4am

PRACTICAL TIP NUMBER 1

2008-09-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've waffled enough in previous posts about wanting to get out of advertising and now it's time to walk the walk.

Practical Tip Number 1 is to speak to lots and lots of people who are doing interesting things that you admire and have a lifestyle that you would like to have. i've just started to do it. as a result i feel inspired by these people and it is automatically propelling me in a different direction.

that's it for now. i hope to keep them short and sweet.

OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

2008-09-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

my last post sounded like it came from someone that still has a passion for ideas and awards and all things creative in advertising. it was. they hijacked the blog and i've now cut their fingers off by slamming them in the fire exit door until they were so raw and spongy i could just pull them off like the fatty tail on a lamb chop. normal course outtahere will resume. by the way, if anyone has any hints on how to get the fuck out, i'd love to hear them.

The Art of the Entry Video (Integrated Category)

2008-09-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Everyone is migrating to the Integrated Entry.

Take the two 2008 Cannes Grand Prix winners – Halo 3 and Gorilla. Halo 3 was a very big idea (The Museum of Humanity) with lots of tears of work that fell across different media. The TV wasn’t the most amazing piece of work (directed by Rupert Sanders), but the total was greater than the sum of its parts (bits and pieces also won independently of the campaign idea, so further kudos). Gorilla, on the other hand, was just a TV ad. It’s all it needed to be. However, it could have very easily being turned into an integrated entry, using remixes and PR, the making-of, etcetera. Because Integrated entries are a lot of smoke and mirrors (nothing wrong with this, it’s just the truth).

So, for award shows from here on in, the new problem is going to be the poor bastards who have to sit and watch hundreds, possibly thousands of entry video’s; averaged out at 3 minutes a piece, that’s much more than anyone could bare to concentrate.

I’ve seen a lot over the last couple of years – Crispin Porter’s Burger King entry was highly polished, and in the last 12 months I’m amazed at how entertaining they have become. Sometimes, the video almost bares little resemblance to the reality of how the idea played out in the real world. Droga5’s TAP water is a case in point. As is their winner this year, the million project. Absolute fucking PR. Agency AAR reels are also a good example of the power of this hype.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Is it an easier win? I don’t know.

I have nothing to say in conclusion. Except baking bread does sell houses.

Bye.

CHOPSTICKS (NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING OUT OF ADVERTISING)

2008-08-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

I went to a chinese restaurant the other day with a friend and when our food arrived i went to pick up my chopsticks and realised there weren't any. there was a knife and fork, though. i looked to the table on my left and saw two chinese gentlemen eating with chopsticks. was this racist of the waiter? ("oh here comes a couple of caucasians, quick get the knife and fork out cos they sure as hell won't be skilled enough to use chopsticks.) anyway, if he didn't already think that, he certainly did by the time i handed one of them back and proceeded to stab my chicken pieces with the other one.

TEASER CAMPAIGN

2008-08-04T04:29:00.000-07:00

I bought a copy of The Big Issue the other day because i was feeling so selfish in life. I couldn't help but notice the ad on the back cover for, wait for it... beds. I almost turned back to ask my homeless buddy to ask if he saw the irony in this cruel joke. But i didn't. Instead i just wondered if there is a deliberate twist of irony in this by the media buyer, or just blatant ignorance. Whichever, it's pretty bloody funny in a "i-shouldn't-really-be-laughing-at-this" kind of way. Check it out for yourself. It's advertising at its cruelest, and it doesn't even know it.

LAZINESS 2

2008-07-25T06:47:00.001-07:00

it also explains why my posts are so few and far between. is laziness a disease or a necessary evil for a creative? i'll save that debate for another time.

LAZINESS

2008-07-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

i have a friend who was a very good producer. he still is, but he's producing other things besides ads nowadays - not because he's "seen where the new gold is", but because he got bored of making ads, made enough money to take a few years sabbatical, and then by the time he needed to get back in, the rules had changed quite significantly. anyway, he's working with a guy who wasis (new word, which i quite like) a very good creative. this guy churns so many ideas he's like an ideas churner (like my analogy?). but the problem is that he sits there and just churns and churns but doesn't have the impetus to do anything with them, which i think is the difference between being just a good creative and being a very successful one. so this producer says that the way forward, he thinks, is to link one producer with one creative, which i really like the idea of, and completely agree with. i'm lucky because my partner is a creative at heart, but he's also very motivated, so when we have an idea, he makes it happen - even if it's nothing to do with advertising. i've worked in partnerships where both of us had really good ideas that we laughed at and enjoyed the mind trip of making it happen, but then did nothing with. economically, the way the industry is heading, it's possibly a more efficient use of resources, too. and if i was ever to start an agency, i would think about employing this team structure. i don't mean just take any producer, because the one i'm talking about (and my partner) are both very creative individuals, and i think you need one on that extra level. there's a few director/producer teams that employ this technique. i mention this because it's of absolute relevance to my blog. finally, by finding a way around my laziness, i think i may have found a sign showing the way out of advertising.

TIMINGS

2008-02-29T02:15:00.000-08:00

You know when you're walking along a main road and then you come to a side street and you start crossing but then your rhythm is interrupted because there is an approaching car and you look out of the corner of your eye to see if the car is going to be able to pull into the road straight away and you see that it won't be able to because there is a couple of cars coming but then you think that he is approaching rather fast so you wait and eye him off and see if he is going to stop to let you cross in front and then he doesn't so you have that moment of contemplation as to whether you wait while the two cars pass and he pulls into traffic or you walk around the back of the car and risk wasting your time and energy because by the time you get to the back of the car he'll probably start pulling out and then it's taken you even longer and if there's someone else who has waited, then you feel like a bit of a dick and then if you look at the bigger picture you're only talking about a saving of literally five or six seconds so what's the point and maybe it's better just to wait until he's pulled out and then continue walking? well, that's how i feel about timings that clients give account people and account people pass on (with a built in contingency of a couple of days) to creative departments. and when you get something that's needed on a friday, for instance, and you haven't had much time on it in the first place and you ask why it has to be friday because decisions don't get made on a friday (i'm not sure what the best decision day is, probably a tuesday, wednesday or thursday) they never have an answer. and it makes me think how ridiculous all the timings are. everyone needs to just relax and take their time. nothing is THAT urgent. it's an advertising agency not a fucking hospital. there is no difference between a friday deadline and a monday deadline. and to all you smart account people out there, here's a lesson for you; a creative with any real passion will take that problem home with them over the weekend, thus giving you 48 hours of free creative resource. whisper that into the clients ear and they will think you are a really clever clog.

GOOD MEETINGS

2008-02-27T03:57:00.000-08:00

I just had word that our nuns cunts upstairs had a good meeting with the client. and it got me thinking. nobody seems to have bad meetings anymore. or at least they do, but they dress them up in a nice frilly "good". and then when you delve for the detail, it turns out that what they have actually bought is the bits of poly board that the ads were presented on (at a mark up that would make popcorn go bright red in the face). which to me sounds like a really fucking bad meeting. but we're not allowed to use that language anymore, because it's too negative and doesn't get anyone anywhere. no, better to get 5 people to get on a train with a promise under their arm and just go somewhere. Like Slough.

11.52

2008-02-20T03:52:00.000-08:00

lunarbbdo has just encouraged my to write some more advertising hate.
i'm encouraged to have a supporter. thank you. it reminds me of my first ever lesson in advertising.
it was before i even knew it was a lesson in advertising.
it was, in fact, about to be a lesson in english. i was 12 at the time. it was the first lesson after lunch so the whole class were like moths around a light bulb. the teacher, mr allen - who we used to call oompaloompa, because he had a hairstyle like an oompalloomparian - quietly entered the room from the back and made his way to the front desk. he placed his folders down, faced the classroom as though about to give a sermon and began talking very very softly. i remember looking up in between packing my next spitball and noticing, firstly, that he was allowing us to continue on murdering silence, and secondly, that he was talking and i couldn't hear him. what the fuck was he saying? i wanted to know. it turned out the rest of the class wanted to know, too, so we all sat down quietly so we could hear.

I've since learnt many other lessons in advertising. there's the one about every single piece of work you ever create is always going to be a disappointment compared to how you originally imagined it in your head (i'm talking more about TV with that one). there's the obvious one's that don't work, such as; make the logo small and then meet the client half way. fucking rubbish lesson that one. there's the lesson about choosing your battles, and if the client really wants the voice over to include a set of more "aspirational" words that make it 10 seconds instead of 7, then let them have it, because firstly, if they have that mentality then you have already lost a battle much bigger earlier on, and secondly, because nobody listens to voice overs properly, anyway. i once did a chocolate ad where, in the heat of the moment, i revised the voice over to be, "shit twat cunt grandma did a poopoo" and argued (until i lost) with my partner that, if anything, it would have a positive impact in the LINK test.

there's plenty more lessons in advertising that i will share with you, but i'll dish them out as the mood takes.

but if i could only learn one thing from advertising (which would make it one more than most clients), i want to take the first lesson i ever learnt.

alas, lunarbbdo, i will continue to fight my way out of advertising. quietly.

1608

2008-02-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

I know you're probably thinking, "so then quit. nobody gives a shit what you do". i agree. the only problem is, advertising has been relatively good to me, and I'm not prepared to just give it up and suddenly not have any money. the trick will be to do a slow transition to... something. fuck, i don't know. maybe i'll write a book. or a film. there's not much money in that though. or open a shop selling organic somethings and charging the middle class lots and lots of money. i could build a brand of my own. i've been preaching for long enough to clients about how to do it, so maybe i should do it for myself. you know, like howies, or those smart bunnies at innocent. or maybe i should just sell my house and become a property developer.

5.11

2008-02-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

oh i do love the internet. at 4 am i'm lying awake in bed wondering about life and by 5.11 i'm a published writer writing about something i believe in, something i believe will make the world a better place. not in a charitable good deed "don't just stop and buy a copy of The Big Issue, stop and talk to the guy and ask him how he is" way. I'm a little way off that. y'see, i'm in advertising, so, while i'm interested in the freefall plight of the world we all live in and enjoy so much, and am aware of my not inconsiderable contribution to it (although as i write this i'm not convinced of it, which might be a sign of just how fucking horrible and selfish i am) i'm mainly at this moment concerned with myself.

my problem is i hate advertising, and i hate people in advertising (i include myself in that). actually, that's not true. i think there's some really interesting people in advertising. i just hate the cult-like mentality of what it takes to be successful in advertising and if you're not constantly "achieving" certain standards, then you're really not very good. i had enough of that fucking attitude from my school and my parents and, while i now understand that this is the very reason that seduced me into advertising (and i was obsessed by it) i'm now seduced by the idea of HOW TO GET OUT OF ADVERTISING.

which, if you think might be interesting only to those people in advertising, is also of interest (and a warning) to anybody outside of advertising because, like a heat seeking missile with a broken navigational system, look out, because i could end up anywhere.

i say i want to give up advertising with a buge caveat, because i'm a bit like a junkie promising to give up smack. every time i get an idea that wakes my up at 4am, i feel like it's the holy grail. the meaning of life itself. and if i can just get it out of my system and onto a page and hopefully into an ad, then i will be fulfilled for the rest of my life. i understand how bad this attitude is, but in the moment of having an idea, i don't care.

wish me luck.