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In my job, you go through the whole range of human emotions – happiness, boredom, despair – and I guess that’s why I like it so much.
Very few things feel as great as when you win a pitch against top competition with an idea you personally helped nurture from concept to reality. Mind you, few things make you feel as miserable as losing a pitch to decidedly-average competition when you just ‘know’ your idea should have won! [Then you wait for months to see the ‘winning agencies’ idea come out – only to snort with indignation, even when it proves your ‘greatness’, wasn’t so great at all!]
Then of course, there’s the internal issues …
Dramas … tears … laughter … hangovers … tantrums … and on rare occasions, confusion – as you win a piece of business only to be told the core idea needs to change as it doesn’t fit in with the ‘research’.
Despite all this, I wouldn’t have it any other way because this emotional rollercoaster lets me feel alive!
Lets face it, for most adults, life is generally one of quiet consistency. The only way you experience anything close to the range of emotions you felt as a child is if you watch a horror movie while having sex with the love-of-your-life, only for them to dump you straight after the ‘deed’, triggering the Rocky theme to blare out in all it’s trumpet-tooting glory before your football team concedes an injury time goal in the FA Cup Final and a DR announces you’ve got piles but it can be treated by eating a kebab a night for a week! Phew.
Anyway, the real reason for this entry is that I am going through one of those advertising moments I described at the top … however I’m happy to say that this one is of pure excitement as I’ve just been told we’ve beaten 4 fantastic agencies to win the total SONY brand business throughout Asia-Pac. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
Filed under: Comment
I experienced the saddest attempt to make a company appear ‘creative’ today.
Now I know first impressions can be wrong … and I know ‘creative spaces’ can sometimes be abit try-hard-wank [like the ‘bedrooms’ in a certain NYC ad agency, eh Mr Boucher!?] but come on, this is bloody horrific!
This room conveys about as much ‘fresh thinking’ as Status Quo – and at least with them, they don’t pretend to something they’re not!
Any other examples of brands that don’t exactly live their ‘hype’? Or ones that do?