Filed under: Comment
Wieden is full of cool young things wearing cool clothes and sporting cool hairstyles.
They talk using cool words like “cool” or even “kool”, they drink cool drinks and even sit in a cool way.
They’re so cool that even the distinctly uncool presence of errrrm, me doesn’t affect how cool they are.
However a tipping point may have been irreversibly reached thanks to Dom’s attempt to be W+K’s official Hell’s Angel.
Jesus, how bad is that eh?
Seriously, even a timid 3 year old left in a graveyard at midnight wouldn’t be intimidated by that … so on behalf of everyone in the Shanghai office, I beg Dom to buy a full face helmet because not only will it ensure no one can recognise him as a valued member of the cool mob [and me] at W+K, but we can all point and laugh as he tries to beat a 4 year old on a tricycle at the lights.
Filed under: Comment
So we’re in the middle of a pitch at the moment and for reasons best known to me – which my colleagues are also trying to work out given I’ve sent them off to interview tailors – I want to know how a man feels when he tries on a well made, fitted suit.
Maybe that feeling lasts just for a moment … maybe it’s there each time you put it on, but if any of you have experienced something like that, could you tell me how it affected you.
Whilst I haven’t worn a proper suit since 1989 [my first ever job interview, ha!] there have been occasions where I’ve tried on an item of clothing that genuinely changed my mood and how I felt about myself – but I’m not interested in me, I’m interested in you – so if any of you can tell me what happened and how it affected you [positively or negatively] I’d be very, very grateful, but not as much as Rodion, Debi and Charinee who are out in the heat of Shanghai, asking a bunch of questions to a bunch of bemused and confused tailors.
Thank you.
Filed under: Comment
So I read in the paper that last week, a month old, beautiful baby boy was found abandoned very close to where I work.
He was left on some grass by a hospital, with only some clothes and diapers for company and whilst he is perfectly healthy, he has deformed ears which Police believe is the reason he was rejected by his parents.
He is being cared for by nurses at present but by the time this post comes out, he will have probably been sent to a children’s home unless his parents come forth.
Let’s think about that for a moment.
A beautiful, wonderful, sweet baby boy – and he is all those things and more – gets ‘told’ he is not good enough within a month of his life starting, resulting in the chances of him being able to forge a half decent life in the most competitive, populated country on Earth has suddenly magnified in difficulty.
Tragically this is a fairly common situation – this is the 4th such abandonment near our office in the past month – and whilst I have an idea that I am going to explore that I think might be able to help in a rather devious way, I want to talk about something else.
Many people in the West think they have it tough.
Of course some do, but I’m talking about the people who have the trappings that others would regard as wealth beyond reason.
They have good, well paid jobs … live in nice places … have beautiful possessions and yet they feel they are a victim of life.
A victim of life.
Imagine living in a society so harsh that a single fault could result in total and utter abondanment.
Not just for one day. For life.
Imagine the pressure you would feel to deliver – as well as conform – so when Westerners say the people of Asia are narrow minded or stupid it pisses me off because [1] they’re not and [2] their behaviour/attitude [in certain circumstances] is driven by the paralysis of their countries ‘rules of engagement’ not lack of ability.
I absolutely love China and Asia … I love it for a whole host of reasons, of which it’s appreciation of family is a major one … however it’s ability to cut off ties in an instant is both shocking and vicious to me, and whilst I am not saying [1] all Asian people have this mindset or [2] this doesn’t happen in the West [as the recent incident in France proves] it doesn’t make it any easier for me to take.
Maybe if these abandoned babies could be adopted by people outside of China it would be a teensy bit better – but like most countries, foreign adoption is notoriously difficult to achieve – but this does help explain China’s relentless advancement because when you come from a culture that adopts a stance of ‘shape up or ship out’, you will work harder and appreciate more because the option to complain to your boss about your pay not covering the cost of your image-obsessed lifestyle isn’t there.
If the person who who this post is aimed at reads it [yes, it’s you KT], I hope they understand what I am saying … because I think their entitlement attitude should be rewarded with a fist in the face, not a compassionate and warm hearing.
Get a fucking grip, you’ve done hardly anything to justify a single element of the outrageously good life you have and if anything you should keep your gob shut because if you were born in this wonderful – but occasionally harsh country – you’d of been left behind, not greeted with such warm, open arms and smiles.
Filed under: Comment
I have always found journalists for adland interesting.
Actually, I’ve always found journalists that work in particular categories interesting.
The reason for that is that I always wonder whether they like writing about this mad/sad/bad industry or whether it’s simply a job that allows them to get paid for the thing they are passionate about.
Of course doing a job that is only 50% of what you really want to do is not that uncommon.
I’m sure the engineers who invented SONY’s Aibo probably had bigger hopes and expectations in their career than producing a fake dog for sad fuckers to buy and bore their mates with … but let’s face it, there’s an awful lot of adfolk who would rather be writing books and films than churning out another script for Hugglies nappies which, on closer investigation, is exactly the same as the other 9,000 they’ve put out over the past 20 years, even if they keep coming up with new terms for the super absorbent nature of the fabric.
Maybe it’s because of this – or the fact that companies like Ogilvy approach self-PR with all the co-ordination of a military campaign – but I wonder why so many articles I read feature some guy talk about the ‘key rules’ to producing successful campaigns when they’ve not even produced a successful turd in the last 10 years.
That’s not to say these ‘experts’ can’t contribute an interesting point-of-view, but I’d of thought it would be much more valuable if the comments came from the people/parties who actually pulled the thing together in the first place … but then with so few people willing/allowed to tell the blunt truth of it all, is it any surprise journos turn to ‘experts’, even if in many cases what that person has done to justify their title is talk a lot rather than do a lot?
[and yes, I know this is pot. kettle black. time]
I know I’ve told this story umpteen times, but when Baz first came to us, he produced references from the following:
Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Kofi Annan
Nelson Mandella
… and when we asked how the hell he got them from these people, he said he just asked to meet them.
Literally that’s all he did.
And he met all of them.
And got references from all of them.
And now works directly for one of them.
By simply saying “can I meet you?”
OK … OK … so he put a great guilt-trip premise to them, namely that because they were all featuring heavily in the World news, he would like to find out if their intentions were honorable and if his older years were in safe hands or not – but it’s still a request which ultimately got answered in the affirmative.
Of course I know the pressures of a journo’s deadline is very different from a young kids curiosity timeline … and this post isn’t really about how journalists go about their business anyway … the thing is, if you want to know about something, it’s always better to try and get if from the horses mouth because as clever as other people may be, the reality is their thoughts and theories may be way off compared to what the originator considered the important factors which is why as a planner, it’s always better to learn from the creator than to purely listen to the self-validated ramblings of the commentator … which is another reason why you should try to make your own thing happen rather than mimic the loud mouthed brigade like me.
Filed under: Comment
One of the things that pisses me off with adland is how they get their knickers in a twist when a client doesn’t automatically buy their ideas.
They act as if there is no deeper insult than to be questioned about your choices by a person who is not only paying for the whole thing, but knows more about it than you ever could.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the sort of client who spends 4 hours arguing about a single word or complains they don’t like the contour of the talents eyebrows – I’m talking about the sort of client who asks challenges, debates and asks questions about your thinking/approach to the challenge they’ve asked you to help them with.
Why do I like these sorts of clients?
Because it shows they care.
They’re not doing it to be smartarses … they’re not doing it because they fancy themselves as a creative … they’re not doing it because they’re only empowered to say “no” … they’re doing it because they want the best possible solution to their situation and want to make sure they understand what you’re doing as opposed to simply criticizing it for criticizms sake.
Sadly nowadays this sort of client is pretty rare – but they’re still there, we dealt with one just last week – and whilst I know in this particular case there’ll be issues moving forward that we probably won’t agree on, I know it won’t ever be because of subjective perspective or blinkered arrogance, which is why he can be as painful as he likes, because we all know his goal is to be brilliant which means we’ll all happily work harder and longer which is possibly the smartest move a client can make.