If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

When someone wants to brief me on a piece of copy I find the shortest route to success is to ask them for the shit version of what they want to say. I can then take that shapeless, dull, muddled piece of writing, pick the sweetcorn out of it, and make it good.

Asking for that contribution also works because it comes across as collaborative and inclusive, two things that clients seem to really appreciate. In effect, all you’re doing is asking for a more complete brief, but in the process of coming up with and writing down that crappy first draft, a client is then forced to think a bit harder about about what they do and don’t want you to say.

I think they also feel a bit exposed. They’re about to show a professional writer a piece of writing, so they tend to put a bit of effort in, giving you something at least mediocre rather than complete toilet. That means you’re already much further along the process that you would otherwise be.

A further benefit is the commitment of thought to paper (or its electronic equivalent). You then have a document to refer to if the client asks why you have included or omitted anything. If they put it in, they can’t be annoyed if you followed suit.

Of course, you don’t have to just do a good version of what they wrote. You can expand your response by asking why they have/haven’t included certain things, which again gets them to explicitly explain and justify each decision. A little chat can bring out a lot of stuff that would otherwise have remained unspoken.

You also find out where their expectations sit. That doesn’t mean you have to meet them, but it’s helpful to know what kind of thing they have in mind

From the creative’s point of view this version of the ad or copy can be also be useful as a springboard for further thinking. I recall an old boss of mine explaining how he and his partner would approach a brief: the first thing they’d do is write down the most basic functional answer (eg: a scribbled sketch of a car with a line that says ‘the new Volvo 800 is fast’). That would then be the ad any other idea would have to beat. Sure, it was dull and low on craft, but it communicated the brief clearly, so any further attempts would have to do the same, only better.

So why not give the ‘Could you write me a shit version of the ad?’ (CYWMASVOTA) technique a go sometime? You have nothing to lose but… Actually, you just have nothing to lose.

The Walkman turns 40.

Stop doomscrolling.

Take a look through someone else’s window.

Books with literal titles (including ‘Learning to Play with a Lion’s Testicles’).

Have fun with your keyboard.

Check how drunk you are.

Skill is what you make of luck.

Why veterinarians have the highest suicide rate.

Andy Warhol on surviving isolation.

Motherfucking website.

Are you tone deaf?

A dictionary of analogies to explain complicated stuff.

Possibly interesting random information and stats.

The tricked-out vespas of Indonesia (thanks, J):

The gratification migration.

How a big ship is built.

Music x Advertising blog.

How one of Netflix’s biggest mistakes helped build its weird culture.

The making of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy:

I’ve been putting up great ads from the 90s on LinkedIn.

It started as a snarky attempt at pointing out how ads used to be better, and that even ads from 20+ years ago would be better than the ‘best’ of today.

One of these ads was the wonderful Blackcurrant Tango epic of 1996:

It seems to hold a unique affection for advertising people of a certain generation. I remember speaking to people at the time who said it was the ad that made them want to get into the industry. But even now, people seem to love it as much as they admire it.

So the LinkedIn post got a huge and positive reaction, which made me think it might be good to get the story behind it. My initial idea was to have a 15-20 minute chat with the creatives, the client and the director, giving me an hour of material for a single BCT podcast.

Fortunately, when I started speaking to the director, Colin Gregg, that plan went out of the window. that chat alone was a good 45 minutes, so I realised I’d need three separate episodes.

This is the first; a conversation from the director’s POV about everything from the technical difficulties to the relationship with the agency and creatives.

Colin’s a lovely bloke, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. And if you want to hire him for anything, here’s a link to his current production company home.

And the ‘Making Of’ film that he mentioned:

And – incredibly – the script:

Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the play button.

I live in Laurel Canyon, a (very) mainly white neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Recently the front gardens have made a few additions:

So that’s the spread of BLM endorsement in a white neighbourhood. Many other parts of LA have been decorated with similar messages, as have many other parts of the world.

When Eric Garner died in 2014, BLM was generating around 40,000 tweets a day; in the last month that has risen to 8 million. Of course that growth has come as a result of an incredibly strong grassroots movement, inspired and fueled by many further instances of racial injustice.

But the other reason for the increase has been a masterstroke of branding. ‘Black Lives Matter’ is the name of the organisation, but it’s also the name of the rallying cry. So anyone can take it on without permission, giving it the energy it needs to spread far and wide without the need to go through committees or branding teams.

And that means it can live in the examples above, but also in brilliant work such as this piece of film:

The director, Meena Ayittey explains,

“There are no words that can describe that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I watched George Floyd being murdered on camera. I was driven by disbelief and anger when I conceived the idea for this project.

“The footage that we see of regular shootings of unarmed black men in the USA was more powerful than anything that I could film myself so I wanted to make that the main focus of the film. We have seen these police shootings so many times that it can be almost easy to become immune to the grotesque brutality embedded in these images.

“I wanted to catalogue the murders of these innocent people in a way that doesn’t shirk away from the real violence that people in our society are experiencing. The fury and of the speech by senator Flowers held the exact level of intensity I wanted. Her words expressing her anguish for her son’s life had a profound impact on me.

“For any Black or Brown person watching these images it’s like watching a family member, a father, an uncle, a son, being killed again and again. I feel that both the media and police in the USA in particular, often dehumanise these victims. I wanted to reverse this. I wanted people to remember that George Floyd, Philando Castle, Rodney King, Eric Garner, Michael Brown Jr and all the victims of police brutality had mothers. And to feel that insurmountable and devastating loss that anyone would feel after the murder of a family member.

“I totally agree that people can take the BLM movement on more easily. I also think that the enforcement of the lockdown has forced people to take stock of George Floyd’s murder and to assess their own feelings regarding the killings of Black people because there are none of the usual distractions such as commuting to work, getting kids to school etc. These killings have been going on for decades but this one feels different. The celebrities and brands that are pledging their alliance to BLM might be slightly hypocritical in some instances but I think that’s also giving the cause a lot of momentum.“

Excellent points.

If any of you are wondering how you might make a difference to that movement, the brief is always out there.

Take it on like Meena and my neighbours, and spread the word.

Are you concerned that you’re about to spontaneously lose your penis?

How apples go bad.

So you think you know the banjo?

Great artists at art school.

Classic movies as old books (thanks, J).