We don't often repost articles on this blog. But I thought this one on Digiday was worth sharing. It's a London-based product designer's take on why agencies are bleeding young talent while startups are picking them up. The author's litany of condemnation for big agencies:
1. You won't stop taking on shit work.
2. You don't innovate, even though you say you do.
3. You keep hiring dead weight (and do nothing about it).
4. You don't stop taking on projects that can't be delivered unless we work 12-hour days.
5. You don't give staff any credit.
6. You don't buy us decent equipment.
Not all large agencies fit this dire mold. But I've worked at one or two that did. It's good to recognize the bad out there so you can avoid it. And it's go to recognize the good, so you can run towards it. Read the full article here.
Look for Opportunities
I heard this interview on NPR last night about how the City of Omaha is taking advantage of Peyton Manning's relentless use of their name on the field.
Omaha's tourism department is busy scheduling media interviews. Omaha bakeries are selling Go Broncos cupcakes. Omaha breweries are crafting and labeling special Manning beers. Even one of the new penguins in the Omaha Zoo was named Peyton.
I love that so many people in Omaha began thinking, "How can we make this work for us?"
How are you taking advantage of popular culture? What are you doing with what's right in front of your face?
Omaha's tourism department is busy scheduling media interviews. Omaha bakeries are selling Go Broncos cupcakes. Omaha breweries are crafting and labeling special Manning beers. Even one of the new penguins in the Omaha Zoo was named Peyton.
I love that so many people in Omaha began thinking, "How can we make this work for us?"
How are you taking advantage of popular culture? What are you doing with what's right in front of your face?
Happy Accidents
I don't usually post my own work on this site. But this one comes with a point, and a good cause.
About a year ago, I began doing work for Volunteers of America. They're a 117-year-old national charity that had never advertised before.
We ended up producing print, online, outdoor, and TV for them. But my favorite spot was never scripted, never presented, never even concepted. It was just a happy accident.
While we were shooting in Los Angeles, our director wanted to get some extra footage. So he rolled down Skid Row with his camera hanging out of the van door. Then his producer ran back down the street and gave some cash to have the people he filmed sign release waivers, just in case. Some of this footage made it into our final spots.
But when we were in the editing studio we were looking at that shot, and thought it was kind of amazing. We wondered how could we share it? So we started playing around with it. We slowed it down. Wrote some copy to serve as supers. And sampled a few demo tracks. (We ended up recording Jennifer Perryman to sing an original track.) We showed it to the client, and were lucky enough to have them approve it. Here's the finished piece:
Gold Lion at Cannes? Nah. But does it help the client get their name out there? Yep. Am I proud to have it on my reel? Absolutely.
So be open to happy accidents. Find a way to make them work. Play with them. Get them in front or your clients and champion them. And everyone will be a little better off.
(If you'd like to donate anything to Volunteers of America, please click here. They're amazing people who do amazing work.)
About a year ago, I began doing work for Volunteers of America. They're a 117-year-old national charity that had never advertised before.
We ended up producing print, online, outdoor, and TV for them. But my favorite spot was never scripted, never presented, never even concepted. It was just a happy accident.
While we were shooting in Los Angeles, our director wanted to get some extra footage. So he rolled down Skid Row with his camera hanging out of the van door. Then his producer ran back down the street and gave some cash to have the people he filmed sign release waivers, just in case. Some of this footage made it into our final spots.
But when we were in the editing studio we were looking at that shot, and thought it was kind of amazing. We wondered how could we share it? So we started playing around with it. We slowed it down. Wrote some copy to serve as supers. And sampled a few demo tracks. (We ended up recording Jennifer Perryman to sing an original track.) We showed it to the client, and were lucky enough to have them approve it. Here's the finished piece:
Gold Lion at Cannes? Nah. But does it help the client get their name out there? Yep. Am I proud to have it on my reel? Absolutely.
So be open to happy accidents. Find a way to make them work. Play with them. Get them in front or your clients and champion them. And everyone will be a little better off.
(If you'd like to donate anything to Volunteers of America, please click here. They're amazing people who do amazing work.)
The Importance of Editing
In "A Note to Student Art Directors" by Hal Curtis (originally published in CA), he gives this piece of advice:
The Social Network "Henley Sequence" from a52 on Vimeo.
Become a closet editor. Other than music, it's the single most effective way to impact a piece of film.
Last month, Variety published "Why Editing Nominations Predict the Best Picture Oscar" with some of these interesting factoids:
Only 9 films have won best picture without at least a nomination for editing.
Of the 61 films that have won Best Picture, 32 have won Best Editing.
Jay Cassidy who co-edited American Hustle says, "There's no such thing as a good scene in a bad movie...If filmgoers are moved by the story and emotion in the film then it's probably well-edited."
If you're not familiar with how editing works, or why it's important, start learning. Here's one of my favorite scenes from The Social Network, for which Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall won the Oscar. Notice how the edits begin to match the pace of the athletes. The cuts almost become their heartbeats. That's not just a happy accident.
The Social Network "Henley Sequence" from a52 on Vimeo.
Of the 10 movies nominated for Best Picture, here are the trailers for the five Best Editing Nominees (but don't confuse film editing with trailer editing - they're done by different people):
The Many Tellings of a Story
When you have a story to tell, you usually just tell it. But
in advertising, you have to tell it multiple times—to your partner, to your
team, to your client, to your director—before you finally tell it to your real
audience.
If those first tellings don’t go well, that final telling
will never happen. So don’t overlook those first tellings. Give a lot of
thought to how you’re going to bring the story to life for your client, in
particular. They should be as engaged by your telling of the story as they will
be by the final execution.
Too often I see ideas that could be great fall flat in meetings because nobody gave any thought to how to present the idea. Or maybe they didn’t think the idea needed anything more than to be read from a paper. Ideas do not sell themselves. Stories sell ideas. So tell a good story, each time you tell it.
Too often I see ideas that could be great fall flat in meetings because nobody gave any thought to how to present the idea. Or maybe they didn’t think the idea needed anything more than to be read from a paper. Ideas do not sell themselves. Stories sell ideas. So tell a good story, each time you tell it.
Our 2013 Book Lists
Thirteen years ago, Greg turned me onto an idea that has become one of my favorite annual traditions. He and I (and anyone else we can convince to do it) keep reviews of every book we read. Then at the end of the year, we release a list of everything we read that year.
Here are our lists from 2013.
Greg's 2013 Book List
Jim's 2013 Book List
What great books did you read in 2013? The Best of Makin' Ads? Anyone? Anyone? [crickets]
How to Become The Go-to Creative In Your Agency
This is a guest post from AKQA creative and frequent Makin' Ads contributor Nathan Archambault.
Julian Edelman, diminutive wide receiver for the New England Patriots, would have made a fantastic advertising creative.
Seem random? Not at all. Not when you understand his approach to making it in a highly competitive industry.
After playing quarterback at Kent State (not exactly a football powerhouse), Edelman was drafted by the Patriots in the 7th and final round of 2009. The odds were against him having a successful career in the NFL but as of today he’s 6th in the league in receptions, just ahead of a superhuman they call Megatron.
Here’s the approach Edelman took that separated him from everyone else:
“The more you can do, the more valuable you make yourself to a team. Sometimes, lying and saying you’ve done it when you really haven’t done it. Put my head down, worked my tail off, watched a lot of great guys ahead of me over the years … You watch Tom Brady and learn how to be a professional. You’re around that, and it becomes your life … Punt-returning, kick-returning, playing defense, whatever the coaches ask you to do. Blocking a kick. When you’re younger and you’re a seventh-round draft pick, a rookie, you basically do everything you can. You could be a camp body … Everyone’s fighting for a job. Any time a coach needed a guy up, you had to go sprint up there and try to deal with it … You saw a lot of guys, Wes Welker in the huddle, Joey Galloway, Randy Moss, even though they’re different body types, they’re such smart receivers. You could always take something away from everyone. When you’re green, you grow; when you’re ripe, you rot. You gotta constantly learn. My father tells me that all the time. We’d be practicing out in the backyard, and if I had a bad attitude or I was talking back or something, he’d go, You think you have all the answers. When you’re green you grow, when you think you’re ripe you’re gonna rot.“
Now replace Tom Brady with your creative director’s name. Replace football responsibilities with advertising projects. Replace Moss and Galloway with your favorite senior creatives.
If you’re a junior trying to make it in advertising, channel this attitude. Become the Julian Edelman of your industry. It doesn't matter if you're not the biggest, strongest or highest drafted. Know what you have to do to become one of the best at your position.
[Nathan Archambault is a Senior Copywriter at AKQA in New York. Check out his advertising blog at maybegravy.com and follow him on Twitter at @nkarch.]
Radio Inspiration from Oink Ink
I still love to write radio. I know that seems like an incredibly old school medium. But I love writing it. And I love hearing my spots on air (or Pandora or Spotify or wherever).
When you write a TV spot, you end up hiring a director and a production company and soon about 150 are working on an idea you came up with. And that's a cool feeling.
With digital projects, the process is less elaborate. But you still have programers and designers and UX experts who come together to bring your idea to life.
But with radio, it's most likely just you, a few actors, and your sound engineer. If it misses the mark, it's all on you. If it's great, same thing. I love the pressure. I love the collaboration. I love that you're more of a SWAT team than an army.
Here's a little inspiration for you radio writers: the radio reel for Oink Ink. They're a great shop I got to work with a while back. If you ever get to work with them or even enter their Dead Radio Contest, you'll have a good time, too. Enjoy.
When you write a TV spot, you end up hiring a director and a production company and soon about 150 are working on an idea you came up with. And that's a cool feeling.
With digital projects, the process is less elaborate. But you still have programers and designers and UX experts who come together to bring your idea to life.
But with radio, it's most likely just you, a few actors, and your sound engineer. If it misses the mark, it's all on you. If it's great, same thing. I love the pressure. I love the collaboration. I love that you're more of a SWAT team than an army.
Here's a little inspiration for you radio writers: the radio reel for Oink Ink. They're a great shop I got to work with a while back. If you ever get to work with them or even enter their Dead Radio Contest, you'll have a good time, too. Enjoy.
Learn to be a great storyteller
In this excellent post, Refe Tuma points out that our most interesting friends may not live genuinely exciting lives. They're just very good storytellers.
He says, "Interesting people often lead surprisingly ordinary lives, but they are not ordinary. What sets them apart is their ability to tell a good story."
Not every assignment is going to be for Porsche or Burton snowboards or ESPN. You may have to do ads for pens. Or a bank. Or a furniture warehouse. Or an orthopedic mattress company. But remember, there are no boring products. Only boring ways of talking about them.
As Tuma points out, Jerry Seinfeld talks about vacuum cleaners and cereal. He just tells a great story about them.
(SIDE NOTE: Be sure to check out Refe Tuma's Dinovember. It's genius.)
He says, "Interesting people often lead surprisingly ordinary lives, but they are not ordinary. What sets them apart is their ability to tell a good story."
Not every assignment is going to be for Porsche or Burton snowboards or ESPN. You may have to do ads for pens. Or a bank. Or a furniture warehouse. Or an orthopedic mattress company. But remember, there are no boring products. Only boring ways of talking about them.
As Tuma points out, Jerry Seinfeld talks about vacuum cleaners and cereal. He just tells a great story about them.
(SIDE NOTE: Be sure to check out Refe Tuma's Dinovember. It's genius.)
Nate Burleson's Pizza
Here's a sweet example of a brand jumping on a news story in a timely, relevant way. As a football fan, I love this idea.
Back in September, Minnesota Vikings receiver Nate Burleson got the munchies late one night. He ran out for a pizza, but in the process managed to crash his car and break his arm, disappointing his team, Vikings fans and fantasy football owners everywhere.
It was later revealed that the wreck occurred when Burleson reached over to keep his pizza from sliding off the seat. He tweeted photos of his totaled, pizza-covered SUV this week.
In response, DiGiorno, who positions their frozen pizzas against delivery/carryout, sent Burleson a year supply DiGiorno pizza. Very simple, very smart, and right in line with what the brand stands for. It's also an example of the kinds of ideas we need to always be thinking of. Brands need to get into conversations, but they need to do it in ways that are relevant and add value. Great stuff. Though it doesn't do jack for my fantasy team.
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