If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Those of you who don’t live in the UK might not be aware of what happened in our European Elections last week.

Well, the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party won the most votes (and are providing the highest number of Euro MPs). Here’s the Guardian’s coverage of that, and, for balance, here’s the Telegraph’s.

There’s a general feeling amongst almost all my friends that UKIP is fascistic, racist, stupid, homophobic, bigoted, intolerant and a massive backwards step for the civilisation of our country. They (UKIP; not my friends) favour such policies as an ‘amicable divorce’ from the European Union; an end to the ‘mass, uncontrolled immigration’ that membership of the EU makes possible; an end to subsidies for renewable energy scenes and a concomitant support of fracking. Actually, I could continue listing them, but you could just read them all in more detail here.

I agree with those friends, but also wonder why so many people want to vote for a party that seems to possess so many of those attributes that we might dislike in a person. Apparently UKIP’s supporter base is mainly rural (a UKIP spokesman famously said last week that they do not do well in London because the people who live there are young, cultured and educated), so perhaps there’s a different mindset that comes with living in the less urbanised parts of the country. Perhaps the settlement of EU immigrants in those areas stands out more, and any event that happens in a smaller place is bound to have a larger effect. Is that why they fear immigrants being employed in positions that British people could otherwise take? Because it hits harder in their communities? But then doesn’t that pose a different question regarding the employability of people from different countries? If you live here you have to work here, and thus pay for housing, clothing, food etc. at British prices. So are immigrants happy to work more cheaply, and if so, what is a fair wage? We’re also richer in London, so the less well-off UKIP voter might well find that one ‘taken’ job leaves them in a much worse position in Rotherham than it does in the capital.

The other strange thing is that it doesn’t seem to matter what faux pas the UKIP politicians make; if anything such gaffes only seem to strengthen their position. When Nigel Farage makes comments about not wanting a Romanian family to come and live next door to him, do vast swathes of the country actually agree, leaving the rest of us to find such suggestions to be offensive? Is that linked to the rural fear? Perhaps some of this attitude comes from the older people who fear change and the pain of having to adapt to it.

What seems clear is that UKIP, like may parties before it, is catering for a viewpoint of many people, but a viewpoint that many other people find abhorrent (I imagine you’ll find similar differences of opinion on Labour vs Tory). But as a wise person once said, what you resist persists, and the urban opposition to UKIP might only succeed in strengthening the resolve of its supporters. If anyone out there really wants to reduce the influence of this party they might be better off having a chat with a UKIP voter, finding out why they’re so scared, and enrolling them in a more palatable alternative.

But then it’s so much easier and more fun to make snarky, indignant comments about how much you loathe UKIP to your UKIP-loathing friends.

When I started in advertising I remember a Campaign editorial saying that if a creative team made a TV ad and press campaign in year they were doing well.

At the time I was at Y&R and that seemed about par for the course, but when I got to AMV I discovered that it was possible to find yourself making much more work than that. Many more briefs went through AMV, but the situation was also far more positive – if you answered your brief well the ad invariably got made. Clients came to the 1998 version of AMV because it was one of the best agencies in the world, so when work was presented to those clients on the understanding that it had gone through AMV’s rigorous internal standards process, then it was surely worth running.

Then, obviously, clients became less in thrall to that halo of brilliance and started to get pickier, but even then I made way more ads there than I did at Y&R.

Which leads me to a comment left on the blog a couple of weeks ago. When I put my first ad up for your delectation and asked for yours in return, an anonymous person suggested that many readers of this blog may not yet have made their first TV ad. Initially I thought that was because my readership is full of youngsters, still hacking their way through the jungles of college/junior life (I should point out that I have pretty much no idea of the readership of this blog. I used to check the stats every day, but then, around five years ago, I got to about 2000-3000 daily readers and it didn’t seem to fluctuate enough for me to keep going back to see if one Wednesday was bigger than another. Maybe there’s only a few of you left; maybe I now rival the viewership of Pornhub. I kind of like not knowing. It feels like the motives for the writing are a little purer as I’m not chasing eyeballs, the number of which doesn’t matter anyway), then I thought again and wondered if the average 2014 creative (or at least the ones who read this blog) is getting much made.

I’d guess that more stuff gets made these days, what with the proliferation of media channels, but are more TV ads happening? More print? Maybe I should categorise traditional media thus: are more ads getting made that are ‘tell-your-mum-worthy’, or are people making more things that are a bit boring to explain to her (‘But the KPIs are through the roof!’)? Or are you making fuck-all and wondering how long you can keep doing that before you get sacked or feel an overwhelming urge to give it all up and become a private detective?

I know quantity ultimately trumps quantity, but then again, practice makes perfect. Fewer opportunities means fewer chances to hone your skills and a slower progression to the next level. So is the current somewhat un-purple patch of advertising anything to do with a reduction in chances to improve, or is that reduction in chances a consequence of clients wanting less of what they might think of as un-purple patch work?

Who knows? No one, but one thing you do know (if you’re an advertising creative) is how much stuff you generally make. So TELL ME HOW MUCH IT IS by using the comments section.

Thanks.

Coldplay are awful:

Funny/unfortunate photos (thanks, P).

Spurious correlations (thanks, J).

Gordon Willis, cinematographer of The Godfather, died this week.

Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ done in a way I can’t be arsed to describe but is really good (thanks, W).

Danny Dyer tweets as motivational quotes.

Neanderthal voice thing that is funny:

Brilliant animation (thanks, S):

All the great commencement speeches, from Kermit to JFK, all in one handy place (thanks, S).

Hunter S. Thompson on finding your purpose (thanks, W).

Rap T-shirts for white people (thanks, A).

The world’s best lavs (thanks, G).

Guy surprises his dad many times (thanks, J):

*In retrospect, the lyrics of this massive number one single are somewhat creepy.

Or at least booked a last minute break…?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn45wNdoXw

Here’s a little primer on his life and work. It’s really just the tip of a quite colossal iceberg, but I hope it gives you a small idea of what he left behind.

One Club Hall of Fame.

Mike Dempsey blog.

David’s guide to good copywriting.

David on what it takes to attract talent.

Dave Dye’s blog.

Lurzer’s Archive interview.

And a tribute from down under (thanks, D&D):

As you know, I love a good side project.

I also love Kickstarter, so imagine my delight when Glenn Paton wrote to me about the short film he’s trying to get off the ground with the help of the aforementioned kick-based commencement organisation.

The film – written by Paton – is called H Positive and follows the progress of Mark, a wealthy man used to being in control of his life who is forced to face up to terminal illness. Determined to go out on his own terms, he plans to construct a rollercoaster that will bring about his demise at a time of his choosing and in an entirely euphoric fashion.

I wish Glenn all the best.

Please bung him a few grand.

For six wonderful months David Abbott was my boss.

He was just coming up to his retirement and had already handed the day-to-day reins of AMV’s creative department to Peter Souter. But there he still was, sitting in his beautifully tasteful office (the one at the back of the agency, by the way; not one of the big ones overlooking Marylebone Road), sifting through our so-so attempts at continuing his classic Economist campaign.

Although he was never anything but lovely, it was hard not to be intimidated by the reputation, the body of work and the Godlike crown of white hair. I sometimes found myself in the lift with him, or queueing behind him at breakfast, or plucking up the courage to approach him at the Summer Party. On those occasions I was always tongue-tied, feeling some kind of pressure to speak only brilliant words to this legendary genius. Twice I started conversations with him only to have someone else pop over and briefly interrupt us. I would then lose my nerve and dash off, thinking that David would much prefer to spend his time with this other person. However, watching hidden from across the room, I would then see David finish his conversation then look around for me, puzzled at my disappearance.

I can’t adequately convey the contribution David made to the industry (but I’ll quickly mention his refusal to take on tobacco or toy advertising), so instead I’ll point out that he also wrote a brilliant novel. I enjoyed it very much, and wrote to David to tell him. A couple of days later my phone rang; it was David inviting me round to his Chelsea office for a chat, novelist to novelist. Twelve years after leaving AMV he was just as kind and warm, if a little less intimidating. We talked about how we went about our writing then he asked to read my book and wrote soon afterwards to tell me how much he liked it (although I’m fairly certain it wasn’t exactly his cup of tea).

Bye-bye, David, and thanks for making me, and the rest of the world, a little better than we would have been without you.

(Older posts including a David interview here, and his remarkable leaving speech here.)

Stupid Mail Online headlines made normal (thanks, G).

Gene Wilder on the truth (thanks, N):

Screenwriting tips from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

25 pubs you ought to visit (or not bother visiting) before you die (thanks, W).

West Wing roundtable.

Stock shots no one will ever use (thanks, A).

Social media bullshit 101 (thanks, D).

Guy who photographs the testicles of Greek statues (thanks, J).

Fun ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJW5_iZNdFY&noredirect=1

…and the making of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdPzW8oUJCY

The Ben Affleck sad Batman meme.

R.I.P.H.R. Giger (thanks, B).

Dog Shit Selfies (thanks, V).

I’m sure I put this up earlier in the year.

Then someone (thanks, S!) pointed something out that makes it fairly clear that this has been created entirely for the purpose of entering awards.

Aside from the clearly set-up scenarios of people ‘using’ the posters (the girl taking her luggage up the ramp looking at the poster is particularly contrived) there’s one obvious pointer to the fact that these did not run with the intention of persuading the majority of people of walked past them to give a shit about IBM.

Shame the D&AD jurors didn’t spot it.

Can you?