Thursday, June 26, 2008

The many faces of irresponsibility.

So by now you must have heard about the infamous JC Penney ad called "speed dressing" and that some have dubbed as a cheer to teen sex, which I believe to be an overreaction. Nevertheless, I do agree that a company like JC Penney would never do it deliberately. It just doesn't fit the brand. That's the way things are in this business, it might be good for say, Harvey Nichols, maybe, I don't know. But not JC Penney.

Just to put you in context, just in case you are not familiarized with the ad it won a Silver Lion in Cannes. Then the client stated that it was an unapproved ad and even Saatchi NY (JC Penney's agency) said they had nothing to do with it, even when Saatchi employees, and even Gerry Graf are credited in the ad. Although the entrant company is not Saatchi, it's production company Epoch Films.

Here's the ad and below the credits as they appear in the Cannes Lions 2008 winners.



Type Of Entry: Product & Service
Category: Retail Stores
Title: SPEED DRESSING
Advertiser: JCPENNEY
Product/Service: JCPENNEY RETAIL STORES
Entrant Company, City: EPOCH FILMS, New York
Country: USA
Advertising Agency, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Executive Creative Director: Kerry Keenan
Copywriter: Craig Love
Art Director: Shayne Millington
Agency Producer: Zamile Vilakazi
Account Supervisor: Natasha Williamson
Production Company, City: EPOCH FILMS, New York
Country: USA
Director: Mike Long
D.O.P/Lighting Cameraman: Stephen Blackman
Editor: Joe Guest
Other Credits: Agency Executive Producer: Colin Pearsall / CCO: Gerry Graf

How stupid are we as an industry (and our industry is conformed not only by agencies, but it includes third parties such as, yes, production companies) that in the middle of a credibility crisis from both the public and our clients, we play around with brands just to get an award. Gawker.com makes no mistake when calling advertising an "award-obsessed" industry.

Now the problem is that we let other people play with our brands. Turns out the production company that did this ad has worked with Saatchi many times in the past, working on, yes, JC Penney ads. Probably at some point, either the director or somebody from the creative team had ideas for the brand that could look cool and not be presented to the client. That is, they're meant to be done for the following things: a) Use it in the directors reel/portfolio, b) Use it in the creatives portfolio, c) Use it in the production company's reel, and d) submit it to award shows. The latter carries a certain amount of risk due to client interference. Now there's two ways to deal with this.

1. Since most awards shows require "approval from the client" for every submitted piece, you can go to your client and say in a very political way, "look, we bust our asses here doing everything you ask us to do, and we have this ad that we took the liberty of shooting, it didn't cost you anything, in fact we split the costs with the production company because they really liked the idea, and we want to submit it to award shows".
That client may or may not sign the release, depending on his conscience levels. If the client is honest and smart he'll say "no, stick it up your ass, you're fired, you don't give a damn about the brand, you only care about award shows". Which by the way, is what most clients think about creatives. The other type of client would say "what the hell, I already have you do everything I want, go win your stupid awards, I don't give a damn about them, go kiss each others asses and when you come back I'll have you doing the same retarded stuff that I've always asked for".

2. You can skip the client part, talk to a buddy at the award show or create some fake release form and "ta-dah", you've got yourself a shortlist and most likely a winner, because If you're going through the trouble of creating a ghost ad with no client approval it better be as good as to win something. Then you can have the bad luck these guys had when a little thing called You Tube spread the ad online until it reached some guy in Texas who works for JC Penney and went, WTF?

There's a third way, which is never to do ghost ads. But that's stupid isn't it, how would we get those awards?

Now the speed dressing ad is ranked number one in Creativity's top 20, although they do mention that it's a controversial "supposedly fake" ad. Anyway, this is not the first time Creativity features ghost ads. Here's another example of an ad done by the same production company for the same brand and that never ran. I first saw this on Creativity's top 20 some months ago.



I'm not going to go into the moral issue of the ad, whether the kids are too young or not, or if it directly condones teen sex and if that is bad or not. That is another issue. The one I'm trying to touch here is the fact that the industry can be hugely irresponsible, we play around with brands like it has no consequences.
Whether we like it or not, when we are empowered with brands we are given a huge responsibility. And I'm not saying we should do what the client says. But we have to be honest about out job, which by the way, is not winning awards. I've said it before and I'll say it again, awards should merely be a consequence of great work. Work that's been approved and that's been out there to communicate with people.

Everybody has bad clients and everybody has to get through them, and a campaign that wins awards despite everything is a million times better than the one created as a ghost, no matter what the creative says. It is a very dangerous thing that with the industry being so unpopular there's people gambling with brands. These actions have consequences.

Here are some links to other articles on the matter.


Creativity Online article here.


Ad Age article here.


Gawker.com article

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The rebirth of the concept.

Yesterday I wrote a rather aggressive entry about the Cannes 2008 winners. And I stand by it. I just want to add that although there is a concept crisis in traditional media (print, TV, radio...) I have recently been reviewing the work awarded with Titanium and Integrated Lions, which if you don't know what they are, here's an accurate description from the Cannes Lions site:

"As introduced in 2007, one jury will judge two different types of entry - Titanium entries for breakthrough concepts and Integrated entries for state of the art integrated campaign entries.

Integrated Lions and one Integrated Grand Prix will be awarded to the highest standard state of the art Integrated Campaigns using three or more different media.

Titanium remains in its purist form and stands for breakthrough ideas. It’s for work that is provocative and points to a new direction. It’s for work that “causes the industry to stop in its tracks and reconsider the way forward”.

Titanium entries are not restricted to a set number of executions or types of channel and there is no limit to the lengths of execution or the media used.

The jury may award Titanium Lions and a Titanium Grand Prix if appropriate to entries in this section.
You don’t have to specify whether you are submitting to Titanium or Integrated when entering. All campaign entries will be considered by the jury for Integrated Lions or Titanium Lions.

There are no categories in Titanium and Integrated Lions. The idea is everything, whether it’s for a car or toothpaste, telecommunications or charity, big budget or low budget."

It must be added that the Titanium Lion GP is also the award that carries the most points with it. Here's the Lions point chart.

Titanium Grand Prix: 12 points

All other Grand Prix: 10 Points

Titanium Lion: 10 points

Gold Lion/Design Lion/Integrated Lion: 7 Points

Silver Lion: 5 Points

Bronze Lion: 3 points

Shortlist Position: 1 Point

These are clear examples of work directed to real people with engaging messages and innovative thinking. Plus, it creates communication and culture. This is the future, this is what we must be learning and thinking. It doesn't matter if it's a TV ad, a print ad or a web thing, a great idea will live anywhere, and will outlive any media.

Take a look at the GP's and winners in the link below. It's also worth taking a look at the short list and while you cannot see the entries on the Lions page, you can go to each agency's website and look for the case study there.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE WINNERS.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The death of the concept.

Well, the worst happened. We are now officially living an era in communications in which to communicate has been forgotten and it's all about the cool for coolness sake.
I'm no expert, and I don't want to sound arrogant here, but the supposed best creatives of the world, those who make up the Grand Jury at Cannes, have decided (for all of us) that the Cadbury Gorilla from Fallon London is the best piece of communication made for film this year. The best. Along with Halo 3. There was a tie. But still, the best. Wow. Let me recap here, it's 60 seconds of a Gorilla playing the drums (I think I'm quoting myself from a previous post) to a Phil Collins song (the sarcastically best detail of the ad), and then the tag line says "a glass and a half full of joy". So there's no connection to the product, they are saying nothing. It doesn't communicate anything! And when we've come to a place when we don't do the one thing we are supposed to do in an ad, we are really fucked as an industry. You can be boring as hell, but you always have to communicate something. The best ads are those that communicate, and are fun, entertaining, relevant, memorable and innovative. But the first requirement is to communicate something.
This ad could have been a dancing bear and it wouldn't have mattered. It could have been for Sprite, and still the same. The same happened to a lot of this years print winners, awards are being given out to whatever is cool, no matter what the concept is. Hell, it doesn't matter if it even has a concept. There's clearly a big crisis in advertising these days. And the funniest thing of all is that the only ones not aware of it are those involved in advertising. While we are all padding ourselves in the back with our awards (which by the way no one cares about, not the client, not people), there's a world changing out there by the minute. And I hate to sound so old school in here, but this is about talking to people, not creatives, not advertisers. Communicate messages to people to make brands famous. That's it. Everything else comes extra. Awards are cool, they're actually awesome, and everybody loves them, plus, like it or not, they might be the only way to measure creativity. I agree to all that, but awards should be part of the process and not the end of it. I hate to hear "this agency is client driven... Oh, these guys are really creative driven... Such and such agency is strategy driven..." Bullshit. Who is consumer driven? I hate that word, let's say, people driven? Who cares about not what the client says, not what award shows say, but what people really like and want. And it's not about giving them the power or doing entirely what they say, we're supposed to be the experts here, but it's about stopping to patronize them and begin an engaging communication process.

These will illustrate my point better.






The saddest thing of all is to see so many agencies doing ghost ads to win awards. And the worst thing is that there's people who think that this is fair and OK. I just had a recent discussion about this with a co-worker and they said that it was the only way of getting around the client, and the only way of doing good creative work. If this is the way the future generations of the business think we're in deep shit. It's an ethical thing, but the problem is that no one seems to think they are wrong when producing them, but everyone thinks they're wrong when inquired about their ethical nature. Sad thing is, big agencies, small agencies, good and bad and even the best do ghost ads. There's a handful of agencies that believe that the nature of this business is to communicate to people, and if a piece is not created for that purpose then there's no reason for it to live. Even if the client is stupid and the idea was the best one ever, they won't do it. Everyone deals with bad clients, everyone has to get around them. So the problem is that when in an award show a ghost ad wins, an ad that didn't have to go through every filter of the process, it's leaving out other ads that had to, and those have more merit. Ghost ads are the easy way out. If every agency did them, then we'd all have tons of awards. But that's not the point, is it?

The bottom line is we have to wake up as an industry. It's not that there is a creative crisis these days, it's that we're blind. There's more tools towards creativity now more than ever, more ways to communicate, and I really have to say that most of the web and interactive work awarded these days is really good, awesome in some cases. We only have to open our eyes and stop being so arrogant and self indulgent. We have to stop talking to ourselves and start connecting with people. Stop thinking that a complicated print ad is cool and arty because "you have to really work it to get it". This is not art. Disappointing to many but it's the truth. This is communication, and when art may be included into it, great. But communicating is more important. Let's see how long it takes us to wake up as an industry because we've been asleep for a while.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Nick Drake is alive.

He reincarnated in the form of Alexi Murdoch, a Scottish resident of LA who I recently discovered by way of Pandora.

He has a similar voice and melancholy to Nick Drake, it's worth giving it a try. If you want to hear really really sad music.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Oh, Woody.

I've always been a big fan of Woody Allen. I may not be a die hard fan, but I consider him one of my favorite directors, I like his style. And when it comes to Woody Allen there's no middle line, there's either people who love him or people who hate him.
Annie Hall and Manhattan may well be amongst my favorite movies, I even like his 90's era, like Deconstructing Harry, even Small Time Crooks made me laugh. And I've approved his latest movies like Melinda and Melinda, Match Point (which I think is one of Allen's best movies ever) and Scoop.
Now, I recently saw Cassandra's Dream, last year's movie starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, and I have to say that it has been one of the worst movies I've seen lately. The plot os so slow and irrelevant, it even makes the actors bad, a really strange thing about Allen, who can make almost anyone perform well. I had to finish the movie because I always like to see if anything happens, it never did. My wife left me alone with the movie about halfway through it.
Just a piece of advice if you were thinking about seeing it, don't. Or do and prove me wrong.