Why Your Perspective Is Wrong

I call it the Inside/Outside problem.

I first heard about this in relation to Hollywood. Apparently in LA, the most common talk among screenwriters is about how it's nearly impossible to sell a script nowadays. That's all the screenwriters do, all day long - sit around and bitch about how none of the producers are buying.

Meanwhile, what are the producers doing? Sitting around bitching about how it's impossible to find decent material.

I think the same problem applies throughout advertising too.

For example, when you're a young Creative, outside the industry but trying to get in, your perspective is roughly: "Oh my God, there are so many people trying to get in, and so few openings, it's impossible to get a job!"

But when you're a Creative Director, inside the industry looking out, your perspective is roughly: "Oh my God, there are so few talented young Creatives out there, it's impossible to find a good one!"

Similarly for becoming a CD. You're sitting there thinking how hard it is to get a CD job. Meanwhile, the CEO's are all bemoaning how hard it is to find a great CD.

I don't know what the answer is, folks.

I'm just bringing you the problem.

Is It Better For Advertising To Be Relatable, Or Aspirational?

Like a planet caught between two suns, advertising is constantly being pulled in two different directions.

On the one hand, we're asked to make our work relatable.

And on the other, aspirational.

Relatable means 'I look at the person in the ad, and I see myself.' 

When this is done well, it triggers that notorious smile of recognition. You feel the brand understands you, and is on your side.

Here's an example where it's been done well. Every one of us can surely relate to one or more of these bank customers.

Aspirational is different. In aspirational advertising, it's not you in the ad, but someone better-looking than you. Perhaps someone famous. Someone you wish you were.

When this works well, it creates a shiny halo of desirability around the product. You make it seem more exciting, more valuable. By association.

Here's a Foot Locker spot in that vein.

So what's better - relatable advertising, or aspirational advertising?

Aha. Trick question. Plainly, either can work well.

In fact, my theory is that each needs a dash of the other, to succeed.

When aspirational advertising fails, it's normally because it doesn't have a shred of relatability.

In these cases, the results can be excruciating. Ferrero Rocher's Ambassador's Party ad, for example, delivered nothing but cheese.

Whereas in the Foot Locker ad above, the script is delivered by legends of basketball, and yet it's also relatable - we've all been given bad advice by some guy at a party.

Similarly, relatable advertising falls flat when it tries for nothing else, when it does nothing more than hold a mirror up to the target. ("As a busy Mum, I...")

With nothing aspirational - no glamour, twist or entertainment to focus on - the consumer has nothing left to do but pick holes in the self-portrait being presented to them. That's not me. And now I feel patronised! 

Feels like I'm coming down on the fence, but hey, that's what I think. That both aspiration and relatability can blow up in your face, if you don't season each with a pinch of the other.

What about you. Ever had a Client who was obsessed with making an ad aspirational, or relatable? What happened? 

Are You A Perfectionist?

One of the most enduring stereotypes about the creative person is that we're perfectionists.

Screenwriters do endless drafts, poets agonise over finding exactly the right word, and Art Directors re-touch the shit out of their ads until they're perfect.

Nearly every creative guru advises us to be obsessive; all the greats are described as perfectionists - David Abbott, John Hegarty, Paul Arden, everyone.

Paul Arden's obituary in The Independent recounts that he "was such a perfectionist that he was often maddeningly over budget, insisting that the smallest details be perfect, such as searching for a certain pair of wildly expensive spectacles to achieve just the right look on a face that would be seen only in passing in a TV spot."

But on the other hand, a completely opposite notion is becoming commonplace nowadays - "fail faster." It's come largely from the world of tech and digital, and the thinking is that it's better to put something out there that's imperfect, and then learn from it.

Instead of spending days crafting the perfect headline for a digital display piece, you can run the same ad with five different headlines, learn which one is most effective, and then go with that one.

There's also an awareness that perfectionism may not be efficient. Getting a piece of work from 95% perfect to 100% perfect probably takes as much time as getting it from 50% to 95% does. By that argument, perfectionism doesn't make you good, it just makes you slow.

And rather than a desire for high standards, perfectionism may simply be a symptom of neuroticism. (The top answer when I typed 'perfectionism' into Google was for a psychotherapy resource called The Centre for Clinical Interventions, a place where you can "learn to pursue healthy high standards rather than unrelenting high standards that negatively impact your life.")

I've always been the person that spends hours making sure I dot every i and cross every t. But perhaps with today's super-tight deadlines it's more important to be fast than perfect. What do you think?

What Sherlock Holmes Can Teach Us About Advertising

  
The BBC series Sherlock Holmes is mega-popular.

No surprise. We like stories about people who are weird and smart.

And although Holmes is mostly a deductive, logical thinker...he could also make stunningly lateral leaps.

So what lessons does he have, for us creative types?

That's the subject (at least partly) of a book called "How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes: Lessons in Mindfulness and Creativity from the Great Detective", by American science writer Maria Konnikova.

Great idea, although judging by the Amazon reviews, the book itself isn't that hot.

So without recommending you buy it, I've taken the trouble of gutting it for you.

Here's three tips.


1. Look carefully at the facts

It's very tempting when you get a case brief to dive straight in, and attempt to come up with solutions.

This is a mistake. I'm amazed at how many creatives, when they get a brief, don't even look at the company's website.

You should.

“To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces,” says Holmes, in The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.
 
So get all the facts first.

But remember that "Observation with a capital O" (as Holmes calls it) is "not just about the passive process of letting objects enter into your visual field. It is about knowing what and how to observe and directing your attention accordingly: what details do you focus on? What details do you omit?"

Deciding which aspects of the brief to focus on, and which to ignore, is crucial.

Look for relationships between the facts (this is very like police work).

Indeed James Webb Young in his famous A Technique For Producing Ideas praises "the habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts.” 


2.  Focus and Distance

As a Creative, your success depends on coming up with original creative ideas. And as you well know, these type of ideas only come when you are in a particular state of mind.

That state of mind varies for different people. But I doubt anyone achieves it in an open-plan office.

(You won't find any books on creativity that advise you to enter a noisy space, with constant distractions).

So when you're working, get out of the office. Or find a room where you can shut the door.

Holmes and Watson discussed cases in their sitting room. Constantly. Quietly. Together. Are you and your partner doing that?

Another secret of working on briefs is to keep going into it and away from it.

Great quote from the Konnikova book:
"The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will."

So follow tangents, but keep coming back.

Finally, when you've worked on a problem for a while, don't forget to step away, and let your unconscious go to work on it.

Holmes played the violin in his study, for hours on end.

And in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, Watson observes: "One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus."

"Observation and deduction are two separate, distinct steps — in fact, they don’t even come one right after the other" (this is from Konnikova).

To truly crack a brief, you have to "transcend the immediate moment in your mind."


3.  Know Your Field

Sherlock Holmes, as well as being a talented detective, was a highly dedicated one. He had a passion for his field, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of it.

Upon visiting one murder scene, with an Inspector Gregson, Holmes remarks:

“It reminds me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year ’34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
Gregson confesses that he does not.
 
“Read it up - you really should,” offers Holmes. “There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”

I feel that not many people in our industry nowadays are aware of what has been done before. But you really should be. So do take the time to look at old stuff, via the annuals, or websites. Not to copy them, exactly, but to know the kind of thing that works.

If you don't, you're starting each case completely from scratch. 

Emotions, Weird Shit, And Babies.

Effective because it makes us feel fear.

As we all know, emotional advertising is far more effective than rational advertising.

Many clients have read about this, and are now specifically requesting emotional advertising.

Cool.

Except, there's a problem.

Of the six basic human emotions... five are negative. Namely anger, fear, disgust, contempt, and sadness. (The only positive one is 'joy').

That's right. It's a pretty dark place, down there in your unconscious.

(Side note. Why are nearly all the basic human emotions so negative? There's an article on FastCompany here that explains it a bit. "It’s not that nature inclines us to hate. We’re profoundly social creatures designed to protect: our kin, our tribe, and ourselves." In other words, negatives resonate because we're wired to watch out for threats).

Hat tip to the writer, Douglas Van Praet, who is also the author of Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing. 

So what are we to do with this information? Make all our ads as bleak as that scene in Terminator where the mechanised forces of Skynet crush human skulls beneath their wheels?

Um, yeah. Basically yes. I've written before about the power of the negative. At least start negative, before you end on a positive. Or in marketing terms, create a tension, and resolve it. That's how you generate some charge.

But we should also be aware that it's not just emotions, that our unconscious mind pays attention to.

According to Van Praet, our threat-obsession has also imbued us with a powerful (and pre-rational) 'startle response'. That's why surprising advertising works. Hence the power of 'prankvertising.'

And finally, we're obviously attuned to anything related to our survival and reproduction. Hence our love of food porn, and any ads with babies in.

In short, our unconscious minds are not turned on by facts and figures, but by primal stuff - emotions, things that are new and different (and therefore worthy of our attention), and anything to do with passing on our genes. 

In really short, if you want to do good work, fill your ads with emotions, weird shit, and babies.

Is It Okay If An Ad Means Different Things To Different People?

We studied a poem once in English class at school.

Can't recall which one it was now. Anyway, we all had to write down what we thought it meant, and it turned out that different kids saw the meaning very differently. I remember asking the teacher what the 'right answer' was, and him saying there was "no right or wrong," and it was an achievement that the poet had created something that was "open to multiple interpretations."

I was pretty sure at the time this was bollocks... but now I'm not so certain. 

Take last week's new IKEA ad, from the UK. One of the Creatives behind it, quoted in Creative Review, explains that it depicts "all the beds you sleep in at different times in your life."

Meanwhile, the website of the Agency - Mother - states that it's something to do with holidays: "The TV spot is based on the truth that there’s no bed like home; we spend all year thinking about a summer holiday but actually we’ll probably have no better sleep than in our beds at home — it’s the bed in which we spend the other 51 weeks of the year that really matters."

And personally, I thought it was about dreams. (Have also discussed this with Dan & Kev from work, they thought 'dreams' too).

We have it comprehensively beaten into us that an ad has to be clear, on-brief, and express a single-minded proposition.

But does it? I think the IKEA ad is pretty cool. Even though I didn't fully understand it, and even its creators can't agree on what it means.

Just goes to show how poetic the spot is, I guess.

Beware Of Nice People

DDB has a philosophy of hiring people who are "talented and nice."

And I agree with it.

I've worked at agencies in the past where some people weren't nice, and it's a ball-ache.

The theory at these places goes something like: "All we care about is the work, and if a few people have to swim through mud and broken glass to make the work good, then that's cool."

It's not cool.

In fact, creating a stressful work environment may one day be a criminal offence, just as mining companies today face lawsuits if their staff get poisoned or blown up.

And actually, striving for great work at the expense of niceness often makes the work worse, since it makes people angry/bitter/afraid, and good work rarely co-exists with those emotions.

On the other hand, excessive niceness is a major problem.

Nice people who fail to kill ideas because they don't want to hurt the Creatives' feelings are a semi-regular hazard in our industry.

If you are someone who has the power to kill an idea - a list that includes (but is not limited to) CD's, Planning Directors, Agency CEO's, and Clients - please be aware that the No.1 thing Creatives most want to know after presenting work is, quite simply, whether their idea is alive or if it's dead.

And if it is dead, we would rather know straight away, since this gives us time to come up with another one. There's nothing worse than someone trying to be nice, telling you that they'll like it if you make 'just a few tweaks', when in reality they'll never like it, and you waste a week making meaningless changes.

So if I believe that niceness carries a risk of not being able to deliver a clear 'no', how come I still believe in "talented and nice?"

Simple. The really talented people do know how to say no - and they know how to do it in a nice way.

And the exceptionally talented ones, in an inspirational way.

Dear Google: Thanks For The Ad, I Was Gonna Buy It Anyway

When you get the results of your Google search, do you click on the sponsored link (the top one) or the regular link (just below it)?

I asked this at a lunch the other day, and some people said they deliberately click the non-sponsored link.

Personally, I always click the sponsored link, because I like Google, and I'm happy for them to get the money.

But the question remains - do they deserve that money?

Let's say I owned an online cat store called TopCats. I buy search advertising for my store, on Google. The next day, someone searches for TopCats, sees the sponsored link, clicks on it, then buys a cat from my store. Google can then tell me "See, search advertising works brilliantly!"

But here's the thing - that person was going to buy a cat from me anyway.

Yes, I understand if someone searches for "buy high-quality cats online" it would be worth me showing them an ad for TopCats. But when someone searches for my store by name... aren't Google simply doing the equivalent of slapping an ad on my front door? Sure, people see it, and then afterwards buy, so it might look effective. But the only people who see the ad are the ones who were going in anyway.

This phenomenon is apparently a real thing, called 'endogeneity'. If you want to read more about it, there's more in an article by The Atlantic here.

Just to be clear, I like Google a lot. I use their product multiple times a day, and I think it's awesome. It's fairly certain I couldn't live without it. Since I'm a sucker for gadgets, I'll probably even give Google Glass a go. And since I'm shit at driving, I'm really looking forward to driverless cars.

So I'm not wanting to criticise Google, in any way. They should get lots of money for what they do. Lots.

But $60 billion* a year - is that fair?

*Google's revenue was $15.4 billion in the most recently-announced quarter. More than 90% of this revenue comes from advertising. The company doesn't break out search from display and other forms of advertising, but it's safe to say that search is big.

Instead Of Cutting Costs, How About We Try To Make More Money?

My Dad is a talented guy.

He speaks several languages, is great at sports, and had a successful career in media sales.

But like many a curmudgeonly older Jewish gentleman, he is rather obsessed with the topic of how to save money. I like to tell him that if he put half as much thought into how to make money as he does into how to save it, he'd net-net be much better off.

But I now realise I've fallen into exactly the same trap myself.

In previous posts about how our industry can survive in the face of intense competition and margin pressures, I've suggested losing Creative Directors, or fusing Art Directors & Copywriters, or Suits & Planners. Basically, all ways to save money.

I've failed to consider how we might instead make more money.

This article, called 'The Demise And Rise Of Our Industry', does just that.

It's written by a guy called John Zeigler, who is the CEO of DDB Asia Pac. Yes, I know he's my boss's boss's boss so you might think I'm sucking up. Well, I can't control what you think. Just read the article. It's excellent.

But if you haven't got time to read it, the essence is this:

Clients are asking us to cut our fees by about 10% a year. We consider ourselves lucky if we settle at -8%. To stay profitable, we have to keep cutting staff. If the same trend carries on, we'll be dead within about five years.

The role of marketing has been degraded. Where once Marketers controlled the four P's, they now control only one P - Promotion. (One of the P's is Product. In a marketing-led company, the Marketers tell the company what products to make. In not many companies do Marketers have that power, nowadays).

Therefore the position of Marketers has been degraded. A study by Adobe, for example, found that 80% of CEOs do not trust marketers, 70% of CEOs believe marketers are disconnected from business results, and 69% of CEOs believe marketers like to stay too much in ‘their creative and social-media bubbles’.

John's conclusion? We need to change our role, dramatically. We need to go much further upstream, and help our clients develop new products and services, and influence how they engage with their staff, and how they take their products to market.

In short, we need to help Marketers show CEO's that we can use our creativity to solve their business problems - not just to create ads.

If we can do that, we'll be adding extra services - useful services that we can charge more money for - and we just might survive.

Good stuff from Mr Z. 

Dad - take note.

What Happens In Cannes, No Longer Stays In Cannes

Cannes used to be shrouded in mystique. But today, you can read dozens of blogs every day, about everything that goes on.

It used to be that you could only see all this incredible work from all around the world, if you actually went there. Now, you can see it on the website.

It used to be that you'd have to 'imagine' what these boat parties and villa parties looked like, unless you actually went. Now you see them all over Facebook and Instagram.

It used to be that you could only hear the speakers if you went. Now, they're all online too.

And it used to be that you couldn't even go to Cannes unless you were a Creative, or a production company person, whereas it's now full of Suits, Clients... even Kanye West gets to go. 

So today's Cannes is actually a lot more democratic and public than it used to be.

The inspirational elements - the great work, the thought-leadership talks - are more widely shared than ever before.

And so is the fun.
 
The effect of this more public Cannes? To create more irritation and jealousy, for sure. But also, I reckon, to make us more highly motivated - more determined to have either the great work, or the influence, that will get us there next year. And that, mes amis, is surely a good thing.

Do We Actually Need Creative Directors?

Volvo's epic split film is hotly tipped to win a Grand Prix or two at Cannes this year.

Interestingly, it was made without the involvement of a Creative Director.

The agency behind it, Sweden's Forsman & Bodenfors, doesn't have them.

I've written previously about how - in a world of crumbling margins - agencies need to become leaner. By far our biggest cost is staff, so my suggestions included fusing Art Directors & Copywriters, or Suits & Planners.

Perhaps self-interestedly, I didn't think about abolishing Creative Directors.

But could we? They're a huge cost, after all.

At first sight, it seems like we'd be losing a hell of a lot. After all, someone has to make the decision about what work to present. And in the absence of a CD, I guess it would be the senior Suit & Planner on an account who would decide. Most of the time this would probably work okay. But I've known plenty of CD's who had an almost supernatural ability to spot potential in an idea when no one else did.

Also, the senior Suit & Planner would probably be the people shaping the work. Again, most of the time this would probably be fine. But as before, I've known plenty of CD's who have the ability to push work to a level beyond what anyone else thought was possible.

So how do F&B manage without CD's, given my predictions of the effect that removing CD's would have on a typical agency process? Answer: they don't have a typical agency process. At all.

There's an interesting article about how they work here. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, here's the key bit: 

"The process by which people view and critique work is called 'the floor' — a holdover from the days when Forsman & Bodenfors was mainly making print ads, which could easily be spread out on the floor for people to see. You bring in at least five employees not attached to the project to go over the work and ask questions. It is the duty of these people to have an opinion of the work and openly express it, without holding anything back. They must ask questions about the work, questions they could envision the client or the general public asking about the direction. On the other side, the creators of the work must be open-minded, and although the ultimate decision of what to present to the client falls on their shoulders, they generally accept the critiques of their peers and go back to improve the work before presenting it to the clients."

So what do you think? CD's out?

Those Ads You Have A Strong Opinion About... Have You Actually Seen Them?

It's very common for people to pretend to have read books, when in fact they haven't.

Apparently this is particularly true of the classics, such as Moby-Dick, Catch-22, and 1984.

Part of this is shame - people just don't want to admit they haven't read them. But I reckon part of it is that they just don't feel they need to. Even people who haven't read Moby-Dick know that it's about Captain Ahab's obsession with catching a white whale -  a story of compulsion on the high seas. People probably feel they've 'got the idea' so they don't need to invest the time in actually reading it.

And looking at the Leo Burnett Cannes predictions, which came out this week, made me wonder... are a lot of us doing the same with ads now?

You see, I found myself having quite strong opinions about which ideas deserved to win... even ones I suddenly realised that I hadn't actually watched.

The ad industry is well-served with trade magazines and websites. So what happens nowadays is that we read about a new TV ad, or activation, or social media idea, in a neat package: headline, a few lines of description about the project, and an accompanying screenshot. My question is - once you've digested these, do you then actually click through and watch the film? Or do you feel you don't need to, because you've 'got the idea'?

Take this quick test.

Here are five examples of an ad, activation, or social media idea - all of them (in my opinion) great ideas, and all hotly tipped to win at Cannes. I guarantee that you 'know the idea' for all of them. And probably have strong opinions about them.

But please tell me - just for research - how many of the 5 have you actually watched?

And if you haven't, does it matter?


1 Cancer Council Australia "I Touch Myself - Breast Cancer Anthem" From JWT / Sydney 

  

2 Virgin Mobile "Game of Phones" From Havas Worldwide & One Green Bean

 

 

3  Australia Post "Video Stamp" From Clemenger BBDO

4  7-Eleven - Slurpee "The Xpandinator" From Leo Burnett / Melbourne

5  RAC Insurance "Attention Powered Car" From JWT / Sydney

Are Apps The New Screenplays?

A lot of Creatives nowadays seem to be developing apps on the side.

(The picture is of an old BBH colleague of mine, Dan Hubert, who created the successful 'AppyParking' app, which tells you where you can park in London.)

This is new.

A few years ago, Creatives were writing screenplays. The talk was all about Creatives who had got movies made (example: Andrew Niccol, former BBDO Creative who wrote The Truman Show and Gattaca).

Before that, Creatives were writing novels. (Examples: George Orwell, Joseph Heller, Fay Weldon, Salman Rushdie).

Why has it changed?

Well, obviously apps weren't around when Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22. That's a given.

I think it's more interesting to think about what has not changed.

What has not changed is that Creatives like to be on the cutting edge of culture. In 1968, that was the novel. Today, it's the app.

Also, Creatives will always be attracted by the ability to do something that is purely our own thing. Whether that's an app, a screenplay, or a novel... what they all have in common is that they're unmediated by any client.

And finally - and perhaps a little controversially - they're all forms of lottery ticket. Being a Creative is a steady job (albeit considerably less steady than the civil service) but you're unlikely to strike it rich.

But with a novel, a screenplay, or an app there is just that chance that you might...

Has Facebook Become An Infomercial Channel?

I am a huge fan of Facebook.

I check the site every day (not at work, obvs!) and genuinely enjoy it. 

But what's up with the ads?

Obviously it would be better if it were ad-free, though I understand they're a business, and want to turn a buck. However, the ratio of ads to editorial seems to have jumped all of a sudden, and most of them are promoting "1 weird trick to reduce belly fat" or a skincare product used by a Mom who "is 56 but looks 26."

In short, it's starting to feel like an infomercial channel.

A billion people use the site, so shouldn't it be full of ads for big brands like Budweiser, Ford, or Citibank?

Many of the brands just feel so small and crap.

Here's one from my feed today.

 
Who are 'fabnob'? Why are they closing down? This ad makes Facebook feel like a dilapidated high street.

The other great promise of Facebook is supposedly the ability to personalise ads, using all the data they have about us. But judging by some of the other ads in my feed today, I'm not sure it's working:





Thanks Oscar Wylee, but I don't wear glasses.

Sounds like an interesting proposition, ezidebit, but I don't own a gym.




Qantas, those shoes look fab, but being male they don't really appeal to me. 

Admittedly there are one or two big brands on there, like this ad for Nike:

But it's terrible. First of all, the headline is so poorly written, I can't really understand what it's saying. And second of all, I don't get the point of the image. Who are these people? And why is one performing a cuddle on the other?

Since few people will click through, wouldn't they be better off just placing a display ad? You know, with a cool visual, and a snappy headline?

Can someone please explain what the deal is with Facebook advertising? 

Is It Okay To Be Stupid?

We all know you have to be creative to be a Creative. But do you also have to be smart, or is it okay to be stupid?

Funnily enough, I reckon it's actually an advantage to be stupid.

Please note I'm not talking here about the famous Wieden + Kennedy dictum of "Walk In Stupid." I love this idea, but it's not really about intelligence. It's really an exhortation to assume nothing, be open-minded, and learn as much as you can every day.

I'm talking about genuine lack of intelligence.

So why do I think that's an advantage? Well, first of all, it's no handicap.
 
There has been over 60 years of scientific research into the question of whether intelligence and creativity are correlated. Turns out they aren't. (The one wrinkle here is that there is apparently a 'threshold point' at an IQ level of 85, above which you are more likely to be creative. But since the average IQ is 100 - that's how the scale works - it seems that you can be of well-below average intelligence, and still be creative.)

My belief is that being stupid (or at least appearing to be stupid) is an advantage because it forces Clients, Planners etc to phrase things for you in a simple way.

Every answer ends up being simple (Sony Bravia = great colour, Cadbury = joy, Chipotle = natural) but sometimes that answer is buried in a 72-page Powerpoint deck and triple-headed proposition. If you can get the brief phrased to you in a simple way from the start - get them to say what's really important - you have an advantage.

They do that automatically for stupid creatives. ("Guys, we're briefing Kevin, and he's a little dense, so let's make this nice and simple for him.") But they assume that the smart creatives can 'work it out'. Which might cost you days. And you might go in a direction that isn't what the Client really wants.

So what to do if you have the disadvantage of being (or sounding) intelligent?

A famous ECD once gave me a great tip. He told me that when he is presented with an overly complicated brief, he says this: "Look guys, there's a lot of great stuff here, and it all sounds very exciting, but the way my mind works - being a creative - is that I tend to respond to things instinctively. Now, I'm not saying I'm stupid, but could you do me the favour of imagining that I'm stupid, and just phrase this for me in the simplest possible way that you can?"

Gold.

Getting Paid

Eric B. and Rakim were insistent on being 'paid in full'

  

Advertising is a weird business.

It is extraordinarily difficult to value what ad agencies do.

One campaign may help create a $40 billion brand. Another may disappear without a trace.

Worst of all, successful work may continue to be successful, long after the ad agency has stopped being paid. For example, I still buy a certain chocolate bar based on an ad I saw for it over 20 years ago. The campaign has long since changed (I don't like the new work) so the original ad agency is still succeeding, but not getting any benefit for it.

So, what to do?

Most ad agencies simply charge fees for their time, with perhaps a small bonus or at-risk element that nods to 'payment by results'. 

We all know this model is unsatisfactory, yet very few alternatives have been proposed.

One PR agency offered to charge clients only if it achieved coverage for them. (Note, I can't find any trace of that company's website, so I'm not too sure how it worked out for them...)

An agency in Holland offered clients a pay what you want model.

And last week, Coca Cola announced a scheme to pay agencies a bigger bonus for non-traditional campaigns than for regular work, which is at least innovative.

At the heart of the problem is the age-old conundrum about what advertising agencies actually are. Are we providers of professional services - like lawyers and accountants - in which case a fee structure would be appropriate. Or are we producers of creative works - like songwriters or novelists - in which case a royalty makes more sense.

The truth is we're neither, and a bit of both.

Like I said, weird business.
 

The Confidence Thing

If you want to be good at pinball, it's not enough to be skillful with the flippers. You have to shove the machine a little bit. Not too much, or it'll 'tilt'. But a little bit.

Similarly, to be successful in a field as competitive as advertising it's not enough to be good at writing ads. There are all kinds of little things you need to do, to give yourself an advantage.

And perhaps the most important of them is to display confidence.

N.B. not too much, because over-confidence translates into arrogance, and that's a negative.

But a healthy dose of confidence... makes a difference.

What a lot of creatives don't realise is how thin the line is between a creative director saying "yes" and saying "go again." Even the most experienced creative director is not always 100% sure whether an idea is good or not, and a team that throws in a little comment at just the right time, like "we think this could be really funny" or "no one's ever really done anything like this before" can help get your work over that line.

And the same goes double for clients. Most clients have an excellent understanding of the kind of work that will be right for their brand. But they're not judging creative work every single day, like creative directors are. So when they look at work, they're not just looking at whether it's right, they're looking at whether the person who is presenting it, believes in it.

Everyone is human, and everyone is influenced by the attitudes of others.

Clients hire agencies because we're experts at making ads. And like anyone hiring an expert, they want to feel that the expert is confident they know what they're doing.

Always have a recommendation. Always say why you think it's right. And always present with belief.

Because if you don't believe in your work, who else will?

The Whole Notion Of 'Target Market' Is Basically Just A Sham

Bob Hoffman, AKA The Ad Contrarian, is aghast that agencies never target older people. He points out that Americans over the age of 50 buy 62% of all new cars and 55% of consumer package goods. And yet, they are the target for only 5% of US advertising.

On the other hand, you could argue we should actually be targeting younger than we do. A recent report (can't find link) showed that boys already know which brand of car they will go on to buy... at age twelve.

John Hegarty's view on the same debate is that we shouldn't give a stuff about who we target. In his book Hegarty On Advertising he argues (and I'm paraphrasing a little) that people buy brands that are famous, therefore we should target as widely as possible.

I don't know who is right, but I do know that the current orthodoxy is dreadful. If a brand is targeting housewives, you 'have' to show housewives in the ad. If a brand is targeting businessmen, you show businessmen.

The new HBO campaign (above) proves this is bollocks. HBO Go is for anyone who wants to watch HBO on a laptop, tablet, or mobile. Which is basically anyone. And yet the campaign superficially looks like it's solely targeting teenagers. Why? Because teenagers who don't want to watch Game Of Thrones with their parents is a strong demonstration of the product benefit.

And this surely has to be the answer. The goal here is to sell the product, and if the best way to do that doesn't involve showing the target market in the ad, then that's the way to go. 

Smart clients know this. I presented an FMCG script a couple of years ago which featured two housewives, and the client suggested that this particular concept would work better with two men rather than two women. They were right.

So if anyone ever tells you that you 'have' to feature the target market in your ad, remind them that the target market for John West is not bears or fishermen, the target market for 3 is not ponies or singing cats, and the target market for PG Tips was not chimps.  

Is PR The New Scam?

Answer: no, it's not.

Consider two new campaigns that were released last week.
 
On the left, a print/outdoor piece for highlighter pens(!) With apologies to those involved... this feels terribly old-fashioned to me.

But the MJ Bale work, on the right, which put a paywave chip in the arm of a suit, is a totally different beast.

Yes, it was probably agency-initiated, and the principal motivation was probably to win awards, but the crucial difference is that it will also do a great job for the client. In fact it already has - that suit got shedloads of PR coverage.

Like World's Most Powerful Arm, Mobile Medic, Fundawear, FlavorPrint, and Honey Maid, it's a perfect example of the modern, low-budget, tech-based PR piece. 

For whatever reason, the news outlets have gone crazy for tech stories - they feature a tech story every single day. Therefore, if you come up with a cool tech idea, it will be featured in the news media, reach millions of people, and get genuine results for the client... as well as winning awards.

Result - we don't need to do scam any more, people.

An interesting side-aspect of this development is it means that we're all in PR now, to some extent. I don't mind, because I think PR is very fun. And fortunately, ad agencies seem to be better at PR than the PR agencies are...

UPDATE - A couple of friends who work in PR have pointed out to me that many of the case studies I listed – including the MJ Bale campaign - were not created solely by ad agencies, but by ad agencies working in collaboration with PR agencies. Which kinda invalidates my point about ad agencies being better at PR than PR agencies. We're better together! Let's do this.

3 Things TV Can Learn From Social Media

 
Bob Hoffman's talk at Advertising Week Europe has generated a super-fun controversy.

A commenter on Campaign Brief opines: "So glad this is out there. Sick of the so called 'social specialists' in the agency talking shit the entire time."

Whereas my old colleague Carl Moggridge describes Bob (via Twitter) as "The world's most jaded and deluded adman," and points out that Bob's speech, which largely praises TV and derides online, was sponsored by the UK's largest free-to-air TV broadcaster.

The comments I've seen on the various ad blogs seem mostly to be on Bob's side, in a ratio of about 5 to 1.

And yet a lot of those commenters are angry.

Yes, there's a lot of bullshit spoken about social. And I applaud Bob for calling it out. But my question is - rather than being angry about the rampant rise of the online world, would it not be more interesting to consider what the old world can learn from the new?

So here goes, with 3 things TV can learn from social media. 

1) Social media campaigns are short

When a cancer charity asks people to post a 'no make-up selfie', it asks them to do it once. Not six times. And the whole campaign is around for about a week, not six weeks. And yet media buyers insist that people need to see a TV ad multiple times. And that a TV campaign must last for weeks. Is that really necessary? If it's impactful enough, do people need to see it multiple times? Would it not be better to invest in different executions, rather than hitting people over the head with the same one, again and again?

2) Social media campaigns get people to do something

It's well-known that getting people to do something makes them more likely to buy. That's why vacuum cleaner salespeople are so keen for you to have a go yourself. And yet 95% of TV ads are nothing but one-way messages. Please note I'm not saying that every ad needs to urge people to enter a competition, or go to a website. It just doesn't need to be a closed loop. It could ask questions, or make people think. Rather than just broadcasting at them.

3) Social media campaigns are light-hearted

Marketers have quickly worked out that to get engagement online, you have to do something funny, interesting, or quirky. Because that's what people respond to. And yet when it comes to TV, that learning seems to go out of the window. There's a belief that it's okay to broadcast ads which are wall-to-wall product benefit, testimonials, or rational sales messages. It's not. Just because you're paying to send someone a message, doesn't mean they'll respond well to it.

Despite Bob's assault on it, the internet is not going away. But nor is TV. So wouldn't it be great if the two sides could play nicely, and see what they can learn from each other?