be students, young creatives, and experienced creatives who are still interested in reading stuff about advertising. And the best way to reach this target? I think it's the ad blogs.

Now, I'm already asking the ad blogs to mention that my book is coming out. Hopefully they will. But I'm thinking that if I can provide them with a fun piece of content around it - a witty ad, let's say - they'll be more likely to feature the book, and it will get more attention.

I don't think it makes much difference whether the ad is a piece of film, a poster, an ambient idea or a stunt. The key thing is that it's good enough that the ad bloggers will want to cover it.

So... that's my plan. Unless a succession of commenters tell me it's rubbish.

Hello Again

How's things?

I hope all's good. Me, I am pretty well.

In fact I'm rather excited - my book is coming out!


They've made David Droga's name more prominent than mine on the cover, which is an absolute scandal, but other than that, I do like the design.

The book is launching on May 25th, but is available for pre-order now at your local Amazon.

It is published by Laurence King, who publish various creative and arty books. Have a look at their website. There's some nice stuff there.

Quite a few blogs are becoming books nowadays, such as Stuff White People Like and E-mails From An Asshole, and like those other guys, I've shamefully neglected my blog once I got the book deal. In my defence, let me explain the difficulty. The publisher doesn't want the entire book to consist of material that's already available for free on the internet. And I just don't have enough interesting things to say to fill both a blog and a book. (I'd guess it's netted-out that the book is around 75% new content).

There are of course already lots of books about advertising out there, but the 'angle' of my one is that there is nothing in it about what makes a good ad, or how to write good ads. Instead, it's all about what you need to know to be a successful creative, above and beyond being good at writing ads. So it's not about craft, it's about guile. It's about how to get the best out of directors, how to find the right partner, and how to sell more of your ideas to your CD.

I really had a lot of fun writing it. In addition to my possibly dubious advice for young creatives, there are also interviews with proper people like Trevor Beattie, Jeremy Craigen, Paul Silburn, Flo Heiss, Jeff Benjamin (interactive ECD at Crispin Porter), Amir Kassaei (chief creative officer of DDB Germany) and Aussie creative entrepreneur Siimon Reynolds, as well as the foreword by David Droga.

If you'll forgive me, I'm not going to start Scamp up again like before, but I will use this space to talk about the book, and the marketing of the book.

Because of course, there will have to be an ad campaign...

More later.

The Last Post

After 3 years and 707 posts, I've decided to discontinue Scamp.

Reasons? Partly a desire to free myself from the daily commitment of having to entertain one of the world's most demanding audiences - time-wasting creatives. And partly a decision to redeploy my spare time into something else. (Yes, I'm writing a novel. NOT set in an advertising agency).

I've learned so much doing this. That there's no such thing as unanimity of opinion in our industry. That creatives are majorly riled by work that takes its inspiration from another source (much more than Shakespeare or Picasso were!) And that HTML is bloody fiddly.

I've also learned new words, such as 'low-involvement processing', 'blogroll', and 'meh'.

There have been many highs. The tons of amazing comments and contributions from my readers. Getting a book commissioned, based on my Tuesday Tips, which comes out next year. And perhaps best of all - getting to meet so many wonderful people in the real world, through the blog.

I won't put up a list of my favourite posts, but the Top 20 that you lot seemed to enjoy the most (or be most vexed by) were:

The Top 3 Advertising Cliches - 105 comments
Mr Strings - 116
Dancing Eyebrows - 135
Grandmaster Flashmob - 108
Virgin 25th Anniversary Ad - 100
A Terrifying Counter-Theory - 103
Advertising For Atheism - 105
A Ballad For David (Ogilvy Athens video) - 138
Tuesday Tip No. 60 - What Would Dave Trott Do? - 118
HSBC Lumberjack - 117
Tuesday Tip No.58 - Beat The Finger - 112
Job Opportunity In Paradise - 122
Fallon's Print Work - 151
Goodbye Lenny - 107
Dave Trott Live - 246
Fallon's Budweiser Campaign - 232
CHI Pay - 103
Cadbury's Trucks - 136
Top Ten Creatives, Directors and Agencies - 103
Dothetestgate - 229

Future internet historians picking their way through this digital ghost-town will find my Tuesday Tips of dubious use to young creatives here and the Polls here.

There are too many people who deserve my thanks for me to be able to name them all. But I will just single out Scowling A.D. Thanks for putting up with it, Nick.

Friends, readers, commenters - I wish you all the very best.

Goodbye.

Scamp Is Taking A Break

Comments

So I'm continuing to document, at possibly tedious length, the actual process of making a TV commercial.

Today the subject is "comments."

When you are working on an edit, here are some of the people who will make comments on it: the Client, your Creative Director, the Account Team, Planner, TV Producer, Production Assistant, the Editor, other Creatives, and sometimes even consumers - yes, some ads are researched as rough cuts nowadays.

It can happen that there are so many rounds of comments, from so many different people, that you lose sight of your original vision, and possibly even your will to live.

This is a very important part of the process though. And the ability to satisfy people's comments without ruining either the ad or your relationship with them is quite a skill.

Some comments will make an ad better and you're happy to get them. Others make it worse, and you begin to wonder whether you can ignore them.

There is actually a complicated invisible hierarchy of how much each person's comments matter; it determines which individuals, or combinations of individuals, get their way:

Here it is:

Client	48 points
CD	15 points
Director	10 points
You	6 points
Your partner	6 points
Editor	4 points
Account team	3 points
TV Producer	3 points
TV PA	1 point
Planner	1 point

So, for example, if absolutely everyone (49 points) disagrees with the Client (48 points) on something, the Client doesn't get his way. But all it takes is one Planner or TV Producer to side with the Client, and they win.

If you and your partner (12 points) disagree with the Director and Editor (14 points) then they will win, unless you have the TV Producer (3 points) as well.

Similarly, the CD (15 points) can overrule you and your partner (12 points) unless you have the Account Team (3 points) and a Planner (1 point) or TV Producer (3 points) too.

Let me know if you think the system needs tweaking. I think it's pretty good.

Grading

Soft voices. Low lighting. Comfy armchairs. A full belly of burger and chipz zz zzzzzzzz mmffpgh uur uh humph. Oh, sorry... where was I?

Grading.

(For those who don't know what that means, as indeed I didn't for at least the first two years of my so-called career, grading is a process that happens in a high-tech post-production suite, in which your ad is adjusted for colour, contrast etc)

I actually love the concept of grading - applying a 'look' to your film, that enhances the creative idea. It's just the process of doing it that I find unutterably tedious. Do you agree? Or am I just being a copywriter?

P.S. One thing I hate is the 'gratuitous grade', by which I mean a very extreme colour treatment that bears no relation to the creative treatment. A few years ago there was an inexplicable fad for green-hued adverts. And after that, brown. Currently, the fashion seems to be for ads to look washed-out. Why? Please stop it.

Editing Starts Today

Editing is actually my favourite part of the ad-making process. I've even read books on it. Possibly a copywriter thing? Do copywriters enjoy editing because it's a kind of narrative exercise?

Or perhaps it's just because I'm super-anal, and I really enjoy seeing what difference it makes to take 2 frames off the front of a shot, or the end.

In any case, the creative possibilities - and scope to improve the ad - are endless. And I'm always sorry when it's over, and I don't get to eat bento boxes any more.

The only bit that's tricky is the dynamic of seeing the first cut. The director and editor will have been working on it intensely for some time, and think it's perfect as it is. All they want you to do after watching their edit is to clap like a seal and say "fucking hell that's brilliant, I don't want you to change a thing."

This never happens.

So let's talk about editing. Do you enjoy being cooped up in a tiny room with five guys and some sushi? Or do you hate it?

Reflections on Shooting in Prague

1. I have put on half a kilo (shoot food)
2. The crews all look like roadies for a death-metal band
3. When you go into overtime in Prague, the production company producer begins a gentle nervous tapping of the foot, whereas in the UK, his head flies off
4. The average person in Prague is extremely dour. The only time I saw a local crack a smile was when the woman at airport security found a bottle of shampoo in my hand luggage. "No liquids!" she shouted, and really blammed it into the bin
5. When you watch nothing but CNN for a week, you see lots of very strange ads. Many are advertising entire countries. "Corporate tax of only 10%, personal tax only 10%, and average wages just 500 Euros a month. Invest in Macedonia." That is if you haven't already been seduced by "the wild beauty of Montenegro."
6. On-set wi-fi saved my life
7. Having an account man there with a fanatical attention to all the client & legal issues initially feels like having your bollocks in a fur-lined vice. But after a while, it becomes a liberation, and you're glad to have him with you
8. Everyone in Prague smokes. Quite weird to be sitting in a restaurant, and someone lights up, right next to you - I'd forgotten what that was like. Between cigarettes, they smoke cigars
9. Embarrassingly, I only learned approximately five words of Czech, and one of them was 'dezerty'. In case you hadn't guessed, it means 'desserts'
10. Very happy with the shoot, and very glad to be back in Soho

The Internet Is Now Graffiti

Here's a fine example of the traditional art of graffiti, as photographed on the back of a toilet door in Prague this morning.



But on the very same door... there was also this.


Is the internet now a valid form of graffiti?

Scamp is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

Do You Enjoy Shooting?

The Czech Republic (as seen from the minibus ferrying me between the hotel and the studio)


Another view of this beautiful country

Could you concentrate with this sitting in front of you all day?
Shoots, especially foreign shoots, are supposed to be the 'glamour side' of our job.

Are they?

I Have No Idea What This Means

But I like the typography.

It's good morning from Prague, where Scowling A.D. and I are filming some ads.

I won't be blogging about the actual shoot because of client confidentiality, but I would love to hear any tips you may have about shooting in Prague in general.

It seems that, due to the quality of the studios and crews, and various cost and currency differentials, every man and his dog has shot here. Have you? What was it like? Where should I go for dinner tonight? And what can I do that will be more fun than staying in my tiny and slightly too-warm hotel room watching CNN?