Being touched by a writer

This post is a response to Ran Stallard's blog post earlier this year, entitled "why do you like it?".

I was delighted to see that someone else had picked up on one of my favourite quotations, from Alan Bennett's The History Boys.

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

Even out of context, it's immensely powerful. But Ran posed a further question, which is why we like a particular piece of advertising. And although it may seem insufferably pretentious to compare an advert to an Alan Bennett play, it's actually for a not wholly unconnected reason.

A good advert should feel like an undiluted message from the writer to the reader (or viewer). It shouldn't appear to be filtered and approved and altered and tweaked, it should feel like they wrote that headline on a piece of paper and passed it to you across a table. It should feel human.

I don't believe a great ad can be written by a copywriter whose first thought was "is this on brand?", or who was sticking to a brief or watching their tone of voice. I think most were written after the second whiskey, at 3am on a sleepless night, or perhaps in a contemplative moment on the toilet.

Inspiration doesn't always strike. Sometimes an advert has to be forced out through a convoluted haze of logic, lists, and Roget's. But you're never going to reach out and touch someone with work like that.

Thieving Bastards, nicking Tyre Slogans

Have a look at this advert for Goodyear. Not sure who produced it, but it's a fairly typical example of economics (will need to work in several different languages) trumping creativity. Then ask yourself if there's anything familiar about the slogan.

That's right. "100% better prepared for the unexpected". Nothing at all like Tony Kaye's classic 1993 ad for Dunlop, with it's "Tested for the Unexpected" line. I mean, it's not like they're both ads for a similar product or anything.

Of course, when it comes down to it, it's not the plagiarism that offends - it's that they take the same idea and offer up such a weak travesty of an ad.

Make them sit up and listen

I wasn't paying attention to the adverts just now; I was sitting at my laptop idly looking through Twitter. And for whatever reason - Twitter, the ironing, an unexpected sexual favour - we have to face the fact that this is how a lot of us watch (or don't watch) television advertising.

But then an advert came on that got my attention from sound alone. Not with words, but pure sound - and in this case, the simple aural effect of taking repeating a short clip and making it go faster and faster.

I sincerely hope this is intentional on the part of the agency (Brother and Sisters) - because it really works.

This shit biscuit ad is a HIT.

Watch it. Just WATCH IT. It's by Forever Beta (no, me neither).

So here's the interesting thing. I was at a talk the other day for a book launch (this one), and Steve Henry was talking about how "weird shit" starts conversations. It's always the weird, wonderful, and woeful that we talk about.

So I wondered, could this utterly shit piece of work actually be more successful than a competent but not exceptional advert? As it happens, I blogged about that exact thing a while ago - an ad for McVitie's Quirks.

YouTube video for the Quirks ad - uploaded 4 months ago / 6,800 views
YouTube video for the Hit Biscuits ad - uploaded 30 days ago / 55,757 views

I can also state that I've seen the Hit Biscuits ad shared at least 3 times on my Social Networks, and I've personally shown it to number of people.

Just worth bearing in mind next time you produce an ad and think "well it won't win any awards, but it's decent enough".

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.