But – and it’s a very important but – you have to do them because they not only provide the framework and inspiration for creative teams to start creating their magic, but they become a piece of historical reference on the brand that ensures people won’t post rationalise the execution and miss out all the little bits that made all the difference.
That said, the debate of what should and shouldn’t go in a brief still rages and I find that sad because at the end of the day:
+ You should never be a slave to the briefing format, the briefing format should always be a slave to you.
+ Different people like different levels of information so a ‘one size fits all’ mentality, is totally and utterly ridiculous.
+ A short brief shouldn’t be an excuse for ignoring the real issues that need to be addressed & conveyed.
+ A long brief shouldn’t be an excuse for not being clear, concise and interesting.
+ Regardless of what you are being asked to do, a brief should always be interesting, informative & inspiring.
Because of this, we have a few different briefing ‘formats’ here.
Some are designed for more junior guys to ensure they’ve done all the critical thinking necessary … some are designed for clients to ensure they give us what they need, rather than what they want … but all cover 6 critical questions.
1. WHAT IS THE GOAL
What is the end objective? I don’t mean the execution but the business result.
In short, if they say, “We want some TVC’s”, ask why and don’t stop till you get some real reasons with some real quantifiable goals.
2. WHAT IS THE BARRIER
What are the key issue/s that are stopping this from happening right now.
It might be people’s attitude and behaviour … it might be a competitors product or distribution.
Maybe it’s an issue with our brand or communication or even a product quality or lack of innovation story.
Whatever it is, find the fundamental issue and write it down.
3. WHO DO WE NEED TO TALK TO, TO CHANGE THIS?
Who do we need to engage in conversation? Who do we need to inspire, inform, push?
Don’t just write a bunch of stats or bland statements, explain how they think, live, worry, behave.
Let people feel the person not just read a bunch of cold, clinical bullet points.
4. WHY WILL THEY CARE
This is where blunt honesty is needed.
You can’t write this from the perspective of what the brand wants them to think, it has to come from the audiences mindset. If you’ve done your homework for the previous question, you’ll know the answer to this … and if you’ve done your homework well, you’ll know the answer is not going to be some marketing hype/bollocks, but something that satisfies a real need in their life – be it emotional, physical or mental.
5. SO WHAT’S OUR STRATEGY?
Detail the macro approach you are taking to achieve this brief. It should be short, precise and full of creative mischief.
ie: Deposition the key competitors as ‘old success’ by making XXX the badge for ‘new, entrepreneurial achievers’ … or something.
6. WHAT’S THE KEY POINT OF VIEW
Based on the goal, the barrier, the audience and the strategy – what is the brands point of view on the issue they need to address.
It should be something that is obviously based on truth but also full of tension and pragmatism.
ie: “You can’t change tomorrow if you don’t act today” … or some other z-grade sounding Yoda impression.
Don’t rush it. Take your time to really craft it because apart from needing to be relevant to the task in hand, it also serves as the creative ‘jump off point’ and if you’re going to help your colleagues do something that is powerful and interesting with it, you’ve got to ensure they really feel the tension and energy of what they can play with or play off.
You might ask why things like ‘tone of voice’ are not mentioned.
Well sometimes they are … sometimes they’re not … it depends on a number of factors, however at W+K, we place great importance on ‘brand voice’ so a few abstract words like ‘fun, upbeat & lively’ are not really going to cut it.
I should point out that how you brief your colleagues is another incredibly important part of the creative process.
If you give them a piece of paper and tell them to “read this”, you’re almost doomed before it’s even had a chance to begin.
While the brief should be inspiring on it’s own merits, it’s always good to think of ways to let your colleagues really understand what you are trying to get across.
That might mean you present it in a different location or environment to the office … that might mean you put them in situations where they can really feel what you’re trying to convey … that might mean you get interesting – yet relevant – people in to chat to them before you go through your hard work, but whatever you do, it’s always worth putting in that extra little bit of effort because it will genuinely pay dividends to the work that comes out the other side and that is ultimately what you’re going to be judged on.
At the end of the day it’s worth remembering there is no such thing as a perfect creative brief because ultimately, it’s about what you put on it – or how you present it – rather than what it looks like … however what I can say is that from my experience, as long as you have a culturally provocative point of view running all the way through it [obviously based on truth rather than 'marketing truth'] then you stand a much greater chance of creating something that affects culture rather than just adds to the blunt, advertising noise.
Let’s be blunt: NBC shit the bed in their Olympic coverage.
In this digital, social media age – when earthquakes are tweeted about before the Earth even finishes shaking – NBC made the unfathomable decision to broadcast events on tape delay in order to garner primetime ad dollars. Apparently NBC execs figured a few billion people could keep secrets until after dinner.
The funny thing is, even if a few billion people weren’t on Facebook, Tweeting, texting and blogging, NBC’s strategy was so stupid, they spoiled their OWN results. While the broadcast was holding back the biggest events into the evening, at practically every other commercial break, they were encouraging viewers to check out additional content on their Olympic website which… wait for it… showed headlines of results they had yet to broadcast.
Fail.
Their Twitter and Facebook pages were no better. Before Americans got to see for themselves, the NBC Olympic Twitter stream had already blown the surprise of the Queen and James Bond parachuting into the arena.
NBC, you do understand how the internet works, right? (Rhetorical.)
But wait! There’s more! While you’re stuck trying to navigate a slow, horribly-designed, advertising-laden NBC site to see streaming events, 64 other countries get to view it live on YouTube for free. Afghanistan and Botswana get YouTube. You get McDonald’s ads to pay off NBC’s investment.
Because, you know, THAT’S the way to respond to social media criticism. There’s no way that strategy could backfire.
It sure seems like NBC’s entire strategy was “Let’s just say we’re streaming everything live!” without understanding how the viewer actually wants to engage with their content. Consumers have spent the past decade buying giant-ass HDTVs. Not everyone wants to be forced to their 10-inch iPad screen to watch events live. And certainly not everyone can stay completely away from Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the internet long enough not to ruin the surprise before primetime.
Someday, the networks will come into the 21st century with a digital strategy that makes sense. Unfortunately for fans of the Olympics, that day isn’t in 2012.
Company Philosophy:
We do whatever it takes to help our clients win. We have fun doing it. We believe in exceeding client and consumer expectations. We like to keep things simple. We believe in the courageous pursuit of big ideas in any medium. We believe St. Louis is an ideal place to create them. We believe in taking care of our people, our clients and our community. We maintain an open environment that inspires us to think creatively. We reward ourselves when we do. We believe the best ideas are the ones that change behavior. And we have a fancy, proprietary method designed to make all that happen. The rest, we pretty much make up as we go.
Client List:
McDonald's, Toyota, Missouri Division of Tourism, Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, University of Southern California, SlingBox, St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, Moonrise Hotel, Delve Market Research, CPC Logistics, Ashley Furniture Homestores, Phillips Furniture, Mercy Health, Tacony Corporation
Personnel Count:
32 in St. Louis, an additional 60+ at our San Francisco headquarters
Best Achievements from Last Year:
• Creative Awards/Recognition:
- HSMAI Adrian Awards (2 Gold, 3 Silver)
- AAF Addy Awards (4 Local Addy's, 2 Silver District Addy's)
- OAAA Obie Award (1 Silver).
• Defended and renewed our second contract term as agency of record for the Missouri Division of Tourism.
• Successfully recruited players for an AdClub softball game through a Craigslist posting at the last minute to avoid forfeit. Then went on to earn our first and only victory of the season.
3 Things The World Doesn't Know About H/L That It Should:
• H/L spends more media dollars in the St. Louis market than any other agency in town.
• For 4 years running, H/L has won more awards at the HSMAI Adrian Awards (travel/tourism industry) than any other agency in the world.
• Our two largest clients are Toyota and McDonald's and have been with us an average of 20 years.
Our Space:
Our Work:
A small sampling of some of our favorite work.
Check out HLinSTL.com to see more.
The inspiration to make something culturally and psychologically strong enough exists when you get back to what blew your mind.
For just a moment, you’re a kid in 1970s suburban Los Angeles, ok? Pedal your bicycle to the big Topanga Canyon Boulevard record store. See what I saw: an epic, billboard-sized reprographic image of Pink Floyd’s album, Wish You Were Here, bolted to the side of the record emporium and taking up huge amounts of sky. Big record company marketing budgets could afford to blow a lot of minds in those days.
It was a mysteriously huge, Godzilla-sized piece of pop-surrealism that captured my imagination: A man on fire obliviously shakes hands with another suited man. It’s a random meeting in an abandoned soundstage backlot, like a dream in constant production. The handshake, a blithe and obligatory social grace, appears to hide the true burning intensity of ulterior motives. Or is that something about the fear of getting burned?
This was all the proof I needed for what I had suspected in my young mind all along: People are weird. And deep and funny. And this was weird, deep, and funny marketing.
I got lost in a new kind of alchemy, a mixture of what I both did and did not understand about this album cover. I actually liked not understanding the imagery. There’s power in mystery. Though I knew the marketing for this album was about dreams. Not Disney-esque life goal dreams, not those dreams, but the unsettling world of dreaming. And was this a billboard for an uncomfortable dream? Pink Floyd knew how to show you how dreams really feel. That’s what they do. Later, I’d find out that they made music, too.
Something else that astounded me—although I didn’t know how to name what it was in my monosyllabic, child mind. I can find the word now. The imagery was alluringly unwholesome.
Unwholesome? Yes. Every bit of product marketing I had ever seen in my limited time on earth seemed to dance a giddy dance of the effusive, wholesome-hypnotic, the good—and good for you—wash of the brain. Secret ingredient: sugar. (Or, substitute the word, trustworthiness).
This album cover on the other hand, was marketing that used dream language to call no bullshit, and for me, great marketing began with that album cover.
Eventually, I saw how this imagery shared the same surreal power of the Buddhist monks who had self-immolated in protest of the Vietnam War. Add the imagery of Rene Magritte’s Victorian men floating in the sky, perhaps. That was the era. The era of the inner mind meets social upheaval.
Artwork for Wish You Were Here had a power that purposely reached for what was wrong and yet beautiful about the world.
Like most album covers produced during that slim psychedelic and post psychedelic creative era, meaning and hidden meaning trumped safeness, and it’s difficult to not regard album artwork created of that ilk as a true slice of cultural honesty through the language of symbolic imagery and playfulness.
Chances are, like me, you’d recall the marketing you probably don’t regard as actual marketing, but as something meaningful enough to feel and recall on a deeper level.
That might require you going back in time. When you were a kid. When you were raw-minded. Re-experience what affected you, the unspeakably good montage intro or trailer to a film, the world of colors in the Maoist propaganda poster you saw on Canal Street in NYC, an album cover you forgot you loved, a commercial that rocked your world, a PSA that pulled like a maddened emotion, desperate to free itself from the leash of the everyday.
That’s where the inspiration to make something culturally and psychologically strong enough exists, because it’s still living psychologically and culturally in your mind. That is, if you believe that marketing is actually part art, part storytelling, part psychological event, and is powerful enough to act as a sociological medium that does something amazing.
The last episode of the Pitch was enough for me to say enough’s enough. I am not going to write about the shitty show any more. It’s quite clear the whole thing is a fucking shambles. After seeing them award the account to that pathetic agency with one of the most offensive and clichéd ideas that I’ve ever seen, well that was enough for me to call it a day. Seriously, “women just know” is about as awful as seeing women jumping out of planes because of the fucking tampon they’re wearing. Jesus H. Christ!
And speaking of his holiness, The Pitch did bring up something I think we should talk about, people. It was in episode 4, and it really caught my attention. John Boone was waxing lyrical about something forgettable — then it cuts to him in church playing a guitar!
I was a bit taken aback to be honest. But like a good car wreck, I was glued to it. It turns out that John Boone is a man of faith. He likes to pop along to the local happy clapper camp and praise the lord with the rest of the faithful followers of JC.
That bugged me. A lot.
Now, a few disclaimers. First, I’m not religious. Not even slightly. The idea of it all is ludicrous, and if you’ve ever read anything by Joseph Campbell, you’ll know what I mean. Second, if you are religious, and can’t take someone bashing your beliefs, you should probably sod off now and read something else. If you can take it, go ahead. I will expect the usual drubbing in the comments section. And finally, if you really are a true believer, you’ll simply forgive me. Or chop my head off. Or believe I am going to burn in a fiery eternity of damnation. So there’s that.
Anyway, why did it bug me? Here’s why. If you really are religious, and believe all that bullshit, then you have absolutely no place being in this industry. The very idea of advertising goes against everything you “choose to believe.” And of course, that’s where all the fucking hilarious loopholes and interpretations come into play, meaning that you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want and still claim to be a follower of Jesus. Or Mary. Or God. Or Buddha.
Advertising is one of the most capitalist professions going. We whore ourselves out daily, pushing shit people don’t want at prices they can’t afford and collecting a paycheck. We sell cigarettes, booze, flashy cars, bikes, sneakers, fast food, in fact, everything that is either superficial, unhealthy or just plain pointless. Sure, we sell other stuff too, but it’s a tiny percentage. We even do charity work, but tell me that’s not about easing our conscience, or doing some self-serving crap to bag an award.
John Boone himself has worked on a symbol of modern greed and capitalism — the Lexus account. If it’s hard for a rich man on a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he’s got no fucking chance behind the wheel of a flashy Lexus.
And current BooneOakley clients include: Bojangles’ Famous Chicken and Greasy Biscuits, Ruby Tuesday, MTV2 (count the tits on that channel), HBO Video (again, hardly church-going material) and Batter Blaster! I don't think that last one even counts as any kind of food, does it? I can hardly see Jesus feeding the five thousand with fried chicken and chemical-soaked pancakes, while handing out copies of Sex & The City and Pornocopia.
So John Boone sits in his office, thinking of all the ways he can get people to part with their money to make rich people richer, then goes and sings songs of praise to feel good about himself.
Fuck. Right. Off.
I know full well what I do for a living, and I really don’t have a problem with it. I don't believe I’m going to hell — or heaven — I am going into the ground in some way, where I’ll be eaten by worms and maggots. My “soul” won’t be there, because it doesn’t exist. It’s just something people invented as a way to make themselves feel like there’s more waiting for us after the last 20 shitty years of our lives, when we wear diapers and can't pronounce our words properly.
Moreover, I personally believe religion is just another way to control people and keep the masses in line. Unless you offer one shred of proof that there’s a heaven, I’m not getting on board that boat. Oh, and don’t refer to the fucking Bible, a book that’s been written and rewritten hundreds of times by men more corrupt than the Lehman Brothers, as proof. It’s just as realistic as Scientology.
But I digress.
The bottom line is this. If you have deep religious beliefs, then good for you. I hope it all works out for you and you get to go to your heaven and live forever on a cloud next to everyone that ever existed, all living in harmony, and all that.
However, if you are in this business, I put it to you that you’re a huge fucking charlatan who is betraying every principle you chose to believe in. Fuck off and be an artist or a songwriter or go and work for a charity in Africa helping starving people. Do anything that helps you live your “faith.” But if you go to church once a week on Sundays to praise God, then go to work on Monday and sit at your desk trying to figure out how to make more money at the big capitalist gang-bang, you are a giant hypocrite.
I mean, religion is not about trying to sell people shit they don’t want based on massive lies and exag…oh, well, maybe that part’s accurate.
But if you’re religious, you don’t believe that, so get the fuck out of this industry and leave it to the spawn of Satan. We’re better at it, because we’re not conflicted.
Now…bring forth the hate (which you can disguise as whatever you want).
Felix is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He's been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.
The article is interesting, but I wonder if there is more at play here.
If you’ve ever gotten me liquored up, you may have heard me mention my belief that the internet is forming the foundation of what will eventually become the first artificial intelligence. Which is to say, I believe that someday, our collective activity online will reach the right density and type and the connections between us will become synapses. Somewhere in the digital aether a light will go on and a new kind of life will exist. The first self-aware machine, born of the wetware of a billion+ humans.
If you take this as a given (!), that we are all nodes in the network of a massive machine, then our move towards transparency begins to look more like system optimization on a cultural scale, encouraged through new memes and behaviors, as expressed in all sorts of unexpected ways, like Foursquare checkins, reality television and CEOs volunteering their failures.
A lie holds no information beyond what it says about the lie teller. An exaggeration stated in conversation does nothing but breed false expectations in the mind of listener. A great experience not shared is done so at the detriment of the collective. If my laptop was forced to run on the inefficiencies inherent to the day-to-day communication styles of a typical person, one full of nuance, assumption, and false starts, its processor would slow to a crawl and burn out altogether.
From the Next Web article:
I’ve literally stopped telling little white lies because it’s much easier to be honest. Instead of cancelling a meeting with a PR rep and using the excuse “I’m not feeling well,” I say, “I’m exhausted and taking tomorrow off to go to the beach!” because I know I’ll likely take a picture of my beach trip on Instagram and wouldn’t want to get caught in a lie. And you know what? Most of the time they just say, “Have a great time!”
As a society, we’ve had 10,000 years to choose to be open and honest with each other, and we have generally chosen not to. But now we’re at a point where new technology plays a critical role in our lives, and technology has no use for our half-truths and doublespeak. They are disruptions in the flow of information. As we are all becoming parts of the machine, our relationships with each other are being ground down to purer, more efficient forms so that they can be put to better use.
We are becoming more honest because it increases the speed at which information can travel. We are becoming less private because to withhold valuable knowledge from the rest of the network is to act selfishly. We are becoming more transparent because that is what the evolution of technology asks of us.
Ben Pieratt is the designer and co-founder of The Egotist Network and Svpply. He loves design and he loves the internet. This piece was cross-posted from Ben's blog.
Welcome to the interactive portion of the St. Louis Egotist where you, the reader, ask us, the Egotists, absolutely anything you want. Who, What, When, Where, Why; there are no restrictions and nothing is off limits. What we're attempting to do with this little experiment is to open up the backstage curtains just a little bit so you can get a peak at the tiny and reluctant wizards of Oz we really are - obviously without completely divulging who we are.
We’ll choose the 10 questions under this post from our readers that we find most interesting and answer them for you around this time next week.
The Pitch Episode 3: Are Things Actually Getting Better?
Nope.
Oh and, before I continue, I am going for a challenge on this one. After the silliness of the last rant — where people seemed more concerned with my use of profanity than the content of the piece — I am going PG on this. Not because I care what they think, I obviously don’t. But I am curious, can I do an arresting piece without dropping f-bombs and c-bombs and s-bombs and any other bombs that make people like le-sigh have a feminist meltdown?
Time, and the comment stream, will tell.
So, what were we treated to on Monday night? It was the turn of Clockwork Home Services (oh, these catchy names) to dangle their mighty carrot in front of two agencies — The Hive, and FKM.
Clockwork, if you don’t already know, is the proud parent of Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Mister Sparky, and One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating. Again, no comment on the names. Apart from the “no comment” comment — which clearly means I hate them with the same passion creatives hate the words "client feedback."
The Clockwork people assembled our two sparring agencies in a grim location; the kind of place Dexter would assemble a kill room and stab someone through the heart. (He could have come in handy later on in this episode.)
So, after explaining for an eternity the brand values and company mission of a bunch of electricians, plumbers and HVAC guys, the two agencies had a chance to ask questions.
Scott Brown, metrosexual leader of FKM, looked shell-shocked. Could have been sly editing (let’s face it, it probably was), but he stumbled over his words like a rank amateur. It didn’t help, though, that The Hive’s Andy Krupski came barreling in like juggernaut from the X-Men. Throughout the episode, several times in fact, he stated that he hates to lose and that his agency is the best in the world.
Time out for a second. Is it just me, or does the owner of every mediocre, mid-sized shop in America (and in this case, Canada) really believe that the stuff they’re churning out is better than the excellence we all know and love from agencies like W&K, TBWA, Goodby and the like? I mean, are they that disillusioned? Or are they all strutting, hoping that this self-belief will translate into more clients? I don’t know. But I really hate them for it.
OK, after the briefing, the agencies once again shuffle back to their sad grief holes in their parts of the world. FKM, from Texas, assemble half the agency in a boardroom for the lowdown. And after giving out the creative brief, tell them that they are to work on this for the next 24 hours, straight, without sleep. They also had to hand over their cell phones!
Scott Brown is now showing himself to be slightly more imbecilic than the whole cast of Jersey Shore. I mean, I can count on one penis the number of times I had a killer idea at 4.35am at the agency, hopped up on coffee and cold pizza and surrounded by equally shagged-out advertising wrecks.
I wouldn’t need the whole penis either.
The very notion that you can lock people away without any contact, and expect them to create bold, fresh ideas, is lunacy. It was at this point that I did not care what they came up with. I wanted them to fail — and fail hard. I wanted to see Scott Brown crying in the corner like a freshly raped pedophile in a maximum security prison. This would have been a good point for Dexter to appear, show him photos of the sad people around him, and put him out of our misery.
But no. Thanks for nothing, Dex.
Meanwhile, The Hive were throwing ideas around and decided to do the unthinkable. They would completely ignore the client’s specific request — to keep the three companies separate — and merge them into one new brand, Direct Energy.
Personally, I love giving clients what they need, not what they ask for. But this was beyond risky, it was reckless. When you have a solid relationship with a client, and establish trust, you have a better foundation for this kind of behavior. Sticking your middle finger up at them this early on, that’s just asking for a slap. And a slap they got. No, no, no, no, no. Don't go there. Start again.
This happened, by the way, during a “tissue” session. A moron whose name I can't recall, and don’t want to look up, remarked that tissue sessions got their name from the crying you do when the client rejects your idea.
Wow.
Maybe he was trying to make a joke, although if he was he had the delivery skills of Rain Man. No, this was actually what he thought. No idea, no clue, that “tissue” sessions got their name from the type of paper you’d sketch and draw on in one of these meetings. It was long before the days of computers and iPads — when creative teams would sketch out ideas on pads of cheap tissue paper. It was a way to get ideas down quickly, and inexpensively, so that the campaign could be developed (often with the client assisting).
So yeah, what a dipsh…oops, almost slipped there.
The ideas came thin and slowly for both sides. FKM had a genius idea about adding HELP to any service the Clockwork guys provide. They can help change a light bulb, water a plant, paint a fence, or get a kitty out of a tree.
At this point, it’s not clear if lonely, frustrated housewives could get some help with their plumbing, but if you get 30 mins free, who knows. Now that could really be a rebranding exercise.
The Hive, they had two ideas. One was a truck full of money, that people could win. And the other was a schmaltzy, saccharin campaign that could have run the day after September 11th. I threw up a bit when I saw it.
That left me with two possible conclusions on the horizon. FKM would win — and I’d want to suck a tailpipe. Or, The Hive would win, and I’d want to suck a tailpipe.
Murphy’s law.
The pitches went the usual way. The Hive went first and the money truck sank like a truck filled with money. The idea about destroying a toilet with a bowling ball sealed the fate of that one, and that’s an idea that’s been done many times before. The sickly-sweet heroes atrocity got some traction, but remember, clients like these get excited by the latest Adam Sandler movies.
FKM went next and the new “new biz” girl did the bulk of the pitch. She did OK. It didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes, although the female Clockwork client who ate her lipstick and got pulled through a hedge backwards, she clearly felt threatened by her.
The HELP idea went down well. I thought it was too much of a leap and too far removed from what they do. But it had a hook, it was memorable, and ultimately I can’t fault the Clockwork dullards for choosing it. Neither side really impressed me and, as I sat chewing on what I had seen, I realized…I really didn’t care.
It made me yearn for the first episode, when I was screaming at the screen. At least that had some energy to it. And worst of all, the FKM prison-like agency conditions were rewarded. Those poor saps, they’re about to get worked to death.
There, that’s all she wrote. And not one fucking swearword, you goddamned cocksuckers.
If you watched the debacle on Sunday night, you may wonder what the fuck Homer Simpson has to do with this. If you didn’t, you’re probably still curious.
As I kiss goodbye to last week’s ill-fated attempt to be PG (fuck, shit, piss, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits…making up for lost time) I am starting this one with a reference that I think is perfect. And I rarely think things are perfect, as you know.
So, in an episode of The Simpsons, there’s a competition to make a short film. It’s the Springfield Film Festival. Barney Gumble, the town drunk, creates a searing and insightful look at his life as an alcoholic it’s called Pukahontas. It references Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqati and uses music by Philip Glass. Nice.
Hans Moleman plays his film next. He gets hit in the groin by a football. Homer thinks this is fucking hilarious, and he’s the judge.
As he sums it up, he says, “Hmm...Barney's movie had heart, but ‘Football in the Groin’ had a football in the groin.”
That is the whole process of every Pitch result to date this season. Just replace “football in the groin” with “pretty pictures” or “flashy graphics” and you get the idea.
Now, in true Tarantino style, let me back up and give a brief recap of this week’s train wreck before I finish that thought.
The two agencies this week were BooneOakley and Conversation. The former, you’ve all heard of. Or should have. Small shop, off the wall, they did the YouTube-based agency website that caught the attention of so many people. And doing self-promotion that good is hard. The other agency, who the fuck knows. Although they did say, “We keep our finger on the pulse, and we’re typically the first to utilize new forms of media at that point when they’re just right for a particular consumer segment.”
So basically, they are the first to use new tech when it’s not that new any more. Quite a claim.
This week’s stellar client was Popchips. The Popchips people delivered the brief, and that gave David Oakley the chance to really fucking brown-nose the client. Which worked, much to the chagrin of Frank “what happened to my personality” O’Brien. The brief was simple enough — raise awareness of Popchips using non-traditional media.
Anyone else fucking sick of that? Why don’t they just come out and say, “we’d like to be hugely-successful without spending one red cent on media, thanks.”
Once again, the agencies ran back to their prospective homes to start work. Although BooneOakley suffered an immediate setback when their strategic God, a former Nike wunderkind, developed some nasty gallbladder problem and was hospitalized.
While BooneOakley delivered a very laid back brief, with David looking a bit like a deer in the headlights, Conversation’s O’Brien already had his “idea.”
They were going to create the longest, biggest, viral video ever.
Why? Because Popchips wanted something viral. Brilliant, right? Well, not really. Even the people reporting to O’Brien thought it sucked. So, they did it anyway. And that’s all they did. They came up with a fancy name for it — “The Year of Pop” — but it was all just reverse-engineering into a dumb idea. They programmed code. They spent hours and hours on videos and apps. They blew the shit out of it. Did it matter that the idea was weaker than the jokes on Big Bang Theory? Nope, because the client had asked for a viral video.
BooneOakley definitely struggled. The absence of Greg the strategy god was evident, although it pissed me off to no end when some annoying tart said that creatives don’t think strategically. Speak for your own creatives, every shop I’ve ever worked in demanded strategic thinking. If you didn’t do it, you were out.
Finally, after a lot of bizarre brainstorming ideas, they landed on “Make Life Pop” and everything started coming together. From thousands of balloons falling from the sky, filled with bags of Popchips, to a bubble-wrap race track and bags of chips flying off the shelves, they were turning the brand into something fun. Something that actually made life “pop.” And of course, these ideas had all the elements they needed to go viral, without actually saying “we’re viral, come and be in our viral video, it’s viral!”
The Pitch was upon us, and the AMC editing staff did a grand job of fucking our expectations again. I actually said, out loud (to my wife, who was not really paying attention) “that’s it, BooneOakley did the best presentation, they’re going to lose.”
We saw the Popchips clients smiling as the BooneOakley people rolled out the ideas. They really had grasped every element of the brand. It was fun, likeable and very easy to implement.
Then it was Conversation’s turn. Their presentation had all the verve and energy of a dead llama. The technology fucked up. The videos were met with luke-warm smiles. The end result was less than thrilling.
But before they left, the Conversation people said, and I paraphrase, “this is turnkey. We’ve built this whole thing! It’s ready to go. We did all the technical work for free, on our own time! You can say “hit the button” and you have an instant campaign that cost you fuck all!!!”
It was like someone had hit the jackpot at a casino, and a ton of loose change was thumping against the metal.
Naturally, BooneOakley lost. Of course they did. And why?
Well, remember that Homer Simpson reference at the beginning? It’s all about what a client reacts to, and they do not react well to something with heart. They react to “footballs in the groin.” And for them, that meant they had a completed “viral” video ready to go. It took a greater leap to understand BooneOakley’s work, and it would take a long time to develop and execute.
What they don’t take into account, and they never do, is that the general public does not do what advertisers say. They respond to it, but you have to reward them for their time. BooneOakley’s work would have gone viral, not because it asked you to make it viral, but because it was entertaining and disruptive.
Conversation’s work was an order. “Come on, make this viral video go big.” And your reward? Well, you get to be in it. Wow. I, for one, won’t be getting involved. Fuck them, they can’t tell me what to do. I resent them for it, actually.
You cannot force people to make something go viral. You have to set up the dominoes and hope they fall. If you do it well, the chain reaction will set it off. But if you are as transparent as Conversation’s shitty effort, you’ll stumble at the first hurdle.
Oh, and AMC editors. Are you bribing the clients to pick the crappy work? Or are they all really this dumb? Great work needs great clients, and so far, the clients have been pond slime in suits and ties. Fucking annoying.
Coming next week: another agency will get shat on when a bunch of smarmy fucks over-execute a lame idea and get blown by a clueless client.
Felix is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He's been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.
“This is it guys…this is where we find out what it’s all about.”
Within 30 seconds, I figured this was going to be a bigger pile of horseshit than the previous episode. I was not disappointed. Cliché after cliché. Homily after tired homily. It was like these guys swallowed the Big Book Of Advertising.
Oh, it’s definitely “dog eat dog out there.” Isn’t it always fellas?
And “we need big ideas.” As opposed to the small ones your whole team were planning on creating, right?
Anyway, I know the producers edit this show with the goal of creating “good TV” not “real TV” so I take it all with a pinch of salt. But still, they said it. Christ.
I think it was when Paul Cappelli, of The Ad Store, uttered the words “we are the most creative agency in the country, if not the world” that I lost the plot and had to contain my explosive laughter. I mean, really. Not W&K? Not Goodby? Nope, it’s The Ad Store.
What have they done that made you go “fuck me, that’s shit hot!” recently? Or ever?
Well, they were the ones responsible for the puerile GoDaddy.com wardrobe malfunction ads, which led to even more crass and pointless titfests. So there’s that. There’s nothing clever about tits. They do create a splash, but so would my knob if I whipped it out in a courtroom on Superbowl Sunday.
Anyway, if The Ad Store was brazenly confident, SK+G were equally so, but with one major difference. The entire place is filled with egomaniacal bullshit artists. And they have two creative leads working on the same job. Clever.
While The Ad Store went straight to work, the dipshits from SK+G started Googling their competition. WTF?!
“Oh guys, we may have to bring our A game, these guys have done some shit.”
Does anyone ever do anything less, unless they want to lose the pitch on purpose? For me, that was indicative of the type of agency SK+G clearly is – overworked, paranoid, lacking true confidence (not the strutting peacock dancing they did on cam) and a basic lack of understanding about pitching. You do your best work; fuck the competition. Even if you’re up against a one-man shop from Leesburg, Virginia, you better bring it.
So, after all that crap, and some drama from the SK+G team involving arguments and microphones, the real work began.
Once again, we were treated to some real pearls of advertising wisdom:
“Be edgy. Viral. Avoid clichés.”
Oh shit. Really? What about all those great clichés that have won pitches in the past, can’t we use them? And edgy, that’s a great idea! Fuck, edgy is as cool as Ice T’s balls!
Even the camera crew started picking up on it, by showcasing close-ups of empty pizza boxes. The old “they are working really hard” cliché.
Anyway, SK+G had some ideas. I use ideas loosely. They included:
Pick It Up America
Trash talk.
Turn Waste Into WOW (the awful idea they end up going with, I shit you not).
It was when some blonde vacuum threw out “Trashformers” that I knew we were in the presence of real genius. Bill Bernbach, eat your dead heart out.
Incidentally, the WOW line came from someone I like to call “smug cunt.”
Is that too harsh? Nah.
He already had a face you wanted to kick with a nailed boot. Then he opened his fucking mouth. He’s everyone you’ve ever hated in your whole fucking life rolled into one miserable body.
Yes, I hated Ray Johnson from the get-go.
I tried to look him up on the SK+G website, but he’s not there. So either he quit, he’s too new for a profile, or he’s too annoying to take out in public. Either way, this guy is slime from the bottom of advertising’s reject pile. He actually made me like the other guy, Doug Hentges, which made me hate him even more.
Over at The Ad Store, it was easy to see they were on a much better track. They had a communication strategy, not just a lame tagline with no legs. And after a lot of back and forth, the big idea was elegant – trash can. I liked it. It’s not exactly Just Do It, but it’s simple enough to catch on and, with the right execution, it could be great.
But the bickering between Cappelli and his beaten-down AD was distracting, they were like some married couple.
Then it turns out they are, almost, so that explains the bitch fits. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say, but that’s quite the dynamic. They say never screw the crew, but if it works for these guys, more power to them. Whatever. After late nights (and early mornings from SK+G…they do love being a sweat shop) the work was done and ready to present.
Cappelli and The Ad Store went first. It was understated, in the same way that white is an understated version of black. I mean Paul, dude, pick up the energy a bit. He read the VO live to the spot they’d put together, and the small elements of guerrilla he had in the presentation were fine. But this was a bit lackluster to say the least. The Waste Management plebs seemed fine with it, apart from one matronly cow who chimed in “so what have you learned about us over this last week?” or something like that. Self-serving clients, they just love to hear about themselves.
SK+G, their pitch was awful. The work, it was ok in places. They used “cutting-edge” snaptags to make posters come to life, but the message and execution stunk more than a yeast infection. Sadly, SK+G possess some snazzy graphics software and a lot of razzle-dazzle presentation tools to give their work some lift, despite the cruddy “WOW” idea.
But it was the man behind that idea, smug cunt, who almost fucked everything up for them. He decided to talk over the main presenter whenever he could.
Everyone I know was screaming “shut the fuck up” at the screen. He didn’t.
At the end of the day, you know what happened. SK+G won, because they had pretty pictures, snazzy gimmicks and are willing to work 24/7 for Waste Management.
The Ad Store, they had a better idea, and it could have gone places, but they just didn’t blow it out enough. Clients like Waste Management can’t image that shit, they need everything wrapped in a bow before they get it. And Cappelli should have known that.
I’m not as irate as I was at the end of episode 1, but it still pisses me off. I suspect the work that wins these pitches will never be the work that I want to win.
Maybe I should stick to watching the Joy of Painting instead.
Felix is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He's been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.
I certainly can’t call myself the most interesting ad man in the world. But then again, neither could half of the “professionals” in the first episode of The Pitch, a new AMC show that delves inside the gritty world of advertising.
Now, before I continue, there are more spoilers in this review than there are spineless wonders in the average account department. There’s just no way around it, folks. To say what has to be said, I have to reveal all.
So if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read this before you watch the episode below. (If you have seen it, and thought the outcome was well deserved, don’t read this either. Instead, go and work for a crappy client like Subway. You’ll like it better over there.)
OK, so the premise of the show is simple enough. Take one big client, put two agencies on the pitch, and give them less than a week to come up with brilliance. (We’ll get to the “brilliance” in a moment.)
The first episode of The Pitch pits two agencies against each other – McKinney, a mid-sized shop from North Carolina, and WDCW (formerly WongDoody) from Los Angeles. And the massive account they’re pitching for? Subway, the largest fast food chain in the world, with pockets deep enough to match.
The task was one with plenty of meat: aim Subway’s new breakfasts at the 18-24 crowd.
The rotund marketing director from the ‘bway said he wanted something that wasn’t SOS (Same Old Subway). Something big, bold, different, clever, original. You know, the usual manure clients spout before they crap all over your ideas and ask for SOS (Same Old Shit). The two agencies eagerly took notes before running back to the office to be inspired. Tricky, considering they took the brief from a bunch of lifeless corporate yawns in a room that would make an unfinished basement look glamorous.
Now to be fair, the show is somewhat entertaining to anyone in our industry. It can’t help but be involving; we live and breathe this stuff. To others, it’s probably in the same zone as The Apprentice. They don’t really give a shit about the process, they just want to see a train wreck.
Both WDCW and McKinney seem like typical agencies, filled with the usual mix of wannabe rock-star creatives, overdressed account execs, and the owners who jump in at the last minute to fuck things up.
But watching the process, it was clear from the beginning that one agency knew exactly what they were doing, and the other one was flailing around in the deep end. McKinney were way out of their league here.
After some laughable brainstorming sessions from McKinney, two “stellar” ideas rose to the top, much like shit floats in the toilet.
The first, pitched by an annoying drama-queen copywriter with aspirations of mediocrity, revolved around Subway’s sandwiches getting some kind of makeover on a reality talk show. The host is a sandwich. The audience is a sandwich.
Oh God. Shoot me now.
The insipid script was the last nail in that idea’s coffin, with puerile lines like:
“Welcome back to let’s fix breakfast. Today we’re going to make over Jenny’s breakfast. Here’s what Jenny used to eat…”
and (prepare for a douche chill moment)
“Are you ready to see what Jenny’s breakfast looks like now?! GIRL, you are lookin’ flavorized.”
At this point I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. But I was too busy laughing.
The second idea wasn’t an idea at all. The creative team found a video online of some cretin called MacLethal (arghhh) who got 9 million views for rapping about breakfast.
Flash of genius follows – “Hey, he got 9 million views. He’s rapping about breakfast. Young people love rapping. They love breakfast. He’s already popular. HOME RUN!”
Yeah, right.
Then, they let this chunky Eminem wannabe write the whole song, presumably while they sit and sweat in a corner of the office as they realize one devastating fact: the whole idea was a loser from the beginning, but they sold the fucking thing in.
WDCW, on the other hand, were very different.
They hit on an idea that had legs. In fact, the legs had legs. The basic idea was that we’re all brain-dead zombies in the morning, especially the target audience. As a former 20-year old college student who rarely saw 11am, I know just what they mean.
So, they coined the phrase “zAMbies” and came up with some nice work to go with it. Great images of drooling teens with half-eaten McMuffins hanging out of their gormless mouths. There were some fun, irreverent lines aimed at those morons:
No be zAMbie Eat this. No feel bad.
And scripts that had some real fun.
“LOOK, talking words. You breakfast zambie? You no think about where go breakfast? Just grab brown circle food because fast? Stop do. Go Subway. No be zambie!”
The usual rounds of changes were made internally, then they all hopped on a plane to face the firing squad at Subway.
To say the presentation by McKinney started badly is being kind. It was clear the stupid “Let’s fix breakfast” ideas was falling flat. Nice line, but rotten execution. The crickets and tumbleweeds in the pitch room confirmed my feelings that this was possibly one of the worst ideas in the history of shitty ideas. Subway’s marketing bores couldn’t crack a smile.
Then they brought out the rapping “idea” and it went down well. Not great, but well. Of course, it didn’t hurt that they filmed it in a Subway restaurant. Gotta get the client’s product in. They also brought MacLethal in to do a live freestyle rap. I fastforwarded that part, my brain was hurting.
WDCW went second, with their one solid idea. It killed. Killed. The Subway crowd loved it. And making these hollow vessels laugh is beyond tricky.
The pitch was in the bag for Tracy Wong.
That was until one stereotypical client bitch pipes up about there not being enough product shots in the work. My heart sank. I knew it was all over. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. That small seed of doubt becomes a giant beanstalk of failure.
What followed next, we won’t really know. The hours of debate, butchering ideas and shitting on work, was not shown in the episode. All we saw was Subway’s Mr. Fatman announcing to McKinney that their shitty idea (which was basically “let’s re-do this YouTube video”) had won. They had the account, WDCW’s risk-taking and originality was rewarded with a trip home empty handed.
A crying fucking shame.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is what is so teeth-grindingly annoying about this show. It builds you up and drops you on your ass. And it shows, once again, that clients don’t want what they ask for. They think they want brave, but they don’t. They think they want original, but not even close. They want “safe with a new twist.” I mean seriously, a guy rapping about breakfast? That’s about as cool as those 80s Wendy’s training videos.
What’s even more ironic is that the chubby marketing guy called out WDCW for their former work on Quizno’s, using singing cats. That was, in effect, something “inspired” by online content. I wasn’t keen on it to be honest. But WDCW clearly took that to heart and went completely original. Then Subway hands the account to the dimwits from NC who do exactly the same thing – borrowing from pop culture.
Infuriating.
Will I be watching The Pitch again? Yes. Because I’m a real fucking glutton for punishment, and although I know the best work has no chance of winning, I dare to dream that in one of the episodes, justice will be done.
Tracy Wong and team, if you’re reading this, you clearly deserved the win. The online poll they’re doing at AMC also shows a vast majority of people thought you should have won, too. Take heart in that.
McKinney, you lucky fucks, please think about how you can turn your winning turd into something that doesn’t suck.
And Subway. You don’t deserve a good ad agency. You deserve Jared.
--- Felix is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. He's been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.
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