A brilliant article that exposes some grim truths
I could reprint the whole thing, but it’s already appeared in Campaign, so here’s a link to its reappearance on the Coy-Com blog.
Mark Denton wrote it as his ‘View From The Top’ ten days ago. It’s funny, perceptive and painfully true.
It’s also brave.
That’s because hardly anyone in UK advertising ever dares to even consider nibbling the hand that feeds them, let alone doing what Mark did, which was to hold up a mirror (albeit a funny, charming one) to an ugly side of the entire industry. Yes, it’s about production companies but its main thrust is the way agencies, and by extension clients, have been complicit in the degradation of what we do. For the last ten years little things like respect, politeness, fairness and decency have been gently shuffled off the table like so many irrelevant crumbs and this article points that out with a wit whose subtlety is somewhat out of character for its author (the sense of humour, however, is delightfully Dentonesque). It’s also clear to anyone with an IQ in double figures that those behavioural compromises are symptomatic of a far more debilitating disease; one that has done its best to send the quality of advertising sliding gently downwards for years.
Fortunately Mark’s words touched something of a nerve and have since been discussed by the APA and the IPA. He has also been besieged by supportive emails and phone calls from as far away as San francisco, Sydney and Thailand (suggesting this problem is international), along with complimentary shouts in the streets of London. Agency producers have rung up to apologise and, most heartening of all, the quality and quantity of biscuits laid on at meetings has increased immeasurably.
Wonderful. I hope it also leads to more substantial results that bring permanent changes to the ridiculousness of the pitching process (by the way, I’ve recently heard that Blink will no longer pitch for jobs. Further much-needed bravery…)
I found myself cheering Mark’s words louder than most because I have friends on the production company side of the UK ad industry. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve spent much of the last decade hearing their increasingly strong and reasonable complaints about how much more they are being asked to do and how much less they are being paid to do it.
Yes, the job is a ‘fun’ and ‘interesting’ one when compared to most alternatives.
Yes, it can be very lucrative.
Yes, it’s not digging ditches.
But the hoops production companies now have to jump through for an ever-shrinking share of an ever-shrinking pot are the inevitable consequence of an industry that is having the fun and money squeezed out of it at an alarming rate. I’ve written before about the sliding wages (here’s a post from almost exactly three years ago) but I don’t think I’ve mentioned the knock-on effects of that belt-tightening on the other parts of the business.
I think the money side of it and the way that affects the end product is one thing, but the constant ridiculous demands that agencies make on production companies? How did that happen? The number of treatments required at all stages of the pitch is a ridiculous drain on resources that would be far better applied elsewhere. They started off as one small addition then gradually took over to become the colossal norm, but as Mark says, it’s a Google Images/Flickr/Instagram contest, where some unfortunate work experience lady (I generalise, but not that far from the truth) is asked to trawl through pictures of chimps and helicopters on the off-chance her selection will beat another bunch of chimp and helicopter pictures. How did we cope in the past, when there were no treatments, when you could tell from seeing a director’s reel and having a chat with him/her that he or she would be able to do the job?
The abrogation of responsibility in this industry is amazing: people who used to be able to make a decision based on their brain’s interpretation of some useful information now require their hand to be held as some poor sod spoon feeds them every last eventuality of what might occur. And what does that do to the creative process? It fucks with the magic: button down everything and nothing can fly.
Then there’s the other point that I’ve mentioned so many times: the less fun and pleasurable this industry becomes the fewer bright people it will attract and the worse the work will become, making the whole thing even less attractive. If I were starting out in the 60s and I saw how enjoyable advertising looked and how rich it could make me, as well the extent to which it could be a stepping stone to even more glamorous industries, such as movies or literature, I’d be in here like a shot. But the more of those benefits we remove, the less tempting it all seems to the next generation and the faster the downward spiral.
As Jesse J so perceptively put it, these days it’s all about the money, money, money, and anything that gets in that way of that will soon die an ignominious death.
We used to work in an industry where this couldn’t even win a Cannes Grand Prix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zff9hVH3ptY
Now this wins five:
I rest the case I’ve been making since 2006.
I suppose the only bright side is if the best creative minds are drawn away from advertising it should be good for society.
But I imagine everyone who reads your blog will share your exasperation to some extent.
I certainly do.
Very good article by Mr. Denton and I completely agree with absolutely everything but, why will it change. Will clients stop asking for this stupid stuff, will the accounts team, the creative director, the creatives… I don’t think so. What we have last is bravery and not our brains. We all know that asking for this stuff is stupid but no one wants to say “no”. The production company doesn’t want to say anything negative (even thou the director has already lost interest and the researcher and the pa is rewriting his treatment by now) the agency doesn’t want to rock the boat with the client (how many times have I heard “we don’t want to loose this client so we need to do whatever it takes to keep them” from the agency producer). Who will grow a set of balls first? Or should I say, who is willing to loose money first? Oh and let’s not forget to have fun in the process of pissing people off by telling them that their request is completely asinine (and has been for the last 4 years).
I for one stopped caring. They want shit? Let them have it and drown in it.
Ha ha ha!
*sigh*
When it gets as bad as what has happened to the pop promo then you know it’s all over.
Fighting for the best work is often tiring and a waste of time, especially when a client is shown so much work during creative presentations that they pick the shit work that has no creativity at all!
This can all be put down to two words.
Account men.
If they sold work like they used to be forced to do then this shit would not trickle down. The client would buy the work without research. The client would agree to the agency recommended director etc etc. (I simplify for effect).
It’s all about balls and shit. Long lost balls.
We all say “this job would be great if it wasn’t for the clients” don’t we. Raises a giggle. But I see agencies *becoming* exactly the same as the clients – to the extent that clients going ‘agency-side’ in senior positions is seen as a good thing. Now, clients are just human beings; some are smart and funny, some are dumb and dull. But what drives them and their means of remuneration mean that they’re less inclined to try new things. And newness is the beating (or maybe stuttering) heart of advertising.
I too, Mr Steakandcheese, no longer give a shit. However to maintain pay and employment I pretend I do. The good thing about advertising people is they are easily fooled. Look at digital. Grow a beard, suddenly you’re a social media expert.
I find my creative outlet elsewhere and I laugh inwardly at the cretinous morons who think they’re good and important and outwardly when I get home and relate the hilarious antics of my colleagues to my incredulous girlfriend.
I hasten to add she’s not incredulous at the colossal size of my manservant. She’s got used to that hoving into view. At the antics.
British people are so delicate. Cutie pies – there was no “sandwich…not even a biscuit or tea” – how precious.
Come in my country where some clients stick a gun in your face. Once after watching the new TVC a client said: “Fuck, this looks so cheap! Why?” And my CD said: “Well, it looks like 20 000 Euro”. The client opened a safe behind his back, took a wad of cash and hit my CD in the head with it. “Do you need more?” – he asked.
Unfortunately what is going on here is coming to your direction so… man up! 🙂 We are nothing more than cheap whores 🙂
Nice one Mark. Since the agency doesn’t have the balls to tell their own client that their requests are bullocks, let’s get the production companies to do our dirty work for us. We would like to do it but the production company is refusing… Grow some balls yourself. Your client so manage it. Don’t pretend that you you care about how much work a production company has to do.
A client once asked me to put a page of reference images to show people looking happy but not smiling, but nearly smiling. Just so they could understand what kind of emotion we would be trying to get from the models.
I had to present this page of pictures of people nearly smiling to 12 clients for them to discuss before they would proceed with the shoot.
Although MD exaggerates to make his point, we all know that he’s very close to the truth.
If it helps, a friend in a German agency explained that they have ‘capped’ treatments to 3 pages of A4.
Makes the writing sharper, any references more focused and it levels the playing field. A bit.
But I was told last week that photographers are now being asked to writing treatments for stills shoots.
So – sadly – I think it’s likely to get worse before (or indeed ‘if’) it gets any better…..
I’ve just spent 6 weeks trying to say one thing in the ads by saying something completely different.
It has proved difficult.
In research people stubbornly insist on understanding the thing we are saying and not the thing we are not.
Why on earth wouldn’t you get a script approved by the client before getting production companies to pitch on it? That’s not just good practice – it’s common fucking sense. Yet it happens all the time.
Everyone gets squeezed
The client gets squeezed, we get squeezed, the production company gets squeezed, we all get squeezed. And it’s not just in advertising it’s in every industry, the supermarket gets squeezed by it’s competition, the farmer gets squeezed for the price his products, the cow gets squeezed (ithangyou), it’s a fact of life.
If you are in a new industry you can get away with it as there is inevitably a bit of time before people catch on to what you are doing and either understand the value of it or other people compete for it
Am not a suit but from what I’ve seen it’s the hardest job in advertising is to be a good account man. To be able to convince the client and to get the money out of them.
The ideas bit isn’t the hardest bit, someone was on here a couple of weeks ago saying on most briefs there is a great idea but being able to sell it to the client is the really tricky bit and getting them to make it for a decent amount and for them to be able to secure that budget from their boss, that is fucking hard.
A really good account man can make the difference between a great agency and a shit one
Conversely it’s really easy to be a shit account man and there are proportionally more cunts in that department than any other in agencies.
Blink? What do you mean they dont pitch on jobs, thats gotta be bullshit.
Having just spent the best part of 4 hours sitting through a pre-prod that highlighted all the maladies Mark described I’m not sure if I should laugh, cry or quit.
I used to love my job but now I just think it’s better than working in a call centre.
Blink won’t pitch on any job that 3 directors are already treating on. That’s true.
I like the word ‘abrogation’.
@George
It’s getting the approval of *all* the clients that’s the tricky bit.
That senior bloke who they only get to see once in a very blue moon yet who still has the power of veto? Him.
I’ve often felt, when working on pitches that agencies would be much better off working much less hard on each pitch and pitching a lot more. You may lose a larger proportion of pitches but you’ll end up winning the same total mount of business. Get rid of clients who don’t want what you do, get some more in, see how that works out and so on… Just depressurise the whole thing. I am sure it would work.
I’d like someone to tell me why I am wrong if I am.
well put.
Hi Mr Gash, actually ALL of the references are true (except the tiger). My other two career choices after school were hairdressing and panel beating & spraying. I often wonder what might have been.
I tell my clients that I don’t do storyboards. I explain the script and how we’re going to shoot it, but I don’t wanna be hamstrung by a storyboard in case a piece of magic happens unexpectedly. Don’t give them ammo to come back and say, “But that wasn’t in the storyboard.” I guess I’m lucky to have had clients that trusted me to do good work based on my past work.
Worked at Fallon in the good times… Thats exactly how they did it.
Hey Mark.
You’d have been good as a crimper. There’s still some life in that game (although watch out for the new wave of Blow Dry bars…).
But panel beater & sprayer? They just take the old one off and stick a new one on these days don’t they? Dead end career.
I’d like to think that your excellent piece might have chimed with enough people to effect change. But I fear it won’t. Agencies might plead their case and say ‘but we pitch for business too. It costs us money as well’. The key difference being that they are pitching for an account that has a revenue stream over time – not a stand alone project.
And you should have asked me about the tiger – we got that gig!
Not that I’m aware of, but then if it ran in Ireland it might not have been eligible for the big UK awards.
Cannes, maybe, but I don’t know how you’d find out.
Thanks for posting. I can see how it would have really good Ireland going in 1981.
Re: Mr Gash @14
Unfortunately not only are we expected to treat on photography, but now also on graphic design – so let’s see, how to put a graphic visual into words….what’s the point of that??
To Mr Gash re your comment about how agencies are pitching for retained business, whereas prodcos are pitching for a project. Unfortunately, agencies are now increasingly in the same boat. A lot of retainers are being turned into a ‘series of projects’…
Hi Mr Gash……panel beating & spraying? That option was inspired by many hours spent pawing over copies of Hot Car and Custom Car magazines and dreaming of flared arches and Metalflake.
Pitching, now that’s another matter all together.
I genuinely don’t know who I’m writing the treatments for half the time (I’m actually one of the increasingly rare directors who write their own treatments).
Do they really reflect the quality of the finished commercial? Not from where I’m standing.
I’ve never seen a finished ad that I’ve lost in a pitch that’s better than I would have done it (I would say that wouldn’t I).
I can only assume that jobs are being awarded for the best treatments otherwise why ask for them in the first place?
As a creative I gave big commercials to Vaughn and Anthea and Malcolm Venville before they’d even shot an ad…..whatever happened to creative judgement?
I even won a pencil with a first time director Simon Fellows.
….given that, has anyone out there got a script they want me to pitch on?
I’m used to a treatment being two sides of A4, with maybe a couple of photos or bit of film reference if appropriate – more importantly, a good couple of conversations with a director and understanding that we’re shooting for the same thing, and agreement on the best way to achieve it.
It was a massive shock to me last year when a couple of production companies came back to us with these bound document 30-page treatments, designed like a bloody magazine. Not what I was expecting, and we hadn’t asked for it. I guess that’s just what the production companies have become used to doing for people?
That was my first realisation that things had changed. For me it comes down to courage of your convictions. Agencies need to have the courage to sell in the right director, don’t they? Without all of the hoop-jumping. And I agree with the person who said it’s hard for one or two production companies to take a stand, as there is always someone out there willing to drop their trousers.
It’s the same for us, we tell clients when they come in for creds that we don’t free pitch, and that we are expensive. It’s hard, as we know that there are a hundred and one companies out there willing to do whatever trouser-dropping it takes to get the client. I’ve heard stories of agencies giving potential clients their creds on a top-spec iPad “to keep hold of”. I’m not getting drawn into that kind of bullshit.
Maybe all that we can do, is for companies who want to work with integrity and confidence to huddle together for warmth, and make sure we work with each other. My feeling is that those companies will be the better ones anyway. Maybe over time clients will realise that to work with the better people, they have to work in more respectful way. But then again, maybe most don’t give a shit?
To look through these comments is to read a litany of repetition, bad spelling and poor punctuation. Maybe clients ask for all this reassurance because their initial impression of the creatives they’re talking to is that they’re a bunch of thickos.
I laughed hard upon reading your last two sentences. Then I got sad.
RE: Sell Sell
The sad fact is that they don’t give a shit. The thirty-ish marketing directors of the client haven’t seen anything, read anything, experienced anything. Ask them if they’ve seen “Casablanca” and they give you a blank stare. They’ve never seen “Surfer” and wouldn’t get it if they did. Mediocrity is the new genius and utter crap is the new normal. Sad to say, but that iPad scam probably works. But it’s not just advertising. The entire culture has been dumbed down. Pity.
It’s awful stuff but I’ve been floundering in crappy agencies from back when times were good. I am glad you’ve all sunk to my level now. Makes me feel a lot better about myself.
As someone with no reference of the ‘good times’ but who is part of the next generation of people in the industry…
Anyone fancy offering their two cents on what/ if us young-un’s can do to get things back to where they were?
Be the best creative the world has ever seen then refuse to operate under any conditions other than the most decent.
@39:
Your first option is what Ben said.
Should you fail being the reincarnation of Bernbach, please your CD. Even if the work that ends coming out is shit due to the client. If he appreciates your work, he’ll keep you on long enough for you to find something else.
The ability to judge an idea requires the same talent that it takes to come up with the idea in the first place. I think it was John Cleese who said that. We are surrounded by people who ‘know it when they see it’. And I’m not just talking clients here, it’s also quite a lot of creative directors. So a creative’s job is to bring an idea to life, so that it can be appreciated by people who have no imagination. And the easiest way to do that is to find references (it’s even easier to get a director to do it for you). It also means that it’s easier to sell in something that is ‘like’ something else. Which means that advertising is less cutting edge (was it ever) or interesting. Which means that fewer imaginative people are inclined to want to do it. And so it goes on. Chin up.
@ Luke
‘Gerry Lopez – he’s as good as they say is he”
“So are we. So are we”
I doubt that John Milius pitched the movie with a treatment that would have been enough to win him a 30 second spot in 2013…
@33
Most directors write their own treatments, of the 30 ish directors i know well enough to pass comment on, all bar one (Noam) write their own treatments.
You’re special, but not that unique.
Hi 44, because I personally know two treatment writers I’m aware of some very well known directors who use their services. One for instance secured a three commercial campaign without speaking to the team or for that fact reading the scripts (he was away on a foreign shoot).
buy me a cup of tea Tony and I’ll fill you in on an area where you’re obviously a bit behind the curve.
There is dark and bright both sights in Advertising too. but i found your article a unique and informative piece.
Yes indeed this blight is the world over. It is all about the ‘Golden Rule’ – he who has the gold makes the rules. In the seventies and eighties advertising was about intelligent people making creative intelligent calls based on their gut feel as to what (intelligently) will work for their clients. Now it is about research companies putting the fear of God into their clients ears (like Wormtongue!)frightening them into spending at least a third of the available production budget just to check whether a concept will work. I pitched the other day on a commercial that had a ‘photomatic’ which basically was the ad in stills with voices, and I was told there was no creative latitude, and what they want ed was the pictures to move! This process had had a pre-production meeting discussing cast wardrobe, performance, lighting, locations, framing, lensing and everything else one would expect from the actual pre-production meeting prior to the shoot. It must have cost a fortune, and, yes, the production budget was reduced by that amount. This is what we have come to!!! Marketers being trained in their various schools of marketing (often from the school of Unilever!) to distrust the advertising process, and to pre-test, post-test, and spend their money on everything except the creative process. In the same brief, I was told of a group of six ads for another client that had so much research done, that the resulting budget could only then make three ads. Why not make all six, and maybe two wouldn’t work so well, but the other four would undoubtedly be fresh, with an original creative idea, and would increase their profits. And that is how it used to be done – based on intelligent creative thinking.
JPX