If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

When I was a nipper and all round here were fields, I used to have an unhealthy obsession with my D&AD annuals.

I had a pretty good collection, only missing one of the last thirty, and was nerdy enough to know them inside out.

Now I don’t really give a toss about them. I read my last one once then gave it away to a young creative who I thought might have more use for it than me (having said that, I do use the online annual a bit. It’s much more convenient and you can view the films).

I think I’ve written about this before so I’m not going to go on about it again, but what I wonder is whether or not there are junior creatives out there who regard the annual in the same way as I (and Chris Palmer, Mark Denton, Dave Dye, Peter Souter and many, many others) used to?

Are you a junior creative who has pored over and memorised the annuals?

Do you wait for each new collection of in-books and nominations with bated breath?

Are you dying to get your first entry?

Did you get your first entry this year and do a little wee of excitement?

I do understand that D&AD has suffered, through no fault of its own, from the fact that much of the work in it has already been seen in Archive or any one of a dozen other shows around the world, each trying to hoover up the entry cash from agencies and networks desperate for those Gunn Report points. But then D&AD might also have to blame itself as its awards have become homogenised with the others through the mandatory inclusion of foreign jurors who like the same kind of ads that win at Cannes.

Is there now a generation of up-and-coming ‘talent’ who don’t have much respect for what has gone before, condemning us to repeat the past through ignorance of it?

Is the fact that this is the third mediocre year in a row in UK creative advertising point to an onward downward trend that is bound up to a degree with the lessening of D&AD’s status?

And can anyone under 30 complete this headline: ‘If you can’t tell if it’s a Bechstein or a Steinway then it isn’t a…’?

I’d be really keen to find out because the mystique D&AD used to have must have been bloody hard-won. If it goes, how and when will it ever be regained?

I don’t watch a great deal of TV, but I’m fairly sure that this is the country’s most hated ad campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvqzx1bA488

(That’s actually my favourite execution because it has subtitles. What the fuck for? And if you look on the YouTube page, the fat cunt singer actually has a name: Gio Compario. What a cunt. By the way, the giant fat cunt also has a blog, along with his own website. Cunt.)

But…

I think it’s probably also the country’s most famous ad campaign. Here’s a little bit of evidence:

some other company's 6-sheet, Camden, 3-10-10

Like Esure, it really has entered the national psyche, and alas, alas, a-fucking-las, I’m sure the people responsible are just stoked to the hilt.But then the real problem is that it’s just one more irritating sore of a campaign that is also very successful. That means that more of these kinds of campaign will be made and we’ll all have to suffer just a but more.

And that throws up two unanswerable questions:

Why does this kind of shit ‘work’? (There are plenty of other campaigns, good and shit, high and low media frequency, that fall flat on their faces and certainly don’t have people graffiti-ing other people’s advertising. Why is this one – and Esure – so famous?)

Why, if you had even the dimmest 0.000000000000000000000000000000000176 watt light shining from the depths of your soul, would you ever want to besmirch the collective cultural landscape like this? It’s literally like taking big buckets of shit and smearing them over all the walls of the UK until we submit and say, ‘Yes, we remember that you are the people who smear shit all over the place and do something else that we don’t really care about’.

Could everyone involved please Go Compare their genitalia to a circular saw, really, really closely, in the dark, while paralytically drunk.

PS: and it’s ‘thank your LUCKY stars’, you twats.

So my book (to be published 9th December; buy it here) has been printed and sent to me.

It came in a big box with 24 copies and it was so exciting I did a little wee.

If you are thinking of writing a book and are wondering what the upsides might be, one of them is opening a big box with a penguin on it and seeing your words in a bound collection of pieces of paper that’s exactly like Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, only possibly not quite as good. Upsides to come include having it in the poor, long-suffering British Library, along with literary salons such as Tesco, Asda and Smiths, each of which have been kind enough to take on 10,000 copies to make 30,000 Christmases just peachy.

Here is a short guided tour:

Full Metal Disney:

(Thanks, R.)

Don’t you just love David Shrigley? Well, here’s an interview.

Fallon and Timberlake take us through the history of rap (Thanks, A).

Play asteroids on websites.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook movie.

Heavy storm inside a cruise liner (this is absolutely amazing. Thanks, P).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xqQ6OoYuF4

Over at the wonderful Denver Egotist they’re debating the pros and cons of balancing an ad career with having kids.

All the arguments are in there (and the comments section), but I might as well stick my own dreary oar into the water.

As someone with a couple of young kids, I can say that becoming a parent does change your attitude to work. Of course it does. It puts things in perspective; it makes you realise that the logo size on a 25×4 ad for chicken fillets is about as important as one of the farts you did last August, and it stops you thinking that the best thing you’ve ever produced is a pencil-winning print ad for tampons.

But then for some people this isn’t the case. They want to further their careers, and whether that’s for themselves or so that they can pay the school fees for Jonty and Charlotte, it means that they see less of their kids than perhaps they should (and who is to say how much one should see one’s kids?).

So you pay your money and take your choice.

Currently, advertising is quite demanding on the time of someone who wants to be a grande fromage, so if that’s your aim, you do have to decide. However, I think it’s perfectly possible to do well enough in both that neither side feels let down. You may not be parent of the year or ECD of a demanding network agency, but you may well be all the happier for it.

And for further, more definitive advice, check number two on this list.

Here’s the new Diesel ad:

For those of you who are very young, here’s why it’s so pisspoor:

(Thanks, L.)

Last week a representative of an internet seeding company sent me the following email:

Hi Ben,

Great blog! I am currently working on a campaign with Frosty Jack’s and think your blog, with its interest in new adverts and anything a bit different could work really well with it.

I know what you’re thinking! Frosty Jack’s is perhaps not considered the conventional choice of cider and this is precisely the theme of the campaign. Consider Frosty Jack’s for what it is. No they’re not the biggest selling cider, on the top of everyone’s list but they know what they are, and they’re proud of it!

Would you be interested in working with us on this campaign? If so, please let me know and I can send you some more details.

Many thanks,

To which I replied:

Hi XXXXXX,

Interesting email.

What would you mean by ‘working with us on this campaign’?

Thanks,

Ben

The seeder replied:

Hi Ben,

Thanks for getting back to me. We were hoping you might post a link to our video, embed it into your blog or discuss the content as it is fairly relevant to your readership. The links to the videos are:

Here

and

Here

You can also find out more about the campaign if you like on Frosty Jack’s website as:

http://www.frostyjacks.co.uk/

What do you think? Thanks again for your help.

At this point I didn’t get back to her. I think the ads are really quite poor, but my mum told me that if you can’t think of anything good to say about someone, just ignore them until they go away.

The seeder then got back to me this afternoon:

Dear Ben,

I emailed you last week about our Frosty Jack’s campaign. Apologies for writing again so soon, I just wanted to follow up on the information I sent you to see what your thoughts were on it all? Do you think you might be interested in writing about the videos or campaign? We would really love to get you involved asap as the campaign is all moving on quite quickly. Please let me know what you think.

To which I replied:

Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.

Having watched the ads, I didn’t really think they were that great. Would you like me to blog them anyway? I could see what my readers think of them if that’s any use.

She then replied:

Hi Ben,

It would be brilliant if you could blog them! We just want to get them seen really, then people can discuss them and make their minds up about them. All opinions are welcome! Thank you so much for your help. I look forward to seeing them on your blog 🙂

Well, there you go.

I’ve done my bit. Do you like them or did you, like me, think that they were pretty shite then swear never ever to go within a thousand miles of a single drop of Frosty Jack?

There’s a website to which I have just been alerted which might interest you.

It’s called whatareyouworth and has collected interviews with some smart thinkers including Dave Trott, Rory Sutherland and Flo Heiss.

So it’s kind of like TED, but smaller and less worthy.

It seeks to ‘prove the value of creative thinking to a changing Britain in a changing decade’, which, if I’m really honest, I don’t think it does (that is quite an ambitious ambition and I can’t imagine too many of the people who check out the site will need persuading of such a thing), but it’ll while away a few minutes and possibly provoke a few edifying thoughts.

And you can’t say fairer than that on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uco41pOKeJg

I mentioned in an earlier post about toilets and lunch that I have worked in something like 15 agencies in the last couple of years.

Because of that I’ve actually noticed a few other things unconnected with lavs and sandwiches.

For example, the number of racial minorities in agencies varies enormously. Although not particularly high anywhere, in most places it seems not-inconsistent with the proportions of the nation as a whole.

I don’t know about you, but I think that living in cosmopolitan old London has given me a somewhat skewed perception of how many people in this country are ‘white’ or ‘other’. The 92.1% of the country who have trouble dancing properly and go a fetching shade of red on holiday is actually higher than the proportions I’ve seen in some agencies, while I’m surprised that less than 5% of the country originate from the Indian subcontinent (I know most of them ‘originate’ from the UK, but you know what I mean).

Whether or not this suggests advertising is an all-encompassing industry of which Malcolm X would be proud is a matter of debate, but the next question is whether those minorities are working in the more prestigious jobs or just in the shit ones like planning.

Ha ha…but seriously folks, how does your agency stack up, mix-wise? And what about those of you that work abroad? Are Indian agencies troubled by the number of whites they employ? Are agencies in the Palestine less inclined to hire Jewish account directors? Answers on the back of a 12-inch of Ebony and Ivory please.