Underlaptoppants

It’s almost 11pm. I’m trying to dry a pair of undercrackers using the heat from my laptop, so I’ve got some to wear tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll be commando.

Cannes. Eh?

I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Maybe I should be more bothered. Maybe I will be more so, as I become more entrenched in the ad world.

Last week an email went round the agency, linking people to the Cannes site, and giving us info on updates that we’d get. And we got a gentle rally, that we should be aiming for Cannes.

Well, there’s a couple of problems I see here. One, from looking at the Cannes winners, is that a lot of it seems to me to be stuff clients just wouldn’t agree to. On Scamps blog there’s been a lot discussion about ads winning awards that probably aren’t ads that ran.

Now from my naive, new to this viewpoint, I’d say that it seems that way too. Some of them just blatantly wouldn’t get approved. Virtually everything I’ve worked on so far, ends up being watered down. Until ideas are so far removed from the original conception that I hardly recognise them as the babies I breathed life into. Which brings me to the second thing I saw in a lot of the Cannes winning work: lack of idea and/or relevance.

I mean some of the stuff was just without strategy, or devoid of a concept. I’m not gonna link to stuff, because I could be on dangerous ground and I’m way too young to die in my ad life. But there were ads winning awards, that just had no relevance to the product. Not in a good way. Just in a ‘not quite working is it’ type of way.

There was some stuff I liked. Some ads for Jim Beam were possibly my favourites that I saw on the Cannes site. And some Tesco fresh fish stuff. Both from the press ads category. But there was more stuff I skipped over than stuff I wanted to save as examples of good work.

Then you’ve got people saying British ad agencies are lacking. Or going down the pan. Can’t do press. Can’t do dialogue. I know I’m knew to this, but that’s total bollocks. From what I’ve experienced so far, you’ve got to have a client with some real vision or hefty gonads to actually run creative work. And then you’ve got to have some accounts/planner people who are willing to fight and argue the case for the work too. It seems to me there’s a lack of both.

I mean when I read comments about no British person could have come up with an ad like Gorilla, I just think that’s a total dog shit comment (inferred by someone on Scamp’s blog). There’s creativity in abundance. Country doesn’t matter. I’ve said that before when I referred to location not being important. Maybe we’ve lost something, I don’t know, I ain’t been around that long. I can’t put my finger on it.

I could be talking shit, but it seems maybe sometimes we don’t push enough for the idea. Perhaps that we don’t lead enough. Shouldn’t an agency lead it’s clients? Isn’t that why they come to agencies in the first place?

It’s too easy to say yes sometimes. That’s what it seems like to me. I suppose this is the constant battle an agency faces to stay afloat though. The battle between creative ideals and getting paid.

A new time zone

I have invented a new timezone. Forget Central European Time. That was always wrong. Wave goodbye even, to Greenwich Meantime. I now operate in the Tea Time Zone. I estimate how long things will take, by the number of cups of tea I will drink in that time.

Huzzah.

Vinyl Bowl

An update on my desk (after the personalising my desk question/post).

Managed to acquire myself a set of draws for some more desktop space. Also handy for use as ‘bottom draw’, ie – somewhere to put all those ideas that don’t get the nod, but are actually quite good.

One of fantastic designers also made a few of us some lovely vinyl ashtray type things. Somewhere to plonky bits and bobs. Cheers Molly.

…

click to biggerize, mine is Chaka Kan. Chaka Kan. Chaka Kan Chaka Can can I rock you Chaka Kan.

Don’t Like Traffic Wardens Then?

Seen recently in Northern Quarter, Manchester.

Green Day

Not the band. TBWA Manchester’s recent Green Day. An excuse for a few beers or a good way to help make employees more aware of what they can do to be more green. Whatever your view, it was good day:

Pics are off my phone, sorry not top quality

Not bad for a lunch hour. Or two. . . So what came out of it?

• We had a two hour blackout
• Introduced TBWA bikes for travel between the two offices
• Virtually no one came to work in their own car
• Generally increased awareness of what each member of staff can

Oh and I won a ‘recycled PC’ in the raffle. Can’t complain.

Busy Busy Bumblebees

Blimey, it’s been a good ten days since I posted. And it’s gone so quick. I simply haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here. So what’s been going on?

Well the main thing has been a pitch for a client at work. I think we saw the brief late on Wednesday last week. Spent all day Thursday and Friday on it. We came up with three routes, two of which we tried to progress after the creative directors had cast their collaborative eye over them.

6.30pm on Friday and our idea got killed. It wasn’t transferring well from TV to press. Which was a shame, we had a couple of really cool ideas that were totally different from anything in the sector. But it was a struggle to get them across in press – and it told.

A lesson to be learnt there I guess, in recognising when to listen to the little voice in the back of your head that is whispering ‘yeah, it’s just not doing everything you want it to’.

So after about 1-2 hours of deflation, I got some inspiration. Spoke to my partner and CD about it. And we were back in business. And that business was open on Saturday and Sunday. Yep, we worked all weekend to crack our idea. Kinda spooky in the TBWA Church when there’s not many others around. But we got it done, and finished off today in work, ready for the pitch tomorrow.

So what have I learnt recently?

Well, for a start I think I need something really particular to stimulate my blogging. So I keep it up. Maybe there’s something in trying to crystallize the ‘lessons learned’ thing, so as to create a little list of tips for people who chance upon the blog in a similar position to which I was.

Oh we had our Green Day as well last week. Think I’ve got a photo, I’ll post up sometime. BBQ, beers, lawn games, splendid stuff. Won me a PC in the raffle. Refurbed work throw-outs in keeping with the Green theme.

Oh and I’m sure I’ve got a bumblebee nest in my house! Little blighters.