If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PzntWQ-sVY

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Alex and Adam write:

Hi Ben, 

We write to you with what might be the least worthy side project in the history of your blog. 

We will understand completely if you pull a funny face and then drag this towards the little trash icon.

Or you can open the attached word doc to see what it’s all about.

(Here are the contents of the Word doc:)

“The client is pushing us heavily towards full-bleed.”

If you work in advertising, we don’t need to tell you the quote above is less sinister than it might first appear. It is, nonetheless a fine example of the surreal sound bites pinging down the halls of ad agencies the world over.

Whether you’re a suit, creative, a planner, or even one of those accounts payable gnomes – chances are, you’ve had a conversation shudder to a halt as you all frown and wonder how you arrived at: “I don’t want to execute any ducks.”

Long, insufferable meetings produce gems like “We have to maintain the biscuit equity” or “That’s a lot of buckets of learning you’ve had along the way.” And if you retreat to a different part of the building – fearing an imminent bleed on the brain – you’re only going to run into a TV producer insisting “We need someone with a face like a sock puppet” or a creative director ranting “I should have drunk that tea, instead of sticking my cock in it.”

These absurd little quotes – stranger still, when taken out of context – seem to be unavoidable byproducts of the marketing process. And we love them. They remind us that we didn’t settle for the nine to five, and the rows of neatly ordered cubicles. No, instead we get to spend every day with a strange, wonderful bunch of people, who say things like “Trick everyone, eat a granny and have a great time.”

As a sort of group-therapy catharsis, we’d like to invite your readers to share their own ad-quotes with us via twitter.com/advertisinghurt

Share away…

Here’s a new one that smoulders like a Zinger Tower Burger:

http://vimeo.com/101309744

Really well shot (interest declared: by my friend Jeff Labbé) – to a level that a fast food ad really doesn’t usually enjoy.

I did wonder if the product moment would work, but it’s pretty good. Great American Bites? Rodeos. Fine by me.

And let’s face it: it’s several thousand times more memorable than whatever they’ve been doing for the last ten years (none of which I recall).

So I was thinking about how god-fearin’ my new home is going to be, and how, as an agnostic atheist, I may encounter a little bit of awkwardness on that score.

‘An agnostic atheist?’, I hear you cry. ‘Weren’t you a fundamentalist agnostic only a few years ago?’

Well, yes. But now I’m an agnostic atheist because I’m clear that agnostic atheism is the absence of a belief in God, but without certainty. I previously thought that it was the belief that there was no God, but as that’s not the case I’ve revised my standpoint and here I am: an agnostic atheist heading for the United States of America.

In these days of ridiculous religion-based warfare I feel it’s worth standing up for the way of thinking that necessarily avoids all that, in the hope that others might wind that kind of stuff back in and leave the world a more peaceful place.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but for anyone wondering where I’m coming from, here are a few helpful visual and verbal aids:

Last time I brought this up there were quite a few opinions from all sides.

Just curious… Have any of you altered your position towards religion in the last few years?

The three words most commonly used about each World Cup team (thanks, T).

Great historic black and white photos colourised (thanks, J).

Photos a second too early/late.

Real-life Pete Griffin (thanks, C):

Better Call Saul interview (thanks, J).

Album covers minus deceased band members (thanks, T).

I think this might be the best thing I’ve ever seen (thanks, T).

Paging Dr Freud (and Dr King):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j49hRfo-edE

Crazy Japanese inventions (thanks, K).

The other day my son’s class sang a song in assembly that they said was based on this ad:

As we were leaving I turned to my wife and said, ‘That’s a pretty obscure reference to base a 2014 Year Three assembly on.’ She agreed, but the thing I found even more interesting was the fact that we both remembered the ad. I then went home and showed it to my kids (8 and 4) and they both loved it. Could it run today and delight kids into buying crisps? Absolutely, and that’s a hell of an achievement for a little ad from the 80s.

So how long will your work live for, and does it matter?

I have no idea why certain ads have stuck in my mind for decades, but it does seem that animation and a catchy song was an easy route to victory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SAUZGuLrmM

But there were other ads that seemed to hang around for less obvious reasons:

I loved the slicing noise, but now I’ve had another look, what the hell was the point of slicing it? To show it had peanuts all the way through? Did anyone doubt that?

I remember the kissing snooker balls of this one, and the fact that my friends and I used to say ‘Der-der… follow the bear!’ in the playground a fair bit:

Anyway, are today’s ads doing the same thing to impressionable young minds? Is it possible to deliberately create something that will still last for decades even though it’s ‘just’ an ad?

I have a feeling the Cadbury’s Gorilla will last a while, but what about the Wonga.com puppets, or the Yeo Valley rappers? Will that weird little poo character for EDF imprint itself on our psyches? Will the adults of 2040 sing ‘Confused.com’ to the tune of YMCA?

Like almost everything on God’s clean earth, it doesn’t matter whether that happens or not; but it might give you quite a glow if you can pull it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBLUy7C_Gho

Juan Cabral directs an Ikea ad for Mother.

It’s like the advertising industry of 2005 decided to create a fantasy team to produce the finest ad of all time.

But, y’know, it’s 2014, so can those stalwarts of awardification still cut the mustard?

Well, for what it’s worth I think they’ve run a Stanley knife through the Colman’s like a proverbial motherfucker.

It’s one of those event ads I was brought up to believe we should aspire to.

It’ll stand out like dogs’ bollocks, intrigue, delight and satisfy.

OK, it’s not quite a Surfer, Drugstore, Grrr or Balls – it lacks a touch of relevance in closing the circle of the idea, but that’s a tiny quibble for a bloody good ad.

Hats off.

Let’s deconstruct the style of Michael Bay (thanks, D):

And then, to recleanse your soul, the work of Roger Deakins:

Don’t do meth, kids (check number 12!).

Best Kickstarter evah (thanks, V).

How to stammer like Porky Pig:

Interiors of the year.

Writing tips from the CIA (thanks, T).

Presidents with boob faces (thanks, L).

The making of Magnolia (thanks, J):

Tim’s Faces (thanks, A).

Great booze products.

Great Viz letters.

Scary motherfucker.

Oscar-winning screenwriter explains how he does it (thanks, V):

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

Contrived, unfunny and when you look at the icing on the bun, kinda gross*.

*I’m in LA, so now I say things like ‘kinda gross’.

UPDATE (thanks, Nobby):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLAm21GwfXw

I remember a rum do a few years back when Pepsi put its account up for pitch.

The incumbent was BBDO, who had done Pepsi’s advertising since the year dot, so this was a big deal: one of the biggest, deepest relationships in advertising in danger of coming to a conclusion.

In the end it came down to a shoot out between BBDO and TBWA, which was eventually won by TBWA. Jaws dropped, tears were shed and hands were wrung; the shockwaves were felt across the US advertising community.

Except for one man’s office.

I don’t know exactly what happened when John Wren read the news, but I have a feeling he stifled a yawn, scrolled down to the next email and asked his PA to book somewhere nice for lunch. For those of you that don’t know, John Wren is the head of Omnicom, the holding company that owns such agency networks as DDB, BBDO and, yes, TBWA.

So when that massive account left BBDO for TBWA, it made little difference to Omnicom’s bottom line. The cash continued to flow in from Pepsico, through an ad agency and into the coffers of Omnicom. I guess it made a happy difference to the good people of TBWA who could celebrate a massive account win, award bonuses and point to a capacious bottom line. And I suppose it would have made an unhappy difference to the poor chaps at BBDO, who had to explain away the loss, maybe lay a few people off and promise to do better for Omnicom in the next quarter (possibly overcompensating for the reduction in income by winning an even bigger account, just to show that this setback was not going to be a substantial one). But John would have remained just dandy.

For a quick and easy demonstration of how this works, examine the following image:

Those the vats are, for example, BBDO, TBWA and DDB, and the beer is flowing in reverse up to John Wren’s office.

Now that, my friends, is how to run a company (if you want to make a ton of cash).