If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Here is a bunch of very good guerilla ads.

But do you, like me, tend to harbour a degree of doubt for these little confections?

It’s a shame, but a category that was set up in all fairness to reward a funky new(ish) form of advertising has now been abused like a catholic choirboy. I just end up looking for the Photoshopping clues or the myriad reasons why a tiny brand would never fork out hundreds of thousands for an ad that only 300 people would see.

Which is a shame, because there have been some truly excellent examples of the genre (read into this what you will, but many of them happened before you could win a Pencil for ‘Ambient’). But then every category becomes subject to award-blag abuse: two minute director’s cuts of cinema ads that ran once; press ads that appeared in a school concert programme; posters that were flyposted rather than paid for; DM sent to three people…

First, the great idea. Then the awards for the great idea. Then the abuse of the awards for the great idea.

*sigh*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT50eLLxPco&feature=player_embedded

Interesting.

Did it have all the captions then list all the clips? Some of the clips? A wishlist of clips that got whittled down as they were/weren’t granted permission? What missed the cut? Who said no?

Then that track. It’s kind of old and done. I mean it works, but more as wallpaper than something that makes you go ‘Damn, that’s a fucking cool track’.

And what on earth was the budget?

Here’s an article the Guardian printed about the top five regrets of the dying.

It’s basically a simple blueprint to happiness before you pop your clogs, so I’ll just copy and paste it here:

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

The economy is screwed, we’re about to enter another recession and people are shooting each other in the streets for the chance to lick a rotten slice of Kingsmill.

But, like the honeybadger, Adland don’t give a fuck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nVRntpovco

(Fallon, Tom Kuntz etc. Interest declared: made by mates etc.)

(Tom Kuntz again. No idea about anything else. Can’t be arsed to find out.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-EvvfMXEwU

(Also made by mates. Traktor (not actually mates), Saatchis London (several friends there) etc.)

Putting a camera on a hula hoop is surprisingly cool (thanks, P):

I’m not racist, but…

An end to camel toe(thanks, J):

Movie middle fingers (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjnOjICjkZg&feature=youtu.be&fb_source=message

(Interest declared: this was done by my friends Christian and Andy. Non-interest declared: it was directed by Ivan Zacharias, whom I’ve never met).

It’s a proper ad with a… wait for it… an idea. And some thought and care and intelligence. Fine craft too.

UPDATE: this link might have been removed. If so, find the ad here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNnZCOMI_gQ&sns=fb

*sigh*

Look, it’s doing the job: this thing is getting noticed and talked about like a motherfucker, but…

*sigh*

It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

For those of you too old or young to understand, this is a pastiche/updating of one of the greatest films of all time. OK, it wasn’t The Godfather but it’s a piece of stone cold magic that never, ever, ever, puts a foot wrong. It’s full of great lines, wonderful characters and the kind of balls-out attitude that ignites your 12-year-old heart like a roman candle.

I first saw FBDO in a cinema on Hollywood Boulevard that has since become either a MacDonald’s or a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It was one of the formative experiences of my life. The sassy breaking of the fourth wall, the advice on how to skip school, the way that Ferris had every base covered with insouciant aplomb, and all to the sounds of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Chick-Chickah.

I could go on with incredibly boring stories of traipsing round the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street to find Oh Yeah by Yello, then discovering it only on a cassette that cost £7.49 in 1987 (you iTunes generation have NO idea how good you’ve got it). Or the bet I made with a friend that the line was ‘Pucker up buttercup’ not ‘Pucker up dipshit’, winning me a Macdonald’s coffee milkshake (God, I miss those). But I’ll have to stop there.

This ad doesn’t make me hate it, or Honda. I just feel a bit sad. I thought that movie’s perfection was sealed in John Hughes’s coffin. Now it’s been dug up by a millionaire who wants a few more million.

‘Snooty.’

‘Snooty?’

‘Snotty.’

‘Snotty?’

Last week I was reading article about a young football manager that questioned whether his mediocre playing career would affect his ability to do the job.

The oddest thing about this doubt is that the two jobs are very different. One involves running around on a football pitch, spending fifteen minutes being told how to do it the same/differently, then running around on a football pitch. The other involves sitting watching half a game of football, spending fifteen minutes telling the players how to do it better, then watching the other half (I oversimplify, but you get my drift). So although knowledge of one might bring knowledge to the other, the mentalities must be quite different.

Look at the top managers in today: Ferguson, Wenger and Mourinho had unremarkable or non-existent playing careers, while Mancini, Ancelotti and Guardiola all played with distinction. So what can we learn from that? Perhaps that a great playing career has nothing to do with being a great manager? Some would suggest that great players would be have more respect for the words of ex-great players (I recall Roy Keane walking out on Mick McCarthy, manager of the Irish 2002 World Cup team with the words, ‘Mick, you’re a liar … you’re a fucking wanker. I didn’t rate you as a player, I don’t rate you as a manager, and I don’t rate you as a person. You’re a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse.”), but great players have no apparent problems listening to Wenger, Mourinho or Fergie.

In advertising this is mirrored in the differences between creatives and Creative Directors: two jobs that are utterly unlike each other, yet you only get to do one if you excel at the other. If you managed to be a selfish bastard who slagged off clients and developed a monomania over the size of a logo then apparently you’re a perfect fit for a job that involves juggling fragile egos, spending much of your day in management meetings and incorporating the views of the holding company vis-a-vis your Q3 figures.

Perhaps the business, with this conventional career progression, is overlooking some great creative directors, people who may not produce the goods when it comes to getting into D&AD, but are much more able to bring the very best out of a department. Actually, wasn’t that the case with Bernbach and Millward? Two of the greatest CDs of all time, pioneers of the creative revolution on either side of the Atlantic, were not thought to be great creatives, yet it did not affect their managerial careers one jot. Name a Bernbach or Millward ad, then name ten classics they steered through as CDs.

I suppose that, unlike in football, there’s little chance that anyone will be nursing a burning ambition to be a CD from the time they’re a teenager, so the likelihood of finding a Creative Directorial prodigy would be minuscule. But what if we’re missing out on some great CDs? What if the new Bernbach is out there somewhere, misunderstood and underrated in the creative department of an unfashionable shop? What if the hunger of frustration is stoking a genius?

I guess we’ll never know, but after several consecutive years of UK advertising mediocrity, something about the current system obviously isn’t working as well as it could. Einstein’s definition of insanity might be worth some consideration.

Excellent documentary about hip-hop and crack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k6d7IyDKqdU#!

My white Jamaican dad (thanks, J):

The wonderful Honey Boo-Boo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VpQrA5RCv7Y

People in movies staring at the camera.

Tattoo spelling mistakes (thanks, J).

Let’s fund this documentary about the humble but wonderful cassette:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7ect212UsVs#!

Spelling Bee fail:

Top rap video, ‘IMDABES’ (thanks, G):

The meaning of ‘mate’ (thanks, J).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6obEMR_aRkA

A friend has volunteered to write a guest post about this ad, but while we wait for that may I just point out a couple of things?

1. The ad is 60 seconds long but is 100% over, finished, dead by 39 seconds.

2. George Lucas is a bigger pimp than Lord Monsignor Lovedaddy the third, who runs almost all the girls between 123rd and 125th.