Head like a hole

No, this isn't a NIN flashback. It's a post about classic ad quotes. Not quotes I've read, but quotes I've experienced. Occasions when a point raised in a meeting made everyone shut the fuck up and listen. The sentence which stoped even the quickest thinker in his/her soiled tracks. Those few words that weren't meant to be read being between the lines. The words that 'just had to be spoken'.

It all started with one of those briefs where the client decided to shift the goal posts. Not just once, but several times. And not just in relation to what we should say, but who we should say it to. It ended up with the client insisting on a message being tailored to several segments that were about as similar as beef and rhubarb...

ART DIRECTOR:

"So let me get this straight, you don't want to target young, idealistic females anymore, but, really, you want to speak to any cunt with a mouth?"

CLIENT:

"I'm sorry?"

ART DIRECTOR:

"You want to speak to any cunt with a mouth. That's what you're telling us, isn't it? Please, correct me if I'm wrong here".

CLIENT:

"Well yes, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you're concepts don't meet the brief because you've polarised our audience."

ART DIRECTOR:

"Oh. Right. You mean we spoke to cunts with a cleft palette. Not every cunt with a hole in their head?"

Open wide

Blame our culture, not the advertisers

Last night, the forum-based SBS ‘Insight’ program pulled together the usual bunch of extremists, alarmists, academics, professionals, Joe Publics and ‘victims’ to thrash out issues surrounding the ‘tween market’. As expected, and in my opinion, rightly so, the debate quickly focused in on the ‘sexualisation’ of girls as young as 6 - with the key question being who is to blame for this? And yes, you guessed it, the participants almost unanimously pointed the finger at advertisers.

Is there any truth to this? For me, the only ‘truth’ uncovered last night was that while the general public can grasp why markets are exploited (and that ethics sometimes go out the door), it has a profound mis-understanding of how cultural norms are established and subsequent markets are born. To suggest that advertisers (as in manufacturers and agencies) created this problem is a falsehood.

Ask yourself why, in the first instance, would young girls nag their parents for products such as ‘bralettes’ or ‘bratz’. What created this desire in young girls to unwittingly and unknowingly sexualise themselves? The answer? Every kid is bombarded daily with pop-culture norms that are established via the imagery and discourse our television programs (O.C. Neighbours, Desperate Housewives), pop music (Pussy Cat Dolls, Britney Spears etc), and media promote. Then there’s the Paris Hilton phenomena and the fact that kids just want to be like bigger kids. And let’s not forgot our broader aspirations and values that created the environment for these cultural products in the first instance:

• We believe in freedom of expression – be it speech, sexuality, fashion, music or art.
• We don’t believe in censorship
• We believe in the equality of race and gender
• We believe in choice

Combined, this is what creates cultural norms and the desire to conform, not its by-product of advertising. Rightly or wrongly, a cultural trend is established, a business creates a product to exploit it, and then advertising agencies spruik it.

Should advertisers be more responsible in how they depict kids? Absolutely. Should advertisers stop marketing these products? Maybe. Should advertisers be held responsible for the sexualisation of kids? Absolutely not.

The responsibility for the problem lies in our culture. To affect change, and stop the sexualisation of children, we must first take a long hard look at ourselves.

We told you so

We told you we need to shoot the images

You said 'no, I want to look at stock options.'

We told you we'll only search right's managed shots

You said 'no, I don't want to blow my budget.'

We told you there's a chance competitors could use the same shot

You said, 'that's highly unlikely.'

We told you this 34pp A4 services brochure is a significant investment, and you must protect that

You said 'just get on with it.'

....

....

2 months later the project is complete, printed and in-market and then I receieve a copy of a competitor's brochure. Well, whatdyaknow, both companies hero the same image. Seems the two market leaders were educated at the same 'dumb-fuck's school for cheap-skates'.

So, on behalf of my competitor agency who no doubt suffered through a similiar process...WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.

blogging code of cuntduct

I’d like to thank ‘writer’ for his latest slight against my good-self over at the advertising agency. His barbed attempt to denigrate my character is not an uncommon activity - and one 'account wranglers' the world-over would be familiar with from their respective fake-writers.

So, I hear you ask, why the hell am I thanking this so-called 'writer' who subscribes to a code of blogging cuntduct?

Simple. 'Writer' works for my agency as a freelancer. In fact, today he's working on several of my inspiring, original and strategically perfect briefs. Well, at least I thought he was. Which brings me to my very own, and yes now very public, cunt-act. As Account Director, I thank you writer, now I will generate another $270 by striking an hour off your timesheet, yet still charging the client for it. Please post outside of work hours, writer.

A daily occurrence

Sad fucks

I’ve always subscribed to the theory that says if you’re continuously coming into work early and staying back late then there’s only two possible reasons why:

1. You are shit at your job, or
2. Your Agency is taking the piss out of you

Lately I’ve realised that there is in fact a third reason:

3. You are a sad fuck

You know the type. The guy in creative who ‘lives for advertising’. The power-bitch suit with no friends outside her ‘industry network’. The new kid freshly spewed from the university system who shamelessly seeks a mentor. The wanker art director that tells anyone who’ll listen that ‘I work in advertising’.

There’s only one person who’s more pathetic and he/she is generally the ‘old hand’ in the agency who pines for 'the old days of advertising'…the sad fuck who’s shit as his job and let’s the agency take the piss out of him.

Get a life, losers.

myspace is for cunts

But not the topic of this post.

Since (my last post) drinking my through Eastern Europe, the UK, the UAE and more recently South East Asia, I've been "getting ads out" and toiling over the golden question - 'When's the right time to get out?' To be honest, I thought I'd return from holiday late last year and quit. But I didn't. Why? Well, that's a long story and has more to do with the she-monkey taking an overseas post for a year, and me needing to earn enough money back home to maintain the lifestyle to which I am accustomed. 'Down-shifting' wasn't to be a timely financial-option.

And now? Well, now I've resigned myself to at least another 2 or 3 years of prostituting my soul in return for copious amounts of money - and back to blogging about it I guess.

So, to catch you up, in the last six months at my agency...

8 people have been made redundant

10 people have resigned (read: been poached)

Management has replaced these 18 people with 10 (who I presume are super-human)

1 major account has been lost (nothing to do with the redundancies or resignations)

'Writer' (from theadvertisingagency.blogspot.com) and I discovered each others identity. What's more, that we've been
working on the same account for the same agency over a period of about 12 months. A small world indeed.

We have a new MD

I have a new group head

We have lost 2 pitches.

We are on the short-list of 1 more.

I've called several people 'cunt'

Several people have called me 'cunt'

The Advertising Standards board deemed one of our ads 'inappropriate for children' and thus it's been ruled that we can no longer run it. It wasn't a cheap ad either.

Oh, and I made the firm decision that myspace is most certainly for cunts.