The Law Of Reverse Inanity

Now this is fun!

The law of reverse inanity.

Take something your client/planner/brief says and sense check it by instead applying the antonym. Does it still stand up?

We want something original.

No ideas that someone has already done.

We want something relevant.

No irrelevant ideas.

We want something compelling

No really boring ideas.

We want to talk confidently.

You mean I've perfected that nervous tone of voice for nothing.

We want to be inspirational.

Nothing that provokes no reactions.

We want simplicity

No complicated ideas? Okay then.

Feel free to add your own...

The client said what? Number 2

A well known energy company complains that they don't like the colour green on a pack that a creative team has made for them.

The creative team, asks why.

The client responds that their school uniform was green and that they didn't like school very much. The client asks if it can be changed to blue instead.

The copywriter, quick as a flash, replies that blue would be a problem too as that was the colour of her school uniform.

Client doesn't pick up on the irony.

The world keeps on turning.

Who'd be a Creative Director?

Every year they come...

The eagle-eyed youths straight out of Bucks desperately looking for a job. The advertising overspill. The ones without the estuary accents, expensive clothes and fancy haircuts. The DM creatives of the future. Personable kids who, for some reason or another, have wanted to do this shit since they left school.

These are people who will work for 6 months on an HSBC brief for absolutely no pay whatsoever. Who will commute from Bournemouth so that they may one day earn the privelege of making a mailpack for less money than your Mum makes at Tesco.

Every year they come and sit among us. Working their twats off.

I love them. Because they are following a dream. These kids are full of talent and they don't want to become investment bankers. They want to think and have fun.

They don't want to wear suits, be bossed around or work a strict 9-to-5. They don't want to be divorced from their labour, suck cock or become the kind of general corporate fucktard that so defines the southern middle class.

And good luck to them.

But ... I bet 90% of them harbour some desire to eventually become a Creative Director.

Why is it that we go through hell to try and avoid getting a real job only to give up all the priveleges as soon as the prospect of a fancy title comes along?

No sooner do we finally get our feet under a desk where we can enjoy ourselves, free from responsibility, accountable to nothing other than our work, than we give it all up.

We run towards a world of meetings, and dinners, and being nice to people we hate. A world of costs and profitability and management and taking terms like "time famine" seriously. A world where we have no choice but to take marketing seriously, or learn to lie like a pro.

We lose our cynicism priveleges. We start to BELIEVE THE HYPE.

Why the U-Turn in our lives?

The obvious answer, I suppose is "money". But considering you can earn a good whack as a senior creative, it can't be the be all and end all. I suppose you get to call yourself a Creative Director. But of what? A Creative Director of DM?

Okay. No problem.

Being a Creative Director is a great opportunity to develop talent and stand up for work. If you do it right, you can be held in high regard by the people you led for the rest of your life. I'm not really knocking the job. It's very credible and very difficult.

But that's not the point of this post

The question remains. If we wanted all the money, meetings, bullshit and arse-kissing - why did we not go in for a more corporate job to start with? Why are there not more senior creatives doing the work and then going home to learn how to play the sitar or something?

Are we hypocrites? Or is it just human nature to want to climb the mountain?

I predict a riot

Nicked from above-the-line blog "scamp". This is a guide for Creative Directors as to what they should be paying their people.

Food for thought.

Taking DM too seriously

One of the big questions one faces when taking a job as a DM creative is how seriously should you take yourself?

There's a good chance you'll tell your relatives you work in advertising (you do, don't let anyone tell you different) but this can lead them to asking you if you've done anything famous. In most cases, this leaves you at something of a loss. Your mouth has written a cheque that your job can't cash.

You can't say "I did this really nice mailpack for Skoda". Because you'll get the response "Mailpack?" And then of course you're going to have to explain how marketing works and you'll be exposed as a pretentious nobhead. A pretender. A bullshitter.

I used to have a boss who could have said "I am a Creative Director of one of Europe's largest advertising networks" but instead opted for the more humble "I design junk mail". He of course sold himself short: but it tells you something about the man. He was not a twat.

How seriously should we take DM?

I consider myself an intelligent person, and were it not for considerable upheavals in my youth I would probably have entered one of the 'professions' and made a pretty good, respectable living. Instead I opted for booze, music and rejection of society. When I needed a job, I fell into DM.

So it could be argued that I am in a job that is beneath me intellectually. And I have known many copywriting collegues to whom this could equally apply.

So what does one do? Does one knuckle down and really try to revolutionise the industry? Or does one become a well-paid alcoholic who is depressed and unfulfilled?

I have personally traversed between the two. I have tried to convince people that junk mail is an unhelpful, pejorative term; that we are instead disseminating necessary and relevant communications. On the other hand, I've watched Bill Hicks, got pissed, and lamented every single soul involved in our business and hoped that they all die painfully.

But there is a third option which has struck me recently:

We don't have to take this shit so fucking seriously!

Why don't people smile in Campaign? We are not doctors or lawyers. We are not investment bankers or actuaries. Nothing in our business gets better by taking it seriously.

Another boss of mine used to tell me "you get paid to muck about".I love that sentiment.

DM is not as glam as above-the-line advertising; it's not as intellectual as pshychiatry; it's not as popular as being a nurse. What it is, however, is a fucking riot.

We are not making the world a better place - sorry, charity copywriters. We are not creating high art - sorry, automotive art-directors. We are just doing a meaningless job which pays well and allows us the privelege of being surronded by interesting creative people.

The fact that we create shit - and be in no doubt about this, it is shit - is neither here nor there. It is difficult to do well and allows creative people to make good money simply for being talented.

Why justify what we do when we can simply enjoy it?

Any passionate DMers care to disagree?

Integrating with ATL agencies

Integrating with ATL agencies is a fucking nightmare.

Have you ever been handed an idea from them that you can work with?

Every time it's the same. One word. Let's call it "bounce". We'll apply a client later. Whomever wants to buy it.

Then comes a shit hot idea for a film. One that relies wholly on the medium of film - one that depends on time and movement.

So for 'bounce' it would be people on spacehoppers bouncing all over the world. Or the floor would be springy and it would propel people, dogs and cars up in the air in a dreamy, bouncy-castle way.

And everyone will be excited, because it sounds like fun.

And then come the press ads.

The press ads are important when you are a DM nobhead - if the idea flows into the press ads, then it is likely it will be easy to translate into mail.

But the press ads are always shit.

Usually, it will be a product benefit in a headline only ad - written in a jewish 1980s Madison avenue style. It won't actually integrate at all. Except that it will have the word, bounce, underneath the logo.

That's right, you junk mail fool. You're not getting near the idea. You have to flog the product benefits. And maybe stick a picture of a spacehopper on your shitty letter.

It's not a big idea. It's a big film. The ATL get an award. And you get 18 months of misery trying to inject some personailty into an idea that simply doesn't translate into your medium.

I'm not complaining, really. There are winners and losers and this life.

The ATL flyboys are simply the winners.

For now....

The client said what? Number 1

A well known animal charity.

It likes to write letters from the animals themselves.

The writer is told his copy is "too anthropomorphic"

Their last letter was from a horse.

Go figure.