The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Emperor’s New Clothes …

 Wayhay!!!

First of all, I want to point out this has absolutely nothing to do with the post of yesterday – that situation is something I am still ‘dealing with’ and hope to be able to name and shame very soon.

On the plus side, I feel more fired up than I’ve been in a long time so there’s definitely a positive in being subjected to corporate mediocrity and small mindedness. Ha.

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So recently I was approached by a very wonderful ad agency to see if I’d be interested in coming over to work with them in the UK on some new role they were looking to develop.

Now I am a big believer that you always explore opportunities – whether you are interested or not – so we had a couple of chats and all was going nicely when one of the guys asked me this …

“You’ve been out of the UK for a while, how do you feel you’ll cope with the standards of advertising you’ll be expected to achieve?”

After a couple of seconds of insulted shock, I responded …

“Oh I know it’ll be tough, but I’ll just have to lower my expectations till the UK ad industry stops believing its own shit”.

Unsurprisingly, the ‘conversation’ ended soon after and I am not expecting [or wanting] it to continue anytime soon.

OK … so maybe I was a cheeky shit, but this arrogance that only the UK produces great communication is ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the wonderful heritage it has [and in the hands of some agencies, continues to have] … hell, I worked there for long enough and loved it …  however where the World has changed, alot of the UK ad scene – at least to me – hasn’t, and I find it both sad and frustrating to hear/see so many people still acting with a British-Empire-kind-of-arrogance when alot of what they are creating is well below the standards being set by agencies in the rest of the World.

  One For The Ladies!

Of course this post will piss a load of people off … and I am know I am being generalistic when not every person/agency acts this way … but unless certain individuals start pulling their heads out of their collective myopic and prejudice arses, they’re in for a very, very nasty surprise – because they’re already being beaten for hunger, passion and drive and soon – with the talent certain regions are attracting – this will [fingers crossed] eventually manifest itself into better, bigger, braver and more motivating creative ideas that could put England in the same situation they’re experiencing in categories like manufacturing and shipping!

I hope not … I really do … but if they carry on at this rate, it could happen – and to truly put the fear of God into them, the rest of the World probably has a better grip of English culture than English agencies have of the rest of the World … so when looking for a lead agency to run global accounts, clients could quite possibly start looking to companies located OUTSIDE of the UK [or the West as a whole] because they appreciate, understand and embrace the [subtle and not-so-subtle] differences in culture, values and media rather than just running off and doing whatever their personal agenda and/or arrogant attitude desires.

I hope I’m wrong – but if I’m not, I hope I play a big part in the change. [Cue: Evil Laugh!]

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