How does ‘get fucked’ sound?

Working in advertising requires a thick-skin, a measure of diplomacy and patience. But like all humans (yes, we are human), when the pressure’s on for an extended period of time with no break in the foreseeable future, shit happens. I’ve worked with an Art Director that has smashed a coffee table in front of a client and kicked in a door. The result? A well-earned holiday.

I need to hold down a job, so I calm myself by fantasising about what I could say in various situations. Here’s a few examples:

Client: I don’t see how this meets the brief.

Me: That doesn’t surprise me. The only book you read last year was The Da Vinci Code…and you thought it was brilliant.

...

Client: I’ve worked in Marketing for 20 years, and I’m telling YOU I know what works.

Me: Don’t take your life out on me.

...

Client: I must say, it’s not what I expected the finished ad would look like.

Me: Let me tell you why:

1. You’re not a Writer – yet insisted on fucking up the copy.
2. You’re not an Art Director – yet insisted on fucking up the art direction.
3. You cut the budget and as a result fucked the production values.

...

Client: I’m really sorry, but my Boss wants it changed.

Me: Let me get you a wheelchair, you spineless piece of grad school shit.

...

Client: I want this turned around today.

Me: Well I want to loudly criticise your ongoing incompetence in front of your colleagues, but we can’t have everything we want can we?

...

Client: I know you guys worked over the weekend to meet our unrealistic timings, but I need to push the presentation time back a week now.

Me: Have you ever wondered why people say you’re an inconsiderate c**t?


I could go on all day, but alas, I’ve some clients to attend to. So, drop me a comment and hit me with some of your fantasy lines…

Job security measure

Blogging about work demands extreme caution. Revealing your identity, your agency or your clients can land you in a position where you’ll hear the words “summarily dismissed” – or at very least cop a blood nose. Fuck that. There are so many situations that occur that I’d love to blog about but can’t for this reason.

So, keeping in the Manu frame of mind, I’m going to create a few other characters I can use to play out some of these situations, and hopefully have a laugh along the way. First I’ll need a writer to partner with Manu…stay tuned.

I have no surname

What’s with factory hands (read 'creatives') who apparently only have a first name?

Last year, my Production Manager (big shout-out to Diz) and I trawled through campaign brief to see how many Creative Directors have no surname. We found that 4 individuals of about 20 mentioned in the publication were so cutting-edge that they had become the archetype for their given name. Pretentiously, now it would seem it is only a requirement of others past, present and future who share their name to be burdened and branded with a surname. After all, I suppose, the original must be differentiated from.

“Hi, I’m John, pleased to meet you”

“John, you mean, THE John!?”

“No, no. Sorry, my fault. I’m not John, I’m John 12045 – I didn’t mean to mislead you.”

“Oh, well, nice to meet you anyway John 12045. I was so excited for a second there, I thought I was going to meet a genius!”

“Yeah, it happens all the time. John sure was a visionary. There’s no way I could ever match his accomplishments in Advertising. I’ve come to accept it though, now I’m content to just keep working away at my new quantum physics theorem.

“Yeah, must be so hard to live in someone else’s shadow”

We found this so utterly repulsive, arrogant and piss-funny, that we decided to create our own fictional Art Director – Manu.

Manu is Spanish. He'd accpeted an exchange role in Australia in order to reignite his passion for advertising. Back home, he'd become despondent. He'd won all the acclaim there was to win, and spent most of his time searching for the perfect awards cabinent...a search that was futile - Manu is a design genius and no cabinent would ever meet his standards.

Once in Australia and away from his awards, on some days Manu chose only to communicate with those who could speak the north-eastern Spanish dialect of catalan – those who couldn’t were obviously intellectual pigmies and therefore had no right to converse with Manu, or indeed, view his work. They plainly wouldn’t understand, and it would be an insult to Manu's superior intelligence to lower himself to their level.

Manu only ever worked on any given project once. He would inject the creative genius required, then pass it on to the juniors after refusing to accept a clients request for changes.

Manu is a tortured soul, a genius, an archetype.

Introducing, Manu...

ALL YOU CAN CASH AND CARRY!

Fuck obscure branding concepts. Forget high production values. Don’t engage the hack, failed film-maker director who’s “between projects”. And, most importantly, drop three zeros off your budget.

If you want an ad that breaks through the clutter, and shifts product, take my advice and follow this recipe:

1. Book direct only 60” spots (why pay an Agency? They’ll rip you off.).

2. Make sure production of your ad is included as “added-value” with your media buy (again, no need for those pony-tailed ad wankers).

3. Get a digital camera, and provide the station with loads of poorly-shot product pics you took yourself (photographers will waste your whole day setting up lighting, and they’ll rip you off).

4. Engage VO talent that can shout aggressively (the station should have plenty of these guys at their fingertips).

5. Don’t be scared of supers. The more the better and make sure they are different colours. Preferably from the fluorescents colour palette. Just tell the production guys and they’ll excitedly handle this for you.

6. Quick cuts are essential. Ensure a product pic, gaudy super and shouted line appear in unison and are on-screen for no longer than 2 seconds. Again, tell the editor and he/she will do this for you.

7. Write it yourself, it’s easy - just select and repeat lines such as:

“All you can cash and carry”
“Just get down here”
“Never again prices”
“Don’t miss it”
“All under one roof”
“Minimum XX% off” (don’t say sale price, just put a tiny super at the base with XX% off RRP)

8. Ensure the sound-mix is at legal limit, and filled out. Get the sound guy to include heaps of sound effects as supers appear (stamping sounds, whooshing etc.)

Now you’ve got yourself an ad that is so load, laughable, visually and aurally offensive, that it will stand out from the sweetly produced branding wank it will air amongst – and, the audience will remember it for that reason alone.

My favorite ad of this genre I saw a couple of months ago. It was a typical stock clearance ad screaming company X needed to make way for new product arriving from overseas – so, you guessed it, everything just had to go.

The best bit was...

Image (static): Container ship
M.V.O. (shouting): We’ve got an absolute “shipload” of product that’s got to go!
Super (flashing): Minimum 70% off everything!

Go on, d-i-y advertising - you know you want to.

Finger gun

This is my mate, Squallapino, a cameraman with the press gallery in Canberra. This was taken at the end of year press function in the lodge. Unfortunately, the finger gun misfired, his collegue got thrown out for pissing on a plant outside the lodge, and my mate had to delete several images of Janette snapped in the kitchen (she was in the freezer digging out some Findus frozen food - a women of such refined taste...)

Creative is an adjective

Chuck Norris doesn’t believe in Germany. I don’t believe in creative – as a noun.

For those that don’t work in the ad/design industry, creative is commonly used in the following ways:

“Jim, have you and Todd finished working up the creative”?

“Where’s Todd, is he in creative?”

“That’s Jim, he’s a creative”

So, creative is used as a noun to describe a product, location or role. It sounds wrong, and that’s because regardless of what dictionarydotfuckingcom says, it is. Ask anyone you know who has nothing to do with advertising, and they’ll say it doesn’t sound right. For those of you who do work in adland, think back to the first time you heard creative used as a noun…see, I bet you thought is sounded odd.

As we kick off a new year, my resolution is to stop using this word, and simply refer to the creative work as the ‘product’, the location as the ‘factory’ and the job as a ‘factory-hand’. Quite fitting I think, It’s not fucking art after all…and I know it hurts, but just accept it – you’re a COMMERCIAL artist, busying yourself pumping out product and helping to further bastardise the English language.

P.S. – dictionary.com defines creative first as an adjective, and second as a noun. The most amusing thing is, the noun reference gives an example of its use in the advertising industry only. Collins – at least the mini version – only cites its use as an adjective.