Actually, I always do that – however this time it’s even more for me than usual – mainly because I want to ensure the magic of the last 10 days isn’t forgotten.
I had an amazing holiday.
A mad, stupid, wonderful, amazing holiday.
It could be, quite possibly, the best holiday I’ll ever have in my life.
Yes, it was that good.
Saying that, things got off to a dodgy start when having landed in LA, we proceeded to lose our luggage.
We’d only been in the country for literally a few minutes when we proceeded to lose our suitcases. And it was all our fault.
But things improved when this happened …
What you have just seen is me bumping into my oldest, dearest friend at LAX.
Yes … one person who lives in China, bumping into another person who lives in England.
Normally the chances of that would be very, very, very small – however when you find out your wives have been secretly planning that outcome for the last 10 months, you realise it’s not that rare, … even if the magnificence, kindness and unbelievable wonderfulness of their wives, is.
From there, so much happened.
Good and weird … but no bad, however some sad.
So that I can remember the highlights when I’m 90 and using a colostomy bag, I’m going to right them here now, because some simply beggar belief.
Helicoptering into the Grand Canyon for breakfast …
… then learning a helicopter – doing exactly the same trip – crashed the next day, killing all on board.
___________________________________________________________________________
Ridiculous amounts of food. And I mean ridiculous.
Having some of the weirdest conversations of my life with taxi drivers.
[“There’s this thing, called the internet” & “I can’t get a passport for another 2 years”]
___________________________________________________________________________
Being dressed like freaks … or in my case, Elton John, circa 1974 … while Paul chose to look like the bastard love child of a 1980’s Gameshow presenter and a bouncer.
Seeing a lot of B-grade Hollywood ‘stars’.
[Calista Flockhart & the Discovery Channel ‘motorbike making dudes’]
___________________________________________________________________________
Seeing lesbian lions. Though obviously, I didn’t tell them that.
Missing the man who started shooting along Hollywood Boulevard by a few hours.
___________________________________________________________________________
Being driven at 55mph along the freeway, in a wooden bus that no windows. At night. When it’s 2 degrees.
Almost zip-lining through a shopping mall, only for my Birkenstocks to rob me of my SAS fantasies.
___________________________________________________________________________
Getting my first tattoo. A big tattoo … so now I am Mr LA Ink & a disappointment to my Mum. And no Billy, I’m not trying to be you …
… though judging by my wife’s first ‘ink’, maybe she is.
To be honest, none of this does it justice, but it was just brilliant in every way and I am eternally grateful to my wife, Paul’s wife & Shelly for making it happen … it was quite simply, amazing and I will literally never forget it.
OK, that’s it – normal shit service will commence shortly – but not for long, because in less than 2 weeks, Santa comes which means you get another let off my rubbish.
Seriously, I swear to god this year only had 7 months in it because it’s gone so bloody fast.
Anyway it’s that time of year where you start to think about what you’re going to do on the big day.
Well, my wife and I thought about it – said “sod that” and have decided to get on a plane tonight and fly to Las Vegas.
To renew our vows.
In an Elvis Chapel.
Dressed as Elvis and Priscilla.
I know … I know …
But you want to hear something even weirder?
Yes, even weirder than my wife wanting to renew her vows with me [I think she said, renew, maybe she said review!] … this is supposed to be her Christmas present to me.
How the hell does that work?
Las Vegas maybe … but renewing vows dressed as Elvis in a shitty fake chapel???
What the hell is wrong with getting me some pointless gadget and a crappy card?
To be honest, I’m secretly happy and excited.
Apart from the fact that we’ve had a rather stressful time at work in the last couple of weeks – especially this week – I can’t think of anything nicer than hanging out with my wife for a bit.
Only a bit, haha!
So while I’ll write some more bollocks before we all go off and celebrate the religious festival of eating too much, drinking too much and being generally underwhelmed with the present we got from our Auntie Flora, this blog is officially closed for 10 days or so, which is possibly the greatest gift I could give you all.
Wish me luck … I mean for when I play blackjack … the vows stuff is easy.
So years ago, my dear friend and colleague – Andy – signed up to a website that promised passwords to all the porn sites.
That action speaks volumes of his character … but it also speak about his IT intelligence because unsurprisingly, this website didn’t furnish him with the key to love, lust and filth but simply took his information and used it to hack into our cynic server so they could use it as an outlet to send tens of thousands of spam emails each and every day.
After spending shitloads of cash getting in experts from Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Norton and countless others … we finally stemmed the tide and got it down from tens of thousands a day to a couple of hundred … however, even though cynic is no more, I still use my cynic address because I’m a sentimental idiot which is why, I still get a steady stream of smut and “amazing deals” from the sort of people and companies you’d definitely cross the street to avoid.
Just recently I got this …
The thing is, as much as it’s going straight into the ‘delete’ file [or at least that’s what I’m telling you], when I looked at it, I thought it was quite a good summation of what many clients want their agencies to do with their ads.
Basically overkill and hard sell.
Oh sure, they may say they like ’emotionally driven advertising’, but when push comes to shove, they demand that anyone who sees/reads/hears their communication is left under no illusion of what they are selling, what the ‘user benefit’ is and why there’s is better than everyone else’s.
Sure, advertising is there to encourage motivation, action and – ultimately – sales, but this attitude that people need to be basically bullied into doing something is completely and utterly the wrong approach.
People don’t want to help brands.
People don’t want to be bullied.
What people want are things that are in their best interests … which is why it’s so important to work out what will address your audiences emotional ‘needs/wants/fears’ in a way that also addresses your client’s commercial ‘needs/wants/fears’. It’s not hard and yet more and more clients are trying to ‘force’ action with an increasingly insistent approach to their communication.
Take that email above.
HOW TO GET HER TO SUCK.
PENIS GROWTH FREE TRIAL SAMPLE
BRING THE THRILL BACK TO YOUR SEX LIFE
WWW.MANNYLARGE.COM
OK … we get it. You sell something that [allegedly] makes your penis bigger which – as we all know – is the only requirement a woman needs to sleep with you and perform masses of oral sex.
For gods sake, who the hell is going to believe this?
Sure, there may be a few redneck retards who think this is the key to getting women, but at the end of the day, would any other brand really want these people as their customers?
Hmmmmn, maybe I shouldn’t ask that.
The thing is, this ‘hard sell’ approach actually works counter to what the brand wants to happen.
Rather than ‘make’ people react, it makes people turn away so until brands understand that repeating the offer/benefit/promise/claim 10 times in an ad only works if you do it in an ironic way [like this genius spot from FEDEX demonstrates or this brilliant interview with my first boss, Steve Henry, details] then all you are doing is advertising why people shouldn’t buy your brand, which is – as I understand – not what communication is supposed to do.
Filed under: Comment
Hello – how are you all? Well?
Forgive me, but today I am writing a post for me.
Actually, I always do that – however this time it’s even more for me than usual – mainly because I want to ensure the magic of the last 10 days isn’t forgotten.
I had an amazing holiday.
A mad, stupid, wonderful, amazing holiday.
It could be, quite possibly, the best holiday I’ll ever have in my life.
Yes, it was that good.
Saying that, things got off to a dodgy start when having landed in LA, we proceeded to lose our luggage.
We’d only been in the country for literally a few minutes when we proceeded to lose our suitcases. And it was all our fault.
But things improved when this happened …
What you have just seen is me bumping into my oldest, dearest friend at LAX.
Yes … one person who lives in China, bumping into another person who lives in England.
Normally the chances of that would be very, very, very small – however when you find out your wives have been secretly planning that outcome for the last 10 months, you realise it’s not that rare, … even if the magnificence, kindness and unbelievable wonderfulness of their wives, is.
From there, so much happened.
Good and weird … but no bad, however some sad.
So that I can remember the highlights when I’m 90 and using a colostomy bag, I’m going to right them here now, because some simply beggar belief.
Helicoptering into the Grand Canyon for breakfast …
… then learning a helicopter – doing exactly the same trip – crashed the next day, killing all on board.
___________________________________________________________________________
Ridiculous amounts of food. And I mean ridiculous.
___________________________________________________________________________
Gambling. And winning. A lot.
___________________________________________________________________________
Breasts. Huge … massive …. breasts.
___________________________________________________________________________
Stupidly cool hotels.
___________________________________________________________________________
Getting remarried. Along side my best friend. And Elvis.
___________________________________________________________________________
Having some of the weirdest conversations of my life with taxi drivers.
[“There’s this thing, called the internet” & “I can’t get a passport for another 2 years”]
___________________________________________________________________________
Being dressed like freaks … or in my case, Elton John, circa 1974 … while Paul chose to look like the bastard love child of a 1980’s Gameshow presenter and a bouncer.
___________________________________________________________________________
Seeing a lot of B-grade Hollywood ‘stars’.
[Calista Flockhart & the Discovery Channel ‘motorbike making dudes’]
___________________________________________________________________________
Seeing lesbian lions. Though obviously, I didn’t tell them that.
___________________________________________________________________________
Missing the man who started shooting along Hollywood Boulevard by a few hours.
___________________________________________________________________________
Being driven at 55mph along the freeway, in a wooden bus that no windows. At night. When it’s 2 degrees.
___________________________________________________________________________
Imagining Elton John as a gangsta.
___________________________________________________________________________
Being in a cab that took 2 hours to go 6 miles.
___________________________________________________________________________
Paying more in tips than I do on a typical night out.
___________________________________________________________________________
Shunning a hired Mustang to travel LA via our own London Cab.
___________________________________________________________________________
Having the World’s most expensive KFC at The Ivy.
___________________________________________________________________________
Becoming the best friend with LA’s, “no curse” rapper all thanks to a $100 bill.
___________________________________________________________________________
Experiencing some classic Vegas moments …
… and LA moments.
___________________________________________________________________________
Seeing our wives start ‘Occupy Rodeo Drive’.
___________________________________________________________________________
Almost zip-lining through a shopping mall, only for my Birkenstocks to rob me of my SAS fantasies.
___________________________________________________________________________
Getting my first tattoo. A big tattoo … so now I am Mr LA Ink & a disappointment to my Mum. And no Billy, I’m not trying to be you …
… though judging by my wife’s first ‘ink’, maybe she is.
___________________________________________________________________________
Seeing some of the most industrious con-artists I’ve ever seen.
[Hello Ms ‘Las Vegas Sign Photographer’]
___________________________________________________________________________
Scaring myself shitless as people jumped off ‘The Stratosphere’ in Vegas. Fortunately attached to a rope.
___________________________________________________________________________
To be honest, none of this does it justice, but it was just brilliant in every way and I am eternally grateful to my wife, Paul’s wife & Shelly for making it happen … it was quite simply, amazing and I will literally never forget it.
OK, that’s it – normal shit service will commence shortly – but not for long, because in less than 2 weeks, Santa comes which means you get another let off my rubbish.
I’m all give, give, give …