Cannes Stripped Bare - Day 1

So here I am in the SOF, where many delegates are writing informative blog posts about the state of our industry. I thought about doing that too. Then I thought 'nah'.

Welcome to 'the other side of Cannes' - guaranteed no coverage at all of jury rooms, seminars, or award shows.


Those of you who are stuck back at the office, working, may be feeling ball-shrinkingly jealous of the glamour we delegates get to experience.

And so you should!

Check out my hotel, for example.

 

Situated on an award-winning industrial estate just outside Cannes, it's right across the street from one of the region's most prestigious tile manufacturers.

A

And a bus-wash.

But this is no ordinary bus-washing facility. That's a Mistral XB2 right there. State-of-the-art stuff.


Now let me take you inside the hotel.

Thirsty? Not a problem. Simply select a beverage from the minibar.

This place has every amenity.

Be sure to check back tomorrow, for my first party report!

Is The Era Of Scam Coming To An End?

One of my favourite campaigns at the awards this year is DDB New York's 'First World Problems' for WATERisLIFE. It's brilliantly clever, and brilliantly executed.

But interestingly, five years ago this campaign would have been scam.

It would have been entered in the TV category, having run once on an obscure TV station at 3am. No one would have seen it other than awards juries. It wouldn't have got PR, and it wouldn't have raised any money for charity.

Today, it's real. Over 2 million people have seen the film on YouTube. Many others have interacted with the idea via Twitter. It's got tons of PR, and raised real money for the charity.

So a welcome side-effect of the rise of the internet is that good ideas can become real, be seen, and actually have an effect in the world.

They don't have to be scam.

In fact since any video can be put on the internet and potentially find an audience, there is by definition no longer any such thing as scam in TV, which is a really welcome development, I reckon.

Though the press category is another matter of course...

Likeable Ways To Die

So D&AD is this week, and Cannes next week, and it looks like 'Dumb Ways To Die' is going to clean up at both.

In all the discussion of why it's so good - great animation, great song, clever strategy - there's one aspect that's been overlooked: it's just so damn likeable.

We don't talk about likeability much; perhaps we should.

It's a better-understood concept in Hollywood. Producers there are acutely aware that most popular movies are built around a likeable character - e.g. Han Solo, anybody played by Bruce Willis, Tony Stark, anybody played by Tom Hanks.
 
I met John Mescall (creator of Dumb Ways To Die) at an awards do recently and was struck by what a likeable chap he is. In fact, one of the industry magazines voted him 'most likeable person in advertising' last year.

So it's perhaps no surprise that he created such a likeable ad.

But what if you're not the most likeable person in advertising? Is there a formula for making our work likeable? What are the ingredients?

I'm going to suggest two (happy to hear more ideas also).

The first one is vulnerability or failure. Superman (as Clark Kent) is shy, and he is also vulnerable to Kryptonite - these help make him likeable. Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. The characters in Dumb Ways To Die are all idiotic failures. 

My old mate William Fowler has written about how we are drawn to failure. "Let’s try a quiz," he writes. "What was the name of the boy who flew too close to the sun? What about his father, whose flight was successful? Name the two sister ships of the Titanic. Name one perfectly upright tower in northern Italy."

The difficulty of course is that clients always want to portray their brands as perfect. Worth bearing in mind that as humans we recoil from perfection, and find the wonky appealing.

The second factor is attractiveness. We like Jerry Maguire (even though he's a bit of a cock) because he's played by Tom Cruise. We like James Bond (even though he's a bastard) because he's handsome. And we like the characters in Dumb Ways To Die because they're cute.

Northern Planner was getting at something similar when he wrote a post about how the best archetype for a brand was "Victoria's Secret model."

So there you have it. Of course we still need to worry about things like media strategy and messaging. But let's not forget to be likeable.

The 37 Richest People In Advertising

Businesser Insider have just released their annual list of the 37 best-paid people in advertising.

There is only one woman on it (No.17 - Mercedes Erra, the 'E' in France's BETC). Right, because science has proven that possession of two x chromosomes is a huge inhibitor of advertising ability.
And all 37 executives on the list are white. Surely fair - advertising talent and skin pigmentation are clearly correlated.

Interestingly, the list finally resolves a question we've all pondered: "Who earns the really big bucks - suits, creatives, or planners?"

Answer: none of the above.

The best-paid people in advertising are the finance guys!

Digging into the backgrounds of those on the list, we can observe that only three are former account handlers. Five are strategy types, but before any of my planner friends get excited, none of them are ad strategists - all five are from consulting. 

Three are lawyers (Omnicom group general counsel, etc), one is from a marketing background (Kevin Roberts, worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, at No.9), three are media types, and two have backgrounds that I couldn't determine, during my approximately ten minutes of total research.

Meanwhile, a whopping 18 of the 37 highest-paid folks in our business have a finance or accounting background. Hurrah! And what's more, the bean-counters score four of the top five spots, with big guns like Martin Sorrell, John Wren, and Michael Roth (the head of Interpublic).

But I've saved the biggest flaw until last.

It's outrageous, I'm sure you'll agree, but somehow a creative person has snuck on there (Jacques Seguela, the 'S' in Euro RSCG, now chief creative officer of Havas Worldwide, at No.28). A creative person, on the list of the highest-paid people in the ad industry? But what possible value do they add?

To the young creatives reading this who harbour a desire to one day pull down a million dollar a year salary, the path is clear - chuck in your job and get an accounting qualification.

And most of all, please bin your skinny jeans, get rid of that ridiculous facial hair, and try to model yourselves a little more closely on the true heroes of our industry - men such as David B. Doft, and Randall J. Weisenburger.

David B. Doft,  CFO (chief financial officer)

of US-based network MDC Partners

(No.36, earned $714,144 last year),

 Randall J. Weisenburger, CFO of Omnicom

(No.5, earned $10.6 million last year)

I Can't Wait Until Data Takes Over

Most creatives aren't excited about data. But I actually think that 'true data' is going to set us free.

Right now, because data-gathering on advertising effectiveness is in its infancy, we are living in an age of seriously shoddy data.

We are measuring things like 'recall', which may or may not translate into sales. We are measuring things like 'persuasiveness'... which we can only measure after we've deliberately exposed someone to an ad, so we have no way of knowing if the consumer would have looked at the ad if we hadn't asked them to.

Which is why so many of the ads that pass research are 'saying all the right things' but don't actually work in the marketplace, where they are competing against (in the case of TV) seven other ads in the break, a toilet, a smartphone in the viewer's pocket, the conversation of someone else in the room, and the chance to make a cup of tea.

I am hugely encouraged by the data being generated from YouTube's relatively new 'skippable ad' feature.

The average skip rate for YouTube ads is greater than 80%. Source.

But an insider tells me that within that 80%, there's a huge variation. The most popular ads are skipped only 10% of the time. While the least popular are skipped 90% of the time. In other words, some ads are NINE TIMES as engaging as others.

This just confirms what we creatives have known in our bones, since time began.

That creativity works.

In the future, technology and data will be able to tell us exactly who saw a marketing message (in whatever medium) and then, from their subsequent purchasing behaviour, whether that ad was effective.

When this happens, creativity will finally triumph.

All the advertisers who thought that it was enough to simply say whatever they wanted to say, and gave insufficient thought to engagement, will be shown empirically to be wrong.

And on that day, I propose we hold a massive party.

There is no Year 2

On being presented with a piece of work, clients, suits and planners are inordinately fond of asking us to "demonstrate that it's a big idea."

For this we have to prepare multiple executions, in multiple media... and above all, "show us how it would work in year 2, year 3 and year 5."

But in reality, Year 2 never comes.

When I was a young copywriter, nearly every brand seemed to have a long-running campaign. Just off the top of my head there was 'Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach', 'Australians couldn't give a XXXX for any other lager', 'No nonsense' for John Smith's, 'Good things come to those who wait' for Guinness... and that's just in the beer category.

Cars, department stores, food products...they all had proper campaigns.

But today, very few brands do. There are one or two exceptions, such as Snickers' 'You're not you when you're hungry', but the vast majority of brands just do a series of one-offs.

Snickers - last of the great campaigns?

Even some series that people think are campaigns, and cite as campaigns, really aren't. For example, the excellent John Lewis ads are all really one-offs, held together by a tone of voice. So are the Skittles ads, all Volkswagen ads, and BMW ads. 

So why the change?

Maybe agencies have less patience nowadays. Maybe it's to do with marketing directors moving around faster than the wurlitzer rides in a funfair. To be honest, I don't know.

But I actually don't care. I just wish everyone would accept that this is the case, and let us get on with making a series of cool one-offs. As long as they're all on-brand and on-tone, what does it matter?

Nike have almost never had campaigns. Nor have Apple.

So I suggest we all stop spuriously worrying about whether an idea will have longevity, and concentrate on the far more important question of whether it will have impact. 

We Are Now Literally Talking To Ourselves

Is this what advertising has come to?

A snarked-up copywriter hunched in a darkened social-media war room, lobbing jibes at another copywriter in some other bunker in another city, both overseen by their respective clients pecking nervously at a soy macchiato.

Yes, it seems that instead of a brand sending a message to a consumer (traditional advertising) or a brand giving people a way to interact with it (modern advertising) we are now seeing brands just talking to each other.

So at first, I was royally depressed by these examples (from 'Creative Newsroom: Brand Storytelling At The Speed Of Social' by EdelmanDigital).

But you know what? At least they're actually funny.

And best of all, no rational messaging.

I've long been a believer that people buy brands primarily because of their badge value (owning a VW says you're a person of wit and intelligence - the ads work because they're witty and intelligent, not because they inform you that the vehicle has park assist or whatever).

These tweets will enhance the brands' badge value, therefore they will work, therefore even though we're merely talking to ourselves, it's still okay. I'm correct here, no?

Why Don't They Trust Us?

In a survey released last week of 'most trusted professions', Advertising People finished in 29th place. Out of 30. The only people trusted less than us were Car Salesmen.

Clearly this ranking is unfair.

Let's look at who finished above us:

In 25th place - MP's. Despite their inability to tell the truth, or keep their peckers in their trousers.

In 24th place, Journalists. Hello? Ever heard of phone hacking?

In 23rd place, Stockbrokers. Because, like, everyone in finance is so honest. They'd never be involved in insider trading, or sell mortgage-backed securities that they know to be worthless.

In 15th place, Lawyers. Twisting the facts is part of their job description, FFS! 

In 12th place, Ministers of Religion. There is no God. Half of them know that, but they carry on anyway. Maybe they just like having easy access to children...

In 11th place, Accountants. Primary role: helping people avoid tax.

In 8th place, Police. Okay, so most of them are honest, but thousands of policemen around the world are kicked out of their profession every year for corruption. Have you seen Bad Lieutenant?

The top places - filled by Nurses, Pharmacists, Doctors and School Teachers - are fairly unimpeachable.

But still, I can't help but feel we've been placed unfairly low.The rules around what an ad can say are very strict. And the vast majority of people I've met in my profession have extremely high ethical standards.

So for a while, I felt miffed. Then, the universe provided an answer. Or at least, Twitter did:

I've never worked in the beauty category. Or on cleaning products (one swipe of a cloth, and the dirt is gone.)

I've worked on cars, booze, mobile phones, newspapers, video games... and yes, we exaggerate - but openly, humorously - and we put across the product in the best possible light... but we never lie.

Is it possible that certain categories are giving the whole of advertising a bad name? Or is there really something wrong with our industry?

Made Any Good Mistakes Recently?

Love this new campaign for Snickers, from AMV.BBDO in London.

Using Adwords and an alogorithm, it shows 'You're not you when you're hungry' ads to people who type mis-spelled search terms into Google. View the case study here.

And it reminds me that we have a slight obsession with mistakes in adland.

I think 'fail harder' is actually a motto of Wieden & Kennedy. They certainly had the phrase up in their reception, as a rather beautiful artwork made entirely from push-pins.

 
People in adland love to trot out proverbs like: "If you never make any mistakes, you're not trying hard enough." Or they talk about the need for "rapid iteration", meaning that it's actually helpful to make mistakes because you learn stuff that you can put to good use later.

However, in my experience I've found this kind of talk to be just that - talk.

The reality is that if an agency makes an ad campaign that is a failure, they normally get fired.

If an individual within an agency makes a mistake, they normally get fired. 

The people behind last week's Hyundai 'garage suicide' ad will quite possibly get fired.

And everyone in the pubs and in the ad blog comments will say that they're totally in favour of people pushing the boundaries, but just not in this particular case - in this case the creators made a serious error of judgement, and the ad should never have been made. But when other cases come around, guess what, they too will be exceptions to the rule that it's okay to fail. I've never seen anyone in advertising point approvingly to a failure.

Well, I'm calling bullshit on this whole "it's okay to fail" thing. Clearly it isn't.

The Hyundai suicide ad should never have been made, because it's not acceptable to use that subject matter to sell a product. By way of contrast, 'Dumb Ways To Die' featured multiple people killing themselves with unbelievable gruesomeness, albeit accidentally, but it felt fully justified because the subject was transport safety, and the treatment was cartoony. 

The Hyundai ad has suffered worldwide criticism. Dumb Ways To Die has earned worldwide praise.

The reality is that there is very little margin for error in this business. That is why most clients and agencies make work that is safe.

And yet making work that pushes the boundaries - successfully - remains the only game in town.

Should The CD Also Write Ads?

This question was asked by a commenter last week.

And the answer is 'no'.

Because the danger is that whatever the CD writes, they will think is brilliant. This is normal - we all think our own stuff is brilliant. But normally, there's a CD there to tell you it's actually piss-poor... unless you are the CD, in which case everyone will tell you it's great, because you're their boss.

The agency will have lost one of the most important advantages of the CD system: objectivity. And it will most likely have gained a bad ad.

The boss actually thought his own ad was pretty darn good

Furthermore, if the CD writes something, and it gets bought, who's going to make it? The CD won't have time, so it will probably get shoved onto some young team. Which will be awful for them. No one gets into advertising to make someone else's ideas, everyone gets into advertising to make their own ideas. And they won't do as good a job as if it were their own idea - we all do a better job when we feel ownership. 

I understand why CD's sometimes write ads. Sometimes, they just want to. (Ego.) Other times, they're frustrated because they feel their teams aren't producing the goods (which in reality is their own fault). And sometimes, they want to 'set an example' to the teams. (Ego again).

But probably the biggest reason is they want credit. A lot of the work a CD does - working with the strategists to refine a brief, working with the teams to refine an idea - is 'invisible'. So CD's are often tempted to write stuff themselves, to 'prove their worth'.

Now comes the tricky part. I've been careful to say up to now that I don't think CD's should 'write ads', by which I mean they shouldn't do the whole thing. But that doesn't mean CD's shouldn't have ideas. They should. Hundreds of them. 

Firstly, they should be working collaboratively with the strategists to come up with ideas around what the brief should be. (You may be surprised to hear that many CD's put virtually zero effort into the brief, feeling that it's 'not their job'. Bullshit. Working with the strategists to get to a great brief should be a huge part of their job).

And secondly, they should be working collaboratively with the creative teams (in fact, the whole agency) to get to great ideas. That could mean throwing out an interesting 'half-idea' that the creatives can build on, or it could mean finding a way to turn a half-thought of someone else's into something great.

So in summary, a good CD never 'writes ads', but instead comes up with hundreds of half-ideas. And takes zero credit for them. Sounds tough, but that's the job as I see it.
 

Presenting

'Presenting' is a technical term that refers to how baboons display themselves

for copulation purposes. It is not what this post is about.

I've always thought it strange that creatives do the presenting.

An agency hires creatives to come up with new and lateral ideas. Hence, creatives think differently to most people. They might be a bit weird. Maybe introverted.

Meanwhile, the agency hires account handlers to manage the client relationship. They normally have great people-skills, and will typically be confident and charming.

So who does the agency ask to stand up and present to clients? That's right. Not the confident and charming ones, but the weird shy ones.

I once wrote a post about why creatives shouldn't present.

But... I think I've changed my mind now.

I still think account handlers would do a better job of the actual presenting. But the current set-up makes for a more harmonious atmosphere within the agency. Back in the old days, when account handlers still presented the work, the creatives would be furious with them if it didn't get sold. Even if the client had bought the work, but been so bold as to request any changes... the creatives would react as if they were proposing to graffiti a Picasso. Now, not so much. We're all in the same room. We're all on the same side. We're all motivated to solve the client's problem. And that can only be a good thing.

Our Real Job Is Smuggling

It's often said that ads need to be entertaining because the entertainment allows us to 'smuggle in' a product benefit - the bit that is the commercially effective part of the ad.

I agree with the smuggling theory, but I actually think it works the other way round.

In other words, I reckon the function of the product benefit is to justify the entertainment. And it's actually the entertainment that is the commercially effective part of the ad.

Take this new ad in the Got Milk? campaign.

The product benefit is "if you drink some milk before bed, you sleep better." But this is just a pretext. The overwhelming volume in milk comes from kids drinking it, and adults putting it in their cereal and coffee. The reality is that very, very few people drink a glass of milk at bedtime and even if this ad were to double that number, its impact would have been negligible. No, the sleep enhancement may be a true product benefit, but it's not the business-enhancing part of the ad.

The ad will be effective because it's cool and funny. (Okay it's not the coolest or funniest ad ever, but my point still stands). So people will continue to feel good about buying it. The worst thing for any product is to become lame. Products that are seen as dated or naff don't sell. Period. This ad will do a good job of keeping milk seeming fresh, if you'll pardon the pun. So the effectiveness of the ad IS the entertainment.

Of course, that doesn't mean the product benefit is irrelevant. Far from it. As I said above, the product benefit is essential, because it allows the agency to smuggle in the entertainment. A comedy sketch (like this ad) has to be about something, and furthermore we find it satisfying when an ad is well-constructed around a product benefit, because it makes the sketch seem cleverer, and the comedy more justified.

I wonder if it would ever be acceptable to say to a client "the strategy we propose is that you do ads that are cool and funny." Probably not.

What's The Best Way To Give Feedback?

 

My theory is that successful feedback comes down to 'saying no in an inspirational way.'

No one needs lessons in how to say yes. Saying yes is easy, and fun.

But most of the time - since 99% of ideas, ads, headlines etc are not bought - we are saying no. 

The first requirement is clarity.

Years ago, I remember working for a really nice CD. Everything we presented, he liked. And the result was terrible. We came out of meetings not knowing if he'd bought anything. Sometimes, we needlessly carried on working (wasting time we could have spent working on other briefs) when he was already happy. Other times, we put our pens down, only to find out a few days later that he wasn't happy with anything, and we now had just 24 hours before the client meeting to crack a new idea.

So if it's a no - which most of the time it will be - make sure your 'no' is crystal clear.

Give the reason, e.g. work not on brief, wrong tone for the brand, or 'right' but just not that good.

The last of those is the hardest to deliver. 

Humour can help. One of my old bosses, Jeremy Craigen at DDB London, was a noted rejectionist. "That's a good ad," he used to say. "For Ogilvy Bratislava, maybe." I guess what he was communicating was: "We have high standards here, and this work doesn't meet them. You need to start again completely. However, I still like you."

But as well as being clear, your 'no' should also be at least mildly inspirational. 

You don't want a team walking away depressed, or not sure what to do next. Either of those is a disaster.

You want the team walking away feeling inspired.

So what inspires?

Mainly, a feeling that this brief could lead to great work. Often, a brief seems unpromising and the team can't see their way through to a good idea. So telling them about a good idea that was done on a similarly unpromising brief, perhaps in the same category, or to a similar proposition, can work well.

Another of my old bosses, Adam Kean at Saatchi & Saatchi, did it beautifully once. We showed him some rubbish ads, and he said nothing for a bit. Then he asked us: "Have you seen this?" and he played Tony Kaye's latest TV ad, which we hadn't yet seen. Nothing further needed to be added. His message was: "Advertising at its best can be great. We all want to reach that standard, don't we? Please try again."

But of course, as well as setting the bar, you should be giving the team a steer on how to jump over it. Whether you're a CD, a planner, an account handler or a client, you can't consider that your job is to keep saying no to bad ideas until you're shown a good one. Advertising is a difficult, iterative process that requires constant constructive feedback. That means you must always have suggestions to add. If you don't, how can you justify drawing a salary?

Just make sure (obviously) that the suggestions are good ones! Good means clear, and presented as a challenge for the team to answer in their own way, not an 'answer' for them to execute the way you've told them to.

Anyway, I'm giving a talk next week on 'how to give feedback', and as you can see, what I've got so far is pretty flimsy, so do please help me out and let me know in the comments section any examples of feedback you've experienced done well or done badly.

John Hegarty: "To those brands that say 'I understand you' I say 'Fuck off'"

I am being followed around the internet by a pair of yellow adidas trainers.

It all started when I checked them out on the adidas website; they are now convinced that I am interested in them, and are basically stalking me.

This theme has upset John Hegarty.

He participated in a "Wired Global Conversation" panel last week, and revealed a contrarian view on big data, nicely written up here.

"I'm not sure I want people to know who I am," said John. "I find that slightly Orwellian and I object to it... I think there'll be a huge backlash."

I don't really agree with him on this. I mean, if there has to be an ad on the webpage I am reading, it might as well be for something I'm interested in.

But John then broadens his theme. He sees targeted web ads as being just part of a bigger problem - marketers' obsession with 'understanding' the consumer. And that's when he drops the F-bomb:

"To those brands that say 'I understand you' I say 'Fuck off, you don't understand me. Mind your own business, I don't want to be understood by you. I don't understand myself sometimes… and it can be fun.'" 

I guess his point is similar to the old Henry Ford one - "If I'd asked the customer what he wanted, he would have said 'a faster horse.'"

But John is being cheeky really. He knows full well the importance of understanding the consumer - is in fact a master of it - and you can see that in his work, which is always based on sound logic.

John's just trying to remind us that while we always start with logic, the job of advertising is to turn it into magic.

By the way, what do you think of the shoes? They're starting to grow on me.

 

The 'O' Word

Last week, Domino's walked into a social media shit-storm, when a week-long teaser campaign for a “game changing” announcement proved to be nothing more than a new range of square pizzas with premium toppings.

To be honest I think it's a bit of a non-story. What's the news - the public finding an ad campaign to be patronising rubbish? Big deal. They've been thinking this kind of campaign is patronising rubbish for years. The only thing that's changed is that people now have a way of telling the company so, on their facebook page:

But what I do find interesting, and a clue as to what caused the debacle, is an earlier set of comments... these appeared on Campaign Brief when Domino's announced they had hired a new ad agency:

And it should be noted that before hiring this particular agency, Domino's did their advertising in-house for a period.

I'm not a fan of clients pushing their agencies around so much, they're effectively using them as a production studio.

The same kind of problems arise when people hire a real estate agent, or a lawyer, and then ignore their advice. It surely stems from a desire for control.

But if you over-control your advisers, you lose something very important... something that may be the most important benefit to be gained from hiring any external professional.

Objectivity.

Posters Have Gone Crazy. In A Good Way.

My favourite advertising medium is the Poster.

Once nicely described as "a visual shout", the glory of the poster lies in its being the purest, simplest expression of an advertising idea.

Or... it used to be.

Increasingly, it actually isn't.

The subject's been on my mind because we're doing a couple of posters for one of our clients at the moment. So, just to get my head in the zone, I went to look at some recent award-winning outdoor ads. 

And although I've obviously been aware of the phenomenon for some time, I was really struck by how many award-winning posters nowadays are 'more than just posters'.

In fact, of the 22 pieces that won either a Grand Prix or a Gold in the Outdoor category at Cannes last year, no fewer than 9 consisted of 'more than just ink on paper'.

Yes, partly that's because the Outdoor category also includes experiential ideas, which last year included the Carlsberg 'Cinema of Bikers'. But still. Nine out of 22 winners - that's 41%.

I jumped back a few years, to 2008, and guess what - only 20% of the Grand Prix or Gold winners were 'more than just a poster.'

Not a rigorous scientific survey, but nevertheless a number that confirmed my suspicions - if you want to win an award in the Outdoor category nowadays, you'd be wise to think beyond mere ink on paper.  

In a way, it's probably unfair to compare a traditional poster (powerful and graphically-reductive image, small logo in corner) with a 'modern' poster (vending machine that dispenses product if you tweet it, or blow it a kiss).

But that's exactly what juries are doing.

And you know what? I don't blame them.

Stuff that's never been done before is simply more exciting.

I mean, the billboard that was put up last month in Peru, which condenses air into drinkable water for the local people (above), is an absolutely frickin' unbelievable idea.

If you compare that to the type of poster that was winning awards in the 1970s - legend has it that a supermarket won a gold at D&AD for their instant pasta range, headline "Pasta fasta" - there is just no comparison.

The new style is usually more impactful, more involving, and far more likely to get PR... and for all those reasons, far more likely to be effective as well as award-winning.

Yes, sometimes the client is not going to have the money (and maybe the time) to buy a special-build or interactive poster, and you're going to end up with ink-on-paper.

But it's not the place to start.

Top Ten Tips

In one week's time, I'm giving the opening lecture at Award School, where Australia's aspiring copywriters and art directors go for training.

I'll probably be doing the same presentation I've given for the last two years - 'How To Have Ideas', which isn't original at all, but based on a theory I adapted from Scottish philospher David Hume.

There are actually lots of things I'd want to say to young creatives, but it's better if a lecture sticks to one theme. A 'Top Ten Tips' of wildly disparate content doesn't work as a talk.

But it can work as a blog post!

I've been writing tips for a few years, on various ad-related topics - here's the full collection.

But I've never done an overall Top Ten.

So, wildly disparate though it may turn out, here goes - my Top Ten Tips for young creatives.

1.  To be a successful creative you need more than just talent, Converse trainers, and the hide of a bullet-proofed rhinoceros. You also need knowledge. Not a lot. But some. And the most important knowledge you need is a comprehensive knowledge of what has already been done. Why? So you know what not to do.

2.  Our work is often autobiographical, so we take rejection of our work as rejection of ourselves. But this is silly. The team/client have no clue of your autobiographical inspiration, they're purely rejecting the pieces of paper they see in front of them. You're a valid person! It's just the work they have a problem with.

  

A Certain Ratio were a band from Manchester,

and are tangentially related to this blog post

 
3. Advertising is subjective - there's no certainty that your idea is good. So when you are presenting it, people will be looking at you, and judging how much you seem to rate it. Therefore, the more confidently (and energetically) you present, the more people are likely to think it's good.

4.  Very often, when you're writing an idea, you come up with something great, that you love... but you know in your heart of hearts there's one tiny thing wrong with it. Someone once said that "the problem with a hidden flaw is it never remains hidden." They were right.

5.  Don't write TV ads that depict a normal or everyday situation, with a twist at the end. It has to be a helluva twist to compensate the viewer for the previous 25 seconds of boredom. You are much better off creating a commercial that is funny all the way through.

6.  Make your work extreme. If it's dialogue-based, double the amount of dialogue and cut out everything else. If it's visual, make it very visual. If it's logical, make it very logical. If it's emotional, make it very emotional. In short, be very. 

7.  To do good work, tell the truth about the product. Yes, obviously, you'll be exaggerating it, or dramatising it, but base what you do on a truth about the product, not on anything extraneous or made-up.

8.  If you're a young creative, the most important factor in deciding where to work is a certain ratio - 'Awards Per Head.'

9.  When working with collaborators - like directors, illustrators, web designers etc - never be afraid to tell them how you want your idea executed, even if they're a world-famous photographer, and you're a 22 year-old. Remember, it's your idea.

10. If you've done some good work in the last year, don't sit there stewing because your boss hasn't given you a pay rise. They never will. You have to ask.


P.S. If you think these tips are rubbish, let me know. If you have better ones, let me know.

Do You Like Short Films? I Don't.

For as long as I can remember, commercials directors have also made short films, and their producers have asked me to watch them.

Now I don't know if I'm a lone voice in the wilderness here, but I find these films dreadful.

Yes, partly my attention span is shot to pieces, to the extent that I rarely even watch all the way to the end of a 60-second ad on an ad blog any more. (Why do a 60? The 40-second cutdown is always heaps better).

But it's also because the films are normally slow, meandering, pointless, uneventful, dull, unoriginal, corny, over-emotionalised, over-acted, and under-edited.

It's also partly just economics. If someone is asking me to watch a 3-minute short film, then it should be six times as rewarding as a 30-second ad, right?

Here's this year's winner of Tropfest, probably the world's most prestigious short film festival, which was held last week.

It's well-shot, well-cast, well-acted, a good story... yada yada yada.... great achievement on what was probably very little money. So the last thing I want to do is slag off the individuals involved. But come on. The film's not bad, but it's not fantastic.

And at 6 minutes and 47 seconds long, is it really more than 13 times better than this?

No. It isn't. The goat is better, especially the part where he screams, that part is just priceless.

So in summary, I'm not suggesting that directors don't make short films. Heck, maybe other creatives like them. And maybe they can lead to the director getting feature work, or being taken on by a production company.

But just don't ask me to watch them.

P.S. I will admit there is one short film I've ever seen, that I enjoyed. Here it is.

How Much Time Do You Spend Fucking Around?

I ask because my own fucking-around time has reached virtually zero.

That's right. Most days, I don't even have time to look at Facebook. I don't open the links that get sent around, I don't read humorous blogs, and I don't get sucked into a vortex of 90s rave videos on YouTube.

Partly this is because I'm now an ECD, but in fact it was on the decline for a while. And I'm not meaning this post to be a personal whinge, because I suspect it's true for everyone.

Agencies are having to do more with less, which means we all have to work harder. And the irony is that the rise of this glorious fucking-around medium that is the internet (in the old days, if you wanted to find a pleasant way to kill some time, you actually had to go and talk to someone!) has been accompanied by a decline in the fucking-around time we have available.

At least, that's what I suspect. But I'm wary of generalising from my own experience. Which is why I'm running a poll.



Please indicate how much time per day, on average, you spend fucking-around rather than working.

Definition of fucking-around: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, talking to your friends, online shopping, playing games, looking at porn. Not included: personal admin such as paying bills.

To maintain some semblance of rigour, I want only creatives to vote, though people from other disciplines are welcome to comment.

What I really wonder, is whether less fucking-around time for creatives might be translating into worse work. Because we all know that today's random YouTube video becomes tomorrow's idea for a cool TV ad.

The only niggle in my mind is that when I spoke to ad guru Siimon Reynolds once, he told me that he reckoned most creatives weren't productive enough, that they spent too much time fucking around, and not enough time working. He said our work should be fun, so why would you need to fuck around? I kind of agree with this, though I do also believe that if you never replenish the well, there will one day be no water there when you need it...

Who Needs Knowledge?

One time I was working on the Budweiser account, and we spent a day getting a tour of the brewery. I learned that Budweiser is made with 30% rice. I learned that the brewmasters crushed up the glass that the pipes in the brewery were made from, turned that into a tea, and drank it, to check it was taste-neutral.

So it was quite an interesting day. But, useless from an advertising point of view. Because I've never seen a beer ad that was based on specialist knowledge as to how a beer is made.

(Has there even been one, N.B. that relied on real specialist knowledge? I have heard about a campaign for Schlitz beer that claimed the bottles were "washed with live steam" - but that was in the early 1900's.)

We would have been better off spending that day thinking of ideas, rather than traipsing round a brewery in west London.

The agency where I've recently become the creative director has a car account, and they were pleased to have me on board because I've done a lot of car advertising over the years. But you know what? I actually have no idea how an internal combustion engine works.

And although I kind of hope my car client doesn't read this, I contend that it doesn't matter.

What matters is understanding what matters to people, and how to communicate that.

Here's my favourite ad from this year's Super Bowl. It's for a Hyundai that has a turbo engine. And I don't know if the creative team that made the ad have any understanding at all that a turbo engine works by a type of forced induction system, which compresses the air flowing into the engine. (Nor did I! I just googled it!)

But what they've understood brilliantly is the benefit to the ordinary driver of having a turbo engine - you won't get stuck behind the car in front - and how to communicate that in an engaging way (see ad below).

That's what matters.

Live from the Superdome: Racism vs Sexism

This year's Super Bowl is shaping up to be just a tad controversial for advertisers. But which will prove stronger, their Offense, or their Defense?

Volkswagen 'Get In. Get Happy.'

The Offense given by VW is that it's not cool for a group with greater power (white American) to imitate the accent of a group with lesser power (Jamaican). Or to stereotype them as happy-go-lucky buffoons.

The Defense? That it's not racist if you're portraying someone in a happy light. Pretty shaky, really, given the history of 'blackface'.

Result: Searching "volkswagen racist commercial" yields 2.9 million hits on google.

Coke 'Chase'

Offense: Shows an Arab walking through the desert with a camel.

Defense: The Arab character is a nod to old movies, like Lawrence of Arabia.

Result: For me, the Defense comes out on top. After all, many of the other characters in the ad are nods to old movies also, e.g. Mad Max.

Mercedes 'Kate Upton'

Offense: Category 1 objectification.

Defense: But it's the football players washing the car for Kate Upton, not the other way around!

Result: A real 'ad of two halves'. The first half undoubtedly sexist. The second half, just lame.

GoDaddy 'Bar Rafaeli's Big Kiss'
 
Offense: Objectification, humiliation… let's face it, this advertiser has previous.

Defense: Umm...

Result: I truly hate this ad.

Does Australian Ad-Savvy Travel?

France was the birthplace of Publicis, Havas, and TBWA.

The US has spawned 9 global ad agencies: McCann, DDB, BBDO, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy, Y&R, JWT, Grey, and Arnold. (criteria: 15+ offices)
 
The UK has produced three (Lowe, Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi)
 
While Japan has given the world Dentsu and Hakuhodo.
 
And all the other countries in the world?
 
None. Zip. Zilch.
 
Which is weird, when you consider there are many countries which have produced global companies in other fields, such as cars, banks, airlines, insurance companies, etc.
 
So why can only four countries produce global advertising players? And is that a fixed rule, or could another country do it?
 
Could Australia?
 
I ask because Sydney-based agency Host has just opened an office in Singapore and has plans for San Francisco and Shanghai.
 
Could it be on the verge of becoming Australia's most prominent advertising export since Lara Bingle announced 'where the bloody hell are you?'
 
Or will Foster's remain Australia's only global brand? Along with Qantas. And Hugh Jackman.