If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Steamboat Willie – Koyaanisqatsi remix (thanks, T):

Brilliant wooden sculptures of famous film directors.

What it’s like to be Stanley Kubrick’s assistant for three decades.

Celebrities photoshopped to look like their crappy fan art (thanks, V).

Forklift Driver Klaus (thanks, A):

15 things you didn’t know about Pet Sounds.

Every Metallica riff played in four minutes (thanks, J):

Excellent observational photographs (thanks, J).

Drive, the Uber version (thanks, J):

Funny photoshopping (thanks, J).

Great Hamilton article.

Finally, there’s an introduction to Landmark for creatives happening in London 7pm this Monday (23rd). Let me know if you’re interested (bwmkay@gmail.com). It will be amazing (I promise!).

A friend and I were just discussing the recently-relegated Newcastle United. We both found it kind of odd because we’d lived through the 90s, during which time Newcastle were a frantically entertaining and relatively successful club. One week they’d lose 4-3 to Liverpool, the next they’d buy Faustino Asprilla to shore up their title challenge.

So the dissonance comes from the old perception we had of the club vs the current reality (being shite, run by a malevolent discount sporting goods CEO, only playing well when they’re on TV etc.).

I experienced this first-hand when I freelanced at one of the post-Frank versions of Lowe in 2009. My AD and I had lived through years of Lowe producing some of the best advertising in the world, and although we knew it was no longer that Lowe, we couldn’t help thinking it still had something in its fundamental structure that would still allow it to produce greatness. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case; by that stage it was mainly the London outpost of an uninspiring international network, producing some pretty dry ads for Knorr, Vauxhall and Cif.

There was no longer any Stella Artois, Olympus, Paul Silburn or Vince Squibb, so what made Lowe Lowe? And, indeed, what was ‘Lowe’? I suppose once the great accounts and brilliant staff had departed it was no different to any other so-so ad agency. Soon after, it merged with an agency which, up to that point, had been pretty mediocre, becoming DLKW Lowe, and the transformation was complete*. But I still hear the word Lowe and think ‘good advertising’, which makes me wonder how long perception lasts beyond a material change.

I recall David Abbott once suggesting that a person or company could live off its reputation for three years. I think that period of time differs depending on the strength of the reputation and who is regarding the person or entity. The rational, analytical side of an observer may understand that the good times have definitely left the building, but the emotional memory may live on. I wonder if it takes as long to fully lose a reputation as it does to gain one; Lowe had spent so long being so good that I found it hard to wipe away the entirety of that perception.

And of course it works in the other direction. Look at Grey: for so many years the punchline of jokes about the worst agency in London, it now regularly wins the most creative awards in the country, and genuinely pushes the advertising envelope (even if some of its efforts are depressingly scammy). However, in the back of my mind it’s still slightly Grey, slogging its way through a depressing series of P&G shitefests.

I suppose we experience so few spot-changing leopards that it’s a situation we rarely have to confront. Most things stay somewhat consistent over time so we’re used to retaining our initial impressions of them. Perhaps it takes a long time to trust any kind of change because we need enough examples of the new entity to cancel out our perception of the old; one swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor a single penguin a winter.

So live off your fat days, or accept that if you’re crap today it’s going to be hard to shift that perception, even after the reality has changed.

*By the way, I don’t pay enough attention to the current UK ad scene to know what state Lowe is in these days, but I do know it has a fine pair of ECDs and some excellent senior creatives, so I’m hoping for the best.

The utterly wonderful and excellent book on old VW ads is back,       bigger, better and more complete.

I'll let one of its authors, the great Alfredo Marcantonio, take up the story of the new edition:

I did indeed, and continue to do so. 
If you'd like a copy, it's available all over the world, and would make a fine gift for any ad nerd, VW nut or person with exquisite  taste.

100 years of film in 100 shots (thanks, D):

Punks look back to their wildest days (thanks, T).

Cool inventions (thanks, P).

Bicycles built off people’s shitty drawings.

Al Jaffee explains how he created those fold-ins at the back of Mad magazine:

Social media overshares (thanks, T).

Fantastic John Stewart interview:

Have you ever wondered why we admire the things we do? What is it about Guernica, Astral Weeks or Great Expectations that has left them venerated as lasting classics?

Sure, they are all beautifully crafted, but what does that mean?

I think it all comes down to difficulty. Could you have conjured up the ideas for those works of art then executed them to such a high standard? Almost certainly not, so that makes them worthy of your respect.

And it’s not just art: Rosa Parks, Edmund Hillary, Albert Einstein, Usain Bolt, David Attenborough, Marie Curie, Emmeline Pankhurst, Gandhi, Amelia Earhart… Can you imagine going through what they went through, or coming up with their ideas? It’s not impossible, but it’s ridiculously hard, so they get to be admired. Whereas the average bus driver, dog groomer or copywriter? Not such a big deal because their achievements tend to look achievable.

Think of the ads that have made you jealous. I think some will have seemed impossible:

…while others might have just made you kick yourself for failing to come up with them:

That Economist ad is a great example of the latter. Could you have done it? Possibly. Did you do it? No. As someone who spent many, many hours trying to come up with Economist posters I can tell you that it never seemed within my ability. If it had been I might have got close to it, but I (and many other people far more talented than me) literally could not come up with it. It was too difficult, and therefore worthy of our respect.

It’s the reason why, when it comes to writing, people admire economy of expression: it’s fucking hard. Wittering on and expressing yourself vaguely in cliched terms is pretty easy, so even if it manages to convey the point we don’t admire it as much. Maximum meaning, minimum means is both a brilliant encapsulation of itself and a guide to artistic difficulty and excellence.

It’s also the reason why certain examples of modern art are derided: it’s easy to dribble paint over a canvas or set up a pile of bricks. But that misses the point: it’s actually very difficult to do those things and have them represent an element of the human spirit or the state of society.

And it’s really only when the difficulty of something hits us that it the excellence reveals itself. For example I recently showed this to my son:

He plays guitar, so he watched the first things Prince did and said they were good but possible. Then I showed him what happens around 4:03 and he conceded that his mind was blown. The playing in that sequence is so difficult he couldn’t get his head round being able to do it. He then said that he wanted to be better than Prince, a man he now admires.

You might think of examples of difficult achievements that you don’t admire, but I’d argue that you can admire the quality of the achievement without liking it or the people behind it. For example:

So that’s all there is to it, really: do things that are either difficult, apparently difficult, or easy for you but difficult for everyone else; then life will be a breeze.

The email-coveting shiteness of all websites.

People mispronouncing Jeremy Hunt’s last name (thanks, P):

Every Prince album reviewed and rated (thanks, A).

Perfectly recreating fashion pictures on a budget (thanks, L).

Cool drones (thanks, P):

Awesome new Radiohead vid:

The 50 most influential gadgets.

Handwriting porn (thanks, C).

At the time of writing, Leicester City haven’t quite won the 2015-16 Premier League title, but they will.

For those of you who don’t follow football, I feel I’m going to need a few facts to explain how seismic and unlikely an occurrence this is. Actually, I only need one: at the start of the season the bookmakers believed it was more likely that Dean Gaffney would win an Oscar.

At 5000-1, the chances of Simon Cowell becoming PM were ten times more likely.

Some have called it the biggest upset in recorded sports history.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love an unlikely success story, and despite the racism, diving and cynical fouls that have accompanied this win, I am fully behind it. It’s a modern day fairytale, where a cheaply-assembled collection of also-rans bested the billionaire-funded behemoths of Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea (and everyone else). It gives us all hope.

But it also makes me think: what conditions would you have to replicate in order to repeat the achievement elsewhere? Well, in the world of advertising I couldn’t help thinking of Dave Trott’s creative department of the 1980s. They laid waste to all comers by producing the world’s most popular and award-winning work, but they were a collection of relatively untried youngsters.

It’s well known that Dave wanted his department to operate his way; putting together a team of superstars from other agencies would make this much harder, as they’d be more inclined to question him and try to do things their way (plus they’d cost much more). So Dave found a bunch of talented, hungry juniors and shaped them into a team of world beaters.

The real question is: why does this method work? I have a theory: these days most Premier League footballers earn millions. They drive supercars, date (page 3) models and have colossal entourages hanging on their every word. This makes a manager’s life difficult. How do you dictate terms to a young, stupid millionaire whose friends spend all day blowing smoke up his arse? I think that’s where Wenger and Mourinho now struggle: unless you show yourself to be a faultless legend (at the moment that’s really just Guardiola and Ancelotti, perhaps with Simeone thrown in) there will be doubts, and those doubts will shave 10-15% off a manager’s ability to exert his will. But for a team to play brilliantly together the manager has to assert his will. He must be obeyed, otherwise the plan goes awry and the points are lost. But if you put together a team of players/creatives who are lower down the totem pole they will be less likely to question the manager or CD’s authority, and that can give you the extra 10-15% you need to beat the less committed teams.

Sure, it takes a very good manager, and possibly an alchemical combination of hunger and talent, but you can either make the whole greater than the sum of its parts or, it seems, less.

I also concede that various circumstances also contribute to this situation: lower expectations; an underdog spirit; no giant overlord (holding company/interfering owner) to corrupt the momentum; the power of the novel (teams unprepared for the strength of Leicester; rival agencies similarly unprepared in pitches, or awards juries moved by the upward trajectory of the latest star agency)… But these are circumstances often made by the team/agency, which means they’re also malleable.

So there you go: be a great manager/CD and fill your department with the talented, hungry and cheap.

The rest will be history.

Inside Guillermo Del Toro’s house of curiosities:

Great art in ugly rooms.

Animated Kafka (thanks, T):

People literally ask Reddit for abuse (thanks, T).

Steve Buscemi onesie, anyone? (Thanks, G.)

Best/worst celeb workout videos supercut (thanks, J).

Hi there,

You might recall that I have posted about Adcan before. For those who can’t recall such a thing, or are new to the blog (hi!), Adcan is a not-for-profit award scheme started by my friend Brydon Gerus and now run by several of our friends.

As the ‘about’ section of the website says:

ADCAN is a #makegood movement that mobilises the film and advertising industries to make a real difference in the world. Our free-to-enter film competition offers up-and-coming talent good opportunities to do good work for good causes.

Filmmakers answer live charity briefs and are rewarded with industry contacts and workshops. Charities get free promotional films to help spread their messages and our partnering production companies get to see up-and-coming talent.

It’s this circle of benefit that makes ADCAN so unique.

So if you’re a creative or director who wants to make a name for yourself, go and visit the site, find yourself a brief and do some good things (that might get you a fantastic break in the industry).

And here’s a film explaining the ethos:

Senan writes:

Hi Ben,

Sorry for cold calling like this.

We’re big fans of your blog and thought we’d share a new poster campaign we’ve just done with Dave Dye at JWT.

Basically, we’re big fans of Record Store Day and decided to contact them help this year and help them to promote the day.

Below is the PR blurb for the poster campaign we created, but I’ve attached the work for you to take a look at. We’re really proud of it and hope you like it as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. All the best,

Senan

Well, Senan, I do indeed like it. You might even call me a ‘big fan’. Here’s the ‘PR Blurb’ and the work:

The PR Blurb

Creatives Senan Lee and Pansy Aung love Record Store Day and decided to support London’s Soho record stores by creating a poster campaign in which the independent shops and restaurants of Soho could use to promote their fellow indy record stores.

Each poster features a popular Soho business, except with a hidden ‘vinyl’ twist. Stores selected the posters most relevant to them, wrote their names on it to show they support the day and put them up to tell their customers where all of Soho’s record stores are. The team managed to install them in over 50 independent Soho businesses, including Paul Smith, Beyond Retro, Pizza Pilgrims, Flat White, CyberCandy and HarmonySexShops. 

The posters were illustrated and designed by a team of illustrators and designers with a passion for vinyl, including Dave Anderson, Jordon Cheung and Toby Leigh.

Creative Director: Dave Dye

Creatives: Senan Lee, Pansy Aung

Illustrators: Paul Bower, Dave Anderson, Jordon Cheung, Chris Gilvan Cartwright, Mario Wagner, Toby Leigh