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

remember what branson said: you have to earn the right to be arrogant

i fucking hate bitching about creatives but if they can’t even win awards for fucking scam they have nothing they can hide behind to keep their egos healthy.

i almost feel sorry for hk because I know for a fucking certainty youre not going to be able to sit back and see them go on with their fucking noses in the air and i know doing good work wont be enough youll want to take the whole fucking industry on as usual.

i dont like complimenting you but as my planner youve learnt a few things which is why you could make wpp asia quite good and why youll drag hk adland back to where it once stood. and if you cant chris will because he was one of the main reasons it enjoyed a brief stint sitting at the head fucking ad table.

youve not been the same since the mountain view fuckers put love and happiness in your dna. but youre not as bad as george.

im a fucking saint for sticking with you 2 but thats why i encourage you to make our adventures work because i live in daily fucking fear youll both come back to hq and make my life a fucking planner infested misery. again. i can handle pete and the boys being with me but you wankers have voting rights lol

Oh dear, I’m worried this post might of come out wrong and made me sound all depressed.

I’m not – honest – maybe a bit frustrated at times, but not depressed … though I accept if I had to work directly with the people I’ve just described, I would be, but fortunately for me [and definitely for them] I don’t.

I just hate how people who claim to be open minded and free thinking tend to be conservative and process driven. It would be fine if this attitude just affected them, but it doesn’t … it affects everyone in the industry because what they end up doing is educating clients to think this way and then get them to buy bullshit under the guise of it being strategically developed ‘killer creative’ when it isn’t. At all.

It was just a whinge … a whinge I could have [but for different reasons] at many people and many countries of adland but Charles does it so much better so I’ll just shut up.

http://www.charlesfrith.com/2009/03/planning-wank.html

I understand no one likes being told by a ‘stranger’ – especially a ‘stranger’ they don’t actually work with – that what they’ve done isn’t good enough – but I’m not saying it out of some sick pleasure, I’m saying it because …

[1] in most cases I know they are capable of much, much more if they just spend a bit of time on it rather than trying to rush it out under the delusion they’re so great, they can answer anything within 26 seconds.

[2] I know ads and so can spot a rip-off from a mile away

[3] sometimes what they produce has no relevance with what I’ve been told the objective of the work was

[4] the only way our industry will get back the respect [and cash] I think it deserves is if we stop letting bullshit come out and start training our people on communication philosophy not just proprietry tools and producing lowest-common-denominator ads.

I’ve never had a problem with creatives – mainly because they know I see my job as helping them produce and sell the best ideas they can come up with … so to be told [literally or subliminally] by some that I’m not worth hearing out does piss me off, especially when I’ve been insulted by far more talented and famous creatives than they could ever be in a million lifetimes.

But that’s the thing with ego, the ones who have the most of it tend to be the ones with the least amount to shout about. 🙂

[PS: When Andy isn’t his blog persona, he is not as arrogant as he appears – and yes that is a compliment but then he deserves it. Sometimes]

wonder who ticked you off! guess it’s a bunch of people who till now got away with lazy thinking and, now will probably have to mend their ways of working[ thinking]!

I don’t know the specific answer to your question Martin, but I think there are many factors to it …

From the value corporations place on adland … the reality most brands of the last 15 years have grown through product development rather than brand communication … the lack of real training within agencies … the rise of media agencies importance … the low ‘intellectual value’ of adland compared to say [ironically] the banking industry and the handover – for nearly as many reasons again – from needing ‘locals’ to deal with the plethora of new ‘local’ business to the arrogance/prejudice of Westerners not wanting to learn the culture and ways of the region plus almost everything inbetween.

And thanks Lee … I know reading between the lines you’re saying I will be seen as a new strait of SARS, adland SARS! Ha.

Whilst there are many talented people inside Singapore [and HK] the reality is the ones who ‘make it’ [for want of a better term] are the ones who either have shunned the cultural value system of their respective countries or are ‘bought in’ by the Government in a quest to appear ‘cultural’ to the wider World.

I think – and this is a pure guess – the reason why HK used to produce more contemporary artists is that under UK rule, art was not viewed as something ‘less important/valuable’ as material success whereas now under Chinese rule, it is often viewed as the ‘jon’ for the career failure … despite its history of unbelievable creativity and progression.

But I could be – and probably am – wrong.

It is always up to the audience to determine whether your post is a joke.

Interesting. My understanding is that arrogance is quite common in HK… but if anyone can fix it…

What’s wrong with letting creatives live in their bubbles of contentment?

You’re a happiness nazi. A school bully. A great fucking planner.

Give them shit Rob, I had to take your “encouragement” for 3 years so I don’t see why those fuckers should get away with it. 🙂

This is indeed a puzzling puzzle, rated ‘impossible’ on the international puzzle scale.

There are no great newspapers here either.
Good design is hard to find (small pockets exist).
Bigger is better, but bigger does not always equal quality.

But most importantly, I think it is a city with a rapidly transforming identity. And the reason why that in itself is not a seed for creativity (like it would be in South Africa for example where transformation is also rife), is because there is a massive air of political correctness.

That is a toxic combination for creativity.

But who knows, not sure in which camp Rob classifies me so perhaps I should keep my trap shut 🙂

So will Sir Martin be quivering in his cot about tomorrow Robert?

Hi Neil … nice to have you pop by.

You’re right that it’s not just the creative/marketing folk causing this – clients have to shoulder some blame too – however the attitude I’ve experienced in my limited exposure here does lead me to think the ‘hunger’ to do the right/good thing is not as prevelant as in other markets, with acknowledgement there are the odd exceptions.

As for clients reading this blog – well shockingly board directors of both Virgin and Google Worldwide do, but they’re weird and tend to do the right thing so we can let them off the hook, ha!