Friday, May 4, 2012
Flip
Saturday, April 28, 2012
An Ad Wench and her Pet Peeves
• The Account vs. Creative dynamic.
So passé, so old school, so unnecessary. Unless, of course, your shop is totally account driven.
• Art directors who will do anything if "it looks cool."
Me: Why are five words in the headline red? Him: Because it looks cool. Me: but you're emphasizing AND THIS IS THE. Him: Well write me a new headline with four words I can highlight in the same place. Me: Bite me.
• Creatives who think they're too good to do small, unglamorous jobs.
Shit work is good for you. Now get over yourself and go write me a BRC and three emails.
• People who can't make their deadlines.
It's a deadline-driven business. You have 60 seconds to get that through your thick skull.
• Art directors who don't sweat the type.
Just because you didn't come up in the paste up days doesn't mean your kerning gets to suck.
• Writers who confuse sex jokes with concepts.
Unless you're selling vibrators, save it for the locker room. Any idiot can make a sex joke. If I had a dollar for every dick joke I've made in my life, I'd be dictating this to my personal secretary while getting my toenails painted by my in-home aesthetician. (Full disclosure, no raincoat: I worked on an erectile dysfunction drug account for three years).
• Writers who can write headlines but suck at body copy and don't think it matters.
• Project managers who underestimate everybody's time.
I know copy is just content to you, but some of us still try to craft it.
• Proofers who are too busy rewriting your copy to notice the glaring typo in the headline.
• People who come in late every day, take two-hour lunches, and leave early.
Everybody sees, everybody knows, and everybody resents the hell out of you.
• Fakers who hang out at the office late so they can look like they're busy.
• Mommies and Daddies who leave at 5, no matter what.
A single and childless art director raised my consciousness on this one back when I had wee ones myself. If you must leave early, email the work to yourself, tell the boss you're working at home, and get the job done after you've tucked in the rug rats. And if there's a new business pitch, come in on the weekend just like everybody else. On the flip side, if you manage people with young children, and they promise they'll finish the job at home, what's it to you as long as it gets done?
• Creative Directors who hoard the good jobs, take credit for other people's work or always pick their own concept.
Like the guy I worked for years ago in the Midwest who did all the TV so he could spend the entire Winter in LA. Nice tan, asshole.
• CDs who don't know when to stop.
For some reason, this type tends to revise everything at 2 a.m. 8 hours before the pitch. Hey, Goldilocks, it's just right, right freaking now. Now leave it the hell alone before you turn it into porridge.
For some reason, this type tends to revise everything at 2 a.m. 8 hours before the pitch. Hey, Goldilocks, it's just right, right freaking now. Now leave it the hell alone before you turn it into porridge.
• CDs who make everybody work all weekend and just pop in for a half hour on their way to the gym.
•CDs and other managerial types who won't stand up for their staff.
•CDs and other managerial types who won't stand up for their staff.
"Sure, we can combine the heads from campaigns A and B and use the visuals from campaign C. Of course you can have it in 24 hours. Now what kind of dressing do you want on your salad?"
•AEs who treat creatives like crazy kids.
• AEs who can't write a brief.
• Territorial types who feel threatened if the client starts to bond with the creatives.
• Creatives who put someone else's work on their site.
No, you can't justify it because you resized the ad five times. If it wasn't your concept or design in the first place, it's cheating.
• Managers who agree to impossible deadlines.
Not only are you abusing the staff, you're training the client to think we can pull creative out of our happy place in less time than it takes to fry an egg.
• Anyone who flat out lies.
I was once in a large client meeting in which the agency President told the client our new account planner had been quietly working on his business behind the scenes for over a year. Unfortunately, the client read The Business Journal, in which the planner's hiring had just been announced.
• Manipulative phonies.
Sure, tell me I did a great job on a specific project. But don't come into my office and start the conversation with "you're so wonderful." Translation: you want something, it's due yesterday and I'm working all weekend.
• Agencies that enter work in award shows without crediting a creative who left the shop.
Better to have everyone know someone talented left your agency than demonstrate the douche-baggery that drove them out the door.
• Creatives who take themselves too seriously.
Your work, you should take seriously. Yourself, you need to get over.
It's only advertising, people. Slightly less disposable than Kleenex.
• Flattery junkies
You know the place is going political when all the biggest slackers and sleezeballs in the agency are chillin' in the new boss' office instead of sitting at their desks pretending to work.
• 45 year olds who talk down to junior creatives
You never know when you'll get put out to pasture. That tattooed little twit could end up being your boss. If you ever work again.
•25-year olds who don't understand protocol and hierarchy and complain about their boss to HIS boss
That clueless technophobic geezer IS your boss. The only time it's OK to go over his head is if you're being sexually harassed. Even then, start with HR.
• Strategy? What's that?
Do your research, know your target, and get the client on board. Because ultimately, when the work doesn't work, you're gonna get blamed.
• Executions that don't speak to the target because the CD thought they were cool
I once worked for a guy who always managed to turn everything into a sex joke - redickto absurdium. I called him on it at one point and remarked that a headline was off strategy. He smiled smugly and responded, "Then we'll change the strategy."
•Viral Videos that have nothing to do with what you are selling.
Great. It went viral. Just like monkey pox, hysterically laughing babies and the toilet-flushing cat. You're only a genius if that somehow translates to sales.
• People who think the words "social media" are magic and don't consider the target's behavior. Watch out for those self-styled "Social Media Experts" selling their wares on Linked In. Most of them are just rebranding themselves.
• Company presidents who do spec work for the same prospect for months thinking they are going to get the account.
I worked for a small agency that went under that way. The prospect kept dissing their agency of record and having us do "just one more test - we'll pay you for it." $300,000 worth of work later, they hadn't paid a dime. As it turned out, the prospect's agency-of-record had put all their work on hold because of outstanding invoices. He was spreading the debt around and had two other agencies on the hook. Nobody ever got paid.
• Creatives who don't understand the power of research and whine about attending focus groups.
Read the research. If you're lucky enough to go to focus groups (which are sadly going out of style thanks to online survey tools), take notes! There's no better way to learn how to talk to your target in their own language. Come presentation time, you can refer back to the research to justify your out-there concepts.
• People who are afraid to push back.
Wimpy CDs, mopey creatives, subservient AEs and other invertebrates.
• People who push back automatically.
By all means, if you disagree, say so. But make your case. If you can't explain, logically and coherently, why you disagree, then STFU. Unless, of course, you're the client, in which case you get to say things like "I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't like it. But don't worry, I'll know what I like when I see it."
• Adboys of all ages who think going out of town is an excuse to act like a pig.
Who do you think you are, the Secret Service? The Mad Men days are over, you're going to get an STD and we've all met your wife, you friggin' creepazoid.
• People who keep beating the dead horse when there's nothing left but bones.
•Sexists, bigots and religious freaks who expound on their beliefs in the work place.
Praise the Lord on your own time. And no, I don't think your jokes about women, gays, Jews and Black people are even remotely amusing, you fascist f*@k.
• People who pad their time sheets.
And that includes freelancers. Word to the wise, any manager worth her salt knows how long the job takes.
• Brainstorming sessions.
This is where great concepts go to die. My advice: Give them just enough so they think you know something, but keep your best ideas to yourself. You can explore and develop them later, when your brain is clear and the brainstorm has passed.
• Big Mouths
Just because it's juicy doesn't mean you should share. I know this from bitter experience, because I used to have a big mouth myself. Which is how I managed to bite myself in the ass. Never again.
And if someone tells you something in confidence, respect that. It's called being a mensch.
• Sociopaths
No, they are not all criminals. The smart ones have good jobs and find discrete, passive aggressive ways to screw people, because they can. Read The Sociopath Next Door. Trendy business books come and go, but sociopaths are always with us. The most effective ones position themselves as straight shooters and regular guys/gals, which will totally scramble your shit detector. Beware of women named Theresa: One of them is a sociopath.
CORPORATE BUZZKILLS
• Crap pro bono.
There are two reasons to do pro-bono: It's a great cause and you can do great work. The fact that the CEO's-wife's-college-roommate's-husband's-sister's-cleaning-lady is starting a business and wants free creative is irrelevant unless she's willing to stand aside and let creative have a good time.
• Proprietary strategic systems.
It's a ladder! It's a triangle! It's a matrix! It's a venn diagram! Every agency has one, but really, all they are doing is visually organizing strategic information. After all, account planners and account executives change jobs all the time. They don't have to draw the same pictures to reach the same conclusions.
• Tolerating substance abuse.
One official warning - that's what HR is for. Otherwise, you're just another enabler. I worked at a now-defunct midwest agency with a fall-down drunk VP AE. No matter how much he screwed up, management kept him on. His presence allowed them to rationalize away their own, slightly more functional alcoholism.
• The banquet table work set-up.
Line up all the creatives around a long table, out in the open, with no privacy or personal space even though half of us have ADD. No wonder noise-suppressing ear phones are all the rage.
•Typos in produced work.
Hire a proofer to check your damn website, people! Proofers are a necessary expense.
• The office basketball court.
Try writing technical web copy in an open set up while a ball goes thump thump thump in the background.
• Bonding through bowling
As much as people might love their coworkers, the odds of everyone wanting to bowl, white water raft or share a Navajo sweat lodge are remote. Especially if you make it mandatory that we all take the afternoon off and half of us have to work 'til 10 pm to make up for it.
Wimpy CDs, mopey creatives, subservient AEs and other invertebrates.
• People who push back automatically.
By all means, if you disagree, say so. But make your case. If you can't explain, logically and coherently, why you disagree, then STFU. Unless, of course, you're the client, in which case you get to say things like "I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't like it. But don't worry, I'll know what I like when I see it."
• Adboys of all ages who think going out of town is an excuse to act like a pig.
Who do you think you are, the Secret Service? The Mad Men days are over, you're going to get an STD and we've all met your wife, you friggin' creepazoid.
• People who keep beating the dead horse when there's nothing left but bones.
•Sexists, bigots and religious freaks who expound on their beliefs in the work place.
Praise the Lord on your own time. And no, I don't think your jokes about women, gays, Jews and Black people are even remotely amusing, you fascist f*@k.
• People who pad their time sheets.
And that includes freelancers. Word to the wise, any manager worth her salt knows how long the job takes.
• Brainstorming sessions.
This is where great concepts go to die. My advice: Give them just enough so they think you know something, but keep your best ideas to yourself. You can explore and develop them later, when your brain is clear and the brainstorm has passed.
• Big Mouths
Just because it's juicy doesn't mean you should share. I know this from bitter experience, because I used to have a big mouth myself. Which is how I managed to bite myself in the ass. Never again.
And if someone tells you something in confidence, respect that. It's called being a mensch.
• Sociopaths
No, they are not all criminals. The smart ones have good jobs and find discrete, passive aggressive ways to screw people, because they can. Read The Sociopath Next Door. Trendy business books come and go, but sociopaths are always with us. The most effective ones position themselves as straight shooters and regular guys/gals, which will totally scramble your shit detector. Beware of women named Theresa: One of them is a sociopath.
• Crap pro bono.
There are two reasons to do pro-bono: It's a great cause and you can do great work. The fact that the CEO's-wife's-college-roommate's-husband's-sister's-cleaning-lady is starting a business and wants free creative is irrelevant unless she's willing to stand aside and let creative have a good time.
• Proprietary strategic systems.
It's a ladder! It's a triangle! It's a matrix! It's a venn diagram! Every agency has one, but really, all they are doing is visually organizing strategic information. After all, account planners and account executives change jobs all the time. They don't have to draw the same pictures to reach the same conclusions.
• Tolerating substance abuse.
One official warning - that's what HR is for. Otherwise, you're just another enabler. I worked at a now-defunct midwest agency with a fall-down drunk VP AE. No matter how much he screwed up, management kept him on. His presence allowed them to rationalize away their own, slightly more functional alcoholism.
• The banquet table work set-up.
Line up all the creatives around a long table, out in the open, with no privacy or personal space even though half of us have ADD. No wonder noise-suppressing ear phones are all the rage.
•Typos in produced work.
Hire a proofer to check your damn website, people! Proofers are a necessary expense.
• The office basketball court.
Try writing technical web copy in an open set up while a ball goes thump thump thump in the background.
• Bonding through bowling
As much as people might love their coworkers, the odds of everyone wanting to bowl, white water raft or share a Navajo sweat lodge are remote. Especially if you make it mandatory that we all take the afternoon off and half of us have to work 'til 10 pm to make up for it.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Good Mitt Hunting
"I don't line up with the NRA." Mitt Romney as a candidate for the Massachusetts Senate, 1994
"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear. I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will." Mitt Romney at a Republican fundraiser, 2006
"Romney doesn't look like anybody who hangs out at any of the places I might hunt." Steve Johnson, Teamsters organizer.
And there, in a nutshell, lies the problem. If you want to be endorsed by the NRA, by golly, you better look the part. A room full of taxidermy and a venison-packed freezer would be a good start, but considering the Romneys have seven homes, it's a tad labor intensive.
How about getting gun racks for all five of Mitt's cars, plus Anne's two cadilacs? Nothing says gun like a gun rack, except, of course, an actual gun. But Mitt's in campaign mode and it's tough keeping up with the gun laws from one state to the next. In a concealed weapon state like Florida, he'd have to figure out a way to hide his rifle, say by taping it to his leg under his suit. Problem is, the gun has to be loaded, so you can whip it out at will. (You never know when a black kid might cross your path, packing skittles.) That creates a dilemma over which end of the rifle should be up, as in would you rather lose a toe or a testicle. (Let's not forget what happened to Plaxico Burress. Then again, Plaxico was wearing sweatpants, and I'm pretty sure Mitt doesn't even own a pair).
So, short of packing actual heat, what can Mitt do to boost his street cred as an NRA supporter and killer of varmints? Wear a hunting hat! No need to change out of the suit – the hat says it all. Plus, there are so many creative designs to choose from, Mitt's only sartorial quandary will be whether to match the hat to his tie or his socks.
The classic model, with earflaps. Flaps are very useful when pretending not to hear questions about your flip-flopping.
You know you're a redneck when... you wear a hat that says so. (A tattoo would be even better. Someplace that shows even if you're wearing Mormon underwear.)Don't forget to hand out venison jerky at the rallies.
Just the thing for campaigning south of the Mason Dixon line. You can wear it when the redneck one is in the wash. And make sure you keep it on, because nothing says Yankee like a $300 haircut.
Show those sissy lefties what a REAL man eats. Possum, squirrel, deer meat, raccoon and armadillo. Also useful for pandering to both the meat and porn lobbies.
I call this one The Night Stalker. My friend Bill thinks it's perfect for hunting with Dick Cheney. Human in the headlights!
Full camo. Perfect for traveling incognito, while playing the piccolo. Actually, that's a duck whistle. Are ducks considered "varmints"?
Fool camo. Just melt into the underbrush and make like a moose. (This only works in places where the trees are the right height). Just make sure you're not in Sarah Palin's neck of the woods when you wear this one.
Hey, there, Buck-Head! Can be custom-ordered with real diamonds to reflect your 1% status.
This versatile little number can take the Mrs. from the hunt to the hoedown. Dress it up or down, but first, dress the venison!
The family that slays together stays together. Give one of your little granddaughters this adorable toddler hunting hat and she just might forget that you killed Bambi.
"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear. I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will." Mitt Romney at a Republican fundraiser, 2006
"Romney doesn't look like anybody who hangs out at any of the places I might hunt." Steve Johnson, Teamsters organizer.
And there, in a nutshell, lies the problem. If you want to be endorsed by the NRA, by golly, you better look the part. A room full of taxidermy and a venison-packed freezer would be a good start, but considering the Romneys have seven homes, it's a tad labor intensive.
How about getting gun racks for all five of Mitt's cars, plus Anne's two cadilacs? Nothing says gun like a gun rack, except, of course, an actual gun. But Mitt's in campaign mode and it's tough keeping up with the gun laws from one state to the next. In a concealed weapon state like Florida, he'd have to figure out a way to hide his rifle, say by taping it to his leg under his suit. Problem is, the gun has to be loaded, so you can whip it out at will. (You never know when a black kid might cross your path, packing skittles.) That creates a dilemma over which end of the rifle should be up, as in would you rather lose a toe or a testicle. (Let's not forget what happened to Plaxico Burress. Then again, Plaxico was wearing sweatpants, and I'm pretty sure Mitt doesn't even own a pair).
So, short of packing actual heat, what can Mitt do to boost his street cred as an NRA supporter and killer of varmints? Wear a hunting hat! No need to change out of the suit – the hat says it all. Plus, there are so many creative designs to choose from, Mitt's only sartorial quandary will be whether to match the hat to his tie or his socks.
The classic model, with earflaps. Flaps are very useful when pretending not to hear questions about your flip-flopping.
You know you're a redneck when... you wear a hat that says so. (A tattoo would be even better. Someplace that shows even if you're wearing Mormon underwear.)Don't forget to hand out venison jerky at the rallies.
Just the thing for campaigning south of the Mason Dixon line. You can wear it when the redneck one is in the wash. And make sure you keep it on, because nothing says Yankee like a $300 haircut.
Show those sissy lefties what a REAL man eats. Possum, squirrel, deer meat, raccoon and armadillo. Also useful for pandering to both the meat and porn lobbies.
I call this one The Night Stalker. My friend Bill thinks it's perfect for hunting with Dick Cheney. Human in the headlights!
Full camo. Perfect for traveling incognito, while playing the piccolo. Actually, that's a duck whistle. Are ducks considered "varmints"?
Fool camo. Just melt into the underbrush and make like a moose. (This only works in places where the trees are the right height). Just make sure you're not in Sarah Palin's neck of the woods when you wear this one.
Hey, there, Buck-Head! Can be custom-ordered with real diamonds to reflect your 1% status.
This versatile little number can take the Mrs. from the hunt to the hoedown. Dress it up or down, but first, dress the venison!
The family that slays together stays together. Give one of your little granddaughters this adorable toddler hunting hat and she just might forget that you killed Bambi.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Snapshot
This is what I look like right now except:
1. I am indoors and it's raining.
2. I am fully clothed.
3. My hair is silver instead of platinum.
4. I am not wearing a fuck-me shoe on my good foot.
5. I am not smiling.
6. I am not dead.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Badgered, Bothered and Bewildered
Help. I am being cyberstalked by Almart-Way.
I have the usual liberal misgivings about Almart-Way. They won't let their employees unionize. They discriminate against women. They're a blight on the landscape. They undercut local small businesses. Rather than buy American and charge more, they subsidize child labor and 18-hour workdays overseas.
Sorry, but like Voldemort, they must not be named. Otherwise, Google's spiders will see to it that I am hounded to within an inch of my virtual life. If you're not sure who I'm talking about, I suggest you go to translate.google.com and type in Pig Latin to English.
It all started when my cousin "liked" Almart-Way. All of a sudden, their ad, with her smiling countenance and tacit endorsement, started cropping up all over Facebook like tribbles taking over the Starship Enterprise. On my home page. On my friends' pages. On Words With Friends.
Unlike some of my fellow lefties, I am capable of holding two contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time. I get that Almart-Way performs a service by providing folks with inexpensive goods in a slow economy, by offering rural communities one-stop shopping and cheap prescriptions and by employing folks who might be otherwise unemployable. So I am not going to go all Marie Antoinette and suggest that financially strapped families waste time and gasoline scouring thrift shops and garage sales for second hand stuff rather than patronize their local Almart-Way. Nor am I going to recommend websites that disparage the Almart-Way clientele (condescending, exploitive and just plain mean). Still, I neither like, nor "like" Almart-Way. I am not their demo, I do not live near one of their megastores, and both my fridge and my family are too small to justify buying food in bulk.
Almart-Way's biggest competitor targets me too.
I won't mention them by name either, save to say that their logo looks like a Lyme Disease rash. But here's the difference (besides better merch, better taste and far better advertising). When I nuked the Tarjay ad, it disappeared and never came back. Almart-Way, however, refuses to go away. Instead, their ads keep proliferating like baby Duggers. I have clicked Hide Story. I have clicked Hide All Stories. I have checked every "why" box from uninteresting to sexually explicit. I have repeatedly explained, in the other box, that I am on a tear because they refuse to back off. And still, Almart-Way's bland yellow logo smirks at me whenever I log on to Facebook.
I won't mention them by name either, save to say that their logo looks like a Lyme Disease rash. But here's the difference (besides better merch, better taste and far better advertising). When I nuked the Tarjay ad, it disappeared and never came back. Almart-Way, however, refuses to go away. Instead, their ads keep proliferating like baby Duggers. I have clicked Hide Story. I have clicked Hide All Stories. I have checked every "why" box from uninteresting to sexually explicit. I have repeatedly explained, in the other box, that I am on a tear because they refuse to back off. And still, Almart-Way's bland yellow logo smirks at me whenever I log on to Facebook.They found the real estate, they're paying for it and they're taking over. And to hell with the little guy, or in this case, gal. It's the Almart Way.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Of Cows and Copywriters
My daughter recently took a cab with a rather nosy driver. He was a grandfatherly sort, too old to be seriously coming on to her, but he asked a lot of smarmy questions. DId she have a boyfriend? Why not? Didn't she want to get married? So to amuse herself and shut him up, my daughter responded, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
That corny old saying came back to me recently as I hovered over a Linked In conversation in an advertising writer's group. A company of architecture and lighting experts was asking for name ideas for their business, and dozens of copywriters happily obliged, only too eager to out-do each other. The architecture-and-lighting-expert was crowd-sourcing his corporate identity, or at least a critical part of it, and saving himself some bucks, and my creative brethren were eager to be his chumps.
Whether one is roaming Linked In out of boredom or necessity, it's easy to get drawn in to playing ain't I clever. These are tough times for copywriters. Unless you're working for the man, or under 35, or made CD by age 40, or have a niche or long-term client base, you're probably screwed. Most of us have fragile egos and need the thrill of competition to feel good about ourselves. It's only natural for a writer who's been unemployed for a while to want to play, just so she can reassure herself that she's still got it. As for the writer who's making a grim if honest living writing mind-numbingly repetitive pharma websites, she's starved for variety. Naming a business sounds like big fun.
(Caveat - playing ain't I clever in the company of other writers is invigorating. Doing it in front of clients is usually a bad idea, Yes, you have a gift, but inspiration doesn't always flow like tap water. Some assignments are hard. Sometimes you get stuck. Why make clients think it's that easy? So they'll question your hours? So they'll want to pay you less because they now believe it only takes you a half an hour to write a 12 page brochure? It's OK to be entertaining and crack up your clients, but not by playing insta-headline. So put away the pen and cocktail napkin, for your own good.)
Back to the Linked In crowd-sourcer. I didn't directly call him out – a sleaze is a sleaze is a sleaze. I called my out my fellow copywriters instead, in the following post:
I don't get why everyone is blithely participating in crowd sourcing on what is basically a brand identity job which any and all of us would normally GET PAID FOR. Then we whine when clients ask us to take a pay cut, or give them a freebie. If you wanted to remodel your home office, would these "best lighting designers and architects" come over and do it for free? I think not. I would suggest that the moderators of this and similar groups weed out posts that trawl for free ideas. It devalues our work in a time when writers are already underappreciated and underpaid. Lets keep the pro bono for Taproot and good causes, NOT for legitimate businesses trying to cut corners. And by the way, if we were truly being professional here and doing an actual branding exercise, we would need to sit down with this person and ask him a lot of questions about his targeting, business plan, competition etc. and factor that into our thinking. It's not just about pulling a cute name out of our happy place.
I felt better after my rant. It also helped to scan the thread and notice that three or four others had made similar comments. But the majority of writers had submitted ideas, the best of which was arguably Beam, which covers both lighting and architecture in one efficient syllable. The architecture-and-lighting-expert suggested the group put it to a vote. When someone asked what he planned to pay the winner, he repeatedly ducked the question. At which point several writers felt their testicles begin to descend and warned that their ideas were "copyrighted". The architecture-and-lighting-expert made a vague, ungrammatical statement about negotiating some kind of compensation with the winner. Good luck collecting: The business is somewhere in South America.
So there you have it. A group of American copywriters, shooting from the hip to name a South American business they know nothing about, targeting a Spanish-speaking client base they have no information on, for a con artist they've never met and can't take to small claims court.
All I can say is moo.
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