An American reader has just sent me this ad (thanks, B):

It made me think how beautiful the photography is and how it’s nice to see a big, meaty brand film in this day and age (apparently it runs properly on network TV over there).

Then it made me think about how American it is. I thought that a British attempt to do something similar would fall terribly flat and seem rather desperate. Only in America, as they say.

But why is that? Well, the obvious answer is that we’re all bloody different. We all have our own cultural personalities that mean we can or can’t make film like this. I think that English people are class-obsessed with elements of being somewhat apologetic about the Empire and somewhat embarrassed at its collapse. We’re riddled with fundamental antipathies that make us dislike and mistrust one another to a greater or lesser extent (obviously a generalisation, but like many generalisations it’s true).

I believe (as a substantially Scottish person) that people from Scotland define themselves by their existence in the shadow and under the thumb of their more successful neighbour to the south.

Perhaps the French arrogance is a blustery cover for their guilt about what happened in WW2. Perhaps not.

Anyway, this is all leading to a point about globalisation and pan-global ads.

Of course, some of them work very well (I’m thinking about Playstation Mountain and HSBC ‘local bank’ here), but most are a lowest common denominator effort that means nothing but vanilla blancmange to the vast majority of their audiences.

I would have thought that the differences between us were obvious enough for the folly of effective global advertising to be equally obvious.

And if you want further proof, this would be the celebration of Britain that seems closest to the Levi’s ad, and yet it’s fucking miles away:

Bullets at 1,000,000 fps (Thanks, D).

So we’ve had some mad talking sweets. How about a bitchy pair of apricots?

Or some camp nuts?

Sympathetic pizza?

It’s all for the Food Standards Agency by RKCR/Y&R, directed by Mark Denton. Eat healthy. You know it makes sense, even if it is slightly boring compared to fish and chips and a pint of Margarita.

I’m just back from the Campaign BIG Awards.

Too much of little interest to report, but you might like to know that this was the best TV ad of the year (it also won the Paul Arden award, which rather surreally came with £1000 of book tokens, like the winners won their school sports day or something):

In its category, and overall, it beat this:

Which would you rather have done?

No need to comment, it’s the subject of this week’s poll.

By the way, for what it’s worth, I can’t understand why anyone would think BOTT was any good. It just seems to be hatstand for hatstand’s sake and has been ignored (as far as I recall) by pretty much every other award scheme. Are any of the jury members reading this? Was it a unanimous decision or a contentious one?

(Last week’s poll was interesting, wasn’t it?)

Our first contender puts the ‘loo’ in Waterloo Station (thanks, C). What does it mean? It means the hyphen key was broken that day:

Number two takes the suggested rule of seven words to a 48-sheet and rogers it senseless (thanks, D).

Number three is living proof that the contribution of creative departments is somewhat overrated (however, it pretty much rhymes, which makes me want to give it a big patronising hug):

And finally (sorry about the quality, but I was on a bus in the dark), I have no idea if this poster is any good because the bill posters were unable to put up a backlit 96-sheet the right way round:

Good product demo.

Let’s make it viral so that BMW stop all their Joy ads.

I was thinking yet again about the downward slope of creativity and money/fun in the advertising industry the other day and a thought occurred that seemed unpleasantly reminiscent of the days I spent studying for my A-Level in Economics.

If you take an employee group and start to pay them less, reduce the efficiency and scope of the tools they work with and make them work harder but produce less, you will surely be unable to attract the same standard of person to that workforce.

I’ve mentioned before that nominal creative salaries have changed little since the 1980s. However, in the 80s a couple of years of £100,000 could buy you a nice house in central London, whereas now it wouldn’t even get you the cheapest studio in the same area. So there’s more money to be made elsewhere, or, to put it another way, the level of compensation for anything unpleasant you might have to do has dropped considerably.

Then there’s the tools you have to work with. Budgets are much lower, which means that talent in other parts of the industry has become less available. Working on your movie becomes a much more attractive proposition to a rich director than the idea of a couple of months grinding away on a £300,000 budget that then gets picked to death by a thousand vultures. Talent is constricted in other areas, too, with people finding better, more lucrative avenues for their design, illustration or photography skills.

Finally, we have the very tempting idea of throwing away 95% of what you do. Clients like to see a lot of work for their money and that means 15 scripts, even if they are only going to make one (or, increasingly these days, none). A creative person has to get the enthusiasm up for that process, also knowing that the chosen script is very unlikely to be the ‘best’ one (not that it often was, even in the ‘good old days’).

So the idea that this industry will attract the same people to a lower salary where the work will be harder and less good is ridiculous..

And let’s see where that leads us: less talented people tempted=less good work=less respect for good work=less talented people tempted etc…

It’s happening right now.

If only I could remember the economicsy name for it, then I’d feel a whole lot better.

This week it’s my daughter, Indiana.

Born at 9:36 this morning, 6lbs 10oz.

Mum and baby doing fine.

Blog on hiatus.

X

(How 2009 am I?)

‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall’, wrote Cyril Connolly.

Luckily no one in advertising produces good art (not in the advertising part of their lives, anyway). But does the arrival of a child make a difference to your outlook on working to produce ads?

Well, of course it does, but in many different ways. Choose one or more of the following:

You feel less inclined to flog your guts out because you want to see your kids.
You feel more inclined to slog your guts out because you want give your kids nice things and they cost money.
You feel horrified when you see the barefaced manipulation displayed in kids’ advertising.
You stop fancying your wife and have an affair.
You fancy your wife more because you are now bonded by your child.
You spend six months on maternity leave with your kid, realise there’s more to life than ads and never come back to work.
You spend six months on maternity leave with your kid, realise you are bored out of your mind and run back to work.
You take jobs based on money because you need more of it.
You refuse to work on nasty accounts that peddle shite to innocent kiddies.
You observe 9-5:30, or at least you try to. This may well be resented by more presenteeist colleagues.

Anyhoo, what I think I’m trying to say is that it can go in all sorts of different directions and depends on many things, such as: who is the primary breadwinner; just how much are you earning; do you have available childcare; are you a wanker; were either of your parents wankers (I think I may be going too far back in the process here).

Speaking as someone with a little boy (see picture above), I’d say it did all sorts of things to me. I was keen to miss his bathtime as rarely as possible, but fortunately I was a Creative Director during much of that period, so I could choose to leave work on time, then catch up later in the evening if necessary. Nothing seemed to collapse because of this, although I was the only person in the whole agency with a young child. Overall, I do think I started to prioritise that part of my life, but that meant both working harder and being at home more (Work/Life balance, I think they call it). It’s harder to be in control of those matters when you’re not the boss, especially when you’re freelancing, but in the end, you know when you have to make the important decisions; the only thing that makes a difference is your definition of the word ‘important’.

Kid Bonus.

And a car crashed into my street’s junction box, screwing the wi-fi.

So this is all you get today:

If you can’t find the book you’re looking for, perhaps you’re looking in the…

Sorry…

By the way, thanks for the response to the penguin/nipple question. Very helpful.