If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmOr9I2JxZs

Dir: Dougal Wilson.

Ad: fucking brilliant. As usual.

On this link.

And as a special bonus, here is the very lovely Bob Hoffman, AKA The Ad Contrarian, on The Golden Age Of Bullshit:

Interesting angle.

Reminds me of Die Hard 3:

Let’s base more ads on parts of the Die Hard films.

Fine art direction, excellent writing and a clear message:

(Interest declared: I’m friends with most of the people involved in this. Nice one, Paul, Antonia, Peter and Jeremy – and the other people involved that I have yet to meet.)

I was sent this the other day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9rf9GmYpM

Despite it being a bit of entertainment whose attachment to an artificially sweetened soft drink is tangential at best, I find something about it very interesting (and I’m not talking about the obviously set up reactions from members of the ‘public’): it appears to me that this would have cost a fair bit of cash to put on – far more than you could justify for the number of people who would sit at that bus stop. So for it to make financial sense it must have an intended audience beyond the few hundred passers-by. I guess we don’t have to look far to work out that its real audience is the 5.5m+ (so far) who have viewed it online, in which case it doesn’t matter how contrived the ‘public’ viewing is; the point wasn’t to make a fun bus stop; the point was to make a viral YT clip.

Having one ostensible intention that disguises another is neither new nor uncommon. How many people would have passed this car and understood its message?

Few, I would imagine. But the further PR about a VW with free air conditioning would have multiplied the possible audience many times over.

So far, so elementary.

But this practice is by no means limited to ambient media stunts.

For example, lots of ads are often presented to the client to demonstrate how much work the agency is willing to do on its behalf. The agency may not be very keen to make them, or think they are the best solution, but they make up a big wadge of paper that shows the client some measurable love.

Such work can also be used to ‘run interference’ (this is an American football term that basically means to distract attention so that something else can have an easier path to success). If the client is shown three campaigns then they feel they have been given a fair choice, but also that they ought to buy one of the three, otherwise they’ll look thick/indecisive. This gets a campaign bought earlier in the process and if that process is skilfully played, the sacrificial lambs will be the ones the agency didn’t want to make anyway.

I’m not saying that these methods are always used, or always intended, but they’re often sitting there in the background and can come into play depending on the nature of the client or how the meeting is going. The days in which the agency would confidently offer only one solution to a brief are generally behind us. There’s also the truth that you make money if you sell a campaign first time, break even if you sell it second time and lose money after that, so you want to increase your odds of first time success, and if that means work becomes cannon fodder, well, that’s life. Every team knows that if its work is one of three campaigns going to client, two will die. However, they’re all probably thinking ‘may the best ads win’, and in many instances, they’re right; it’s very hard to predict a client’s reaction with complete accuracy, so they might well choose the supposedly sacrificial campaigns, which then go on to be made into good ads. But sometimes work makes up the numbers and that purpose can be just as valuable as the creation of the winner.

So a creative’s job may not always be what he or she thinks it is. But knowing the secondary purposes can lead to other interesting situations. Take this ad for example:

I remember laughing pretty hard when I first saw that, and like many CDs, the first place I saw it was the 2002 D&AD annual. So it went beyond the judging panel and into the permanent book collections of thousands of people who would be impressed by it. Brilliant.

This could take us on to the thorny subject of scam ads. People get very indignant about the ads for highlighter pens and nose hair clippers that litter the press sections of Cannes and D&AD, but what is the intended result? For the teams, CDs and possibly even the clients, an appearance in an award book could be a very cost effective way of spreading a message about the abilities of those teams and CDs, and the benefits of working on that client for any award-hungry creative.

When Daryl and I started Lunar BBDO we did some ads that were intended to get us noticed, to give us legitimacy and attract publicity and good staff. Of course we went through the proper processes with the clients, but we knew there could be a target beyond the target: more fame and exposure than the media budget would allow.

The same thing happens on pitches: the point is not always to do the most groundbreaking creative work possible just to show how darn brilliant you really are. That might scare a new client off, so you might instead choose to present something a little safer then stretch the boundaries once you win the business. So an opportunity to show your mad skillz is actually just an opportunity to coax a client into a more receptive position further down the line.

Do you always hire the very best creative team available? Yes, but the definition of ‘best’ may take into account those who can do that ‘safer’, pitch-winning work. The Pencil-winning superstars might seem the clear choice on paper, but if you want to win the business so that you can have accounts that other teams can do great work on you might want something more MOR; the target beyond the target.

So when you’re doing what you think you’re doing, think again.

You may be doing something else entirely.

Mail Online headlines replaced with user comments (thanks, L).

WHY ARE YOU CLOSED???!!!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRZYUyiQMcU

Dreamworks SFX guy turns son into superhero (thanks, B).

Drunk guy has trouble climbing hill (thanks, D):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DMsAP7Q_bo

Great art project: If celebs were normal… (thanks, A).

Embroidery advice or surrealist nightmare (scroll down. Thanks, T).

Amazing shots of the world from above (thanks, J).

Happy Christmas from DMX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPXWZxtDooY&sns=tw

Samuel L. Jackson performs slam poetry about Boy Meets World (thanks, J):

Honest trailer GoT:

Lion King cast entertains plane load of quite grumpy people:

The brilliant Johnnie Burn on his sound work for Under The Skin.

Could you do a really good short animated film with just push pins and elastic bands? WELL COULD YOU???!!! Yes (thanks, T):

Bangkok’s ‘Mexican’ gangsters:

In honour of the release of the fantastic Under the Skin, I had planned to put together a post of Jonathan Glazer’s best work.

But just as I was about to cull all the crackers from YouTube, someone else kindly did the job for me.

They did, however, miss these beauties:

He’s quite good, isn’t he?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwxdEECNpZY&feature=youtu.be

A forgettable nudge rather than an all-gun-blazing celebration.

I hope this isn’t the only one they’ll be running.

Companies need to be seen to be nicer than they used to be. Now it’s not enough to slide a few grand to charity or employ some disabled people; now you have to create full-scale, massive, constant niceness and, most importantly, tell everyone about it.

This new state of affairs leaves me somewhat torn: is it a little off-putting that companies now appear to be jumping on the good deeds bandwagon just at the point where we might like them less (and use them less, and give them less money), or do the good ends justify the means, whatever the purity of the motivation? Or have the people behind these giant organisations suddenly realised, apropos of nothing, that being of benefit to the world is something worthy of their time, money and effort?

Take this, for instance: Samsung kindly uses your excess phone power to help cure cancer. Is this the result of Samsung’s altruism or is it part of a larger effort to get people to like, and therefore buy, Samsung? Does altruism even exist, and if not, what is motivating Samsung here?

This article suggests that… Altruistic acts are self-interested, if not because they relieve anxiety, then perhaps because they lead to pleasant feelings of pride and satisfaction; the expectation of honor or reciprocation; or the greater likelihood of a place in heaven; and even if neither of the above, then at least because they relieve unpleasant feelings such as the guilt or shame of not having acted at all.

As someone who doesn’t believe in right or wrong, but instead in the workability of a situation, I have to say that this seems like a perfectly good way of attempting to relieve pain and misery. Does it make Samsung’s phones any better? Does it make you like them more? Does it matter? The answers to those questions slip almost unnoticed into the world of branding: if Samsung’s brand is composed of so many deliberate or unintended messages and elements then this effort is just one, along with this post, their sponsorship of Chelsea FC and their strange ads that involve street urchins and Lionel Messi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwuk90Gc2A

In a post-No Logo world it feels that CSR is now an essential part of a corporation’s offering, but it can sometimes seem that they are glossing over a lot of bad behaviour with a bit of good. I wonder if Nike would have stopped the sweat shops and tiny wages if such policies hadn’t become so public and unpopular. Is this just a macro version of doing (voluntary) community service after you’ve been caught beating up old ladies?

In finding a conclusion about this, the really tricky thing is choosing what you think of as something to hold against a company; after all, they all do something you could interpret as negative (or positive).

Pay your money (or don’t) and take your choice.

The top 20 cinematic techniques, part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3EnnBDgMww

Part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb5OhhfnyfQ

And if you like the continuous shot, here are ten of the best:

Famous writers’ sleep habits vs productivity (thanks, J).

Terrifying walk (thanks, J):

Young Ian McKellan gives us an acting lesson (thanks, J):

Hours of fun (thanks, C).

Songs for when you’re pitching (thanks, D).

Kids write scripts; adults act them out; hilarity ensues (thanks, J):