Someone

I bumped into someone again yesterday. I've never atually met them, seen what they look like, or know anything in particular about them. But I encounter them all the time. Everybody knows someone it seems.

"Someone might misunderstand us," says the Creative Director.

"Someone might not get it," says the client wrangler.

"Someone might take it literally," says the client.

"Misunderstand?" I say. "Take it literally?" I said. "What sort of person would take a commercial literally?"

"Well. Someone might."

So off I'm sent. Back to the drawing-board, to re-write, re-work, re-think an idea that someone might take the wrong way. Or misunderstand. Someone I've never even met, or know anything about. Someone entirely off the radar in fact, who may (or may not) inadvertantly stumble on to the radar one day, see my commercial, and may (or may not) not entirely appreciate it. I stare and I stew, agonize and appraise, stripping back the words, the subtlety, quality and integrity of the idea until I'm left with something nobody could misunderstand. Something broad and unequivocal; clumsy and unpleasant. Something indiscriminate and stupid that speaks to everyone.

Some time later, I'm in a bar and someone says, "I was talking to someone the other day. We were saying that advert you did was shit."