If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Many people in advertising think that creatives just like to make nice little films and couldn’t give the first shit about whether or not they sell anything.

And, for the most part, they’re right.

But it stands to reason. If you put a monkey in a cage and reward him for raising his right hand/paw, why would he care about raising his left? Ultimately, raising his left is probably necessary to stave off arthritis, but it’s not going to get him a peanut.

The problem is that the two objectives started in the same place, but they have since diverged in ways that now leave them diametrically opposed.

In the first days of ‘creativity’ (thank you, Mr. Bernbach), every molecule of intelligence, lateral thinking and originality was expended in pursuit of the sale or the brand-build (usually the sale). VW Lemon was a brilliant attempt to sell cars when most car ads were patronising tosh.

But as ‘creativity’ developed, confusion arose: if ads that were harder to get were better, wouldn’t an ad that was virtually impossible to get be the apex of quality? If a lack of brash hard-sell was a good thing, wouldn’t trying not to sell be an even better thing? And if intelligence improved on bovine condescension, then wouldn’t the highest possible brow lead to the best possible communication?

It’s like saying that if an aspirin is great for relieving pain, then 100 would be brilliant.

Over the years, every step in the wrong direction devalued every step in the right one. Creativity began to be dismissed as indulgence and this theory was only compounded by the success of ads that continued to smash the consumer over the head with the dumb and the crass. There have been many awful ads that have been awfully effective, and they are all nails in the coffin of creativity.

But at some point, advertising awards were created and they were given to the work that attempted quality, with little or no interest paid to quantity (of sales). An ad that pushed the boundaries of aesthetics but increased sales by 5% would do better than an ad that pushed those boundaries a little less, but increased sales by 50%.

So the raises, promotions and kudos have gone to the creative pioneers, not necessarily the great salesmen.

And that’s the 100% logical reason why creatives have no incentive to care about effectiveness.

Until they get rewarded for sales, they will barely care about such insignificant irrelevances.

And that’s the topic for the question of the week.

(By the way, I’m dismayed that John pipped George H. to be Best Beatle. George is responsible for Something, Here Comes The Sun, Within You Without You, Taxman, The Life of Brian and Withnail and I. John? I think he seemed a bit nasty. Great songs though. Obviously, Paul and Ringo can go and whistle.)

It’s been shot by Spike Jonze and has gone through a lot of ups and downs over the last few years. But will it be any good? Well, from the trailer, even if it fails, it looks like the people involved have given it a hell of a go.

As someone who has (not always voluntarily) read the book a couple of hundred times over the past few years, I hope it’s as good an adaptation as Horton Hears A Who. Fingers crossed.

(Thanks, L. And thanks for the rabbit soldiers thing as well).

(apparently, USA G.I. is ‘rabbit’ in Japanese – usagi. Which might explain some of this crazy nonsense.)

The government is about to start showing condom ads before the 9pm watershed.

And this is happening just as ‘the raciest commercial ever made’ (© The People Who Made It) launches in that time slot:

Call me old-fashioned (go on) but I think that this ‘raciest commercial ever made’ (© The People Who Made It) will get a bunch of MTV-watching kids in the mood, but they might just forget that they’re supposed to be wearing a condom as they exercise that mood.

Kind of making the problem worse.

This is on page 15 of the main news section of today’s Guardian:

An ad that can only be of interest to a maximum of a few thousand people in a newspaper that has a daily readership of 1,264,000.

And I’m not 100% sure it’s the best ad I’ve ever seen on that brief.

Actually, I didn’t even apply, but I can now take several of their courses by logging on to Academic Earth.

Isn’t that just fucking brilliant? If ever any of you have a spare hour (and I think this might increasingly be the case over the coming months) you can learn about English, Philosophy, Astronomy, Political Science and a bunch of other wonderful things while sitting in bed, for free from some of the greatest teachers in the world.

And for something topical, check out this Princeton professor on the origins of the financial mess.

Lovely:

Reminds me that Unkle are a great promos group (good songs, too):

UNKLE – Rabbit In Your Headlights
Uploaded by Unkle“>

(Thanks again, L.)

Who are the top directors these days? Let’s see…Fredrik, Chris, Frank, Danny, Ringan, Nicolai, Noam, Ivan, Tom Kuntz, maybe Rupert Sanders and, of course, Michel and Jonathan if they’re not on a movie.

I think I’ve said this before, but that’s a fairly similar list to 5-10 years ago. Nicolai and, to a lesser extent, Noam are the only ones you hadn’t really heard of in 2000, but if you had a great script at the turn of the century, chances are it would have gone to one of the others.

So why is it so difficult to break into the hallowed turf of these top guys, and why do they rarely fall off?

I was talking to the MD of a production company last week, and his theory is that it’s down to scale. Once you’ve done one big job well, you’re in, and that’s because if you can do it once, people are happy to trust you with it again. For example, Nicolai shot Sony ‘Balls’, and was subsequently given other Biggies such as Guinness ‘Tipping Point’ and Monster.com ‘Morning’.

Biggies are a certain type of ad that has several tempting features: a substantial timelength, a juicy budget, less branding (therefore a cleaner film for the director), exotic locations and a better shot at awards. That’s why, once you’re in, you’re in, and only a large number of financially motivated turds will see you cast from the Golden Mountain (see Gerard De Thame, Tarsem, Tony Kaye etc.). Even those who have had to move to the foothills of the Golden Mountain may be called upon again at any time for another shot (see Traktor’s ‘Men v Women’ Mail on Sunday ad).

Obviously, you have to maintain a certain standard, but then the playing field is tilted in your favour forever more. The real question is, how do you get your first Biggie?

I guess there’s a good argument for the incremental progression of a career that finally gets you to the point where someone will trust you with their baby. For example, Danny Kleinman was hardly an overnight success before he got this:

But in those days he was generally thought of as just a comedy director, so with the coolness and scale of ‘Wakeboarder’, he stepped up fully into the bigtime, particularly for the scripts that leaned in the direction of funny.

Oddly enough, the same team and client gave Nicolai his Biggie break:

So there we have it: if you get invited to the Golden Mountain and don’t mess up, you’re in for as long as you can keep your mojo going.

Will anyone get there soon? Well, after HSBC ‘Lumberjack’, I’d expect Vince Squibb to step up. Dougal Wilson looked like he was going to, but seems to have gone a bit quiet lately. And then there’s Jonny Green – a director with all the requisite potential.

Good luck to them all.