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The greatest gang fight of all time.

The saddest album covers of all time (thanks, K).

One of the greatest ads of all time (thanks, A).

I can’t get enough of these dubstep videos (check out the David Brent one):

What’s the difference between Britain, the UK and England/Scotland/Northern Ireland/Wales?

How to leave a Facebook comment (thanks, S).

If movie posters told the truth.

How long did Bill Murray spend in Groundhog Day hell (or heaven, depending on how you look at it. Very deep film, etc.)?

‘I say, ‘Mr Caribou, maybe you have to take one for the team’.’ All the Sarah Palinisms in one handy website.

And finally, the most illegal thing I’ve ever seen in the history of wrestling (thanks, N):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU4TDGlbTz8



Another Cool VW Ad

Yes, it’s a blindingly obvious pun, but it’s been really well made and repays a few extra viewings (Thanks, R):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulbjaKmKG0&feature=player_embedded



Cockpiece quote of the day

Flicking through Campaign I find that someone called Jonathan Mildenhall has been asked to explain his job at Coca-Cola:

‘Our unique role is to integrate the strategic mandates of our brand growth agendas with that of the creative resources and ideas of creative industries such as advertising.’

He goes on to say, somewhat amusingly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t always an easy balance to strike.’

Thank god he cleared that up.

Do people just go to America and get lessons in spewing diarrhea from their mouths?

And where is this man when you need him?



Utterly charming

(I must say it helps if you, like me, have a four-and-a-half-year-old son who worships Darth Vader):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0



Universal truths vs local heroes

One of the things I learned at Watford was that advertising ideas ought to contain a truth that people can relate to.

Of course, that is exactly what all good music, books and other arts are based on, so why not advertising?

But what is more powerful, a universal truth or a specific one?

Of course there are some things money can’t buy; for everything else there’s Mastercard, but how does that compare to St George and its English-will-love-it-but-others-will-be-non-plussed attitude?

In these days of pan-planetary globalisation, the universal truth is more likely to be the one trotted out (that’s if you get a truth at all), but I can’t help feeling that a shotgun might get more shots in the target, but it won’t have the deadly accuracy of a rifle.

The difference may come down to what you set out to do. Trying to please a million people may get you liked by those million, but trying to please 100,000 might get you loved by those 100,000, and the message might then be sharp enough to include those you hadn’t even thought of.

Take Skittles, Old Spice and Gorilla. All were enjoyed internationally, but that wasn’t their intention. They were made for a national target market that then expanded through the interwebz.

Last year’s TV winners at D&AD had no internationally-intended ads, instead awarding local gems like these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZQyaAD-IL4

In fact, you have to go back to 2006 to find the last internationally-targeted winner:

So there’s nothing wrong with a universal truth, but the smaller your target, the greater your shot of hitting them right between the eyes (does that make sense? Kind of. You know what I mean).

An old piece of copywriting advice suggests that you imagine you are talking to just one person as you write.

Could be worth a try.



Would you like to watch the new Skittles ad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB1JegEG4dM&feature=player_embedded

I’ve written before about how hard it is to get Hatstand right.

Is it subjective?

Do any of you prefer this to Touch, Pinata and Beard?

If successful Hatstand is a matter of random chance then why have almost all the Skittles ads since Pinata been a bit disappointing?



New Honda Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnwsAr8eBQA&feature=player_embedded

(Thanks, L.)

I think it’s distinctive and memorable, but Garrison sounds like he’s at the wrong end of three pints and a spliff.

The other thing is that at the end YouTube offers you the chance to view Cog, Impossible Dream and Grrr, reminding you how much better they were.

I suspect the dead hand of STRATEGY made this a little more generic than it might have been, and that stops it being great.

UPDATE: and please can we end the digiwank, for this is the digiest wankiest of them all (thanks, R).



Digiwank analysed by someone much better than me.

Have a good hearty read of this (thanks, R).



To some, Losing a CD is like losing an appendix

Over the last few years there have been quite a few agencies that have operated for a while without an overall CD.

We’ve had agencies that have appointed a whole bunch of under-partners while waiting for an ECD, agencies that have spent a very long time without an ECD before finally appointing one, and agencies that have lost their ECD and just not bothered replacing him.

Call me old fashioned but I was brought up to think that an overall CD was essential to the smooth running of an advertising agency. Not only do I discover that this view is hopelessly outdated, I also find myself having to admit that in some agencies (shit ones) it’s wrong.

From small independents to massive multinationals, ad agencies of all shapes and sizes can plod along for years without an official ECD to shape, marshall and improve the creative output. The department can apparently cope without a central figurehead, clients don’t really give a monkeys whether or not the CD-type is available for a chat and agency management seem to organise and enjoy lots of big important meetings without him or her.

Cripes.

So why is this the case, and what does it mean?

Well, I’ve written many times about the demise of creativity and its reduced importance in the current world of advertising, so I suppose the lack of perceived CD importance is just another symptom of that. I would also guess that the non-CD parts of an agency’s management actually quite like taking the creative reins. It gives them delightful little stirrings in their downstairs portions because they find themselves at the business end of the creative process, yaying and naying the scamps and scripts of those creative johnnies who get to come to work in jeans and trainers. They might also have been inspired by the many agencies who have managed perfectly well without that guy who demands £350k a year, after all, if TBWA and Lowe could manage with caretakers for a while, why not Ogilvy?

And what does it mean?

In my opinion, very little. I’ll say again that it shows a stunning lack of respect for the power and quality of the creative output, but that seems to matter very little these days. I don’t think you need a very good, expensive CD to make work 5/10 instead of 4/10, and that’s the kind of standard that most clients currently seem to be happy with. Then again, in the end, these agencies do end up hiring an ECD eventually, so I suppose there isn’t an industry-wide feeling that the job is entirely superfluous. Let’s give the non-CD agencies the benefit of the doubt and say that they were CD-less for a while because they simply did not want to rush into making such an important hiring decision (the alternative, that no decent ECD would touch their job with a bargepole because they couldn’t pay a decent salary and had a truly shitty bunch of accounts, is too painful to contemplate).

I heard of an agency a few years ago that was permanent ECD-less and was told that upper management were giving constant assurances that the hunt was on for a new one. Many great names were mentioned, imminent arrival dates were rumoured and PR releases to Campaign were duly prepared.

But days, then weeks, then months passed, and no appointment was made.

Then the other rumours started: the agency couldn’t afford the marquee name they wanted; the loss of all decent accounts meant the job was not tempting the candidates the agency felt it deserved; the management were a bunch of arse-brained losers who couldn’t tempt a doberman to a cats home.

In the end, no appointment was made, no work was made for several months, the agency carried on in an utterly mediocre fashion and the world kept turning.

Around a year later, an ECD was acquired.

Within a few months he had left.

The agency is again without a permanent ECD, but I hear they’re not really in any hurry to find one.

Their work is still shit.

And no one in charge gives a fuck.

See? Appendix.



Spot the difference!

Land Rover ad, press section of D&AD 2001

Winner of Winners, ANNA Awards, 2011

This throws up a few questions:

1. Why are RKCR/Y&R running a remade version of a Land Rover ad (same creative team, by the way) ten years after the original? It even has the same rather tortuous and unnecessary pun (‘don’t be weather beaten’).

2. Why did someone award it Best Newspaper Ad of the year, bearing in mind it’s kind of been done before a teensy little bit?

3. If at least three people in my agency noticed this, why didn’t the judges?

4. Have we really come such a short distance in ten years that an also-ran ad from a decade ago is today’s best?

5. Why is the new ad dark? Is it just to differentiate itself from the old ad, or is it a comment on the veil of darkness that has descended over UK creativity in the last decade, as evidenced by this rum old do?

6. Who gives a fuck?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.