If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

In advertising circles the blag is the stuff of legend.

From Graham Fink being told he wasn’t old enough to join CDP and returning disguised as an old man, to those guys I remember trying to get into AMV by ‘living’ in the phone box across the road, the circumventing of rules and rejections to gain an advantage is as common as an idea that originated on YouTube.

I was listening to Dave Dye’s excellent chat with Dave Hieatt, which featured a fine blag story involving Dave H getting into Saatchi and Saatchi by pretending he had to deliver something to Jeff Stark. Dave’s previous chat, with Carlos Bayala, also involves a fine blag story about pretending to be a placement to get in at Leagas Delaney.

And that reminded me of a creative whose name escapes me, who was fired from BMP/DDB many years ago. He got around this by simply ignoring it and coming to work as usual the following day. His boss was too embarrassed to re-fire him, so he just let him stay, which he did for a couple of decades.

I have my own blag story: when I was between jobs in 1997 or 1998 I called up John Hegarty’s PA and told him John had seen my book and like it so much that he’d personally sent me a note telling me to make an appointment to see him. The PA had a good go at suggesting this was unlikely, but I kept up my subterfuge long enough to get that appointment. The fact that Sir Hegs was not actually a fan of the book was a disappointing ending to an otherwise successful blag.

I also did a semi-blag, whereby my partner and I had come to end of our placement at AMV. In theory we needed the sign off of the ECD to return on Monday, but he’d gone home, so what were we to do? Well, we were in the middle of a VERY important small-space price ad for Homebase, so we used that as a kind of bridge to Monday. No one noticed or cared about the ‘blag’, but we rode it to an actual job that lasted several years.

I think the blag has been much-maligned; when they fail people tend to think the people who tried them are a bit sad. But many have succeeded, conferring upon their practitioners the kind of legendary status that means they get celebrated on a blog several years later.

Did you blag? Do you know of anyone who did? Chuck your story in the comments and let’s celebrate true advertising creativity!

Tom Hardy noises:

Untold stories of 2001:

Have aliens found us? (Thanks, D.)

Precarious balloons (thanks, J).

Make up illusions (thanks, J).

Very good article on the fun of writing bad reviews (thanks, J).

Lots of suggestions for the greatest photo of all time.

Derren Brown is a very good artist.

Eddie Van Halen shares his musical journey:

That dreamy intro to Zelda on the N64:

Which supercar is right for you?

I live in LA.

It’s a very poster-heavy city, mainly because it’s the epicentre of the entertainment industry, so we have dozens of movies and TV shows that require endless promotion. But beyond that there are plenty of lawyers, cannabis dispensaries and quasi-prostitution apps that need a bit of public exposure. And we all drive, so we’re all out and about, passing dozens of billboards even if we’re just popping out for a pint of milk (organic, gluten-free almond, naturally).

So it takes a lot for a poster to stand out. But the one above managed to do exactly that. Yes, I get that it’s not a Cannes/D&AD-friendly, conceptually tight masterwork, but we’re all grown-ups here; we realise that awards are just a bit of silly guff that’s of no interest to the real world.

So why is this good?

1. I noticed it. That is the sine qua non of advertising. No notice, no ad. Why did I notice it? I think that’s entirely down to the art direction. It’s very simple, very clear and very yellow. We don’t get many yellow posters around these parts (usually because a picture of Tom Cruise’s face doesn’t sit well on that colour), so it was different. So it stood out. So I noticed it. It’s also very simple, so I could take it in while driving: five short words and a website. Easy.
2. That line: ‘This is not a miracle‘. It’s thought-provoking. ‘What is not a miracle? Those pills? Why aren’t they a miracle? If they’re not a miracle, why are you making such a big deal out of it? Isn’t it more usual to tell me your product is a miracle? Why do you think I’d be interested in a non-miracle?‘ Like the colour yellow, the line, a canny mixture of confidence and self-deprecation, is odd. Elegantly, it sunk its claws into my curiosity with a light bit of confusion. Lines don’t have to bring closure. They don’t have to make you happy or satisfied. They have to stand out. They have to be noticed.
3. The typography. I’m not a typographer, but I know this is unusual. The website is bottom left, the line is on the right, the typeface is plan yet bold. It’s not an easy read. If you do the usual thing and go left to right it makes no sense. So you have to go left, right, maybe left again to see the picture, then down to the website. It’s not a company I’ve ever heard of, so I’m really none the wiser, but as with the line, I’m pleasantly confused.
4. The image. What the hell are those pills? Why don’t they look like normal pills? I know they’re not a miracle because you’ve just told me so, but they’re something special. Maybe they are a miracle. This is like a policeman at a crime scene telling you ‘there’s nothing to see here’ when there clearly is, so your intrigue doubles. It also looks pretty tricky to shoot semi-translucent golden spheres inside a translucent three dimensional curved oblong so the whole thing stands out on a yellow background. Well done, art director!
5. The cues. This company is big enough to afford a billboard in LA, so it must be the real deal. You don’t get to buy one of those unless you’re somewhat successful, so why haven’t I heard of you? And ‘ritual.com’? If you can afford a web address like that, you must be doing something right. There’s no way you just snapped it up in 1993, so you had to pay a fair whack for it. How did you do that? By being successful. So this ‘miracle pill’ stuff can’t be bullshit. You must already have sold a lot of them, and you can only do that if the product has satisfied a lot of people. And it would surely only do that if it were good…

So I’m in.

I was in the car with my wife, so she looked them up on her phone and sure enough, they’re selling a women’s multivitamin with yellow branding, premium packaging, and continued intelligent self-deprecation (‘For skeptics, by skeptics’).

Surprisingly enough, I’m not in the market for a women’s multivitamin, but that’s what happens with billboards: they’re seen by people who aren’t relevant to the message. However, I’m now a minor brand advocate. I’ve just spent twenty minutes writing this post. I’m going to promote it with a tweet and a LinkedIn post, and if the subject comes up, I’ll almost certainly mention it to any interested parties.

All that has come from a single, well made poster that won’t win any awards, but will do something even more important: it’ll sell multivitamins.

For the 20th anniversary, this is David Chase’s detailed explanation of the final scene of The Sopranos.

And the 20 best dramas since it happened.

Why Kodak died and Fuji thrived.

For those of you not on a healthy Jan, the Indian Masala Cheese Toastie:

Top ten failed McDonald’s products:

Satisfying glassmaking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4KCaqRxvAo

Vimeo best of 2018:

And the best of the last ten years:

The fun of snowploughing trains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKL9_TaioE4

Why not build a road around the world?

Lots of fun little docs.

Ten hours on a nice Norwegian railway journey (750,000 views. Thanks, J):

A brief history of video game graphics:

Festify your Christmas jumper for a good cause.

Extrapolate:

Package thief glitter bomb trap:

All the Best Cinematography winners:

https://vimeo.com/201977823

Maths genius:

Damn good vid:

Why do we ‘Watch Netflix’ and ‘Listen To Spotify’ rather than the movies and music on them?

Have fun exploring the world (on the internet).

Cool plastic art:

Bubble blowing level: expert:

Are you having people round for Christmas? This could help.

Odd little Christmas song:

Cool old Star Wars stuff.

Starry Night VR:

The impossible magnitude of our universe:

Pikachu on acid: