Memos from the Department of Common Sense

I thought I’d kick the week off with a short refresher course in the bleeding obvious. 

Drawn squarely from the well of personal opinion, none of what I’m about to impart will come as a surprise to anyone with an ounce of gumption.

For others, principally those in the thrall of our industry’s latest fads, gimmicks, and bright shiny objects, I live in the hope that these simple maxims might serve as a gentle corrective. 

Yeah, I know, fat chance.

So, anyway, here we go.

Memos from the Department of Common Sense

1: If your Creative Brief won’t fit on one page, it isn’t brief enough.

2: How long does it take for a creative to come up with a great idea? 5 seconds? 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 days? Exactly. No one knows. So please stop obsessing over timesheets.

3: Clear direction and a little space to think is still the best way to get great work out of a creative team.

4: You will never hear of Blockchain again. 

5: There is not a single ad person over 50 who doesn’t “get” social.

6: A banner ad is just an outdoor board at the top of a web page. 

7: Let’s use radio more, damn it!

8: One day we’ll look back on the Influencer Marketing fad and have a good chuckle to ourselves.

9: Dig deep. It increases your chances of creating work that no one’s seen before by 100%.

10: Experiential is like VAR in football: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

11: If you don’t have the talent to put something back together again, please refrain from tearing it down.

12: The quality of an ad is inversely proportionate to the number of people needed to approve it.

13: “Cheap, good and fast – pick two” isn’t dead. It’s not even unwell.

14: Instead of letting legal find reasons why something can’t be said or done, how about we ask them to find reasons why it can?

15: No one ever saved themselves to success.

16: Brand Purpose will be dead in the water as soon as the adults get back from lunch.

17: If the client rejects the work 3 times, the problem’s not the work. It’s the brief.

18: The appeal of Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the great mysteries of modern marketing. 

19: There is strong evidence to suggest that there just as many good creatives on outside looking in as there are on the inside looking out. 

20: Agile training teaches managers how to run a project from start to finish. Shouldn’t they know this already?

21: No good ever came of focus groups. 

22: Data may be able to deliver an ad in the right place at the right time, but without a good idea, it’s worth diddly squat.

23: An inclusive company culture goes wide and deep. Sadly, most are narrow and shallow.

24: In any downsizing or layoff, the people who really need to be canned are seldom the ones that are.

25: Car ads will start getting better any day now.

That’s it. 

Stay tuned for another exciting installment soon.

Blokewriter1 Comment

Experience Advertising vs. The Real Thing

Get a load of this.

“Consumers expect a lot more from brands than ever before. They don’t simply want delivery of products or services. They want brands to engage with them in meaningful ways. They want experiences that deliver meaning and community. They expect their brands to bring them joy.”    

It’s from a recent Adweek article on Momentum Worldwide’s “We Know Experience 2.0” research  https://bit.ly/2JkPamz

I read it. 

I reread it. 

I registered the extensive nature of the study and the clout of the agency behind it.

And I still don’t buy it.

I don’t buy that people expect more from brands.

Or want to engage with them.

Or expect them to bring them joy.

Not really.

It seems to me that if you ask people a dumbass question like “Do you expect brands to bring you joy?” they’re almost certainly going to tell you, “Sure, why not”

Who wouldn’t?

Similarly, if you ask them, “Would you like brands to deliver meaningful experiences for your community?” is anyone surprised if the response is, “Yeah, that would be great, too.”

How about if they engaged you in “meaningful ways”?

“Abso-frickin’-lutely”

Ask a leading question, get a misleading answer.

Here are some more choice insights from the same article:

83 percent of consumers believe it’s important for brands to take away stress or anxiety.

86 percent of consumers believe it is important for brands to make them feel better.

Does anyone actually believe that?

There are no prizes for guessing what the study’s conclusion is.

“Experiences matter and experiential needs to move to the center of all brand marketing plans. The future is about doing, not saying. Experiential makes brands authentic and real.”   

This is the kind of lazy thinking that nowadays passes for real thinking.

Real thinking isn’t easy.

It’s hard work.

It requires you to dig into a product or service and discover something compelling about it. 

How is it better, stronger, smarter, faster, greener, easier, or otherwise more useful, different, valuable, or beneficial than its competitors?

This takes time, effort, and patience.

Done well, it will result in work of substance, significance, and longevity. 

The proponents of lazy thinking can’t be bothered with any of this.

They’d much rather just make the answer an “experience” and be done with it.

It’s okay to have a set of values and a purpose that go above and beyond what it is you make and sell.

But sometimes people just want a hamburger.

Or a razor blade that gives them a close shave.

Or a car they know to be preferable to another.

And while it’s undoubtedly more satisfying to create an experience than it is to roll up your sleeves and deliver work that actually sells, the best does both.

As luck would have it, Coca Cola has a great new campaign that does exactly that.

0-1

0-3

0-2

A simple truth.

Powerfully told.

Based on an experience.

It’s the real thing.

Blokewriter1 Comment

Ageism in advertising and what we can do about it

There are lots of reasons to loathe the pernicious nature of ageism in advertising.

The dubious legality of it all.

The brain-dead notion that advertising must perforce be a young person’s game.

The inane short-sightedness of dumping years of expertise and experience out on the street the minute it hits 40 or, dread thought, 50.

It all adds up to an industry that hasn’t a clue where its best interests lie. 

Arse, may I introduce you to your elbow?

But there’s a more pertinent reason why the wilful jettisoning of vast swathes of senior talent makes not one iota of sense:

Advertising’s largest, most lucrative audience is getting older.  

Statistically speaking, the 50+ demographic today represents:

44% of the adult population.

50% of all consumer spending.

60% of households earning $200,000 or more.

And it’s getting bigger, richer and more influential.

Hands up all those who think it might be a good idea to have a few of their peers creating the ads they see?

You know, the people best able to understand how they think and act, and have a good grasp of what motivates them and what doesn’t.

Sadly, logic and facts don’t resonate in an industry fixated on youth. 

In adland today, the over 50s represent just 6% of the workforce.  

When challenged, the industry gurus and poobahs will roll out bogus maxims like “Lifetime Value” – a handy piece of gobble-de-gook that pretty much guarantees the work will skew way too young.

To take but one example: car advertising. 

Loaded with fads and souped-up on bells and whistles, they’re routinely targeted at 20 to 30 year-olds. 

I’ve got news for you: people in their 20s aren’t buying new cars.

But people 50 and over are. 

60% of all new car purchases are made by someone over 50.

And get this: People over 75  buy 6 times as many new cars as people aged 18-24. 

That’s because, unlike twenty-somethings, they have the spending power – and they’re not afraid to use it.

So, the next time you see a TV spot for a car, take a good long look at the driver and ask yourself, in what universe could that person afford that vehicle.

Which brings me to the crux of this particular blog.

While it’s refreshing to see ageism in advertising debated, bemoaned, vilified and talked about, we’re still a long, long way from seeing any real or meaningful action.

And let’s face it, the catalyst for change is never going to be the agencies themselves. 

No, our best opportunity lies with clients.

If actor Regina King can stand on the stage at the Golden Globes and use her newfound influence to declare that, in future, 50% of the crew on any of her projects will be women, then why can’t an equally influential client demand that 40% of people working directly on his or her account be over 40?

I have to believe that if Mark Pritchard at P&G declared age appropriate representation a moral and business imperative tomorrow that things would change in a heartbeat.

The same goes for Phil Schiller at Apple, Linda Boff at GE, Michelle Peluso at IBM, and any number of other powerful CMOs with the clout to lead by example and say “enough.”

Fanciful? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely.

The day agency demographics mirror those of the average consumer will be the day that advertising finally grows up.

It can’t happen soon enough.

Ageism in advertising is getting old.

Blokewriter2 Comments

50 Thoughts on Copywriting

If you write ads for a living, chances are you have an opinion or two on how best to create them. These are mine. 50 notes, notions, truths and truisms gleaned from over 25 years as a fully paid-up member of the wordsmith community. Whether you’re a fresh-faced young gun, a rising star or a grizzled old vet like me, I’m confident there’s something here for everyone.  Adopt or discard, agree or disagree, as you see fit.

Your job is to… marry an essential brand truth to a universal human want, need or desire, and do so in a way that’s clear, persuasive and impactful. Every. Single. Time. No biggie.

Free Beer If you’ve got something great to say, go ahead and say it. If you mess about trying to be cute, you’ll end up burying the lead. Free beer is free frickin’ beer.

People will read a long copy ad If every single word contained therein commands their interest. Conversely, 15 words of turgid dross will have them charging the exits.

Don’t get fancy Never use a flowery word when a plain one will do. This thought was first coined by George Orwell. I’ll leave it at that.

Oxford Comma? Yes.

My friend, the reader The best copy reads like a reasoned argument between friends. Getting the reader to consider you as such is the first step in convincing them to take what you’re saying seriously.

Your briefs are showing Beware of copy that too closely replicates the support points on the brief. One of the skills of a copywriter is to be a master of disguise.

People don’t hate ads, they just hate crap ads No one likes a dull, long-winded, predictable bore. Your job is to be the opposite.

Know your history Advertising does a lamentable job of honoring its past masters. If you aspire to be a copywriter of any note, acquaint yourself with the greats who have come before you: David Abbott, Julian Koenig, Paula Green, Dave Trott, Mary Wells, Carl Ally, Tom McElligott, Bob Levinson, and a host more.

A single-minded proposition should never contain the word “and.” The first sign of a wooly brief is a wordy proposition. Demand clarity before you put pen to paper or digit to keyboard.

Bells and Whistles are no substitute for Ideas and Impact You’re not in the entertainment business, you’re in the business of selling products, brands, and services that benefit from being entertaining. There’s a difference.

Department of Redundancy Department Scan your copy for unnecessary repetition.

Pun and Done Lots of headlines involve some sort of play on words. But the outright pun is a creature unto itself. If you opt-in, go all in. Like Gray Jolliffe’s ‘Out of the flying plane into the foyer’ for Swissair. So bad, it’s brilliant.

Note to Self A great headline or turn of phrase WILL come to you just as you’re drifting off to sleep and, no, you WILL NOT remember it in the morning. Keep a notebook by your bedside table.

Advertising is nothing but an opinion We work in a very subjective, flawed industry that’s susceptible to the whims of caprice, bias, and ego. It was ever thus. 

Campaigns that don’t get noticed aren’t campaigns They’re a waste of money.

Rewrite until it’s right Draft, scrap, do-over, re-word, re-write, finesse, fiddle, futz, trim, edit, and hone. Wordsmith that sucker until you’re only left with what’s absolutely necessary. 

Write the opening and closing line first Okay, so this is a personal preference, but to my mind, if you know where you’re starting from and where you’d like to end up, the journey in-between becomes a lot more manageable.

Here’s to the new ad, same as the old ad Web, games, interactive, social – the writer’s lot has changed a hell of a lot over the last 20 years, but it still boils down to the same thing: well-made arguments, concisely written and persuasively told.

Be skeptical Beware of anything that is supposedly about to “change everything.” It’s almost certainly not.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda It doesn’t matter how badass the concept is – if it hasn’t run, it isn’t an ad.

An ad is only as good as the client who buys it It’s a crap-shoot, really. We live for the client who “gets it” and appreciate those smart enough to be sold. But occasionally you’re handed a complete half-wit. In which case, you’re screwed. 

Hunt for Truffles To unearth a great idea, you first have to determine an area worth exploring. Once you find a patch you believe will bear fruit, start to dig. Don’t just scratch away at the topsoil, really excavate the possibilities. Burrow down deep enough, and you may hit gold.

Run to the sound of gunfire If people need help, raise a hand, jump in and don’t wait to be asked. You’ll find the favor returned when you need it.

Never grow up Maintain an infantile streak and childish sense of humor at all times. Disregard those who tell you otherwise.

Ad nauseum Let poorly written ads be a constant reminder of what happens when you phone it in.

Harper Lee was right There’s no better way to understand a person or audience than to spend a little time walking around in their shoes. When you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your prose, you can tailor your language and tone accordingly.

Put yourself in the suit’s shoes While on the same subject, spare a thought for the poor soul who patrols the no-man’s land between client and creative department. They get flak from the former, friendly fire from the latter and all-out shelling from both sides.

Tell people what they need to know Not what they want to hear.

Ads … can invariably be broken down into two distinct types, the ones that Make The Every Day Extraordinary and those that Make The Extraordinary Every Day. Try it, you’ll see.

There are no bad clients. A client’s reputation may go before them but if you treat every job as an opportunity and deliver something great – Kapow! – suddenly it’s the business everyone wants to work on.

Proof, proof, and proof again Your proofreader is your best friend. They circle your typos, tweak your grammar, and ensure your syntax is sound. Keep ‘em close and get them something nice for Christmas.

Only 4% of ads are ever remembered favorably Make sure yours is one of them. 

Learn to sell A good ad is always hard to sell but no one should be able to sell it better than you. Watch how the best suits operate, then learn, steal and modify as needed.

The Copy Book The one book every writer needs to read from cover to cover. A wisdom laden tome for wanna-be writers, rising stars and senior pros who are having a bad day.

Expect the Unexpected You’re chosen one of the most volatile businesses to forge a career in. Always have a folio site that’s ready to share at a moments notice. 

Raise the dead Don’t be afraid to re-pitch a killer idea to a different client. Having said that, if it remains unsold after three attempts it may not be as great as you think it is. 

You’re only as good as our last ad Enjoy the occasions when you clean up at the Award Show. Come Monday, it’ll be back to an empty screen and a blinking cursor.

Ode to a Jingle The humble jingle is a little passé these days. Sure, they can be cheesy but when they work they stick like glue for years, decades even. “A million housewives every day open a can of beans and say ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz.’ See.

Congratulations, you’re a Behavioral Scientist Okay, so maybe not a scientist but you’re definitely in the business of changing behavior. To that end, a small mental investment in the field of social psychology is no bad idea.

The Mighty Mnemonic A mnemonic is an aid to memory, a visual trick or verbal device that helps the customer remember that this ad is for your brand and not that of a competitor. Another old-school trick that is needed now more than ever.

Go above and beyond Don’t stop at the brief, aim beyond it. Give everyone – the CD, Account Director and client – something extra to think about, an additional thought, a new media opportunity, or a one-off execution that no one’s considered. Never do “just enough.” 

Written a great headline? Good. Keep going. It’s the first step to penning one that’s truly exceptional.

Tune into radio When you’re starting out, radio is often the first opportunity to land on your desk. Grab it. It’s a 60-second playground of the mind, an excellent medium for framing an argument, and one seriously overlooked discipline. 

It’s grammar init? Observing the rules of grammar is to be commended, but then so is the ability to write in the vernacular of the reader. When the two square off against each other, back the latter.

The “Fuck Me” Factor There’s nothing better than an idea that’s so outrageously out-there and scarily unorthodox that it has even the most collected of account people peeing their pants just a little. Just make sure it’s tethered to a solid brand truth.

Ruffle feathers Don’t be afraid to be a maverick. Write from the heart and stand up for your work. Just don’t be an ass. It’s a fine line.

Mentor others Remember all those lovely people who helped you when you were first getting started? Exactly. Now it’s your turn to pass on the favor to the next generation.

It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on At its best, being a writer is the most rewarding profession there is, a dizzying hybrid of salesman, storyteller, psychologist, and poet. Better yet, unlike Art DIrectors, you don’t have to spend hours futzing around in photoshop or endlessly agonizing over fonts and colors and whatnot. You are, of course, free to stand behind them and offer up suggestions. They love that.

Write “50 things” Now it’s your turn.

Blokewriter1 Comment

56 Years Young

Well, wouldn’t you just know it.

I return from the Holidays to find we’re finally having a debate about ageism in advertising. And a damn serious one, too, by the looks of it.

It’s about bloody time. 

Naturally, in the two-cent saloon of public opinion I’ve got a dollar fifty to spend, so here’s my take on the various whys, whats, and wherefores. 

The concerted eradication of the lesser-spotted senior creative has been going unchallenged for more than a decade now. Aside from the glib cliché that “Advertising is a young person’s game,” the boilerplate excuse for this sorry state of affairs has been the digital revolution and the pernicious notion that anyone over 40 or, God forbid, 50, must be flummoxed by it all. The whole shebang is just too much for our ageing analog minds to grasp.

A handy piece of nonsense that I hope to bury over the next few paragraphs.

To be clear:

There is not a single thing about digital, social, mobile, or content that scares me, worries me, frightens me or otherwise gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I have a clear understanding of how it works and, unlike most of its acolytes, know with absolute certainty why it doesn’t most of the time.

And I’m pretty sure a vast slew of ad people of a certain vintage would agree with me.

The only thing that bewilders me about the digital circus is the wholesale acceptance of its supposed magical properties and the outright refusal to countenance anything that might gainsay it. That being said, here’s what’s really driving our ongoing preference for young over old.

First, there’s the optics. A creative department filled with young guns supporting beards, tats, and Bluetooth headsets, looks a whole lot more on-it and of-the-moment than one stacked to the rafters with receding hairlines, expanding girths and mandatory reading glasses. For those of us getting up in years, this is undoubtedly the cruelest consequence of the passage of time. 

Then there’s the money. Younger means cheaper. Why pay top dollar oldie prices when you can hire raw talent with bags of potential for half and get away with it? If the client doesn’t notice, who cares?

This double whammy has resulted in the gutting of an entire stratum of our business – the senior pro with 25+ years of experience under his or her belt.

There are so many reasons why this is a terrible idea.

Let’s start with the nature of the advertising audience: It’s getting older, more affluent and more influential. The oldies have disposable income out the wazoo. Might it not be a good idea to have some of their peers creating the ads for them?

Then there’s the obvious hypocrisy of creating diversity and inclusion campaigns for our clients while simultaneously turning a blind eye to ageist practices in our own back yard. An excellent opportunity to lead by example that’s, naturally, been missed.   

The third is the effect an absence of senior people has on the quality of the work we ultimately create. I’m sorry, folks, but it’s increasingly taking a nose-dive into the dirt.

Today’s twenty-somethings are sorely missing what I had when I was their age – namely, the presence of a couple of old farts who had seen most everything before and weren’t afraid to share a few secrets. Occasionally, this would manifest itself as an open piece of advice (“Yeah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you”); more often though it was learning through proximity: You can learn a lot from merely observing someone who knows what they’re doing,

No one doubts that times change and that the younger generation must inevitably replace the one that came before it. 

But experience never gets old, and we jettison those steeped in the ways of the business too readily at our peril.

Do so if you must, but don’t say it’s because the old guard is out of its depth, or doesn’t grasp the latest leaps forward.

We know all too well how the game works.

And better than you might think.

Nevertheless, I’m glad we’re at last having a meaningful conversation.

Long may it rage.

Let the change in attitudes begin.

Blokewriter7 Comments

It’s junk mail, Jim, but not as we know it

Kirk.jpg

It’s always been a topic of some debate as to which of the traditional advertising media today’s data-driven content most resembles.

Most opt for outdoor.

For one thing, it’s immediate. Static or moving, simplicity is mandatory. Headers can’t be more than 7 words long. Less, if possible. 

That’s because, like outdoor, time is short. You’ve only got a couple of seconds to grab your audience – about the time it takes to pass an outdoor board in a car.

I’m not buying it.

I think social is essentially direct response advertising.

Take the creative.

It’s almost always built around a call to action and its sole and only purpose is to generate a click-through. 

Much like a tear-off coupon, reply card or 1-800 number.

Its primary directive also informs its tone and manner, which is almost always of a shrill, hectoring, “act now” nature – another sure sign that the tropes of direct response gurgle around in its DNA.

It’s also riddled with rules – prescriptive dos and don’t, imperatives on how to frame a message, generate a response (that word again), what language to use, etc.

A social campaign will “drop,” too.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, you’re talking to one individual at a time. An individual, moreover, who is, thanks to data, highly targeted, from the who and the why, to the what, when and where.

You’re not broadcasting to everyone.

You’re narrowcasting to a very specific demographic.

There are no shared perceptions, peer agreement or opting in.

Whenever the desired action, it’s an action taken in isolation.

One-on-one.

Just you and the snake oil salesman. 

Like junk mail.

And like junk mail, it’s all incredibly dull.

But that’s a post for another day.

BlokewriterLeave a comment

The Delivery System That Fails To Deliver

For the last ten years, data-driven content has been heralded as the universal panacea for all marketing ills.

You can’t throw an iPhone X in New York without hitting at least ten data agencies promising millions of impressions.

They’re in the business of delivering eyeballs. Lots and lots of them.

Propelled by analytics, sales history, viewing preferences, and a truckload of huckster jargon, they’ve sold the ad world on the numbers, the programmatic buys, and the reach.

If you want to target a grumpy, male, ex-pat adman with a wet cappuccino habit and a passion for the kind of football where you actually use your feet to propel the ball around the field, well, these guys and gals know where he lives and precisely how to reach him.

The problem with this perfect delivery scenario is that once it gets its target in its sites and exactly where it wants it, the whole shebang manifestly fails to deliver.

How else to explain the universally acknowledged fact that the average click rate for an online banner ad is about .07% or 7 clicks for every 10,000 ads.

And that’s before we take into account bots, click fraud, the vagaries targeting, and what the hell actually constitutes an impression.

Part of the problem seems to be an assumption that success depends solely on being able to drop the right message in the right place at the right time.

Quite how this fallacy ever gained currency, I’ll never know.

The truth is that delivery is only half the job. 

The real task begins the second the ad is seen, in other words, when it’s transformed from a bunch of 1s and 0s into a communications message. 

It’s here that the purveyors of data-driven content fail to ask themselves the most fundamental of questions:

Why on earth would anyone want to stop what they’re doing to read this?

What’s in it for them? 

Does it in engage, shock, cajole, or seduce?

Does it pique their interest in any way? 

Does it compel them to react, or, the multi-million-dollar question- click?

This new task isn’t about data, it’s about selling and its best practitioners, mostly senior and ergo expensive, have been dumped out of the industry in recent years, the chief victims of our endless mania for mergers and consolidations.

Put out to pasture far too early, they’re now needed more than ever.

True, these folks don’t look the part. They look ancient – many are actually in their 40s and 50s. They like to go to their kids’ soccer games and dance recitals, don’t sport beards or tats, and more than likely don’t have an earthly clue who Childish Gamino is.

But they do know how to put a provocative ad message together, and how to do so with the wit, charm, persuasion, and impact.

Bring them in from the cold, listen to what they have to say, trust that they know what they’re doing and, who knows, you might just get a banner ad that actually works.

Because without impact an online campaign will never be seen.

And a campaign that’s never seen isn’t a campaign.

It’s a waste of money.

BlokewriterLeave a comment

Scotland the Brave

Scotalnd The Brave

In the spring of 1997, Britain was in the throes of a general election.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had re-invented Labour, and the party was insurgent.

The incumbent Conservative Party, on the other hand, were in a mess and up against it.

The country had grown weary of its failed promise of trickle-down prosperity, principally because it was all a sham.

Never more so than in Scotland where Labour had always polled well.

So it was an either brave or deluded Conservative campaign chairman that had decided that the line for its 48 sheet poster campaign north of the border should be thus:

Your Best Bet For A Better Scotland – Vote Conservative.

It was a type-only affair, modestly laid out, boasting a small box with a blue tick in it.

Crucially, there was a lot of white space. And this was to be its downfall.

It was late one Saturday night when I saw the posting.

It sat on a small rise above a well-known pub in the west of the city. The pub’s clients, worse for wear from a night of drinking, were falling out on to the streets.

Here my imagination takes over and attempts to join the dots on what had latterly happened prior to my arrival on the scene. 

A punter is taking a moment to get his bearings, clear his head, and is maybe looking to hail a cab when he spies the poster.

It doesn’t exactly chime with his polictical views.

What happened next to again subject to conjecture. My best guess is that our hero ran home and was back in a thrice with a can of red spray paint. I say this because when I happened upon the board that fateful night it read:

Your Best Bet For A Better Scotland: Vote Conservative MY ARSE!

An early example of guerrilla marketing perhaps?

Brand takeover?

Possibly.

What I do know is that the size, position, and general air of anarchic chaos of the daubed addition had transformed the world dullest poster into a potential award-winner.

And that I laughed my socks off.

Especially as the cad who had applied the amendment had had to scamper up a pretty steep incline to do so.

But as we all know, getting great creative to run is never a walk in the park.

BlokewriterLeave a comment

How badly do you want it?

When I was first getting started in advertising back in the mid-1980s, I participated in the D&AD student workshops.

For six weeks you’d be set six briefs by six different agencies. 

One week you’d be answering a print brief for Saatchi’s, the next a TV brief for DDB. 

Best of all, you got to present your work to the person who set it – typically, this meant getting one-on-one advice from the likes of Dave Trott, Nick Wray, Paul Grubb, Neil Patterson, Adrian Kemsley, and Charles Hendley – the smartest minds in the biz at the time.

On one particular night, the host agency was Collet Dickenson Pearce, and true to form, we had a badass tutor: John O’Donnell.

The brief was for an imaginary product called Mathews Thermal Underwear, and the medium was posters. As was the norm, every student pinned their work up on the wall and awaited their fate. 

Few got off lightly. 

O’Donnell cited the usual flaws: weak ideas, ambiguous executions, crap headlines, etc.

Halfway around the room he stopped and paused. In front of him were three neatly drawn up layouts. They were thematically linked visually with the headlines that were subtle variations of a single thought.

One featured a young man clambering up the side of a two-story house to reach his girlfriend’s bedroom window on a bitterly cold night. The line read: “Matthews Thermal Underwear: For Adventurers.”

Another read, “Matthews Thermal Underwear: For Explorers” but its visual and the entire third concept have slipped the realms of my memory. 

Without looking away from the work, O’Donnell said, “Who did this?”

A tentative hand went up at the back of the room.

He turned and eyed the speaker.

“These are great. I wouldn’t change a thing. Put them in your book.”

And that was it: A first-hand example of what would cut it, what it looked like, and how it worked. In the pub afterward, we all congratulated the campaign’s creator and silently resolved to come back with better stuff the following week.

Which leads to me to the other remarkable thing from that night.

At the end of the workshop, as everyone was packing up, O’Donnell addressed a question to the entire room.

“How many of you really want a job in advertising?”

I’m not sure what prompted the inquiry, but to a man and woman, everyone replied that, Yes, they did.

He took a moment to collect a thought and then said:

“Well, if you want it badly enough, you will.”

A gauntlet had been thrown down in front of us, a tacit challenge issued.

O’Donnell knew there would be casualties. That, whether through attrition, hardship, bad luck or disinterest, many would fall by the wayside.

For one, it was tough.

In those days, getting a job hinged on your folio of spec ideas. Developing your “book” from a half-formed mush of dubious thoughts into a job worthy tome of advertising goodness required a pathological degree of single-mindedness – a willingness to scrap, re-do, revisit, revise, refine and revise again, until you had twenty or so ads that any Creative Director could flick through in sixty seconds or less without ever having to stop and say “I don’t get it.” 

So, yeah, it was tough, but that’s what it took to get into a shop like CDP.

O’Donnell would have been right to assume that not all would go the distance – of the 20 or so assembled before him that night, perhaps six ended up in the business.  

It’s why I think the gist of O’Donnell’s statement should be posted in the reception of every ad agency, design shop, and client office in the land.

How badly do you want it?

If you’re a creative, how badly do you want to create great work?

How many with a good, even great idea, will keep going and make it exceptional? When a client rejects a beloved campaign, how many will roll up their sleeves and vow to double down and come back with something even better?

How badly will the account director want to champion it before a client?

How many clients will go to bat for it against an intransient superior? Or take the time to argue, rationalize, defend and support what they know works?

Simply put, how many will support the right way when the path of least resistance gets a quick result and a chance to beat the 5:00 traffic?

Like those students in the workshop all those years ago, some will stay the course. 

Others will bail out early. 

It’s easy to get jaded.

Bored even. 

To just say “It is what it is” and be done with it.

But sometime soon there’s going to be a moment when a great piece of work is on the line, and it’s down to you to fight for it.

That’s when this post will come back to haunt you.

Because that’s when a little voice in your head is going to ask:

How badly do you want it?

BlokewriterLeave a comment

The Math vs. The Myth

Time Spent Consuming

Take a look at this sucker.

It’s from a recent report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and it pretty much confirms what many of us have known all along.

That TV, far from being dead, is alive and well and kicking digital’s ass.

Really kicking digital’s ass.

It also rather debunks the theory that everyone and anyone is viewing everything and anything on a mobile device.

They patently aren’t. 

So here’s my question:

Why isn’t it a holy-shit topic of debate right now?

Call me crazy – and believe me, many have – but these figures seem to point to a vast misappropriation of focus in three significant markets. Is it too fanciful to suggest that our industry take them just a little seriously?

Maybe rethink an assumption or two? Perhaps take a closer look at the current ROI on digital platforms? Maybe dump the latest media buy and initiate a reallocation of marketing dollars?

At least call a meeting about it.

Yeah, not going to happen.

This report, like those that have come before it, will be avoided like the plague. In a mind-boggling display of counterintuition, brands will continue to pour vast sums of money into digital platforms.

It’s not difficult to see why.

To accept these numbers you’d first have to admit you might have been duped. Or at the least acknowledge that you’d got it very wrong.  

And to act on them, well, that would mean flying in the face of received wisdom, and it’s a brave marketing chief or agency head that’s going to do that.

But someone will eventually.

And when that happens, the game will be up.

The day digital platforms are judged on their numbers will be the day they’re recognized for what they really are: a developing channel that’s currently delivering modest results.

The math will have prevailed over myth.

By the way, the IAB’s study has affected one immediate change:

TV’s last rites have been canceled indefinitely.

Read more on the IAB study here https://bit.ly/2DYNjC9

BlokewriterLeave a comment