Random shit/word association that has amused me today:
"Club Urine"
"Mister Jaguar"
Some jokes about salad
Free chromosomes at Primark
"Ferguson's Tunnel"
A picture of a dress made of carpet
Calling my iPod Touch an "iFrot"
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Drudgery
Hey, how are ya? Gee, I'm great thanks. I just lOVe working in my office. It's so clean and modern, and that blistering unnatural strip lighting is just divine.
All those computers and phones and people coughing and sighing and moaning all around me. Aint it so cute?
Sigh. Don't you just adore all those people who wear their pass-cards round their necks... even on the train. And the way all the guys clutch their sandwiches in a faded plastic-bag, like their pathetic, timid lives depend on it. Day in. Day out. It is such a fuckin' hoot!
I just couldn't imagine not being institutionalised with my pass-card and my creased suit and my miserable sandwiches. And thank god I've got my Blackberry - I'm never more than a vital blip or a buzz away from the winning team.
Three cheers for work!
Friday, 11 July 2008
Eugenics and Advertising
Hello - or should I say "guten tag". I'm Josef Mengele, leader of the Nazi's eugenics program.
I'm actually dead now, but when I was alive I conducted all sorts of experiments. Some were horrific. Some were chilling. Some were actually pointless. Some were even horrific and pointless. Nevertheless, they were all aimed at roughly the same thing - trying to create the ultimate human being that could out-perform everything else: I wanted to create a sure fire winner.
So I sliced and spliced and chopped and diced, and ended-up creating nothing more than some wonky old spastics and a right bloody mess. So imagine my joy when I learned the people from CBS Outdoor were employing much the same techniques when optimizing content for their network of LCD ad-hoardings across the London Underground. Whoopee! They're tracking your movements, they're tracking your eye movements - they're unravelling your social genome.
Imagine how empowering it'll be when the results are out. In fact it's a shame I'm dead, because I'd love to get a brief for a CBS Outdoor campaign: "We found drop-shadows on fonts are less effective after 6pm - take it out." "People are more inclined to read things backwards before 10am - invert the copy!" "People will look at animals any time of the day - put a fucking puppy in there!"
Look out London. There's gonna be some real crazy wonky shit coming your way.
Hugs and kisses
Josef xx
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Wishful Marketing (aka incoherent shit and nonsense)
Interesting little debate here I culled from the always wonderful Things Magazine.
In a nutshell: This ties in with what my faithful companion Goldie was saying about Poligrip trumpeting about "ooze control" ie. some obscure aspect of a product being squashed and buggered into an ad under the misconception it's an incredible and appealing selling-point.
I see this quite a lot. I mean who in god's name thought "ooze control" sounded good? Answer: The client, because they invented it. So who allowed it in the ad? Well, that's a matter of contention.
Whoever's responsible either way, the outcome is always the same: a completely naff, or weird, or incoherent, or just plain shit piece of work - a great creative off-set by an incongruous, unappealing bit of techno-guff.
From a writer's point of view this is less about the overall direction of a piece of work, and more about the way a piece is developed. A brief (spelt right today?) might be about - I dunno - tampons. I write a lovely, flowery, sensitive and subtle piece of copy for it. Account people love it but -doh! We forgot to tell you the client wants us to mention the the chairman's daughter has just passed her A-Levels, in it. Or "they're really keen to stress the interest free credit but can we maybe mention it's his wedding anniversary, too." Or "we love that Poligrip is a safe, reasurring household brand, but can you mention it no longer spews, splurges or discharges from people's mouths."
Too. Many. Cooks. Spoil. The. Broth. Ok?
In a nutshell: This ties in with what my faithful companion Goldie was saying about Poligrip trumpeting about "ooze control" ie. some obscure aspect of a product being squashed and buggered into an ad under the misconception it's an incredible and appealing selling-point.
I see this quite a lot. I mean who in god's name thought "ooze control" sounded good? Answer: The client, because they invented it. So who allowed it in the ad? Well, that's a matter of contention.
Whoever's responsible either way, the outcome is always the same: a completely naff, or weird, or incoherent, or just plain shit piece of work - a great creative off-set by an incongruous, unappealing bit of techno-guff.
From a writer's point of view this is less about the overall direction of a piece of work, and more about the way a piece is developed. A brief (spelt right today?) might be about - I dunno - tampons. I write a lovely, flowery, sensitive and subtle piece of copy for it. Account people love it but -doh! We forgot to tell you the client wants us to mention the the chairman's daughter has just passed her A-Levels, in it. Or "they're really keen to stress the interest free credit but can we maybe mention it's his wedding anniversary, too." Or "we love that Poligrip is a safe, reasurring household brand, but can you mention it no longer spews, splurges or discharges from people's mouths."
Too. Many. Cooks. Spoil. The. Broth. Ok?
Thursday, 3 July 2008
2/10 For Creativity
Account managers - save time and disappointment by indicating exactly how much creativy and/or imagination your brief requires by using a simple 1-10 scale on your task documents.
For example: If you think you can execute the brief yourself, tick 1. If you think you can execute the brief yourself, but can't be bothered, tick 2. If the breif COULD be executed by you (and you've already ticked 2.) but requires no obvious creative input, tick 3. If the brief simply requires creative "attention" (for example, re-organizing extant source material within the brief itself) tick 4.
This system can easily be extrapolated all the way up to about 8. 9 and 10 should more likely be reserved for completing novels/paintings/symphonies and on the ladies.
For example: If you think you can execute the brief yourself, tick 1. If you think you can execute the brief yourself, but can't be bothered, tick 2. If the breif COULD be executed by you (and you've already ticked 2.) but requires no obvious creative input, tick 3. If the brief simply requires creative "attention" (for example, re-organizing extant source material within the brief itself) tick 4.
This system can easily be extrapolated all the way up to about 8. 9 and 10 should more likely be reserved for completing novels/paintings/symphonies and on the ladies.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Observations
When I'm at work I drink black coffee from a mug with Cliff Richard's face on it. (His face appears 4 times around the circumference of the mug). I drink quite a lot of coffee. This has less to do with Cliff Richard, and more to do with keeping my legs moving. Fortunately, coffee is also a dihoretic, which assures me a secondary opportunity to move my legs around.
Most of my day is spent looking at a screen, surrounded by lots of pieces of paper. Some of the papers have things I've written or drawn on them.
2 or 3 times a day, somebody (usually a young woman) will come and explain a task to me, which they would like me to perform. Some tasks are more difficult than others. Some tasks are discussed in excruciating detail. Some tasks are very poorly explained. Ideally, the task will be explained somewhere between the two, with detailed elements as well as vagaries.
There is always music being played here in the church. At the moment "Losing My Religion" by REM is playing out of a PA downstairs. Before that there was a song by Neil Diamond. When I arrived this morning, the Arctic Monkeys' first album was being played. Inevitably, The Beatles will be played at some point. And someone has just put fucking Feeder on...
I'm going to have to go and have words.
Most of my day is spent looking at a screen, surrounded by lots of pieces of paper. Some of the papers have things I've written or drawn on them.
2 or 3 times a day, somebody (usually a young woman) will come and explain a task to me, which they would like me to perform. Some tasks are more difficult than others. Some tasks are discussed in excruciating detail. Some tasks are very poorly explained. Ideally, the task will be explained somewhere between the two, with detailed elements as well as vagaries.
There is always music being played here in the church. At the moment "Losing My Religion" by REM is playing out of a PA downstairs. Before that there was a song by Neil Diamond. When I arrived this morning, the Arctic Monkeys' first album was being played. Inevitably, The Beatles will be played at some point. And someone has just put fucking Feeder on...
I'm going to have to go and have words.
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