Creative Advertising Copywriter Blog 2010
Latest entry, November 23 2010
I hate my ad agency because
A nice little site this one, which deserves a wider audience: www.ihatemyadagency.com
It's aimed at anyone who has to work with an ad agency. Visitors are invited to list reasons why they hate their agency, and also to agree or disagree on reasons given by others.
My favourites: "I hate my ad agency because..."
"...they cannot navigate their way through their own organization".
Oh how true that is.
One I was surprised to see was:
"...they don't know what to do with the budget either."
Nowadays, I would have thought that clients and agencies alike would have no problem spending budgets. Getting them up to a realistic level is another matter.
Latest entry, October 15 2010
How times change in advertising
When I started out in this business and was trying to get a job in one of the top ad agencies, I used to go around with my portfolio to get critiques from creative directors or, if we couldn't see them, senior creative teams.
I remember going with my then art director to see a team at BMP - or Boase Massimi Pollitt as they were then - in the run-up to Christmas. The team were quite well-known. Today, they're even more successful, and are creative partners in one of the world's last few great agencies.
I can't recall what they said about our portfolio 20-odd years ago, but I do remember something one of them mentioned. I asked how they were doing at BMP and what recent work of theirs I might have seen. The answer was that this year had been a bit frustrating for them in terms of produced work in that they had had only one TV ad and one press ad run.
I remember being surprised even then that a team could produce so little work over the course of a year that saw the light of day and still have a job. But those, of course, were the days when agencies and clients were still prepared to spend a lot of time and money generating idea after idea in the search for the ones that really hit the spot.
Today, even in a top agency like that, I think a team would be expected to come up with a TV commercial and press ad which ran every few weeks or so at the very least.
And in many places the pendulum has swung ridiculously far the other way. Months allocated to working on a single campaign have been reduced to weeks, often days. In some cases hours. Yes, hours. Even for fairly high profile posters and press ads for major brands.
There was a lot of indulgence in advertising in the 70s and 80s. But there was plenty of success, respect and enjoyment too. Not to mention countless great ads. Sadly, today there's not much left of any of them.
Latest entry, May 2010
Bye bye Nick
Just read that the BNP-fuehrer Nick Griffin is to hang up his jackboots. In 2013. Which gives those cuddly fascists plenty of time to go through a selection process for the next leader.
I think they should take a leaf out of reality shows like I'll do anything and do it all on TV. Here are some ideas to get them started:
- It'll be all white on the night
- The SS Factor
- How do you solve a problem like Maria? Simple - shoot her!
- Big Brother
- The White only Minstrel Show
- Auf Weidersein Fraulein
- Goering for a song
- The reich's got talent
- Blitz a knockout
Anyway goodbye Griffin. And don't come back.
Latest entry, March 2010
The end of the traditional creative advertising agency?
Just been watching this:
http://vimeo.com/10251808
It's a spoof documentary about the advertising industry and its failure to adapt to new media, inviting comparisons the industry with the ancient Greeks and Romans.
This odd little piece is neither one thing or the other.
Shocking? Not really. It's the same brow-beating that the industry has been indulging in for at least ten years.
Entertaining? Not especially. If that was their aim, it could have done it a lot better and gone a lot further.
Revealing? Actually, some agencies are making the change pretty well. Besides 'new' media is actually evolving fast and is no longer new. And it does some things brilliantly, others less well. Which is why it's taking its place alongside, rather than replacing, much of the old media.
As a creative advertising copywriter, it means I have to have more strings to my bow. Which is no bad thing. Much of my work these days is indeed digital. But advertising won't go away. And work with an idea rather than merely a technique or a technology will always stand the test of time.
The agency is dead...long live the agency!