Sometimes, when you’re wondering if there’s something you can do that doesn’t involve heated debates over the colour of a jumper or the placing of a comma, you might think there’s somewhere you can escape to.
A place where you can just tool along as you like without having to care about the opinions of others that may or may not coincide with your own.
Well you can’t.
There’s always a boss somewhere.
So suck it up.
(Thanks, L & D.)
Oh, and I deleted the Tony Kaye/Paul Arden thing because, on reflection, I don’t think I’d boo someone who sang a song at a funeral. If you want to see it you can check it out here.
Creativity Online has posted some interesting interviews with big chief creatives.
I haven’t read them all, but in the ones I have looked at I noticed a phrase cropping up:
‘I solve clients’ business problems‘, or some variation of that.
Now, I wonder when that became a reasonable thing for ECDs to say?
Some time over the last five years the job of a certain kind of creative director has changed from ‘I make sure the creative output of the agency is top notch’ to something broader and more business focussed. It also encompasses the less conventional side of advertising, where the solution might be product development, movies or different staff uniforms.
I suppose it’s also indicative of a change in the business, either because these guys are now closer to the results end of what happens, or they feel the need to make it clear that that’s the case.
I’d have thought that in some way that’s always been the job of a good CD (and when did everyone start becoming ECD’s? There were none ten years ago; now every old CD is now an ECD and the CDs are what group heads used to be. Why did that happen? Another post, perhaps).
Only now, with the chance that your client may read this interview, it’s good to make it clear.
Is a good blog.
It’s where I found this video.
For what it’s worth, I have a kid about the same age as the one that’s featured, yet I spent much of it laughing my head off.
?
Daryl and I have a code phrase for bullshit ad ideas that have never really seen the light of day. When we come across one, we just show it to the other and say, ‘Throughout the month of June…’
That’s because agency films all have a voiceover that says something along the lines of, ‘Throughout the month of June hundreds of bollards were painted pink…’ or ‘Throughout the month of June we placed sandwiches near all the penguins in London Zoo…’
It’s the description-y bit that seeks to give size and status to ads which have none, and are the explanatory equivalent of the obligatory shot of three people WHO ARE IN NO WAY MATES OF THE AD CREATIVES looking at the brilliant ambient idea with an impressed smile on their faces.
LOOK! PEOPLE SAW WHAT WE DID AND LIKED IT! WHILE WE WERE THERE TO CAPTURE THE MOMENT WITH OUR CAMERAS! THIS IS NOT, I REPEAT NOT, BULLSHIT!
This will be closely followed in the agency video by a V/O that says, ‘Hundreds of websites picked it up’ over a shot of many websites that the agency in-house dept have fabricated to cover up the foetid stench of indifference from a sensible public.
Then there will be a newscaster from a minor TV channel (possibly a TV PA who has been made to look like that in the agency basement) who explains how traffic ground to a standstill while Johnny Cockbreath danced on a motorway to publicise My Little Pony, or how the police were called to a fake horse wanking ring that was set up to publicise Pantene Pro-V.
Then there will be some specious stats that claim enormous success for the camel that was glued to an artichoke in Trafalgar Square in aid of Oxfam, or the helicopter that dropped lamb bhuna all over Buckingham Palace for Marmite.
In short, the whole thing will almost certainly be 94% bullshit.
Just a quick one.
The Fireflies are on their annual ride across the Alps in aid of leukemia charity Leuka.
Why not sponsor them?
It’ll make you (and some leukemia sufferers) feel better.
Over the last few years D&AD has given its top award to some incredible things: Millions, The Great Schlep, The Millau Viaduct, The Millennium Wheel, The iPod etc.
But are they really D&AD?
I only ask, because to me, they are all so beyond D&AD that it almost seems sad to include them in such a limited awards scheme.
All of the above are so goshdarn amazing that they exist far beyond the worlds of advertising and design.
For a start, everything is designed in some way, which means that anything can surely be included in the remit of D&AD.
But the above work (even though it has been entered into D&AD) is not advertising or design: the individual pieces are just entities on their own, existing outside the remit of ‘design’ and ‘art direction’. After all, in what way is Millions a piece of design or art direction? Ditto the Millennium Wheel? You might as well include the internet.
Oh, they did (President’s Award 2007).
This may be the problem with D&AD. When something exists within its remit it is probably too narrow to be worthy of the Gold. But if it is worthy of the Gold, it is probably beyond D&AD.
(By the way, the two other Golds this year, coins that make up a coat of arms and BMW light sculpture aren’t design or art direction either. One is crap and the other is art rather than design.)
I’m just not sure that claiming everything that’s good (and entered) does D&AD any favours. It seems to make the organisation look like it is basking in the reflected glow of the work, which in turn reduces the significance of the award scheme.
Of course, it would take a brave D&AD to turn down such brilliance, but if it carries on like this, they might as well not bother with press, posters and TV ads.
They simply won’t be able to compete.
