It strikes me that there are some things that are always assumed to be good or bad, whether or not that is actually the case.

Take, for instance, shoots abroad: jetting off to some other part of the world at someone else’s expense to sit around on a set or location then eat and drink in the most expensive restaurant you can find, also on someone else’s dollar.

Of course, that is often a pleasant experience, but it can be rendered shitemongous by a wide variety of factors: are you leaving your young kids/hot significant other behind (I know that can also be a plus point for some people)? Have you already been to said location on many occasions, thus exhausting its novelty value? Will you have to babysit an arsehole client or spend time with a hated account director? Is the ad likely to be rubbish, therefore ending up as a month-long waste of career time? Is said location (eg. Prague) fine for a day or two but pretty dull any longer than that? Is the location amazing in theory but quite grim in reality (Yes, Havana, I’m talking about you)?

Equally, choosing and meeting directors is fun if they are any good, but if not, trawling through Wankbucket Productions and Spaz Films is a strange kind of hell. You’ll be talking to them because Frank/Chris/Fredrik etc. didn’t want to know, and now you’re at some production company you’ve never heard of, talking to a director whose self-confidence is in inverse proportion to his talent. And you all have to pretend the ad you’re making isn’t a load of old plop, otherwise you’d shoot yourselves in a mercy-killing-cum-suicide-pact.

Then there’s the other side of the coin; the things that seem shit but aren’t (necessarily): for example, working on the worst account in the agency. Of course, this can often be awful, but before Cog, Grrr and Impossible Dream, Honda was one of the worst accounts in UK advertising. The work was dreadful and I can’t imagine people were to enthusiastic about trying to change that. But bad accounts are good for the same reason that good ones aren’t: do a good Nike ad and it’s just another good Nike ad, but turn Tesco, Honda or Philips around and you’ve really done something great. But you can only do that it you get the ‘shit’ brief on your desk.

What else are we supposed to like that’s actually dog mess? Award dos (surprisingly dull if you’ve been to a few. Especially if you’re neither on the pull or up for an award); Photo shoots (fucking boring unless you are very much that way inclined); agency occasions with free booze (wine always shit, beer always warm); being mentioned in Campaign (less prestigious than being mentioned in Razzle); D&AD entries if you’ve already had at least ten (they redefine ‘meaningless’).

But then there are things that are supposed to be shit that aren’t: meeting clients (if they’re good or interesting it can be a real pleasure/education); account people (some of them – particularly the younger ones – are quite pleasant company; getting fired (see if the grass really is greener elsewhere. It often is); working the weekend (great if you’re a freelancer) and your friends joining the ‘best agency in town’ (you might be jealous at first, but most people I know who work at ‘TBAIT’ fucking hate it there, wherever it may be).

I’m not saying that all the shit things are great and vice versa; just that poo can be disguised as a rainbow and vice versa.

Ah. Okay then, something about this article left a pooish taste in my mouth. Not just about Bogusky, but about our place in the greater world as advertisers. I suppose from time to time, in our quiet moments, we all scour our conscience and find fault with what we do. Unlike most of us Alex has the luxury of being able to do something about it – Excellent. No fault there, questioning and then acting on our culpability in shit is healthy if often deeply cathartic excecise. Keeps the demons at bay. Keeps us humble. Allows for a bit of sleep at night. But there is something arrogant in the way this one blatantly bites the hand that has fed him, worshiped him and made him a wealthy man. To be fair, I suppose it is good what he is doing: walking away, using his talent to a better end. There is nobility in walking away. But there is a righteousness with the way he goes about it, as though we should all do it, as though its a luxury we all can or should afford. In his own way he’s saying “I’m better than this”, and “I’m better than you”. Maybe he is. Hes certainly better at advertising than me, but does he really have to be a better person than me too?

In the end, Good for him for walking away, but I can’t help but to think he still wants us to see him do the walking. Like he’s doing it because he knows we’re still looking. Like he wants to at any moment turn, look over his shoulder and see us watching him, adoringly. Its still all about him. At least thats what I get from the article.

And i haven’t even gotten into the hypocrisy of how he wants to do good for the world but treats those he worked with like turds. Wow. sorry that just came out like a wave.

Thanks for that.

For what it’s worth, I finally read the article this morning and it made me wonder what’s going on inside Alex’s head; not with regards to this particular part of his career but rather what it tells us about his fundamental personality. I think he has a real need to have us (as my friend says above) see what he’s doing, and to be admired for it.

What drives that in him (what drives it in anyone?)? What’s the bit that’s missing that he feels the need to fill?

For further interest, check out his own line-by-line response to the article. Many of the responses are fascinating little windows into a sadly defensive personality, but what seemed most telling to me is that Alex only took issue with the negative things. Apparently the only thing the journalist got wrong were the suggestions that might leave us with a tarnished impression of Mr. B.

And the saddest thing about all of it? The fear with which people spoke of him, too scared to be named for fear of career reprisals.

But maybe we should stop fumbling at the contents of his mind like a freshman with a panty girdle.

Perhaps the whole matter is best left with a pensive ‘hmm…’

I’m on holiday, so I haven’t read this yet, but thanks, P.

(Thanks, P.)

If you work for a top 30 agency, I’ll bet you a fucking ton of cash that there’s someone pretty high up in your creative department who has never done a single piece of advertising work that you have either heard of or respect.

It might be a talentless chap or chapess who blagged his way into CD-ing a digital agency when they were desperate for anyone half decent (although as I understand it, for the most part ,that is still very much the case) and then kept that role when your agency bought their place. Now he’s a CD of Top 30 Place Who Were Gagging For Some Digi Creds, despite being fairly shit at the C part of CD.

It might be a happy, smiley fella who has popped over from some shop in the States where he was Head of Experiential Communications. Now, having designed a shop front for Wankado and Son that won a Silver Andy and a Copper Mobius award, he’s pretty hot shit. Even hotter shit is his headhunter, who has managed to convince Top 30 Place Who Want To Look Like They Are Forward Thinking/Cool that they need this guy.

It might be a useless cunt who has never done a good ad in his or her life but is really darn good with the clients and has worked out exactly which anuses to lick at Top 30 Agency Who Couldn’t Really Give A Fuck About Whether Or Not Their Ads Are 9/10 Or 6/10, and now here he is: boss of a bunch of people who are far better creatives than he.

In the three categories above there are many, many people who are now climbing to the top of the creative depts of big agencies. Good God, I’d love to name names, but that’s the great thing about this: I don’t have to. We all know about the American ‘designer’ who became a CD on a big account at a big agency before being found out and moving on to a few more agencies where the same process happened. Every one of us has encountered a some nimrod who can spout the right digital buzzwords in the right ears to cover up the fact that he’s done no good ads. And we’ve all been down the pub when our friend from another agency explains in stunned disbelief how their cracking idea has been blown out by a retard who’s never even heard of John Webster.

But the real question about this is why? Aside from the reasons I have suggested above, this phenomenon is both a symptom and a cause of the general Fucking Of Creativity that is undeniably going on right across the world: creativity itself is less important, so promoting client-friendly uncreative people is the current move for an MD to make. Equally, the more these berks maintain client retention while simultaneously producing creative work that no one really cares about, the longer they will keep their jobs and the harder creativity gets fucked.

The title of this post will be familiar to anyone who had worked in a proper creative department (by that I mean one staffed mainly by people who have been regulars in The Book). Whenever anyone got too big for their boots or received an undeserved promotion the rest of the department would ask, ‘But what’s he done?’ That was because everyone rose and fell on the back of one thing: their work. The ads they made. The shiny baubles they won for those ads being appreciated by their peers in award schemes that held more sway than the current batch.

Now, if you have three Pencils, they could be for Digital Crafts Cinematography, Writing for Design and Live Action Special Effects. Now, that doesn’t mean your three ads are shit, but it does mean that your award shelf looks the same as the guy down the hall who has won best 60″ TV ad three years running.

So what does it matter? It doesn’t, and everyone knows it. That’s why dildos are getting hired all over the place.

Is there an answer?

Well, you can choose to play the game and make sure you know how to make the people that matter like you.

Or you can accept that’s not why you got into the business, try to make the best ads you can and hope that works for you instead.

It might be a matter of how good you are. Obviously, route one is a brilliant development for people who know how to smile and press flesh but are shit at the somewhat trickier business of creating brilliant advertising. Route two only works for people who really love what they do and are prepared to sacrifice the most secure route to a payrise for a Bronze at Creative Circle.

Route three is being good at both. Fucking difficult but worth a try.

Good luck.

And some advice for writing.

And some other words of advice.

And some more: double dipping and the five-second rule

(Thanks to B for both.)

Inception characters don’t understand Inception.

(Thanks, K.)

XX and Snoop.

There is an ad agency in London that has won D&AD pencils in each of the last six years, including a Gold.

It doesn’t pitch unless it can do great work for the client.

It doesn’t have solid creative teams.

It wins awards in print and TV.

It doesn’t appear to give the first fuck about the Gunn report.

Its biggest client produces many things that you have enjoyed over the past 30ish years.

Any ideas?

and what about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r725j0GiZJM

(Not sure why those links aren’t working. Will try to fix.)

And these:

Then there’s the Lost trailer shot by David LaChapelle, ‘ENDSFRI’, the Jamie Oliver trails, the cockle pickers poster, Iraq: The Bloody Circus, The entire More 4 launch, the Shameless posters etc. etc.

On the one side this confirms my assertion that if you want to win awards, get a TV station or a newspaper for a client. They have products that people are already interested in, so half your job is done. On the other side, I think 4 Creative make what they do look much easier than it is. The work is genuinely fucking good and I don’t see that kind of quality coming from the agencies of any other TV stations, especially not so consistently over such a long period of time.

Hats off.

The following is a piece I wrote for my friend Will Humphrey’s blog, Adgrads (If you click on the link you can see quite a large picture of me, you lucky fucking bastards):

Ten things about advertising that you might not know:

1. Planners are currently in the ascendancy. For various reasons, the creative product isn’t nearly as important as the work that goes on behind the scenes. Sometimes this work is specifically aimed at improving the creative product but more often than not it is arse-covering, unnecessary bullshit. But these days people are very fond of arse-covering unnecessary bullshit because…
2. People make most decisions out of fear. People want to remain in their jobs so that they can feed their kids and pay their mortgages and that means they do not necessarily want to do things that might lose them their jobs. Unfortunately this means that decisions tend towards the middle ground where perceived safety is at its strongest. Marketing managers approve ads that won’t get them fired; account handlers sell ads that are less likely to require expensive, time-consuming persuasion; planners will create strategies with the scared marketing managers that will sound like every other strategy going around town; creatives might write exciting ads but they won’t argue that hard for them. Result: vanilla flavoured blancmange with a glass of skimmed milk on the side.
3. Martin Sorrell is as good at predicting the future as Stephen Hawing is at the flying trapeze. However, when he speaks, most of the business world listens and the newspapers report what he says as if it’s a pronouncement of the truth. It’s laughable. And pathetic.
4. You might well meet your other half in the industry. Advertising is full of bright, ambitious, somewhat appealing people, and people who like the company of bright, ambitious, somewhat appealing people. If this looks likely, go with it. Forget all that stuff about not shitting on your own doorstep or whatever the proverb is. Get in there.
5. There’s a famous film saying from William Goldman (if you don’t know who he is, be ashamed and look him up): nobody knows anything. The same applies to advertising. When you join the industry people will talk as if they are very certain that their opinion is 100% correct. When you leave the industry you will do so stunned at the number of times those people (almost certainly yourself included) were wrong. There is nothing you can do about this except weep.
6. It’s going to take a metaphorical earthquake for the British public to like the people who work in advertising. The perception of slick chancers corralling people into buying things they don’t need with money they don’t have is one that is here to stay. If you want to be loved, become a nurse.
7. Advertising has very little absolute effect. By this I mean that it has been proven that advertising will not make you buy something you would never otherwise buy. Instead it makes you switch brands. This means your job will effectively be as cheerleader for the brand you are advertising. You should either try not to care about this or make sure you want the companies whose products you advertise to succeed.
8. People in advertising take cocaine. People in all sorts of businesses take cocaine but the fear of point 2 can be tempered (some believe) by sniffing white powder up their noses. Unfortunately it’s just papering over the cracks in their empty lives (just kidding!).
9. You might well travel the world, meet famous people, see things for which you are somewhat responsible on billboards and TVs (and computers – whoopee fucking doo!). This will give you a fizzy little thrill in your tummy and make mummy and daddy very proud. Whether or not they work out what the fuck it is you actually do all day is another matter (they never will).
10. Do things for love before you do them for money. This is a truth about life that’s easy to forget. If you forget it you will end up having a miserable ten hours a day that you hate, then you think that the fun you have with the money you earn will make up for it. You will be wrong.

I dunno, it’s just so bloody meaningless.

Fruit loves this sticky, sugary drink that is vaguely fruity?

I don’t want to be the logic police, but I have no idea why fruit would love a fruit-based drink. Surely it would hate it. It’s like showing a picture of a human who ‘loves’ a drink made of pureed human.

And that fucking picture of the smiling fruit. A visual like this might be quite nice if it managed to capture a normal piece of fruit that had been shot at a certain angle to make it look happy, but this is just fruit with a smile cut into the peel.

And even if fruit does like This Water, why should that interest me, or persuade me that it’s worth trying?

I know…I know…I’m just being a pedantic wanker, but nothing about this poster makes even the slightest bit of sense or contains even a single appealing element.

Just another ad that treats passers-by like retards. Thanks for that.

Meanwhile, this is fun.