IAQ (infrequently asked questions)
Here are some things you may not know about this blog:
1. I get a lot of spam. I don’t know how the spambots work out what to do, but when I check my comments approval page there are always a few that have been added to random very old posts. They often say something very nice about the blog or offer a piece of advice, then I look to the left and see that they’re from ‘men’s cashmere scarf’ or ‘X-Box 360’. The most recent example is from esteemed luggage superstar, Louis Vuitton, and says: ‘You made some decent points there. I checked on the web to learn more about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this web site’. Odd, really, as I would imagine Mr. Vuitton wouldn’t expect the readers of this blog to give a toss about all that. Anyway, I’ve hidden thousands of these things over the years, but I still find them strangely endearing.
2. I’ve run out of advertising things to say and I don’t care. When I was an angrier, younger man I could dip my quill in the gallons of bile my stomach produced and rattle off 1000 words about thievery, laziness, racism or something similar. Alas, the well is now far drier, hence the posts about morality and Jesus. I just fancy having a big cyberchat with some quite intelligent people, so if something interesting occurs to me I might see if it hits the spot with a few of you. It helps pass the odd Monday, anyway.
3. This week I was asked why I write ITIABTWC. Well, see number 2, but also I like to keep up the discipline of cranking out words. It’s a muscle that can certainly atrophy, so why the hell not? If I want to write it and you want to read it let’s leave it at that, eh? Also related to this subject is the regularity with which I consider abandoning it, but those thoughts never become that serious. Let’s grow old together, you and I, whoever you are, even the monstrous perverts and those of you who read The Daily Mail.
4. I love it when there’s an ad to put up. Covers a day nicely and ensures a good bunch of comments. Do send them along if you fancy throwing them to some fellow creatives.
5. I put the weeeeekkekndnndnndndn email together during the week, adding to it as funny shit appears on my journey through the internet. Some people send me stuff (thanks, P, G, S etc.), but otherwise I just put up the best stuff from Twitter (thanks, J) and my Facebook friends. There is a bit of method to it, in that I don’t put up things that have already been wiped across every corner of the web (so no Kai the hitchhiker last Friday), but I’m just keen to share anything I enjoy in the hope that it also brightens up your day. Feel free to send contributions to bwmkay@gmail.com, but don’t get offended if I don’t choose them; often I already have lots of links, so I’ll start culling the 7/10 ones if I can replace them with 8s.
6. Sort of on that subject: I don’t like to put friends’ ads up unless they’re unequivocally amazing. If they’re just 9/10 they’re bound to get some shitty comments that I don’t want to be indirectly responsible for. Also, I do feel a strong urge to be ‘honest’, putting up pretty much all comments that come my way (unless they’re personally rude about me, in which case I’ll just change the comment to make it about you and the loose morals of your female relatives).
7. About 2000-3000 people read the blog each day. I very rarely check my stats and I have little idea of who the readers are, although it’s a pretty fair bet that 90% are advertising creatives, mainly based in the UK, and include a lot of CDs. I think that’s as much a consequence of the lack of similar content out there as it is of the quality of the writing (what an ironically awful sentence). I’m surprised more people haven’t done it, but it does take up a decent chunk of the week. I just happen to find that the pros considerably outweigh the cons.
8. I often come back during the day and check my grammar/spelling etc. All mistakes horrify and shame me. Apologies in advance for any that you might find in future.
9. Finally, some people ask what the name is all about. Well, Christmas is the best thing ever, so if this amazing experience is a mere blog, then where does that leave Christmas in the order of things? Lower down. Does that make sense?
If you have any other questions I’d be delighted to answer them in the comments section. If your inquisitiveness has been satiated, great. If you’re just passing 9:17 to 9:20 on Monday morning in as undemanding a manner as possible, thanks for stopping by.
I like the mix. A bit of ads. A bit of the other.
I’ll ask you one thing though, if you had your time again, would you still have got into advertising?
Uhhh… that’s quite a tricky philosophical question to answer. I think I’d have bet a lot of money on various sporting results and spent more time in a hammock.
Coincidentally I’m 110,000 words into a novel that answers this very question in a more substantial manner.
I enjoy your mix of ad and non-ad stuff too. Think it would be a shame if you stopped writing about advertising altogether. Mind you, I sometimes enjoy a bit of the mud-slinging too. Throwing your work to the wolves on here and seeing the responses is quite good fun.
And thanks for your blog, too.
How many years has it been, now?
Ben, you are the reason I don’t have blog about advertising. Thank you 🙂
Every Monday morning you are giving me a reason to turn on my office computer with the conviction that I actually have a goal for the day.
And the weeeeeeeeeekend part is my favorite, and favourite too
I love this blog, Ben.
The interesting thing about it for me though, is that it’s probably the best piece of advertising you’ll ever come up with. With Ben Kay as the product.
Obviously you’re a talented copywriter with a good body of work, but if you look at what this blog has done for your profile and career (you’re now a household name in advertising in London – and not just amongst students and juniors, CDs talk about the opinions on work found on here) I think it’s an incredibly astute thing to have started/maintained for all this time.
If you’re a creative and you want to get your name/work out there – there are ways to do it that don’t involve siting in your open-plan booth all day hoping for an idents brief that’ll propel you towards a Creative Circle commendation…
Don’t read the above as being a negative or snide comment in any way about Ben or the blog, it’s not intended in that way at all.
Glad you enjoy it. I genuinely didn’t put this post up to fish for appreciation, but if you want to write something nice I won’t come to your house with a machete and carve you right up (innit?).
That’s a very good point about the unintended positive effects of the blog. I have been offered really good jobs that certainly wouldn’t have been on the table had I not done it. And I’ve made lots of new friends and acquaintances. I had a lovely burger with Vinny Warren last year, something that would never have happened without the blog.
Everyone: write a blog. Or rub your pink pancakes up against your boss’s window. Whatever works.
i am a writer with saatchi&saatchi in New Delhi, and more often than not, i discover all the firsts in your blog. also the mix is great, and your pov.
also, ‘Let’s grow old together, you and I, whoever you are, even the monstrous perverts and those of you who read The Daily Mail.’ if this doesn’t make me stop reading dailymail, i don’t know what will.
I aim to please.
And destroy the Daily Mail.
Rikita
What’s the advertising culture like out there?
I’ve always been intrigued.
I love the Daily Mail. It gives all right-minded people something to rail against.
I also enjoy your blog Ben. As has been said already (but bears repeating) it’s the mix of subject matter that keeps it fresh.
Although for my money, there’s not enough shameless pro-Arsenal ranting.
I too, am a fan of your blog, as you well know. I really like the non advertising stuff that you have been introducing recently. Partly because it makes me stop and think, and that is something of a rarity these days, but also because age has tempered my rage and I just find the bile and vitriol thrown at the work you put up increasingly depressing.
You have, as has been pointed out by ORH, also stopped posting as much pro-Arsenal propaganda, shameless or otherwise, which suggests, perhaps, a lessening of faith in The Wenger…
@ ORH
Please don’t get him started.
*seven years*
Great, because this was actually a thinly-veiled attempt at getting a good Arsenal post going.
Maybe I’ll write a proper one soon, but in case you give a shit (and Adam, I miss our opportunities to chat through this kind of stuff. You were so polite at not ramming Man U’s success down my throat during these lean years) I’m very happy to support Arsenal and I still love Arsene. I think football is a million miles away from the thing I, Adam, Mr. G, Richard etc. first got interested in, creating so many more issues where there were none before.
In the 80s you might have had the odd column in inch in the back of a black-and-white newspaper every few days. Now you have a tidal wave of analysis of every single tiny aspect of every single area of the game. The boardroom struggles, the loan system, the selling of people who are willing or otherwise to go, the running down of contracts, the oligarchs, FFP etc…
But at the bottom of it all you just support your club. This has become clearest to me through the example of Chelsea. That team has the most hateable bunch of fist magnets running all the way through it. If they’re not racist, cheating, shooting people for fun, calling the FA a BUNCHOFTWATS or lying to cover each other, they’re parking in handicapped spaces, shagging their mates’ wives, pissing in pint glasses, kicking ball boys and getting dressed in their team’s strip (including shin pads!) even though they’re not playing just to grab a bit of undeserved glory. But at the end of the day, you make your deal to support your team and that’s that. Chelsea fans (they must be doing it with clothes pegs on their noses, as if handling a soiled nappy) will always support Chelsea, and I’ll support Arsenal through the utter misery of them playing in Europe every season, having some of the best players in the league, achieving what they achieve without a massive cash injection, having the best stadium in the country etc. But I’d still follow them if they were relegated to whatever the Beezer Homes League is called now.
It’s football. It makes no fucking sense, and that’s why I love it.
I love this blog and I don’t even work in advertising (although I used to) Terrific writing and always thought provoking. The comments are frequently hilarious too.
re. spam – is this blog created in wordpress? If so you need to get askimet spam filter plugin, we have it on our blog and don’t get any spam at all
It is in WordPress. How do I do what you’re suggesting (thanks for the kind words)?
Ta Ben, I just looked and it’ll be five years next month. Bloody hell. Where did that go?
Unfortunately you may convinced me to (again) resurrect my blog.
Apologies in advance.
Frankly CFC’s season has degenerated into such a pantomime that if someone told me the Pope has resigned so he can take over from the Spanish Waiter in May I wouldn’t be that surprised.
But however desperate and weird things at Stamford Bridge have become – it’s still better than being a Gooner.
Blog about anything you fancy Ben. I know how much you love Campaign. What say you about the ‘facelift’?
That is the very crux of football support. It makes no fucking sense at all. If you are not a believer it is impossible to explain without sounding like Ron Hubbard in a replica shirt. I would be really disappointed if I met a Chelsea supporter who had changed their allegiance based on the never-ending list of jaw-dropping cuntyness coming out of ‘The Bridge’.
Football has certainly changed a lot over the last 20 years or so. Is it worse? Possibly. Is it still able to surprise, thrill, enrage? Undoubtedly.
That RVP is good isn’t he?
Fuck off.
I mean, yes: I actually find it far more addictive and involving than I used to. It’s compelling in so many directions, none of which are right or wrong/good or bad. But I’m so glad I’m not a Chelsea fan. I’d have to wake up and punch myself in the face every morning.
And Mr. G, I consider that ‘facelift’ and the vomit-inducing ads that ran through its first incarnation, as well as the congratulatory letters last week to be a pisspoor rearrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic. It’s no less shit than it was a month ago.
“When I was an angrier, younger man…” hmm, the post about the new Campaign format suggests that at 1:57 today you were in touch with that version of yourself.
I wonder if the new editor is already enjoying the, err, spoils of the post.
“But at the end of the day, you make your deal to support your team and that’s that.”
I’ve been talking to my (6-year old) son about this recently. Last season he supported Man City, this year he supports Man Utd. I told him that you can’t do that, you have to pick a team and stick with them. But he said “Why should I? I’m supporting Wigan or Cardiff next year – it’s good to have a change.” Which got me wondering about the whole sense of tribalism and being in-it-for-life around football. Why shouldn’t people go on and off teams, like we do with bands, authors, restaurants, etc?
I’ve got a good friend who’s a Chelsea fan. He puts up with all the unabashed twatishness that spews out of Stamford Bridge by remembering that they were SO shit for SO long. He finds solace (understandably) in their recently-groaning trophy cabinet and ability to spunk £50million on a knackered toreador without seemingly blinking. While St Arsene may have bought us a few duff ‘uns in the last few seasons – Santos, Chamakh et al – at least they normally only cost £2.78 and a couple of buttons.
I hate Campaign. I think it’s incredibly lazy but arrogant with it.
Ant, that is a very good question. People do get tribal about those things but not nearly as much.
ORH: if Usmanov buys us and spunks cash everywhere will we be happier or disappointed at having to climb off the high horse? I think things will just carry on as normal.
I have a friend who is old school chelsea, she fucking loves chelsea and she fucking hates them. She hates them and JT and everything they have become but she’s chelsea, there’s nothing she can do about it so she has to support them.
They are cunts though.
@Ben (26): We’ll find something else to moan about – this is the lot of the football fan (plus, we like it). “Oooh, you know what? The gold plating on the bogs at the Emirates makes my skin itch…” Or something.
Very re-assuring all round Ben.
1. Your Campaign comment would suggest you still have a few fluid ounces of bile left.
2. Your feeling that things at The Emirates ‘will just carry on as normal’ comes as a huge relief to the club’s trophy polisher. Just for a second he feared he might have some work to do.
If anyone at Chelsea is cataloguing the cunts he must have broken his wrist by now.
Well there is that.