If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

After the John Lewis furore I’m not 100% sure this is the wisest move for another department store (thanks, L):

It’s got so much in it, you need a second, third or eighteenth watch to take it all in, and the music (Dracula by Basement Jaxx) is ‘well bangin”.

But it’s the one that most befuddles my head as I try to imagine what the script said.

Come on Rich, what does this look like in words?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZC2219U6Co&feature=player_embedded

And there’s also a kind review on Amazon.

Voila.

(Thanks, ALS.)

(Thanks, G.)

Fill your boots, my friends, fill your motherfucking boots.

When I finished this book I tried to get an agent interested.

And I decided to write a blog about that process.

It’s an interesting read in retrospect. You’ll discover that Instinct was initially called Insecticide (too long for the cover of a book of this genre, apparently) and you’ll find that one of the early posts featured the first few chapters of the book, which have since changed substantially, but will give you a rough idea of what you will definitely be buying.

And have no fear, foreign readers. It’s also on sale in Hong Kong, India, USA, Australia, Spain, South Africa, New Zealand, a slightly cheaper place in India and Tesco.

Please enjoy reading it as much as I’m going to enjoy drinking a lot of alcohol this evening.

xxx

Although this is a fine opportunity to let you know that my novel Instinct is out tomorrow (consider the cover price to be some kind of payment for all the times you’ve read this blog; that way the book is sort of free), this post is really about another ad/lit clusterfuck.

The Meerkat has released a book, and it’s selling like cakes that are so hot they’d burn right though your stomach lining to the centre of the earth. Sales of 100,000 would be a great success for a novel, or any book for that matter. This book could well reach half a million by Christmas.

Now, I quite like the ads, but I’m somewhat surprised at the number of people who want to buy the autobiography of a fictional meerkat. I guess no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the British public, but this is a hit beyond even the less intelligent of these isles.

And I take my hat right off to that. Three cheers to everyone behind it.

And a few questions: how involved were the agency? Who gets the profits? Who wrote the book? Is this all helping Compare the Market, or has everyone forgotten about all that?

If anyone from VCCP can add some insight, please do so in the comments section.

Inquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: All is here.

Read them here.

Well, that was a bit fucking dull. Same old shit about Social Media taking over the world and traditional media going for a burton blah blah blah…

But there are a couple of more specific issues I’d like to point out because they seem a bit shifty:

The Social Media bent to the whole thing may be somewhat down to the authors of the list describing themselves thusly: ‘We leverage social media and powerful new business tools to help generate new business leads and improve new business success.’ To me that makes part of point one (‘As more and more agencies look for ways to use social media to benefit clients, they will begin to use these tools to win new business‘) seem somewhat divisive.

Point three says ‘Ad agencies can increase their value by helping clients make sense of a dizzying array of paid and unpaid opportunities.’ Welcome to 2007 everybody! I thought this was supposed to be a list of predictions.

Point five (‘Agency strategic partner role to increase: Marketing and strategy will become even more important. Agency contributions in these critical areas will enhance new business opportunities, revenue and profit’) is that depressing point I mentioned last Monday. More money will flow down the bullshit hole while the actual work gets marginalised. Million dollar strategies for ten cent ads.

Point seven: ‘Marketers will use blogs to communicate their brand story, key messages and develop compelling content people actually want to read.’ I don’t believe this for a second. I admit to being very skeptical about customers giving a shit about ‘brand stories’ and ‘key messages’, but it’s the ‘compelling content’ bit I find most ridiculous. Millions of incredibly talented writers, movie makers and musicians are trying to develop compelling content all day long, and they have interesting subjects like love, revenge, jealousy and bestiality to draw from, yet most do not succeed. The idea that the story of Yoplait can compete is just daft.

Point Nine: ‘Traditional media will continue to decline: No, it won’t disappear but the digital space will see the most impact and growth again next year’ Amazing prediction! Magazines, TV, radio and posters won’t disappear next year! Thank fuck for that. The digital space might well see the most impact and growth again next year, but that’s because ‘the digital space’ is a meaningless catch-all term that can never be challenged. The guys that wrote this seem to me increasingly like a bunch of bullshitters.

Point ten says that ‘SOI (share of influence) is a new, ever-expanding dimension of marketing program management. Agencies will be more aware of the importance of gaining and exerting influence‘. I think even the shittiest agency on earth is aware of the importance of gaining and exerting influence and has been since the year dot. Another great prediction.

Point eleven: ‘Ad agencies apply creativity throughout the enterprise: the best ad agencies will be engaged with clients at the early product development stages, helping to brainstorm, refine and launch new products.  Agencies will begin to apply their vast creative resources (creative smarts) throughout the enterprise for everything from new product ideas to creating entirely new business models.  Such efforts will strengthen the client/agency partnership.’ To me this translates as ‘Agencies will continue to get whatever cash they can from their clients by claiming to be able to do things other than traditional advertising. The best can do this well. The others will just fuck it up because their ‘creative smarts’ (vomit) are shite thanks to lots of creatives fucking off elsewhere, unable to stand pitiful shite like this’.

Roll on 2011.

‘Who shall we use for this ad?’

‘Well, my daughter likes those two chaps off the X-Factor. How about them?’

‘What, Jedward?’

‘That’s them, but I forgot to mention, my daughter has severe brain damage. She doesn’t like them so much as drool a bit more when they come on the TV.’

‘Well, you’re the client. That’s absolutely fine with us.’

(And what’s with the completely pointless and wrong use of the word ‘then’ in the headline?)

Is that the worst typeface in the world or what? It makes Comic Sans look like American Typewriter.

Sorry, I’ve just noticed that there are at least three fonts on that poster (that’s often another indication that your typography is shit). I meant the one that looks like it was put together by a bunch of top typographers whose hands had been burned to stumps in the same Magimix accident in which they acquired motor neuron disease and were brutally blinded in both eyes.

I hereby christen it ‘Olympic Abortion Sans Bold’.