If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

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.)

Have you ever briefed a supplier (illustrator/director/photographer/musician etc.), only to find that what he or she came up with was not what you asked them to do?

Of course you have. It happens so often that I can barely think of an instance where it did not occur.

Me: So we just want a man standing by a normal park bench in a red T-shirt, like this sketch here.
Illustrator: No problem.
(Timewipe to three days later)
Me: Why the fuck have you drawn a crocodile on a spaceship in a red T-shirt?
Illustrator: Was that not what you wanted?

This post is not about that latitude you give a director to let the ‘magic’ happen or the looseness of a reportage photography brief. I’m talking about the gap between clear instructions and off-piste results that I’d like to christen the Grey Zone.

There’s always a point when you brief someone that they actually have to go off and do what you’ve asked. During this time you do not look over their shoulder, partly because it’s rude and impractical, and partly because you spoke to them in plain bloody English and do not expect to have been misunderstood.

So the Grey Zone happens (if you’re doing animation it can take a good month) and you get your handful of magic beans back from the market. Then the rebrief begins and you repeat this process until you get close enough to what you were after or you kill yourself/the supplier.

Much fun.

As odd as this may appear, in my calmer moments I can understand that it’s just like when a creative gets a brief with some clear instructions on it then comes back with something that makes a different point in a different way in a different medium. Many of us think we’ve got the right to ignore what we’ve been asked to do because we think our solution is better. I suppose that the artists we brief think the same thing: why give me something to do if you don’t want my input into it? Isn’t it a good thing when I surprise you with some work that lives three towns away from what you were expecting? Shouldn’t you just be delighted that I took your fairly dull pass and scored a goal so incredible it was actually in an entirely different sport?

Well, I can’t deny that I get exasperated when people ignore me, so maybe, just maybe, it’s all right for others to feel the same way.

But none of that sits well with the kind of self belief and insecurity it takes to be a creative.

(Thanks, A. Via Twitter.)

Fallon’s new Innocent ad (Thanks, D).

UPDATE:

Bring on the voiceovered silent thing.

Is this the first new ad trend of 2010?

Certainly keeps the budgets down.

(Thanks, Anon.)