Have I got any fucking clue what I'm talking about?

Dave Trott recently had some harsh words to say about an aspiring creative who had come to interview him, and rather unwisely fell into a large bear-trap.

His first mistake was to utter the word "story-telling", which was already on the man's mind. His second was to be unable to articulate any convincing definition of the term. As a result, Mr Trott was moved to ask 2 questions:

1. What’s good about [storytelling]? What’s new about it?

Well there's a lot good about it, and some of it is new - though by no means all.

The simplest explanation I can muster is that having a narrative tends to be more memorable than just presenting information. It's why Jesus didn't just say "being good to people is more important than where you come from"; he told the story of the Good Samaritan instead.

So it certainly isn't a new invention, inside or outside advertising. But I think there has been a trend towards integrated campaigns that tell a story - sometimes one that requires active engagement across several forms of media to fully understand. The "Why So Serious?" campaign for The Dark Knight is probably the benchmark for such efforts.

And this is probably the reason for the vague response. No-one's quite sure whether they mean the general principle of memorable narratives, or the specific technique of telling a story across multiple media.

2. How come we are using words and phrases and expressions that we don’t know the meaning of?

Because there's an immense pressure upon students these days to impress their industry elders. Here I am, doing it in this blog, though hopefully with marginally more success than the sacrificial lamb in Mr Trott's office. In fact, much of this blog is my attempt to make sense of the half-formed thoughts and learnings bouncing around my head any given week.

We're constantly told that we need to stand out. That there's so much competition for every placement. That we need to know about the industry before we get into it. What are your favourite ads? What ads don't you like? Which agency made them? What kind of work do you want to produce? And the result is, a generation of students all talking confidently and knowingly about agencies they've never even seen the front door of.

In fact, the more I see of agencies, as I go around getting my beloved book looked at, the more I realise that the less I know. I've nearly finished my advertising course, but that's only a fraction of my learning.

All that matters is having a great book and the gumption to show it to the right people. The rest is just listening and learning. And if more students were taught that, the future of advertising might feel a little more secure.

Adam + Eve's journey

So A+E have just been bought by Omnicom for £60 million and merged with DDB. I'm not a businessman, but I assume that's a result they're pretty happy with. Not to mention the outstanding creative work and crowded trophy cabinet they've assembled in such a short time.

But what were people saying when they started out?

I chanced upon this blog from 2008, mentioning that the then youthful agency were looking for placement teams. There was quite a response in the comments section - here are some of the highlights...

"A&E, clues in the name."
"I'd be very wary about taking a job at Adam and Eve. They're undoubtedly going to be the new (less creative) CHI"
"Look at the work to come out of rainey's during ben dave and james tenure. utter pile of crap. doubt A&E will be any different."
"All these up-and-coming startups make me laugh"
"Do not, whatever you do, go work for Ben Priest. He can't be trusted, nor can his creative judgement."
"But without a CD or planning director with the gravitas and talent to serve as a counterbalance, A&E will only ever be a first-rate account shop."

To be fair, the blog in general seems to be a bit of a bridge for embittered creatives and wannabe creatives to lurk under, but it's interesting nonetheless.

What I take from it is not to automatically trust the received wisdom on any particular agency. Sure, I'd love to work for a great agency. But I'd equally like to help one that isn't currently making many waves to achieve greatness.

For instance, my team has attracted some interest from an agency with a strong DM background, which is neither my strongest suit nor my greatest interest. But I understand that they are hoping to become a more integrated shop - so perhaps there's an opportunity there to help blaze that trail.

After all, who would you rather be: a White House intern ferrying around coffee and documents, or the guy who interned for Obama back in Illinois and now works in an office 2 doors from the oval one?

I don't care about new technology

I don't care about new inventions and new websites and apps and social media platforms, either.

I tried. I subscribed to Mashable, I followed industry gurus on Twitter. I read articles about nanotechnology and robots and Pinterest and clouds.

And in the end, I just gave up. But with good reason.

First of all, there's always going to be someone who knows more about it than you. Just like however big your record collection is, John Peel's was bigger. And in an ad agency, I'll probably be surrounded by sharp young and not-so-young things who embrace every new fad 6 months before anyone else.

But that's the point. I'm not interested in technology, I'm interested in people. I'll get curious about something 6 months down the line when my brother and my friends and the guy in Accounts show some sign of understanding it. I got into advertising to communicate with people; to better understand what drives them to choose one thing over another.

People get paid a lot of money to spot trends and predict the future. That's fine. But it's not what I want to do. I want to make adverts and tell stories that millions of people can relate to and actually enjoy. That's all.

No puns? Fuck off.

There's nothing wrong with a pun if you (a) make it funny, and (b) make it relevant to the campaign - or in this case, the topical event in question.

So all hail "Ma'amite" - a genius piece of opportunism by DDB.

It's worth noting the attention to detail too. There are the corgis who love it or hate it. The copy (including another pun in "toasting"). The Union Jack. The crown made from a toast rack.

Love it.

Dock your Alliteration Allowance

I love a little alliteration. Assonance has a certain resonance, too. But it can easily be taken too far - either by just coming across too student-y, or sacrificing meaning for artistry.

Take this ad for Nurofen as an example. The text tells you it gets to work in 10 minutes.

But travelling from Heathrow to Regent's Park via tube (where the advert is being placed) takes nearly an hour. In their desperation to find Hs and Rs, they've completely obscured the point of the advert. If I took nurofen at Heathrow and was only getting relief by Regent's Park, I'd be pretty disappointed in the product.

Illusory chocolate treats

I eat Kit-Kats quite a lot. Not in a "I only eat baked beans and Wotsits for dinner" way, just that if I fancy a chocolate biscuit, it'll most likely be a Kit-Kat.

Occasionally, you'll find that one finger, or even both, is missing its wafer and is basically all chocolate. And when that happens, I'm delighted. But why?

If I prefer "all chocolate" over "chocolate and wafer biscuit", why did I buy a Kit-Kat in the first place? Why didn't I buy a Dairy Milk or a Yorkie?

It's interesting, what we can convince ourselves is a bonus. Would they sell more if they said that 1 in every 1000 fingers had no wafer?

Evian's counter-intuitive art direction

Companies so often get the ads in the corridors of Oxford Circus station so badly wrong. They always fail to realise that customers just sweep past them close by, propelled in a near-stampede of rushing bodies. Yet some of these brands put extensive text on their ads, irregardless of the hold up and possible assault caused by anyone actually stopping to read them.

The exceptions are the clothes brands whose shops greet you when you reach the surface - H&M, Top Shop, Gap, Uniqlo - who use simple branding and large, attractive pictures to say "make sure you visit US". Here's a typical example (it's from Berlin, but the art direction is the same):

So it was nice today to see Evian using the space intelligently and deliberately aping the clothes stores' style to attract attention. The disconnect between the art direction and the product, in this particular position, created enough cognitive dissonance to make me think consciously about the advert - which is a good deal more than half the challenge in these situations.

Of course, I'll just buy whatever bottled water is cheapest and then fill that bottle up with tap water until I need to buy a new one. I'm not a fucking moron. But it's a good try.