Reflections on the teacher's strike

Today the teachers are on strike.

Last night was a leaving do for our ECD.

These two events conspired to have me lying in bed all morning listening people talking about the teaching profession on the radio while I nursed a hangover.

It seems that the perception remains that teachers don't live in the 'real world'. Caller after caller rang in saying the same thing. "They should try living in the real world"

As a DM copywriter, I find this amusing.

Teaching is one of the few professions where you are exposed to all of society's perceived ills. You get a unique insight into families. You are affected directly by government policy. And you are responsible for the education of the next generation.

Today. This DM copywriter strolled into work at midday with a hangover. Made some amends on some website copy. Watched Marvin Hagler on YouTube. And will no doubt go home and watch some TV if he can keep out of the pub.

I earn perhaps twice as much money as a teacher.

And never once has someone accused me of 'not living in the real world'.

A few weeks ago I wrote a letter from a Dog called Scruffy.

Everything in this world - everything - is fucked up.

What are you doing with that mailpack?

You watch a DRTV ad.

This would indicate that the visual element is the most important part of it. It should be visually engaging. An art-director's medium.

You listen to a Radio ad.

This would indicate (obviously) that how it sounds is key.

You read a long copy ad.

This would indicate that the words are most important. A copywriter's medium.

So what do you do with a mailpack?













Apart from throw it in the bin?

DM awards.

"My vodafone mailing got a Gold in the low-volume business to business category. Wicked!"

Some people in DM take awards very, very seriously.

Some people in DM say they hate awards and are passionately against them.

The first group have no soul.

The second group have no awards.

I'm not quite sure where I stand.

I've won a few awards (and I could have won more if my name had been on the motherfucking forms, but I'm not bitter). And I think it's quite a pleasant thing. You get a trip to New York, or a dinner at the Grosvenor. And you can get pissed and have a free meal. Your peers all speak well of you and your agency gives you a blow job.

All very enjoyable.

But I'm not sure that I can take these awards all that seriously. Above-the-line, I can just about understand. Who made the best film? Let's all judge. It's fairly straightforward and is a benchmark of excellence.

But when you throw results into the mix, the whole thing tends to get a bit fucked up. When you work in response, you don't really need a benchmark of excellence. You've already got one...the results.

Juding creativity in a results based industry is a funny one. Imagine a football comparison. Everton beat Man City 2-0, but Man City win because they played the nicest football. It's utterly absurd. Yet in DM it seems acceptable.

To compound the absurdity, it seems that most award winning creative mailpacks aren't even real. We won a Cannes Silver for a deskdrop a while back - that is, something that has never actually left the agency. You see awards for Hairdressing Salons or Dry Cleaners - those staple DM industries (!). So most of the time we are judging an industry that doesn't really exist.

Perhaps we are showcasing which agencies have the most talent. Or rather, who WOULD have the most talent if the kind of work they are doing ACTUALLY EXISTED IN THE REAL WORLD.

A nice code to live by, I suppose. But one which much render one's life more or less meaningless when you finally meet your maker.

Last year's DMA best of show was a mailing with Fuzzy Felt in it. Which strikes me as a bit retarded. A nice mailing sure. But I work in a job that considers fuzzy felt the height of our powers? Really? Okay. Just keep paying me and I'll keep my mouth shut.

All I'm trying to do here is raise the questions. I have no opinion. Sometimes award winning stuff has been brilliantly successful, in which case it does deserve the adoration.

But even then. How seriously do we take it?

I remember the DMA's 2001. Stephen Fry was presenting. He more or less called us a bunch of cunts and said we should be ashamed of what we do never mind award it. Stephen Fry is usually respected as a man of common sense. Was he so far out this time? Or does he just not understand the degree to which we struggle for our art?

Does it come back to this frustrated above-the-line mentality? We see that they have big awards ceremonies and we want them too?

Once on a train I saw a sign that said "Great North Eastern Trains - Gold Award for Sandwiches - British Train Awards 2003" or something. And it made me laugh. What a meaningless thing to award.

But then it struck me that it is no less absurd than winning "Best press insert" at the PM awards.

But for all of the stupidity of awards, I think they DO matter. Not because they have any merit in themselves. But more because they have the illusion of merit.

And percpetion, as we all know, is reality.

Awards mean MONEY. And money matters. Both to us as individuals and for our agencies.

It also gives a little glory to us creatives. Which is not forthcoming enough on a day-to-day basis.

They are also a fantastic way to see which agencies or countries are pushing the boundaries and what is possible.

So there is some merit in taking awards seriously. At least at face value.

But I think anyone who goes to sleep at night thinking they are hot shit because they have a DM gong is a fucking whopper with no soul.

Where do you stand?

Following on from our existing customers:

This is one that used to annoy my old art director.

SEND NO MONEY NOW

A masterclass in abstraction.

Here's one for our existing customers.

"As an existing customer, we'd like to offer you blah"

You're ahead of me already, I'm sure.

An existing customer?

Remember the law of reverse inanity?

[posted in feb. fucking hyperlink malfunction in my brain]

Now I don't want to step on the toes of Heidegger or Sartre here...but...

Who are our non existing customers?

Santa?

Bigfoot?

Bah humbug.

David Ogilvy once said...

..."you cannot bore the customer into buying your product"


Well, the last 15 years of DM certainly put an end to that fallacy, didn't it.

One of my fave bottom drawer ideas.

It would never run due to copyright issues. And, besides, it's too out of date now. But it was for Carling Live. A website that offered you the chance to "get closer to the music." We presented it to the client. But, alas, no dice. Carling branded letter and outer envelope. Nothing else but the letter.

Mr A.B Sample
1 Sample Road
Sample Town
Sample Shire
SS1 1SS

Dear Mr Sample

I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy. You said your girlfriend's pregnant now, how far along is she?

Look, I'm really flattered you would call your daughter that and here's an autograph for your brother - I wrote it on the Starter cap.

I'm sorry I didn't see you at the show, I musta missed you. Don't think I did that shit intentionally just to diss you. But what's this shit you said about you like to cut your wrists too? I say that shit just clowning dog, c'mon - how fucked up is you?

You got some issues Mr Sample, I think you need some counseling to help your ass from bouncing off the walls when you get down some.

And what's this shit about us meant to be together? That type of shit'll make me not want us to meet each other.

I really think you and your girlfriend need each other, or maybe you just need to treat her better. I hope you get to read this letter, I just hope it reaches you in time before you hurt yourself.

I think that you'll be doin just fine if you relax a little, I'm glad I inspire you but, Mr Sample, why are you so mad? Try to understand, that I do want you as a fan. I just don't want you to do some crazy shit.

I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago that made me sick. Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge and had his girlfriend in the trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid and in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to.

Come to think about, his name was.. it was you

Damn!

[signature]

Name
Position

PS - Get closer to the music at www.carlinglive.com.

Beware the arrogant DM creative

Despite what the ATL nobheads say, there are talented, creative people in DM.

Okay, so you might not notice it from all the work they do. Some of it will be shit - that, sadly, is the nature of the beast. But some stuff is brilliant. And some of the pitch work is incredible.

These talented, creative people, however, tend to be quiet. Or are lazy. Or lack confidence. Or are ugly. Or are immature. Or are Northern. Or their mum is dead. Or they had some illness when they were kids.

The above traits aren't very helpful in the world of above-the-line advertising. So they end up in DM. Where they can make a good living and do a version of what they are good at. In the bitchy, image conscious, "dress creative" world of ATL, these people have targets on their backs. Targets that good looking, loud, confident - dare I say, wealthy - people with enormous support networks do not.

I'm not criticising that. It's been that way since Madison Avenue in the 1950s. ATL is a second tier glamour profession. Game on. Fair enough. It's the way it should be.

But I digress. This post is not to criticise the flash ATL creative. Or to praise the talented-but-meek DM person. It's more to question the flash DM creative.

If someone has all the trappings of a archetypal advertising creative - the attitude, the clothes, the looks, the arrogance, the swagger, the wealthy two parent family - what the fuck are they doing below-the-line?

Would it be too sweeping a statement to assume it is a lack of talent?

That would be the only thing stopping them going above the line, surely? No-one loves DM that much that they would eschew the glamour and gold of the soho boutiques in favour of it.

Looking and acting creative in DM advertises a lack of something in the character to me. Nasty cunts don't belong in our business.

DM should be full of people who are as good as above-the-line creatives, but not as cool. And who ultimately, weren't quite pushy enough to prove it.

That's my policy anyway.

Beware the arrogant DM creative.

The chances are they are shit, as well as poisonous.

Snow Crash

One of my previous posts was talking about how I wanted to branch out into digital marketing. Partly because of the bandwagon and partly because it fascinates me entirely. And there is nothing as rewarding as learning something new. (I've also been allocated some accounts at work that will need a lot of websites built, so its slowly starting to happen).

But one of the problems for a DM bandit is getting up-to-speed. For me, this has involved learning about the history of the internet and the web, getting a bit more familiar with dreamweaver, and writing this shitty little blog.

But to go one step further, to get under the skin of the people who live and breathe this stuff, I've been trying to submerge myself in spod culture too. And one aspect of this is the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It's a sci-fi wank off. And is about as far away from the things I normally read as humanly possible. But for a book written in 1992, it has certainly seen many of its ideas come to light. Albeit in rudimentary form.

The Brave New World of our generation, perhaps.

Does anyone know to what degree this book has influenced the web as we know it today? It clearly has huge parallels with Second Life and World of Warcraft. But who copied whom?

Good read though, I recommend it to any DM creatives who are looking at making the switch.

I appreciate your concern.

This is one borrowed from a colleague of mine.

She hates it when a Client Services Person comes over to you and says:

"I'm just concerned about a few things."

Concerned.

You're concerned about this piece of work?

What is your concern, exactly? If you don't mind me asking?

It's just that, when I'm concerned, it's usually about leaving the iron on and all my neighbours getting burned to death as a result of my stupidity.

Or I get concerned about a child who is smelly and cowers when somebody makes a noise.

I'm sometimes concerned about the standards of education in schools or the cleanliness of hospitals.

Inner city destitution, the mental health of the developing world, the concept of "black crime", the usurpation of the labour party by nobheads, sex-traffiking, fat cats, ice caps, tigers going extinct, richard littlejohn...

Not trying to get on the old moral high horse, mate. But these are the things that concern me.

But you're concerned about ... my copy?

You're concerned that - what? - the client, who is paying for it, might have an opinion on the work? Like they always do anyway?

I'm concerned that you've wasted your whole fucking life missing the point of everything.

Overheard

A freelance copywriter having a fight with a suit...

A real ding dong...

In a blind rage, the copywriter shouts "don't you ever question my professionality!!"

1-0 Client Services.

Bitter bitter bitter.

Can anyone lay claim to having a bigger inferiority complex than me:

A Scottish, Everton supporting, DM copywriter?

I'm going to track down an English, Liverpool supporting, above-the-line copywriter ... and shag his wife.

That should redress the balance.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain

The difference between the right word and nearly the right word is the difference between a kick up the arse and a dick up the arse.


I think I'll be using that update of Twain's old quote with one with the suits tomorrow.

Stealing Your Own Work

Haha

This is class:

http://www.glodark.co.uk/nspcc.htm

The footer at the bottom of this letter says

Updated September 22, 2007
This file may be downloaded for private and personal use but NO part of it may be published in any form without the prior permission of the author.

The thing is... I am the fucking author!!

That's my letter.

It reminds me of the inlay card of Radiohead's OK Computer. "Lyrics reproduced by kind permission, even though we wrote them"

I don't understand or care anyway. I'm a copywriter not a copyrighter.