If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Hi there.

I was just thinking the other day about what made me work with the ADs I’ve chosen to work with (as opposed to the ones I’ve been put together with).

I only have two examples of this situation:

1. My first AD, Paul, was one of the other students at Watford. If you’ve been there, or to any of the other advertising colleges, you’ll know that you kind of get a veritable smorgasbord of other creatives to choose from. Our year had around 30 people, and we were ‘given’ our partners for each project by the tutor, Tony. So you’d work with a few people and maybe there’d be some chemistry, or the work you produced was really good, and by the time you’d worked with everyone and now had to select someone more long-term, you’d have a good idea who that person might be. But it was also a bit like the school dance, in that your ideal date might already be betrothed to another, leaving you in a panicked flap, hoping your second choice might still be available (and not offended or put off by the fact that they were not your number one selection). So my first choice was another copywriter, called Jane (God knows who’d have done the art direction if we’d paired up), but she was already committed to her flatmate, Dave. I think they still work together, and have certainly spent many years at WCRS. So I then decided to ask Paul, and here’s why: we were doing a campaign for Linda McCartney’s veggie ready meals and came up with the idea of a tiny version of Linda sitting on the shoulders of models as they went down catwalks, suggesting they eat more substantial food (thin models were a big deal at the time). It was pretty odd, and not to everyone’s taste, but I thought to myself, ‘If this guy is happy to go with such weird stuff, I’d like to work with him’. So that was that. It seemed to work out until our laziness caused our boss at AMV to split us up, but that’s another story that I’m sure I’ve told on this blog already.
2. Daryl was a very different situation. It was 2004, I think, and I was partnerless at AMV. Daryl was also partnerless, but that didn’t mean we’d automatically partner each other. I’d known Daryl for seven years, but we hadn’t really hung out that much. To be honest, he’d been more successful than me, so I wasn’t even sure he’d want to team up. And a further complication on my side was that a new AD was about to join, and it had been suggested that I’d work with her. But I was more interested in working with Daryl because he’d created better, more popular and more awarded TV ads, and I wanted to improve that part of my skill set. I can’t remember what happened next, but I soon found myself in the basement of the Dorchester Hotel sitting in a small room with Sharon Osbourne while Daryl shot an ad with Ozzy next door. When the shoot was over, Daryl and I went for a pint and asked each other if we wanted to give it a go, and that was that. Not sure exactly what Daryl saw in me, but I think he liked the fact that, like him, I was a massive ad nerd, who knew D&AD annuals backwards. I’d also written a continuation of one of his campaigns. My executions got into the Book and his didn’t, but in a way we’d kind of worked together already.

What about you?

Here’s an interesting post about the downside of hiring a big network agency to do your advertising.

The gist of the argument goes that by paying Martin Sorrell $66m, a large chunk of WPP’s clients’ fees are going to people (mainly one particular person) not directly involved in the day-to-day business of the agencies: namely, to improve their clients’ businesses through advertising and related services.

I see the point, but I think there are less visible ‘benefits’ (I use the inverted commas to recognise that many of these ‘benefits’ are subjective) apparently not considered by the author. Many of the systems and processes created by WWP, perhaps instigated or approved from the top, might go some way to streamlining wastage and saving time/money for clients (possibly not, but for the purposes of this post I’m being the devil’s advocate). In addition, large organisations might be able to attract better talent all the way through the organisation, either through the more attractive career path, the greater compensation, or both. Again, you could argue that the ability to do that trickles down from the top, with Martin/John Wren etc. hiring very good people, who hire very good people, who hire very good people.

Perhaps there are also economies of scale that allow for better facilities or reduced fees that may or may not be passed on to the client. Many clients also like to walk into swish receptions and speedy glass elevators before being metaphorically fellated (or cunniliguified?) by the discovery of extra thick chocolate on their meeting biscuits or account people who will pick up their dry cleaning.

But this is actually a little more complicated than that. Apparently the cash doesn’t just go up a funnel to Martin’s wallet; it’s actually part of a long-term incentive scheme that sees him do well when WPP does well. So… is it client money finding it’s way directly into the pocket of the bloke at the top, or is it just a reward for making the whole company richer, along with its shareholders? And where does one end and the other begin? It’s WPP cash that’s making up that $66m, but is it client cash?

Perhaps the argument is like that of a football club: lots of season ticket holders complain when their seat prices rise but the club doesn’t spend the extra cash on things the supporters benefit from, such as better players. But a large club needs many other elements to be successful, such as sponsorship, corporate entertainment and branding in places like Singapore. Does a more expensive season ticket pay for a business class seat for a club executive to travel to Jakarta and arrange for a sponsorship from a tyre manufacturer, thus bringing in the £20m required for a new defender? Some fans talk about ‘net spend’, which says that if a manager spends 100m on transfers but brings in 80m by selling players, he has only made a net spend of 20m. But there are so many other expenses in these large corporations that you really have to look at all the ins and outs to make a proper analysis of where the P and L happens.

Does Martin Sorrell’s ‘spousal travel’ budget (the £274,000 he expenses for his missus to travel with him) lead to him being more relaxed on trips, thus in better form to win a big global pitch for his holding company? Do his nice suits create the right impression at a corporate retreat, inspiring his top mangers to do better? Who knows? But the only measure that matters in this case is WPP’s share price. Whatever the thousands of factors that contribute to that share price are, the only deal was this: share price up, Martin’s money up.

If you are a client who thinks your money is being somewhat wasted by paying a lot to a man at the top, then don’t spend that money in that place. Of course you’ll get better ‘value’ by going to a start-up, but you won’t get all the extras, or the security.

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

Trump In Glitter Tumblr, you basic bitches (thanks, T).

Meow (thanks, J):

The current state of every murdered rapper’s case (thanks, J).

The 30 greatest cinematographers in movie history (thanks, J2).

Polaroids from the set of Blade Runner, Taxi Driver, Breakfast at Tiffany’s etc. (thanks, T).

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 5:

Hip-hop aerobics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvTEK6UtGU

Around 2010 I had the pleasure of freelancing as a team with the excellent art director Steve Paskin.

He is a massive music nut and connoisseur of the fried egg sandwich (to which he introduced me; I in turn would like to take credit for bringing Modelo Especial into his life), but also a very, very good art director.

So it’s lucky for you that Steve has decided to curate his favourite artistic references in the Library, or shhhh, section of his website.

Take a look.

Also, take a look at his website. If you’re looking for an ace AD/CD, I believe he’s currently freelancing.

(This message has not been paid for by Steve Paskin.)

I’m currently reading the classic book Working by Studs Turkel (the first book in our agency book club. Hey! Why not start an agency book club?). It’s a series of testimonials from people about their different jobs and the nature of work in general. The first chapter has this quote from a steelworker:

“You’re doing this manual labour and you know that technology can do it. (Laughs). Let’s face it, a machine can do the work of a man; otherwise they wouldn’t have space probes. Why can we send a rocket ship that’s unmanned and yet send a man into a steel mill to do a mule’s work?”

I also read this interview with US comedian Aziz Ansari where he extolled the benefits of not working super-hard:

“I waste an hour or two every day looking at mindless stuff on the Internet. I go down a wormhole from Google News or The New York Times. I’ll watch movie trailers and stuff like that. It’s like, ‘A 15-second video on Instagram of a guy with a light saber! Look at that!’ But I wrote a bit about that, so it did help in that way.”

An hour later I came across this article in US GQ, which explored the jobs which earned the most money for the least effort:

“For many people, work means late nights in the office and even later emails from your boss. A Gallup poll from last year that the average full-time American employee works 47 hours a week, with 18 percent of them working at least 60 hours. Eighty percent of American workers report feeling stressed out at work, according to a Nielsen study from last year. (Wage growth, in case you were wondering, has pretty much been stagnant since 1979).”

And then this article about pointless long hours in NY Magazine:

“This is a version of something psychologists call the “labor illusion,” which, as Burkeman explains, means that although “we might say we’re focused only on whether [someone] did the job quickly and well … really we want to feel they wore themselves out for us.” 

Then a friend of mine posted this quote to Facebook:

This Daily Mash article: ‘Business goes under as entire staff masters art of looking busy’.

So what is ‘work’ in 2015?

What does your day look like? How much of it is Facebook/Twitter/Blogs and how much is actual application to the tasks in hand?

Do you justify Facebook etc. as sponging stuff into your brain so you can be more creative in future?

Or do you give zero fucks?

Is your output a reasonable return for the money you get paid?

Do you enjoy what you do despite the fact that it’s tainted with the pejorative nomenclature ‘work’?

Are we conditioned to dislike working because it’s drummed into us at school to be some kind of ‘necessary’ drudgery that needs to be completed before we enjoy ourselves, like eating your greens before you’re allowed pudding?

Are white collar jobs a bit pathetic compared to the real work of digging roads etc?

Is manual labour basically a stress-free, thoughtless mental holiday that’s far more appealing than pushing a pen (if only it paid more)? (By the way, when my wife worked at a production company she told me that the boss often fantasised about working on a checkout, mindlessly passing barcodes over the electronic reader.)

Is it true, as Churchill said, that if you find a job you like you’ll never work a day in your life?

Do you suspect that there’s really only enough proper work for, say, 500m of us, with the rest doing silly made-up jobs that don’t matter in the least?

I wonder how many hours of actual ‘work’ I do each day. I answer emails, have quite a few meetings and reviews, get on calls with far-flung countries, think about what I could do to make the workplace better in general etc., but how many minutes do I spend doing that? How many is it possible to spend utterly dedicated to those tasks? I like to pop over to Facebook or Twitter occasionally to give my brain a rest and/or find those fascinating little tidbits you all enjoy in my weekend posts, but I don’t really switch off as I continue to think about aspects of the job throughout the day and at at home.

My job spans many time zones, so there’s always someone awake to prod me with an electronic message.I usually wake up to 40 emails and estimate that I receive another couple of hundred throughout the day. I can often go the loo with all messages cleared and return to find a little number 17 in my unanswered mails indicator. But lots of these just have me looped into a conversation between other people. If I had to give a considered response to each one I don’t think I’d have time to do anything else.

However, when I get to the weekend I tend to switch off. The kids are around and they need my attention (and I want to give it to them). I think that’s valuable time and I rarely feel like there’s something else my brain should be occupied with.

I also suppose that there are people in the office who spend more of their hours contributing to the agency than I do, but there are also plenty who spend fewer. But what is the quality of those hours? Is one of mine equivalent to three of a more junior person? Or equivalent to half an hour of my boss’s time? And, as I ultimately contribute to Apple, does my work generate more money than those who work for smaller companies?

In the end it’s just another area of life that human beings guess at with little accuracy. We fit vaguely into out little slots and that seems to be sufficient for the whole situation to continue.

Then we die, and just before that happens we realise that none of it actually mattered at all (smiley face made out of punctuation, perhaps with a wink and a sticky-out tongue).

Jeff Bridges interviews Roger Deakins (thanks, J).

Classic Viz letterbocks (thanks, G).

Ten masters of the art form discuss filmmaking. Includes this comencement speech from John Lasseter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1333&v=tZ8I0NsfmCQ

Have you ever taken the Myers briggs test? Apparently it’s bullshit.

The 5-hour version of Apocalypse Now, anyone?

Tarantino interviewed by Brett Easton Ellis.

Some of these 53 things that thrill British people are rather nice (thanks, T).

And some very funny British tweets (thanks, D).

Little Spermaid? 21 Hump Street? Porn versions of proper movies.

Wildlife photographer of the year.

How to cut a cake properly (thanks, L):

Somewhat related: the scientific way to find Wally/Waldo (thanks, J).

Stunning collection of Pantone, 271 years before Pantone (thanks, D).

Slapdash supercars (thanks, J).

Bach’s Prelude Number One played with boomwhackers (thanks, G):

‘You’re a bagel, a French bagel!” (Thanks, G):

And some brilliant shit tattoos (thanks, G).

Beautiful horror film posters (thanks, J).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u-dxn8IgQo

(Thanks, Jon.)

Are they?

In this instance I’m talking about awards that are a matter of opinion, rather than a matter of fact: Oscars, Grammys, Cannes Lions, Sports Personality of the Year, Rear of the Year, BAFTAs etc.

Well, let’s take a look at the supposed pros and cons:

Pros

They serve to stimulate. In theory, other people who work in the industry being awarded see what gets the awards and it inspires them to greater heights in their own work.

They publicise the industry and work concerned, so that perhaps more people will be interested in becoming musicians, ‘rears’ etc. This grows the talent pool for future ‘better’ work.

They generate money for some people. For example, the advertising revenue created by the Oscars ceremony keeps the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences going all year.

Award dos are fun.

To many people they are proof that the awarded people are good at what they do, and therefore worthy of employment.

Cons

The idea that matters of opinion become matters of fact (eg: the winner of the Oscar for Best Screenplay is considered by many to be the best screenplay of that year) closes off avenues of creativity. People who are inspired by these works then believe that such work is what they should aspire to, leading to a repetition of the winning work rather than actual innovation. There is definitely an ‘Oscar’ type of film and, I would argue, a typical Cannes Grand Prix winner, which can only be a symptom of the dead hand of familiarity guiding the judges’ decisions

They clearly don’t lead to better work. Are the movies of the last ten years better than those of the Seventies? What about the music? Are ads better now than they ever have been? Of course not. So even with shoulders of giants to stand on and millions of awards to inspire us, the improvement is virtually non-existant.

Most are a thin, pointless sham, with no intrinsic value, and therefore a waste of money. Add up all the award entries and event organisations across the world and you have billions that could be better spent on feeding the starving or building the giant ark we’re all going to need when the Polar ice caps melt.

They have an importance that takes precedence over what the art is attempting to achieve. Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that some advertising creatives would rather win awards (ie, have the approval of seven people a bit like themselves) than have a 10% increase in sales (ie change the behaviour of millions). I also have a feeling people (possibly including Anthea Turner) have deliberately performed buttock-enhancing exercises to improve their chances of winning Rear of the Year. Both are sad states of affairs.

So what do you think?

Are awards a GOOD THING or a SHIT THING? (No comments suggesting they’re a bit of both/somewhere in between please.)

We like long build ups and disappointing drops (thanks, H):

The Miles Davis door (thanks, F):

This guy is happy to admit he doesn’t ‘get’ art (thanks, T).

Watch food being digested:

Marvellous Scottish humour (thanks, T).

Mash up by a director to introduce himself at a film festival (thanks, J):

Van Damme’s Kills (takes half an hour; thanks, J):

Dad jokes a-plenty (thanks, J).

This is funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKD5pKzzXvU&feature=youtu.be

Accidental vajayjay (thanks, T2).