If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Ben and Matt have left Wiedens for BMB.

Interesting. I won’t speculate on the reasons why, but they had been at W&K for a while and BMB is definitely in the ascendency. Draw your own conclusions.

But what I want to know is this:

1: They are described as a ‘star team’. I think they are about the closest London has to one at the moment. Can you think of others? In my day (mid-late nineties), you couldn’t move for Star Teams: Steve and Vic, John and Nick, Tom and Walt, Richard and Andy etc. It was first names only and they were genuinely really fucking good year-in, year-out, whatever the medium. Who does that describe these days? Some are ‘up there’ but beyond the Juan Cabral of a couple of years back, are there any stars in the current firmament?

2: Is it difficult to look up whether a team actually did an ad? These guys didn’t do Grrr.

3: This always happens in January. Why? I think you get a bit of negotiation stuff at the end of the previous year then no one wants to announce in December because everyone’s on holiday. Also, budgets may be renewed when the year begins, freeing up a bunch of cash for new signings.

Anyhoo, it’s nice to see a bit of love and status for the maligned and marginalised creatives of the world.

Anyone else fancy moving to keep up the momentum?

Did you know there was a real Avon Barksdale?

It doesn’t exactly look like it’s up to the standards of The Wire, but maybe it’ll find its way onto the Discovery Channel.

(Via Cinematical.)

(And that, my friends, was my 500th ITIABTWC post in its current location.)

Here’s the new print campaign from Diesel:

I found them here, by the way.

It’s a category where there’s nothing to say, so they’re saying it loud and clear: taking a stance with an attitude that’s going to get noticed and talked about that feels 100% Diesel.

The slightly ironic thing is that you have to be just a little bit smart to get them.

(And let’s not forget that W&K’s motto is ‘Walk In Stupid’.)

There’s a Guardian Online forum thingie where we can all bore each other into submission.

(Thanks, S.)

These days clients, particularly big clients, like a mood film.

I’m sure you have all come across them, but for the uninitiated they usually consistent a bunch of stock footage edited together with titles or a voiceover in such a way that a client or their new campaign/positioning is somehow encapsulated for easy digestion and a nice warm feeling in Mr Client’s tummy.

They tend to be loved by clients for five reasons:

1. They are cheap.
2. You can screw around with them forever. A film with no narrative that is composed of lots of interchangeable bits of film and V/O is there to be pulled apart and rearranged until absolutely everyone involved is happy. Or at least not sad.
3. They are usually two minutes of ‘stirring’ guff about one thing only: the wondrousness of the client.
4. They spoon feed those stricken with even the lowest IQ so no one can fail to understand them.
5. They are cheap.

So you make one of these puppies and the client fucking loves it for the reasons mentioned above, then the bad thing happens: the client loves it just a little too much. They want to run it on TV as your ad (for the reasons mentioned above). When faced with a budget of £500,000 and a delay of three months to make the real thing, some of them reasonably ask the question: ‘why don’t we just run this one that we all love that won’t cost us a bean?’

Hmmm…

That’s a tricky question to answer. After all, they can be good, like this one for AOL.

Then again, they can be…um…less good, like this one for Renault:

Or this one from BMW:

The good/bad news in these straitened times of client arselicking and no money is that they are here to stay.

How you persuade your client not to run one (if you are so inclined) is up to you.

D&AD has kindly put them all up in one handy page.

This might be a wonderful, timely opportunity to take a closer look at them.

In general, of course, they are (almost) all heartbreaking works of staggering genius, but which one is best?

I’m going to discount bullshit like the Millau Viaduct and The Millennium Wheel because, staggering though they both are, they shouldn’t be allowed in this competition. It’s a bit like Mike Tyson turning up at your local boxing club competition because he’s just moved into the area. Yes, it’s technically within the rules, but it’s buildings v press ads. Not fair.

So let’s choose the best in various categories:

Product: iPod
Print ad: Britart, with National Gallery a close second.
Craft: Gondry for Star Guitar
TV ad: Grrr
Other: Millions

And I’d say the best of all that has to be the iPod, which, in its various forms and evolutions has positively affected many lives, many times a day.

Which do you think is best?

There’s only one way to find out!

Fight!…I mean I feel a poll coming on.

(By the way, seeing them in a list like that makes it even more obvious what a stinking toilet of a Gold Pencil the ‘War Orphans’ illustration was. What a crock of shit. Also a bit meh were the Royal Mint coin designs and Uniqlock (been on that site a dozen times trying to see what all the fuss is about).)

UPDATE: in last week’s poll most of you wanted to be Ashley Cole. I’ll assume that this has something to do with being married to Cheryl rather than a desire to actually be one of the biggest wankers on Earth. Next was Michael Bay. I imagine he has quite a fun life, but the hatred and ridicule might eat him up inside when he gets home. Next was Cheryl Cole. Sounds like a good idea. New poll up now.

SECOND UPDATE: if you’re looking for a young team, check out Ben and Andy. They’re worth a punt.

Here’s the newish BBC Bull ad from Fallon:

It’s quite nice, but I’d say the best thing about it is the way it’s been directed: it looks and feels really different – strong, interesting and atmospheric, which is just right for the subject matter.

I’ve never heard of Wiz and I can’t be arsed to look him/her up on the net, but I think he’s the first newbie I’ve seen in a while who’s got ‘it’ (actually, for all I know, he’s not a newbie. Whatevs).

I was chatting to a friend the other day about the odd state of flux you find yourself in during your mid-thirties.

I have no proper research to back this up, but I have a theory that your mid-thirties are the optimal point between drive and experience. Of course, there are many exceptions to this – a great many people find their callings at much younger or older ages – however, I think that around your mid-thirties is the time when you have enough experience of working life to decide what you do or don’t like, and yet you are not too old to change to another career should you so choose.

In addition, it’s also the time when many people have kids, and kids are really good at getting you to reappraise your life. If you have a soul you might start to question how your actions will appear to your children and how they might be affected by the kind of person you are. Are you someone they can be proud of/look up to? If not, then here’s where you can change.

In Paul Arden’s first book he includes a fascinating pie chart of what happens to you at different ages. Ages 30-40 are named ‘hellbent on success’. Again, I think this might be the intersection of relative youth and experience that leaves you feeling empowered enough to do something, yet wide-eyed enough to believe that it will succeed.

Of course, the momentum of all this may see you through the rest of your career.

So, if you were born while Nixon, Ford or Carter were in the White House – now’s your time.

Avatar Retardation.

Which leads me nicely into this:

(Thanks,J.)

But then maybe it’s not so bad.

One of the most excellent things I have ever seen (there’s a full 70 minutes of it. Thanks, K.):

Some beautiful genius I found on the Escape Pod blog:

Explosions and Boobs (thanks, P.)

Some of you wanted to know more about the website of the guy who ‘got out’ of advertising. Well, here it is. Please try to break the record for the ‘Fastest Symmetrical Fill Of A Connect Four Board By Two People With One Eye Closed Using Their Non-Dominant Hands‘.

Finally, this is a nice ad that I think is a bit old. You can spice it up by imagining the picture of the cat as Bring on the Trumpets, the crying people as most of the UK advertising community, and the guy in the red T-shirt as me:

(Thanks, S. Via Twitter.)