What price glory?

There's news in the trade press this morning about a Cannes-winning ad for KIA, the South Korean auto-maker, being stripped of its award on a mere technicality. That is, it never ran. You can read about it here, on AdFreak: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/brazilian-shop-loses-cannes-lion-won-bogus-kia-pedophilia-ad-133576

The offenders here are not just the people who created and entered the bogus ad. The offenders include the administrators at Cannes who don't demand proof. They include the judges who obviously over-looked the phoniness of the effort. But most of all, the awards mania of our industry must be blamed.

We make "commercials," whether they're tv or print. That is, by definition, they should have commercial intent. There's nothing wrong with doing something artful, or highly creative in the pursuit of that intent.

But fake is fake.

It disgusts me.

Small talk

I've always castigated myself for being a little socially awkward. I'm not much of a schmoozer. I'm not one who hangs out after work or goes out for beers. When I'm with clients, I'm not a big fan of chit-chat.

Now, I'm on the third day of a five-day shoot and a host of people are here from the agency and the client, and their all on a full-fledged gallop into small-talk-ville. I notice when this happens I am almost invariably off to one side. And like I said, I beat myself for lacking the requisite people skills.

But today I realized something, it's not that I suck at chatting people up. Or even that I don't give a damn. Which I don't. But the fact is, I am old-fashioned. I believe that work, well thought-out, and well-sold is what really matters.

I am focused on other things. I'll leave the tummling to others.

Alex Steinweiss, 1917-2011.

Alex Steinweiss, a guy I had never heard of died on Sunday, you can read his "New York Times" obituary here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/business/media/alex-steinweiss-originator-of-artistic-album-covers-dies-at-94.html?hpw

Steinweiss, according to the Times, invented the album cover. When the record industry made the transition from 78s to LPs, Steinweiss pleaded with his bosses at Columbia Records to do something with the covers. Before that “The covers were brown, tan or green paper. They were not attractive, and lacked sales appeal.”

Steinweiss designed covers for all sorts of records, and the label saw sales increase on some albums ninefold. According to Paula Scher: “It was such a simple idea, really, that an image would become attached to a piece of music. When you look at your music collection today on your iPod, you are looking at Alex Steinweiss’s big idea.”

Here's the part of the obit that really struck me: "Mr. Steinweiss left the music business at 55, when he realized his design ideas were out of step with the rock era."

Somewhere out there there's probably a hipster who's mocked the "coolness" of Steinweiss' designs. He's way uncool.

But he invented a form.

And that's pretty cool.

The past 14 months.

I am off this evening for a week on the left coast, shooting a campaign for my client with Errol Morris.

I've been working on the campaign for well over a year. I've lasted through three group account directors and a series of creative people who, once they saw the vicissitudes of this particular piece of business, packed their bags for purportedly sunnier, more ambient climes.

I've written, over the course of this year, something on the order of 200 scripts on this campaign. Probably half of those I showed the client. After all these months and scripts and meetings and disappointments, back in mid-May, they finally bought three. Those three, somehow survived the self-fulfilling prophecy we call testing and after some more sturm und drang around directors, casting and, mostly, budget, I'm on the way to shooting something.

I've learned a lot running through this client gauntlet. Or, better, I should say a lot of what I know and have always known has been confirmed over the past year.

1. Until someone can do things better than you can, you should do them yourself.
2. It's not dead if you keep fighting for life.
3. Keep coming back with something better. The best revenge is a better ad.
4. Know what you want and keep demanding it until you either a) get it or b) get fired. This is better than compromise.
5. Always do more than you're asked to do. Always try to sell more to your client than they've asked for.
6. Around everything you try to do there is a chorus of chatter that "wouldn't do it that way." It's best to ignore that chatter.
7. Hard work and persistence can overcome nearly anything.
8. It doesn't hurt to thank the client at the end of every meeting and phone call.
9. The people who have never done it before always say they know a better way to do it.
10. Stay away from breakfast burritos. You're way better off with a simple bowl of cornflakes and a banana.

The killer app.

Agencies from traditional to non-traditional are all trumpeting their up-to-dateness. They're built for the digital age. They understand the synchronization of media. The power of social. And so on.

In fact, agencies are getting stupider and stupider because they're looking at the wrong measure of what it takes to succeed today.

But first a true story, that happens to me about four times a year, if not more. I order something from Amazon. Two days later I get an email that tells me they're crediting my account 17-cents because the price of the items I bought decreased after I bought it.

Amazon is successful not because of interface design, creative, strategy or digital acumen. They're successful because they service the shit out of their customers, when and where it matters. You feel like they care.

Agencies do just the opposite.

They shortsightedly charge for every hour, regardless of the size of the retainer. There are no freebees, no experiments on the agency's dime that could help the client. We treat our clients as if we're postal employees. We keep them waiting. We're rude. We never go the extra mile.

The killer app isn't fucking Angry Birds, a mobile app, Web 9.7.

The killer app is caring.

Thoughts from Comrade Lenin.

I happened upon a quotation the other day by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin that made me think of advertising and design. So much design influence now, so much of what we see online is clean and stark and spare. So much, to my content-hungry mind, appears free of depth and heft because it is so clean and stark and spare. So much looks the same because so few (especially those hungry for the glory of spurious award recognition) want to swim against the prevailing tide.

Now, to the quote. "Quantity has a quality of its own."

There are, in our business, products and services that have a lot to say, products that are involved and complex. Visually, a thousand words of copy says that you have something to say. It says, in many ways, you are experienced, expert, that you have a story to tell.

The shibboleth within agencies today is, as it has always been, that no one reads copy.

I think that's wrong.

You read this.

The sounds of morning.

I am in early this morning. I expect to see no "colleagues" for two hours. That's ok. I like the quietude and concentration the morning brings. I like getting in and doing the things I have to do, that, I believe, only I can do. I like the sounds of an empty office.

This morning I am in early to do a bit of freelance that's been uncharacteristically hanging over my head. I've been doing something I seldom do, procrastinating.

I pictured on my way in the blank piece of digital paper I will fill, with I hope, the right thoughts, words and emotions. I remembered back 20 years when we would clackety clack roll in a sheet of white paper into our Selectrics. I remember the reassuring whirr of the machine's motor and the rapid imprint from its type-ball. The ding at the end of a line of words and back again filling in another row.

Those sounds are gone now. My MacBook doesn't whisper me company. But that's ok. I have copy to write.

Electrical supply truck, NY, NY.

Are you still in Ad School?

When I was a kid in the business, there were basically two or three advertising schools where you could put your book together under the aegis or tutelage of someone actually working in the business. If you lived around New York, you went to the School of Visual Arts. If you lived on the west coast, you went to Art Center. Today, of course, there are dozens of schools where you can put your book together.

But to my mind, school doesn't matter, schooling does.

Over the past few months I've been involved in a variety of projects with a variety of notable creative people. What I've found, and this is obvious, is that it pays to shut the fuck up and see how they work.

None of the creative luminaries I've been working with are young. One has probably 60 years in the business, the other has probably around 40. Another also has been working 40 years or more. How do they approach things, how do they stay sane, how do they stay insane? What keeps them going? What keeps them fresh.

What I've found is watching these guys is an education, a symposium of sorts. They are my ad school.

My best friend's father, when asked how his day was always replied "Still laughing, still learning."

If you're not, something's wrong.

On Account of a Hat.

There’s a Yiddish short story by the brilliant Sholem Aleichim called “On Account of a Hat.” I thought about Aleichim’s story this morning when I sent out scripts with the word “final” attached to them. How stupid, arrogant, fantastic and un-godly it is to use that word in advertising.

In “On Account of a Hat,” a poor traveling salesman, Sholem Shachnah, in Tsarist Russia, telegrams his wife that he “will be home on Passover without fail.” Then, trouble begins. He loses his hat and mistakenly takes the hat of an important official. Suddenly, Sholem is treated by everyone with enormous respect, he’s called “Your Excellency,” seated in First Class accommodations. Finally, Sholem realizes his error, takes the train back to replace the official’s hat and in so doing, misses the train that would have got him home in time for Passover.

Eventually, the story of Sholem’s ordeal gets back to his hometown, and his wife gives him a very hard time. Not about his being away for the holiday or wearing the official’s hat. But about having sent a telegraph in which he promised to be home without fail. The adding of two unnecessary words was outrageous in her view, and besides, how could any human being claim to do anything without fail?

How can any human being in advertising use the unnecessary and outrageous word ‘final’?