The Star of the East
There was a pub in Shoreditch…Archive for Advertising
Fat Tuesday
Yes we’re all fed up. The extreme excitement of snow and ice [and days off] has passed, leaving us with grey skies and soggy feet. Even the people with jobs are up against the wall as their employers squeeze every last drop of work out of them rather than hire in any new talent. The big networks are waiting for financial new year’s day but are they sure it will ever dawn?
Of course there’s nothing new. When we lived in a subsistance agricultural society we’d have gobbled all our food at Christmas, or whatever pagan festival it was called, before it went bad and we’d be fighting over mouldy root vegetables.
It’s no accident that the Catholic church thought that this might be a good time to promote a bit of God fearing self denial. Why not take your pain and dedicate it to world peace or something? Give up Facebook for Lent, go on try it. The word Lent comes from the German root of long. The days get longer, or do they just seem longer without tangfastics and tizer?
Meanwhile Governments are vainly trying to feed the floundering beasts of the Banking and Automotive industries in the hope that seeing fatted cows walk through the streets will cheer us up and convince us to spend our way out of recession.
Why don’t we just invent a new religion, throw a party, kill the fatted cows and serve them in a crepe smothered with cream.
Happy Pancake day.
ps. as soon as I get over the Gastric Flu I’ll be back on the beer and pies and feeling begninly philosopical about life, work and online advertising.
How to hire creative thinkers and grow your empire
1. pick someone just like yourself
2. pick some completely different to yourself
1. is good, I like myself, so I’m going to like them, aren’t I? I’m pretty good at my job, so they’ll be great too. We’ll share values, we’ll both like the same kind of music, we’ll understand each other. We’ll agree with each other [they'll agree with me].
But won’t that be a bit boring? What if I get bored of all my music, where I get new tunes? What if their crazy shirt collection gets crazier than mine? What if I have a problem I can’t crack. My clone’s not going to have much more luck. What if there’s something I’m not very good at [god forbid] or I don’t like doing? So you go for someone who compliments you. No. they don’t say nice stuff, they form a yin to your yang or whatever. They tell you where you’re going wrong. You don’t have to listen.
In reality it’s mixture of both. I look for people with craft skills, attention to detail, graft skills, evidence of hard work [that's supposed to be me]. But I also look for something completely unexpected; a failed novelist, a Nick Cave fan [head of strategy at Chemistry], a Russian Weapons expert [Wunderman], Mr T’s nephew [TMW], a polite South African girl with a ninja alter ego [Lateral]. Yes, after a few years they will be offered huge amounts of money to go elsewhere, but hey, you can always make some more. And they take what they’ve learnt out there with them.
They are your industry PR.
Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13)
We’ve never been able to hide behind soft measurement in digital advertising and marketing. The same servers that deliver the content are counting all the time. Page clicks, unique site visits, post view, ad impressions. There are plenty of numbers but making sense of them is where the skill lies.
The Data Analysis experts that I have been lucky enough to work with have given me an unique insight into Direct Marketing discipline. It’s a scary door, best kept firmly shut to mere mortals.
For creatives the key strategy is to set your own benchmarks. I don’t mean lower expectations, but it is vital to reach a shared agreement with a client as to what a campaign is trying to achieve. All too often internet advertising confuses hard sell click through sales with raising brand awareness. More often than not agencies themselves fall into the trap of trying to deliver both. And failing to do either. Set your own targets. Then exceed them.
Digital Dreams pt 2 (Reality)
But in the meantime we had the pay the rent. We designed and programmed touch screen interfaces for digital information kiosk prototypes.
We discovered Information architecture [5 people, 5 black markers, one very big bit of paper, lots of arrows]. We discovered clients [never knew what they wanted, didn't understand what we were talking about]. We discovered breakdowns in communication.
We discovered the internet. Or at least we had Demon accounts, a 14.4 modem that looked like a Stylophone,
and a lot a patience.
Digital Dreams
When I started out in digital in 1992 I had no intention of getting into advertising or direct marketing or PR. I’d just left St Martins in the middle of a recession with a Graphic Design Degree nobody wanted.
But I had a mad friend from college who was into what he called hypertext. We weren’t novelists or rock stars or movie stars but we wanted to create a new 4 dimensional Art form.
A multilayered novel, a multimedia happening, or a wetware experience.
The lunatics take over the asylum
The big questions facing digital agencies now is “when you inherit the kingdom will you drop the ball”.
Yes, we will the finally get the chance to call the shots, own the marketing budgets, and deliver the kind of brand and tactical campaigns that we’ve been planning for 10 years.
The old millennium is dead. When internet connections were mind numbingly slow, software buggy, and TV advertising still eating all the cake.
We’ve been making big plans all right, but will what we make be more interesting just because we have larger production budgets?
Will our ideas be big enough to fill the void left by the implosion of the ad-funded-TV-content model?
The public still love great TV ads. It doesn’t make them buy stuff necessarily but it creates a warm feeling inside.
So, when the lunatics take over the asylum…
Will they turn into the same self indulgent and extravagant self promoters whose thunder they have stolen?
Or will they use their natural ingenuity to create campaigns that capture the imagination and the confidence of the buying public and make brand owners happy?
Truth, dare, promise
The opinion of any malicious fool who can open a WordPress account [I just did it in 3 minutes on my phone] could be worth millions of pounds of your hard earned marketing budget. You can’t lie about the natural goodness of your biscuits, or the reliability of your computers, or the career opportunities in your company. Some subjects and audiences are out of bounds completely. But I can have a frank and open discussion just about anything, legal or not; about the best brand of fags to smoke behind the bike-shed after a snog with your underage girlfriend, and what flavour alcopop will best help her forget all about it.
The Real Creative Director
May I Have Your Attention Please?
May I Have Your Attention Please?
Will The Real Creative Director Please Stand Up?
I Repeat, Will The Real Creative Director Please Stand Up?
We’re going to have a problem here…
You look Like You’ve Never Seen A Mac Monkey Before
You’ve got more CD’s in here than HMV
Living on Expense Accounts, but nothing is free
Suck, Suck, Suck. I think the record’s stuck
Win, free, money back, 20% extra
Never mind about D&AD, just feel the texture
It’s the end of the line for the creative Chinchilla
Any flavour you like so long as it’s Vanilla
Nik Studzinski, incy wincy arse like Njinski
If you want to shift units take a tip from Atilla
Bet your budget on a Silverback Gorilla
Call me up by the pool at my artsy French villa
Use whatever you can use, Use whoever who can you use
Don’t give me no Brand Building Bullshit Perfection,
Art Direction, Introspection, Account Sarah Confection,
User Pathway Detection, Small Print Inspection
Mike Cavers talks dirtier than Marshal Mathers
On the line is in, below the line is out
Chorus [x2]
I’m Creative Director, Yes I’m The Real Creative Director
Any Other Creative Director is Just a Poor Imitator
So Will The Real Creative Director Please Stand Up,
Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up?
Don’t give me no matching tie and handkerchief
You know you’ve got set a thief to catch a thief
Don’t give me no floppy fringe whimsy
Undo a button for Mr. Tim Lindsay
His raison d’être may look a little flimsy
But you’ve got admit he’s the man
To get that far with swept back hair and a tan
There always has to be a nice guy
But I’m proof that pigs really can fly
Holistic Behavior, That’s something I saviour
Your hole or mine, We’re doing fine, Living like swine
So when it’s time for the Commercial Intermission
Remember, it’s not art, it’s Customer Acquisition
Take me somewhere sunny, I’ll help you count your money
Fetch me a nice fresh Client Service Bunny,
Cash cow. Act now. Click here. No fear. Sale closed
Here’s two fingers to Digital, count them
On the line is in, below the line is out
Chorus [x2]
They say I’m a hard cunt, but I take the brunt
Of your Return On Investment, It’s a testament
To my pulling power, I’m a tower [not a very tall tower]
And you won’t win me over, for a role in the clover
Courtney loves Keith but he’s got no teeth
Been eating too much chocolate and doing it with animals
We ain’t nothing but mammals, well some of us cannibals
Take Danny Kellard, he thinks he’s well hard
But I’ve seen his liver it would make Old Nick shiver
Do you fancy a sliver? with chianti of course
or any kind of sauce that you fancy
Don’t give me Media Neutral; fill me up with petrol
Straight out of detox coming through your letter box
I’m a Marketing Nuclear Warhead, Bang Bang, you’re dead
Stand back and watch the inflation of my Reconciliation
Bow down to the Power of Information, Desperation
Dislocation, Separation, Condemnation, Revelation,
Temptation, Isolation, Desolation. Let it go Bono.
On the line is in, below the line is out
Chorus [x2]
hey, we’re all Creative Directors, let’s all stand up
