If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Results an be found here.

I’m not really sure what to say about those.

Um…

There are a few good ads there.

And a shitload of bad ones.

But then, who am I to talk?

I didn’t even make a TV ad last year.

Rather than single anything out for praise or damnation, I think I’ll just look at the list and feel neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed, just whelmed.

(By the way, if you wish to comment, I’m going to err on the side of positivity. I’ll enjoy reading gratuitous kickings and ventings of spleen, but I may well not put them up.)

I thought the other day that we could all probably learn a lot by getting the client’s perspective on what we do.

For better or worse, the only client I know is Dave Knockles of the ‘I am the client’ blog.

Here are his unfiltered words of wisdom:

Ben,

Finally had a chance to sit down and apply some serious diamond-standard thinking to the questions you kindly sent. (I say kindly – who else would you send them to? Ha ha! Jesus, I’m funny.) I hope this is what you were after. If it isn’t, go bang yourself.

I admire how much you accomplish in a day. A mighty breakfast, delegation, shit, agency meeting, wank, snooze, lunch, snooze, delegation, wank, shit, tea, shit, supper, dinner, Delilaz, awkward maternal sanitation moment, shit, wank, bed seems all in a day’s work for a powerhouse like yourself. Does that take a lot of organisation?

Organisation is over-rated, Ben. Organisation is motivation’s sickly cousin. Motivation, energy, passion, desire – these are the things that enable me to live as full a life as I do. Also, an over-the-counter cure-all my mother picks up on her trips to the States which is, I believe, derived from something called ‘amphetamines’.

What do you look for in an ad, apart from a cracking pair of bristolas?

Product name in the headline. Logo you can’t obscure with a fist. The approval of my mother (she’s nearly target audience).

If an agency told you that an ad you had approved had won a Cannes Lion, what would you think?

I just googled ‘Cannes Lion’. There is simply no way I would approve an ad that would win one. Why? Because my ads are fucking better. For a start, they have bristolas. So if my agency said they’d won one, I’d assume they’d changed one of my ads AFTER I approved it, which would make me fucking angry because that would suggest they think they know better than me, which they fucking don’t, so I don’t know where all this Lion shit is coming from, because I’m not just some fucking mug who pays the fucking bills, and yet they think they can change MY ads and enter them into some wankfest and take the fucking credit, those cheeky fuckers – I’m calling those pricks RIGHT NOW. HOW FUCKING DARE THEY change my ads! Those are my ads! And there they are, fucking running off and making me look like an a-hole? Those little shit-pipe fuck-beaks, I’ll drop them like a fucking stone! I’m glad you raised this, Ben, because heads need to fucking roll over this one. Jesus fucking Christ.

Of course, you, as a species, are regularly maligned by creatives as being the most stupid, tasteless, spineless, shitbrained bunch of cunts on earth. Do you think this is a symptom of the inevitable frictions that occur in a situation with diametrically opposed points of view, or would you concede to a degree or two of cuntishness?

I think I know what you’re getting at here, Ben. Creatives will always react badly when someone from outside their community comes in and shows them how it’s done. (In fact, nobody likes it when I do their job better than them – plumbers, mechanics, chefs, artists, lapdancers. The list goes on.) Any friction that occurs stems from the inadequacy they feel when I blow their cocks (and tits) off with another great concept. I’ve learned to accept it.

The craft of typography can obviously make or break and ad. What’s your opinion on kerning, leading and weighting?

Ha ha! Nice trick question, Ben! Leading and weighting are clearly fishing terms, and kerning you made up. You have to get out of bed early to put one over on DK!

Typography, though, is one of my passions. I have a large collection of brush typefaces and Brush Script is a perennial favourite, a timeless classic. Also, it’s on my PC, so I can use it when I put ads together in Microsoft Paint.

Have you ever broken a loo just by sitting on it?

No, they always break when I jump on them. Or bang hookers on them. Which I don’t do.

Why are there often so many layers of clients? One can approve it only to have his boss bin it the next day.

What agencies need to understand is that every ascending client has a corresponding level of expertise to add to the work. It might seem to you scribblers that with every round of approvals we’re just slowly fucking your ads up the clacker inch by agonising inch, but we’re actually helping you to improve them.

Do think the idea is more important than the execution, or vice versa?

A great idea needs very little in the way of execution. And, of course, the very best idea is the bristola of a woman.

What’s your opinion on female creatives?

I think there are some at my agency. Bit of fucking lipstick wouldn’t hurt, would it?

If you were to address the IPA, what would the topic be?

Er..I’m not sure I’d have anything to tell the Insolvency Practitioners Association.

What is your favourite swear word?

Cuntspanner. Or rimshot. Or portion.

If you were making a TV ad and the CD told you that Jonathan and Frank were interested, what would you say?

Ross and Butcher? Edwards and Bruno? Who? Anyway, I don’t like using male celebs in my ads. Isn’t Abi Titmuss available?

Do you think that ROI has been improved by the separation of media and creative?

This sounds like the kind of question some agency fuckbag would attempt to answer with a 213-slide presentation. Personally, I’d go right to the fundamentals of the question. Really, what actually is ROI? How is it truly measured? What does it actually mean? Seriously. What is it? I’ve heard it pretty much every day of my career but the window of opportunity to ask what it is closed about 16 years ago. I’d just look a tool if I asked now.

And lastly, what’s your favourite ad of all time?

Well, that’s the hardest question of the lot. There have been so many over the years that I’ve fallen in love with. Picking a favourite is nearly impossible. Partly because my long-term memory is basically dead, so I can’t really recall anything that happened over 2 months ago, and partly because I never assess an ad without seeking the opinion of my mother (she’s nearly target audience).

That said, I did enjoy B&Qs recent campaign where they used real staff! Inspired. Never seen it done before.

And the Gocompare opera singer is very funny! Go compare! Go compare! Something something, something something, go compare! Brilliant. I do it in the pub sometimes. People love it.

Thanks,

A pleasure, Ben. A cunting pleasure.

What’s wrong with this YouTube screengrab of the new OK Go Video?

(Thanks, S.)

Indeed: if you have an electron microscope (I have no idea how to make it bigger) it has more ratings than viewings, giving it an amazing five stars.

So it’s possible to scam YouTube.

I think this throws up a bigger question: considering one of the most trumpeted benefits of the digital age is its accountability, what if that accountability can either be rigged, or has simply been collected erroneously? People are putting a lot of eggs into that basket. Let’s hope the basket isn’t a basket-shaped trampoline full of HIV-infected syringes.

Picture Two:

(Thanks, H.)

I sometimes get a bit stressed out when I write a headline. I want to make sure it encapsulates what the agency and client want in a way that is mildly witty but without resorting to a pun. So when I see a headline like this, I think, how did I miss that gig? I’d love to kick back and write shit like this, but I’d still be paranoid that the agency was playing a trick on me. Surely no one really wants a line that uses the phrase ‘cost effective holiday destination’. That’s like saying ‘our trampoline basket doesn’t have HIV-infected syringes in it’.

Ker-azy.

UPDATE: More shit tourism ads. This might be the worst sector ever…

You can see by the poll to the right that about two thirds of people who read this blog ‘don’t like’ Campaign magazine.

I’d just like to make it clear that I have absolutely no axe to grind with Campaign. If anything, they’ve been rather nice to me over the years. For what it’s worth, I’ve been a Face To Watch, and Daryl and I were featured a few times during the launch of Lunar. In addition, this blog has often been used for ‘Best of the Blogs’ and I was told by one of their journalists that their editor used to come in and ask why they weren’t covering the issues that I was. The Campaign journalists that I have met have been very pleasant and any problems I have with the magazine are in no way personal.

But two thirds of you don’t like the organ, and neither, to be honest, do I.

I did go into some of the reasons when I was a little critical of their Creative Circle award last week, but perhaps I could give it a closer analysis.

Campaign has an easy run for two reasons: it has no competition and it’s ‘only a trade mag’. I think that has made it complacent. It has changed very little over the years and still seems to consist of the reprinting of press releases, Private View, The Diary, The league tables (my Dad used to write for Campaign and came up with the idea for doing those, by the way), the letters, various columnists, a bit of analysis and the odd feature.

Although I’m certainly not saying that it needs to reinvent itself every five minutes, the above sections are generally poor. Here is an industry whose work shifts the opinion and perspective of millions on a daily basis, whose work is as public as it is possible to be, and yet we’ll still get very little in the way of investigation, campaigning or, what I can only describe as a ‘scoop’.

This is supposed to be journalism, in all its forms. Why so toothless? It’s about as spicy as a slice of Kingsmill dipped in milk. The Diary is full of the kind of plop that Take A Break would be ashamed to run. So someone who works in advertising likes shoes? Who gives a fuck? Someone in an agency turned up to the wrong address for a pitch? Big shit. I know it’s supposed to be a bit of fun, but with that in mind, it’s remarkably dull. How about something with a bit more edge?

OK, Campaign, here’s a little secret you may not be aware of: almost all agencies are petrified of you. They whinge about how you have taken against them and shit their pants that you might have got wind of some semi-innocuous email. So why not step up to that position and give things a bit of bite? If something’s a rip-off call it a rip-off. If someone does a dull Private View do not let them do it again. If it’s been a shit year, say so.

Two thirds of people don’t like a magazine that is all about what they do for a living. Surely with better writers and a punchier remit, you could become a magazine that people love. Why can’t you be as funny as The Sun’s ‘News In Briefs’ or as forthright as Private Eye’s Ad Nauseam? How about a cartoon that offers a pithy commentary on what’s happening in the world of advertising? Accept anonymous contributions? Bring back ‘I’m Only A Punter But…’

Here are some starter articles:

The big digital cock-waving exercise of three years ago has died right down. Why? And why is digital still the ginger stepchild that gets the least attention and is the least glamorous field of advertising this side of DM?

Why can’t Brits write comedy? The funniest ads each year are American. UK ‘funny’ ads are about as amusing as cot death. Why?

Find an account move that is all about backhanders and favours for mates. Take a stand against big corporations making agencies waste 50k on a pitch they will never win.

Reprint this entire post and ask for comments.

I dunno. I just do this part time. You guys do it for a living.

Surely you want your magazine to be liked and admired by most of your readership.

You could go so much further.

Why not give it a try?

PS: I got several comments and emails suggesting that I was brave for saying something negative about Campaign. Utter bollocks. I’m right off their radar.

The sublime Logorama:

Part One.

Part Two.

(Thanks, G.)

In yesterday’s post, Gout-Legs remarked thusly:

doing it.

making it.

the craft.

it’s as important, if not, more important than the initial idea.

Of course, he’s right.

I suppose the tricky thing is that that part of the process is like trying to run an egg and spoon race across a mile of trampoline covered in HIV-infected syringes.

What I’m saying is, one wrong move and the whole thing can go tits all the way up.

To illustrate this point, I was sent the following by ‘B’ last week. It is a brilliant demonstration of how you can get almost everything exactly 100% undeniably just right, but then bugger it all up with one wrong decision:

(Thanks, W. Via Twitter.)

Before I ever wrote a book, I thought, like many people, that a plot/idea was what you really needed.

To a certain extent that’s true. I mean, you need to know what your story is otherwise you can’t write it. But I soon realised that as great as that idea might be, a book really needs a thousand more.

The idea of ‘boy goes to boarding school so he can learn to be a wizard’ could either be good or shit depending on how you do it. That ‘how you do it’ is the other thousand ideas: the characters of Harry, Voldemort, Hagrid and the others; how he gets to that school; the odd little platform at King’s Cross Station; Quidditch; the rival houses etc. etc. etc.

The idea of Quidditch is almost a book by itself. If I invented the idea of rollerball with broomsticks, I might decide to make a whole story about how it happens and all the stuff that surrounds the playing of it. JK Rowling (by the way, I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, but I did see the first two movies about ten years ago) is successful because something as inventive as that is just one of her thousand ideas.

You might have a scene where two people cross the road. What road? Which people? Are they talking? Running? Cartwheeling? The permutations are endless and you’ve got to have several ideas that you settle on just for that one tiny scene. Then you need more ideas for every other tiny scene, or big scene.

But up against the idea generation of advertising it’s a joy, partly because you’re doing it just for yourself, and partly because it’s up to you whether or not the ideas live.

Then again, you have to come up with the briefs yourself, every single time. And there’s much less collaboration, so if you don’t do it, no one does.

Over the course of a day, I like a bit of both. Swapping the pros and cons of either side can help keep you sane.

PS: I had a quick look at the ‘Best Places To Work’ supplement in the Sunday Times. I don’t recall seeing any ad agencies in there. Read into that what you will.

But it was this:

…But I did.

I just saw it on TV. Interestingly, it caught my attention because it’s obviously well shot (I have no idea who directed it but I smell Ringan).

Then it’s charmingly played and well-written.

And the end, where you find out who it’s for, is not a disappointment.

I think it’s by some anonymous worker drones at Mother.

Congrats.