Over at the fantastic TED site, there's a great video from Sir Ken Robinson who points out the many ways our schools are failing to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people.
"We are educating people out of their creativity,"
It's pretty long at 20mins, but well worth it.
Had an interesting conversation with a client this morning, all about being a creative. And he was surprised to hear me say that being a creative is mostly about rejection. Well, if you care about what you do it is.
You reject your ideas. If you're still working in a team, your partner rejects your ideas. Your boss rejects your ideas. Planners, account people, research groups and clients reject your ideas.
So, if you're going to work as a creative, and you should it's brilliant fun at times, then you should grow a thick skin, quickly and embrace rejection.
Reminds me of something someone said to me about sportsmen and women. The best lose more than the rest.
Turns out to be a good week for work. Here's an impressive online game full of wit and style from a partnership between North Kingdom and Goodby Silverstein and Partners. I love the attention to detail and the depth of the experience. This was obviously put together by people who cared. Full credit should go to the California Milk Processing Board for stumping up the cash.
I don't know much about Nine Inch Nails. I know I don't like their music. I know I love their marketing skills.
To launch their new album, Year Zero, they included URL clues on their tour t-shirts which lead fans to websites that described an apocalyptic vision of the US. Memory sticks were found in toilets with tracks on them. Samples of tracks were played on radio stations unannounced in the wee small hours. Telephone numbers appeared on fan sites. All very clandestine, all very brilliant. All very I love Bees.
I wish I'd done it.
I was watching TV on Sunday night, Channel 4, all about the 100 best stand ups, it was okay, just like all those of other 100 best programmes, but what did strike me was that there is an awful lot of different comedy out there. I mean, a massive variety in comedy tone. And a lot of it is very funny. Maybe all of it.
Then it occurred to me that in ads, with very few exceptions, there's only one type of humour, spruced up in different clothing for different markets, but it's still only the one type of humour - the sliced white loaf of humour. At best it's funny at worse (most radio ads) it's awful, but it's all from the same vein. Even when comedians are used to appear in ads or voice them, they're very seldom do 'their humour'.
I wonder if there's a comedian's version of Groucho House Club, and if there is I wonder what they say about the ad jobs they're doing?
Crispin Porter + Bogusky have done it again it would seem. The joke goes, Coke Zero tastes so much like regular Coke that two representatives for Coke set out to question actual lawyers on hidden camera to gauge their chances of bringing a successful lawsuit against Coke Zero for taste infringement.
Personally the longer edits work best but nice joke none the less.
Above is a freebie magazine from Vice. It's for students and while I most certainly can't claim to be one of them I dis pick it up and had a read. And I'm so glad I did.
Not since the first time I picked up an Innocent bottle have I been so impressed by the writing - no lazy adspeak here, no lame jokes, no pandering to the lowest common denominator. No siree, this was a joy; original, funny and risk-taking.
And before you start, well of course, it's for students, it's a niche brand, they can get away with murder blah blah blah- that's simply bollocks and I'll produce any number of student, niche brand marketing material to prove it.
Sure it's not a tone that's suitable or desirable for a lot of brands (although it is one that's exactly right for them and their audience). But that's not what I was excited by. It was the freshness of picking something up and actually being engaged enough to read more.
Vice writers. I salute you.
This is a bit like finding a fiver in the pocket of the pair of trousers you've just put on, or discovering an old jumper in the back of the cupboard whose style has just come back in fashion.
An old much loved ad from the past that I had completely forgotten about until I bumped into it on Youtube.
A lesson in life in 30seconds and yet it still does remembers who's paid for it for the brand. Can anyone think of anyother ad that occupies this space. Possibly Adidas, impossible is nothing. Any others? I wonder if you could put a self-help book together made up of only ads?
Some very smart, very stupid or just plain lazy creatives working on the Chevy account over the water came up with the idea of letting the general public come up with an ad to be played out during the superbowl.
As if it's not tough enough convincing people that being a creative in an ad agency isn't one long lunch and/or coke binge but a very demanding and difficult job that requires considerable skill and talent rarely found in mortal form.
All a bit like Faking It. Can you spot the commercial from someone who until two weeks ago didn't even know ads are in 30sec segments?
So, have we creatives been exposed as charlatans, or can we sleep better tonight safe in the knowledge we have been vindicated? Well you decide.
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