Here Be Monsters|blog

WHY COULD THIS ONLY BE AMERICAN? | 3

Some time ago I posted about the Apple ads being quintessentially American, and doubted that we English could get the balance right. Well, now they've gone and recreated them with English comedians so, you can judge for yourself here.  Personally, I think they confirm my argument. The charm, the rhythm, the gaps in dialogue, even the slight of performance and gentleness of delivery have all been lost.

Here's one of the originals that has been copied. I'd love to know what you think.

possibly the coolest skate boarding you've seen

Saw this over at the Stafenberger website, probably the coolest skate boarding I've seen. Definitely, the most hypnotic.

LDN | A WINTER WONDERLAND

It snowed in London last night and so we all woke up to a winter wonderland. I still find it exciting. Partly it's the surprise of it all. Unlike storms and floods and tornadoes you get no warning with snow. The first time you know is when you look out the window and bam! there it is.

END OF THE ORIGINAL POST

I then looked around my corner of the blogsphere and discovered these. Oh, how we Londoners love a bit of snow.

steal

Where do ideas come from?  There's a great, simple book of that title which was given to me by Paul Arden. I want to post about it sometime soon. But in the meantime, I was pointed to this article in the New York Times (but lost the by whom, sorry) and thought it worth pointing the more curious amongst you to. Enjoy.

There's more on it here, too.

Google kick ass down under

I saw this  over at Iain Tait's place.  And, as I know I'm read by quite a few Aussies, I'm just going to quote the man in my hurry to get it out there.  (And hope he forgives me);   

Google Australia is celebrating Australia Day 2007 by photographing Sydney Harbour from the air, and we want to make sure as many of us as possible squeeze into the picture.So when you see the Google branded plane flying overhead this January 26th, hoist a sign, arrange your family into a fun formation or just get a bunch of friends together to wave.

Google Australia Day 2007

Nice vid.

Why can't the save energy ads be as much fun?

Thanks for psfk for the nod.

I LOVE SIMPLICITY

I love the simplicity of this.

why I love consumer power

I've just been made aware of the exceptional reviews on Amazon for the above album. Thank you Anna. Thank you.

And then there's the video.

IN Praise of Hard work

Okay, so you work long hours, but does that mean you're working hard? Because, "long" and "hard" are now two different things. In the old days, we could measure how much grain someone harvested or how many pieces of steel he made. Hard work meant more work. But the past doesn't lead to the future. The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that's really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It's about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.

It's hard work to make difficult emotional decisions, such as quitting a job and setting out on your own. It's hard work to invent a new system, service, or process that's remarkable. It's hard work to tell your boss that he's being intellectually and emotionally lazy. It's easier to stand by and watch the company fade into oblivion. It's hard work to tell senior management to abandon something that it has been doing for a long time in favor of a new and apparently risky alternative. It's hard work to make good decisions with less than all of the data.

Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your coworkers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is far more conservative than sticking with the status quo.

Richard Branson doesn't work more hours than you do. Neither does Steve Jobs or Alan Sugar or Julian Richer.

None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they're not smarter than you either. They're succeeding by doing hard work.

As the economy plods along, many of us are choosing to take the easy way out. We're going to work for a big company, letting him do the hard work while we work the long hours. We're going back to the future, to a definition of work that embraces the grindstone.

Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you'd rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you've done that, to do it again the next day.

The big insight: The riskier your (smart) coworker's hard work appears to be, the safer it really is. It's the people having difficult conversations, inventing remarkable products, and pushing the envelope (and, perhaps, still going home at 5 PM) who are building a recession-proof future for themselves.

Author Seth Godin.

I share it because it sums up perfectly what we're forever banging on about alot at Here Be Monsters, the constant need to be smart in what we do.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM TV?

I've lifted this from an interview Creative Generalist did with Steve Callaghan, writer and producer of the Family Guy cartoon series. Here is how he describes the process of developing and writing a script.

"Well, as you might imagine, it is a highly collaborative endeavor. There are about 100 people or so who are in some way or another involved in putting together an episode. The process begins, of course, with the writing staff. My fellow writers and I will come up with a concept for an episode and discuss the general storyline that it would contain. The episode is then assigned to a particular writer who will write the first draft of the script. The whole writing staff then takes that first draft and, as a group, rewrites it -- improves jokes that might need some help, fixes any story issues, etc. -- before the show gets recorded by all of our voice actors. Once the audio has been recorded, then our animation team takes the baton, creating an animatic, which is a rough, pencil-sketch version of the show. Once we all screen the animatic, the writers take another pass at the script to address any remaining writing issues. A while later, the show comes back in color. We then do one more, smaller rewrite on the script before the finishing touches (music cues, sound effects, etc.) are added and then you've got yourself an episode of "Family Guy."

Now, compare that with how the typical creative team in the typical ad agency creates their script.

Account person and/or planner explain brief to creative team. They leave. Creative team spend anything from a day to a few weeks sweating it out. They present their ideas to the CD, who says yes, no, maybe, perhaps etc. What is very unlikely is that he will spend any time working with the team beyond this verbal input. Not through laziness, but because the script 'belongs' to the team. Work is then presented back to the account person-planner combo,  who are allowed to comment on it, but only within the confines of their job title remit. God help them if they mis judge this and over step into the creatives' domaine. Conversations between planner and account person, account person and client, planner and creative director, planner and client all take place in a isolation to one another. As a result nothing much changes in the script until a director is selected. Now the creative team will listen and make changes, because a) the director is also a 'creative' and  b) the team really want to be him.

I've been fortunate enought to have been a part of both processes and I know which one delivers the better work.

WELL IT MADE ME SMILE

I can't help but be impressed, perhaps not so much by the execution as by the fact someone bothered to take a pride in what they was doing and put a little more effort into it.

If your interested, the copy reads

And  in case you can't remember this is where Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned

 

The Art of Plagiarism

Advertising creatives have an odd rule when it comes to plagiarism. I think it says a lot about the ingrained arrogance of the  industry that you can copy any film, art or photographic style, comedian's routine, in fact anyone or anything, as long as you don't copy an ad.

I have heard it said countless of times, 'Great ad, pity it's been done', usually followed by the agency name and year of creation, as the all-knowing CD goes over to his D&AD annuals and finds it for you. Proof, as if proof were needed of his greatness when it comes to the history of ads.

The t-shirt industry obviously don't share this obsession.

Howies original

Mr Cloud's T-shirt Emporium rip-off

Seeing this made me angry. I now don't like Mr Cloud. Why? Because they're lazy and stupid and spend all their time surfing other t-shirt sites looking for the easy way to a good idea.

But the thing is I actually don't know who was first, I based my assumption on the fact Howies is an old friend (known for it's integrity), while Mr Cloud is a new acquaintance, regardless of whether I'm right or wrong. In fact I'd probably take this position even if I found this t-shirt design on some kid's MySpace page.

Okay, what I know of Howies and what I can gleam from Mr Cloud's website would suggest I'm probably right, but I don't know for sure, maybe Howies just improved on the design.

In a world where we are all now meant to be creating content and posting and uploading and plagiarising and inspiring one another, this is going to create a whole new level of problems for brands and their agencies.

great shop frontage

More shops should be doing this. Thank you Cass Art, thank you. Oh and I heartily agree. 

NEW BETA

Here's a lovely little beta site that might help anyone who made the standard new year's resolution to,  get fitter. Called GPSies, you can create, view and download tracks which have been recorded by a GPS device. Whether you're searching for running courses,  mountain bike tracks, with GPSies you can see what Tracks others have recorded.

K. I. S. S. Apparently not

Great article over at psfk which itself has been inspired by an article posted by author and designer, Don Norman who argues that maybe the first thing we look for in a product is something that is accessible rather than totally simplistic, then we look for detail and complexity.

WELCOME TO WRITE CLUB

I've been spending more  time with clients discussing the craft of writing than at any other time in my career. Not that surprising really, more of them are writing more themselves. Several are doing company blog's or undating their websites themselves and another is handing their own newsletters.

In fact I'm going to go as far as say the craft of writing has never been so important in the communication mix in recent times as it is right now.

So, I thought I'd start Write Club, an occasional series on writing.

I got this email sent to me before Christmas, interesting enough proposition tucked away at the bottom - 'unusual gift no effort', but for Conde Nast that really wasn't the hook. They'd rather tell you how they feel rather what they can do for you, as a result they lost me with the subject line. Because frankly, it's for me to decide whether or not it's a generous offer.

I mention this not to pick fault (or a fight) with someone's work but to highlight a very common problem and that is clients and their agencies writing from their perspective (i.e. I'm sure Patrick thinks he's being incredibly generous). But in doing so he has completely removed me any connection I might have. It's like having a conversation with a chat show host or someone on cocaine.

(Possibly the finest example of this was when a senior exec at a agnecy I was at sent an email to clients notify them he was leaving with the subject title: Great News. Great news for who? The rest of the email was equally self-congratulatory.)

So, the First Rule of Write Club is;

Understand the perspective of the reader. And remember what interests you about your business probably doesn't interest them.

As my main man Howard Gossage once said; People don't read ads, they read what interests them and sometimes it happens to be an ad.

WISE WORDS

“There are three things I think about the most when it comes to making it as a marketer these days.

The first one is there's no amount of money I can pay to get my commercial in front of you, because you can powerfully edit what you spend time with. So my job as a marketer is no longer to interrupt, but to produce content that is so relevant, interesting, entertaining and involving that my best consumers won't want to live without it.

The second thing is understanding that instead of brochures and trade shows, marketing now really begins with the product. Great companies are investing a lot of time and attention into trying to make products that market themselves.

The last piece is that user-generated content has made it possible for consumers to own your brand, and if they don't, you're not doing your job. The brands that are adopted, blogged about and parodied the most are the ones that are going to win because they're involved in the evolution of pop culture. If you're scared to have your brand played with, you're going to be left behind.”

How I wish they were my words, but unfortunately all I can do is claim to whole-heartedly second them. They belong to Jeff Hicks of Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Drug abuse is rife, but really..

This Christmas I was bought this book and having read it wassufficiently motivated to give breadmaking a go, and not in a lily-livered kind of way either. No not for me easy yeast and bread machines. So of course  I needed an oven themometer. And look what they put on it - I had no idea drugs were so accepted nowadays.

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

Don't know about you but I love books. I was once told, as long as you can read you'll always be able to learn. I liked that. And I was able to read a lot over Christmas.

Two books I didn't get to read though, but are now on order are

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. I  knew nothing about this book until I read a post here.

And Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,  written by Stanford Business School professor Chip Heath with his brother Dan. I lifed this from the review I was reading (and now can't remember where it came from - sorry. ) Basically, it's a studying into why some messages stick and others don't, e.g. "we only use 10% of our brain," "alligators in the sewer," "people get drugged and have their organs harvested. Even though these myths aren't true, they persist. And according to Chip it's because they're all;

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

Anyone beaten me to them and want to do a book swap?

what I learnt at school yesterday

The thing that stuck me the most about yesterday was the way that logic and creativity really are one and the same thing to children - hardly the most insightful lesson perhaps but it was a real joy to be able to see how naturally creative, confident and resourceful we are in our early years.  As Picasso said,“ Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up".

My favourite moment was chatting with 3 kids about who lives in the sky. It started off with clouds, planes, helicopters and spacemen, went onto birds, butterflies, dragons and ended up with Santa, the wind, snowmen and water.  100% correct answers and all delivered with utter confidence and self-assurance.

I also learnt that, robots are never pink, monsters can have 3 ankles and that Lexi Bo likes to lay on the ground and pretend to be dead all breaktime, although I didnt find out why.

More on the dadhood vibe Russell has pointed out this as worth listening to, I just have and once again he's on the money and I urge you to do the same, it's half an hour long. I warn you though it's as much a tearjerker as the Dick and Rick Hoyt story

 

BACK TO SCHOOL

When we started Here Be Monsters, we had four goals;

1. To do the very best work we were capable of
2. To have fun doing it
3. To get some work-life balance back into our lives
4. To make some money.

Although we've never formally prioritised them, I think that would be the order. Well, that's the order I'd put them in anyway.

Today, I'm not going into the agency, I'm spending the day at my son's school instead. I'm going to help out, but really I'm hoping I can get an insight into how to think like a 4 year old from a bunch of experts. And if I don't, I still get to hang out with one of the most important people in my life and I get to tick off 2 and 3. Of course it does mean I'll miss coffee morning, again.

the most excellent CR blog

There's some great stuff over at the CR Blog right now, gawd bless em.  For starters there's Micah Wright's satirical remixes of WWI and WWII propaganda posters.

And if that's not enough, they've done a round up of their favourite videos of 2006.

why don't creatives blog | 2

Over at Beeker's fine blog she's taken it upon herself to find some creatives who do blog, well she picked the brains of someone else (fine planner behaviour of course), a mate and a rather glam headhunter, who came back with the following (some of you, of course, I already know, but the others I would like to).

• http://creativeinlondon.blogspot.com/
• http://whatiftheydid.blogspot.com/
• http://www.adsareboring.blogspot.com/
• http://www.niazipan.com/
• http://branddna.blogspot.com/
• http://www.scampblog.blogspot.com/
• http://gwenyip.blogspot.com/

If anymore of you are out there then I'll be glad to list you.

I seem to have started something here, and oh, big thank you, Beeker.

sign of the times indeed

On the conformists unite blog there's a post about a night round friends this Christmas when the TV was ignored in favour of showing one another their favourite YouTube clips. This resonated with me because on two separate ocassions that's exactly what happened to me. And in one case we managed to convince the host to sell his Dell and get himself a Mac. By the end of the evening the PC was on eBay and an order for a MacBook placed. Yes indeed a sign of the times if ever there was one.

And here's another.

welcome 07

Welcome back, hope you had a lovely break and are suitably fortified to face the new year.  Already I'm loving 07, much is happening at Here Be Monsters, more of which I hope to share in the coming weeks.

Naturally, I used my time to improve myself and did a lot of reading and learnt some really useful stuff  Real important stuff too. Stuff like, sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine (not that different from your average Essex girl then). And that Just 20 words make up a third of teenagers' everyday speech.

Both facts and another 98 more like them can be found here and here