…In about as tiny and pathetic a way as possible (it’s the last thing mentioned in this list, and they’ve shortened the URL so the ITIABTWC name doesn’t get an airing), but I’m delighted that the guide section of a national paper has seen fit to dedicate an area the size of an anorexic postage stamp to my ramblings:

If anyone’s interested, it had no effect on my visitor numbers whatsoever.

As Hirsute Gentleman says, you want to hate him, but there is an annoying amount of sense being spoken.

Seen one like it before, but still impressive.

Amazing pictures of people made up as paintings from this site (Thanks, D):

And this looks fun:

There was a very good comment on yesterday’s post that questioned why advertising agencies overcomplicate the process so much when it could be so easy.

I’m sure Boobs (the commenter) is already aware of this, but it’s all down to the different motives of the people involved.

On the surface, we all want to make good ads that sell the products or services of our clients. However, under the surface are the other motives.

I’ll gloss over the fact that many creatives just want to win awards (I think I’ve written about that before), and, I assume, many planners want to do the same (by the way, how did planners get ownership of an ad’s effectiveness? So they write those papers that you have to submit to effectiveness awards, but surely the actual effectiveness itself is down to a number of other factors) and mention instead the overall motivation for much that is shitty on Planet Earth: money.

The advertising process is complicated because the more complicated a process gets, the more people have to be involved and the more people who are involved, the more an agency can charge for all those people. This is the reason why traditional ad agencies want to be responsible for digital/design/DM and everything else that used to be done by specialists: there’s a big old pie out there, and the people in charge want every fucking slice they can get their hands on.

If you asked most non-creatives (and probably quite a few creatives) what they want out of their day’s work, the answer would be ‘money’. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. Money’s nice and nice things cost money. But then it begs the question: why advertising? There are surely better, more enjoyable ways to make more cash for less work than the creation of ads. Even the skill-sets involved in being client friendly (account management) or doing research (planning) must be useable in a host of more lucrative industries.

I wrote recently how I believed that the residual reputations of an agency can attract people to work there, even if the fuel behind that name burnt out long ago. I think it might be the same with the whole industry. Many people think that advertising is bad at branding itself, but I think that the image of a Porsche-driving fat-cat pulling up to the Ivy for lunch with the famous star of their new campaign is one that still lives on for many people.

Advertising seems like an office job with more glamour than most, so it sometimes attracts the kind of people who want money, but also the kind of people who want to bask in the perceived trimmings. But there’s a strong chance those perceived trimmings do not include ‘the making of great ads’ so much as looking like your life is more fun that that of your chums who earn more than you in The City.

You may have entered this industry with more ‘noble’ intentions, but you’re almost certainly spending your days with people who didn’t.

Monday’s post seemed to loosen up a certain amount of anti-planner vitriol:

‘Planners are a waste of bastard space. Everyone says “Yeah, but the good ones are worth their weight in gold”. Bollocks to that, I’ve yet to meet one. I’ve had the repeated misfortune of working with ones who worth less than their weight in shit.’

‘Re: planners. 99% of commenters seem to agree: they’re a waste of space. So why are clients hoodwinked by their bullshittery?’

‘They take a huge piss into clear running water and make it dun and opaque.’

So I thought the issue was worth an entire post to itself.

I should just say that I have worked with/known some very good ones, such as Jeff, Justin, Jonathan and Will. These guys have offered perceptive briefs with simple propositions, and are good for a chat, too.

However, many of the rest have veered far too close to the dictionary definition of ‘patronising cunt’ for my liking, and all too often their little houses of cards seem to collapse under the merest of scrutiny.

Three examples:

I was briefed by a very senior planner who went on for a while about the brief. He appeared to have spent ages getting it exactly right and was, of course, very confident and supercilious. At the end I asked him, ‘Does the proposition mean X, or Y?’ His response? ‘It’s up to you?’ I then said that surely his research suggested that one was better than the other. ‘Not really,’ he replied. Then and there, I thought that the whole process was bullshit. Someone spends months thinking something through with a client and then ‘distills’ it to an entire page of A4, and yet I can make al choice about its fundamental meaning at my own discretion? (Sorry if the example is a little unclear but rest assured, I was being told that I could alter the entire essence of the brief one way or another with no research or client agreement.) What was the point of the brief?

A planner briefed me, my partner and a junior team on a big project. The brief was very good, with a clear, simple proposition that could lead to some excellent work. We did two days on it and the planner surprised us by coming in with a completely new proposition that none of the four of us creatives could understand. I mean we literally had no idea what the new proposition meant. The planner did, of course, sigh as if we were all quite thick and it was therefore a bit of a chore having to deal with us. Then I told him to fuck off so we could work on the original proposition.

Finally, there was a brief I worked on that smelled of weak bullshit. The problem when you work to such a brief is that your ads don’t stand up at all, and it’s hard to work out whether or not they are right. I went to talk to the (very senior) planner who, after an hour of prodding admitted the brief was rubbish, but it was all he could come up with, so that was what we were going to work to, bullshit or not.

There have also been many comments on other posts lamenting the primacy planners now seem to have in agencies. They get to decide, often above the CD, whether an ad is good enough to leave the building. I imagine that this is a symptom of the uber-primacy of the client: if he has approved the brief then the ad had better stick to it like glue, so the planner becomes his representative in the agency. Management do not want to piss off clients, so no one gets to go against planners.

There may be odd/wrong/dumb briefs with any number of propostions in the proposition, but I find the problem with many planners is the attitude. I have a theory that because planners have done all the research, they consider themselves to be complete experts on the client/product. This then leads to a tone of condescension when they deliver the brief. It’s never that they’ve explained it wrong; oh no. You, the creative, have been too stupid to understand.

For example, I once had a chat with a planner where I asked an (I thought) innocent question based on something I had heard him say: ‘why do you think all planners should have a blog?’

His reply began with the words that epitomise the fucking annoying attitude of so many of his profession: ‘Please don’t misunderstand me…’

When did I misunderstand him? There was no problem of communication, but if there had been, why should it have been a misunderstanding on my part?

Twat.

Then again, as one of the last of Monday’s commenters said:

‘I accept that there are planners out there who sit around word bending and being useless, but if that’s their remit then that’s the agency’s fault. The bunch I worked with until recently were brilliant.’

I hope that’s right, and I hope that’s the direction we’re going in.

Unfortunately, I have my doubts.

This:

Is a spoof of this:

A couple of things I don’t get…

The Lynx ad is a few years old. Odd to spoof an ad that long after it airs.

How famous is the original? It was good, but I don’t remember it crossing over into bigtime public fame.

What’s with all the new ‘jokes’ (shopping bags etc.). Don’t they just dilute the spoof?

Maybe they thought the ad would just work on its own terms, without reference to the original. But if that’s the case, why bother spoofing at all?

I think the girls are better in the new one, though.

And it’s well shot.

And I’m sure the public won’t give a toss about the above points.

One of the more interesting aspects of working in advertising is the frequent contact you have with other people who do the different jobs that make the industry go round.

And how often do those jobs seem less stressful and more appealing than your own?

I’ve regularly found myself in an edit or sound session wishing I was the guy at the desk. You can still pursue excellence but you don’t have to originate the project yourself and the working environment seems cosy and pleasant.

And what about the director? That job appeals to me much less. Again, you don’t have to originate the ad, but overall it looks like a bit of a bugger and the treatment process seems to require such an annoying and large degree of supplication that I’d want to shoot myself on a daily basis. I mean, going cap in hand to Mike and Rich from some wankhole agency in Shoreditch for the chance to shoot some FMCG shitpile? No, ta.

And while we’re on the subject of jobs I encounter but would not want to do, account management and planning can fuck right off too. Particularly the first one. I’d rather eat fibre glass candy floss than clean a client’s alimentary canal with my tongue then get shouted at by Mike and Rich for failing to sell in their choice of director.

Client? Yes, the bit I see looks like fun, but I’d imagine there are many other aspects of the job that would make me want to commit suicide, including working in Slough.

But with the five minutes’ thought I’ve given this quandary, I think I’d like the job of the guy at The Mill or MPC who shows you to your grading suite. He always seems so happy, whoever he is. Either they pump him full of incredible Class As or he genuinely likes meeting, greeting and shifting bookings around.

Any jobs in your sphere that you envy?

UPDATE: my wife tells me that these people who meet and greet at posthouses are actually the job’s producers, so they do loads of other maths and shit. I’m still tempted though.

The wit and wisdom of Andrei Arshavin.

(Via the most excellent Arseblog.)

Results an be found here.

I’m not really sure what to say about those.

Um…

There are a few good ads there.

And a shitload of bad ones.

But then, who am I to talk?

I didn’t even make a TV ad last year.

Rather than single anything out for praise or damnation, I think I’ll just look at the list and feel neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed, just whelmed.

(By the way, if you wish to comment, I’m going to err on the side of positivity. I’ll enjoy reading gratuitous kickings and ventings of spleen, but I may well not put them up.)

I thought the other day that we could all probably learn a lot by getting the client’s perspective on what we do.

For better or worse, the only client I know is Dave Knockles of the ‘I am the client’ blog.

Here are his unfiltered words of wisdom:

Ben,

Finally had a chance to sit down and apply some serious diamond-standard thinking to the questions you kindly sent. (I say kindly – who else would you send them to? Ha ha! Jesus, I’m funny.) I hope this is what you were after. If it isn’t, go bang yourself.

I admire how much you accomplish in a day. A mighty breakfast, delegation, shit, agency meeting, wank, snooze, lunch, snooze, delegation, wank, shit, tea, shit, supper, dinner, Delilaz, awkward maternal sanitation moment, shit, wank, bed seems all in a day’s work for a powerhouse like yourself. Does that take a lot of organisation?

Organisation is over-rated, Ben. Organisation is motivation’s sickly cousin. Motivation, energy, passion, desire – these are the things that enable me to live as full a life as I do. Also, an over-the-counter cure-all my mother picks up on her trips to the States which is, I believe, derived from something called ‘amphetamines’.

What do you look for in an ad, apart from a cracking pair of bristolas?

Product name in the headline. Logo you can’t obscure with a fist. The approval of my mother (she’s nearly target audience).

If an agency told you that an ad you had approved had won a Cannes Lion, what would you think?

I just googled ‘Cannes Lion’. There is simply no way I would approve an ad that would win one. Why? Because my ads are fucking better. For a start, they have bristolas. So if my agency said they’d won one, I’d assume they’d changed one of my ads AFTER I approved it, which would make me fucking angry because that would suggest they think they know better than me, which they fucking don’t, so I don’t know where all this Lion shit is coming from, because I’m not just some fucking mug who pays the fucking bills, and yet they think they can change MY ads and enter them into some wankfest and take the fucking credit, those cheeky fuckers – I’m calling those pricks RIGHT NOW. HOW FUCKING DARE THEY change my ads! Those are my ads! And there they are, fucking running off and making me look like an a-hole? Those little shit-pipe fuck-beaks, I’ll drop them like a fucking stone! I’m glad you raised this, Ben, because heads need to fucking roll over this one. Jesus fucking Christ.

Of course, you, as a species, are regularly maligned by creatives as being the most stupid, tasteless, spineless, shitbrained bunch of cunts on earth. Do you think this is a symptom of the inevitable frictions that occur in a situation with diametrically opposed points of view, or would you concede to a degree or two of cuntishness?

I think I know what you’re getting at here, Ben. Creatives will always react badly when someone from outside their community comes in and shows them how it’s done. (In fact, nobody likes it when I do their job better than them – plumbers, mechanics, chefs, artists, lapdancers. The list goes on.) Any friction that occurs stems from the inadequacy they feel when I blow their cocks (and tits) off with another great concept. I’ve learned to accept it.

The craft of typography can obviously make or break and ad. What’s your opinion on kerning, leading and weighting?

Ha ha! Nice trick question, Ben! Leading and weighting are clearly fishing terms, and kerning you made up. You have to get out of bed early to put one over on DK!

Typography, though, is one of my passions. I have a large collection of brush typefaces and Brush Script is a perennial favourite, a timeless classic. Also, it’s on my PC, so I can use it when I put ads together in Microsoft Paint.

Have you ever broken a loo just by sitting on it?

No, they always break when I jump on them. Or bang hookers on them. Which I don’t do.

Why are there often so many layers of clients? One can approve it only to have his boss bin it the next day.

What agencies need to understand is that every ascending client has a corresponding level of expertise to add to the work. It might seem to you scribblers that with every round of approvals we’re just slowly fucking your ads up the clacker inch by agonising inch, but we’re actually helping you to improve them.

Do think the idea is more important than the execution, or vice versa?

A great idea needs very little in the way of execution. And, of course, the very best idea is the bristola of a woman.

What’s your opinion on female creatives?

I think there are some at my agency. Bit of fucking lipstick wouldn’t hurt, would it?

If you were to address the IPA, what would the topic be?

Er..I’m not sure I’d have anything to tell the Insolvency Practitioners Association.

What is your favourite swear word?

Cuntspanner. Or rimshot. Or portion.

If you were making a TV ad and the CD told you that Jonathan and Frank were interested, what would you say?

Ross and Butcher? Edwards and Bruno? Who? Anyway, I don’t like using male celebs in my ads. Isn’t Abi Titmuss available?

Do you think that ROI has been improved by the separation of media and creative?

This sounds like the kind of question some agency fuckbag would attempt to answer with a 213-slide presentation. Personally, I’d go right to the fundamentals of the question. Really, what actually is ROI? How is it truly measured? What does it actually mean? Seriously. What is it? I’ve heard it pretty much every day of my career but the window of opportunity to ask what it is closed about 16 years ago. I’d just look a tool if I asked now.

And lastly, what’s your favourite ad of all time?

Well, that’s the hardest question of the lot. There have been so many over the years that I’ve fallen in love with. Picking a favourite is nearly impossible. Partly because my long-term memory is basically dead, so I can’t really recall anything that happened over 2 months ago, and partly because I never assess an ad without seeking the opinion of my mother (she’s nearly target audience).

That said, I did enjoy B&Qs recent campaign where they used real staff! Inspired. Never seen it done before.

And the Gocompare opera singer is very funny! Go compare! Go compare! Something something, something something, go compare! Brilliant. I do it in the pub sometimes. People love it.

Thanks,

A pleasure, Ben. A cunting pleasure.

What’s wrong with this YouTube screengrab of the new OK Go Video?

(Thanks, S.)

Indeed: if you have an electron microscope (I have no idea how to make it bigger) it has more ratings than viewings, giving it an amazing five stars.

So it’s possible to scam YouTube.

I think this throws up a bigger question: considering one of the most trumpeted benefits of the digital age is its accountability, what if that accountability can either be rigged, or has simply been collected erroneously? People are putting a lot of eggs into that basket. Let’s hope the basket isn’t a basket-shaped trampoline full of HIV-infected syringes.

Picture Two:

(Thanks, H.)

I sometimes get a bit stressed out when I write a headline. I want to make sure it encapsulates what the agency and client want in a way that is mildly witty but without resorting to a pun. So when I see a headline like this, I think, how did I miss that gig? I’d love to kick back and write shit like this, but I’d still be paranoid that the agency was playing a trick on me. Surely no one really wants a line that uses the phrase ‘cost effective holiday destination’. That’s like saying ‘our trampoline basket doesn’t have HIV-infected syringes in it’.

Ker-azy.

UPDATE: More shit tourism ads. This might be the worst sector ever…