Me so sorry… Now give me what I want!

Okay, so I’m watching SpongeBob Squarepants with my girls this morning: the one where SpongeBob plays dumb to impress Patrick’s parents. Hilarious.

Anyway, on the front page of my morning newspaper Barack Obama is apologizing about Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s fiery comments. Below that story is another headline: “Miley Cyrus deeply sorry for having taken revealing Vanity Fair photos!”

What’s going on here? Why are these two celebrities prostrating themselves upon the court of public opinion? They’ve done nothing wrong. I’ll tell you why. They’re doing it because each wants your patronage. Mea culpa means money for Miley and votes for Obama.

As likable as they are, these two are about as sincere in their roles as SpongeBob is in his. I’m not sure which is worse: pretending to apologize or apologizing at all. Those photos of Miley are tame. Hardly salacious, they’re quirky at best. Even boring. And Reverend Wright’s oratory isn’t germane to any discussion about Barack Obama. And even if it was, whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

So I got to thinking. What if agencies and advertisers had to apologize for doing obnoxious or embarrassing advertising?  Can you imagine? Agency X is really sorry about that last batch of Capital One ads. “It’s a paycheck,” shrugged the contrite copywriter. “I mean…what’s in your wallet?” Or how about if that older black couple in the Cialis commercial suddenly had to apologize for making an awkward film in a bathtub, on a park hill of all places? Talk about ruining the moment. And what about the breathless hottie in that Cadillac commercial? “I’m sorry for finding a way to be as irritating as I am beautiful.” Then there’s the creepy-by-design Burger King. Is he a homicidal maniac or just a repressed homosexual? Either way, can’t I gorge myself on Whoppers without being hit on (or just plain hit) by some bigheaded freak in a robe?

Advertising seldom if ever apologizes. Sometimes things are altered in a spot or it’s taken off the air. There might be a contrite blurb in the press. Yet most agencies and clients defend their work until the bitter end. If pushed they blame each other. I’ve never seen a creative director (myself included) or a brand manager say “well, that was a stupid campaign we did…no wonder sales are in the toilet.” We’re just not wired that way. Besides, the public expects us to spin yarns. Make mistakes. Our embarrassments and foul balls are part of the commercialization of everything. Dumbass commercials -and the right to gong them- are an ingrained part of our zeitgeist. And if these campaigns are as successful as stupefying doesn’t that make them beyond reproach?

I wonder why we demand so much more from politicians and pop singers? Haven’t they been lying and seducing us a hell of lot longer than advertising?

 

Mad Town Revisited. Preaching to the Facebook Nation.

How does the old Steely Dan song go: “And I’m never going back to my old school.”

Well, after 23 years I finally did. On April 24th I accepted an invitation to speak at Professor Dhavan Shah’s advanced communications course at the University Of Wisconsin in Madison. (pictured w/ beard) UW had been trying to get me up there for years and, for no good reason or all kinds of good reasons (I’m not sure which), I always demurred. Selfishly, I’d rationalized that since my folks paid out of state tuition I owed the college nothing. Nice guy, huh?

And so I found myself at the lectern staring out at some 60 juniors and seniors, the future of my business, the new Gods of Advertising! I was as nervous as if I were standing before the Global Product Committee of General Motors. (Speaking to a group, any group at all, continues to be one of the most all-encompassing things I will ever do. Nothing is more exciting or scary. It is somehow both empowering and humbling. Those of you who have done it know what I’m talking about.) But I digress…

The Facebook generation was looking right at me. Hotties and Hippies. The pierced. The hung-over. The ambitious and ambivalent. College, baby! When I had sat in those very seats the only apples we brought to class were for eating and then they were usually burritos. Computing was but an obscure class on the other side of campus, personal computing the odd dream of odd students. Here and now, everyone had his or her laptops open. I wasn’t sure if they were I-chatting or taking notes. Either way, I had to capture their attention. Despite Prof. Shah’s lofty introduction I saw myself as some older, balder intruder.

Perfect. I love a challenge.

What I had for them was a presentation I’d given at Cannes a few years ago entitled “Inspiring Belief.” The basic idea being that great brands created a myth about themselves, which, if done well, turned idle consumers into fanatic believers. I showed a video and followed with a 20-minute presentation.

Without going into it, the class ate it up. And rightly so. It’s good stuff. Meant to be inspiring, not daunting. I’d spent a lot of time on this thing and I knew and believed in the material. Writing it got me my first boondoggle at Cannes. And now it was going to inspire the newest generation of brand builders. Oh, Jerusalem!

After the class the Prof took me on a tour of Madtown. Wildly different but, in many ways, still the same ramshackle bohemia. We paused at the various dumps I called home. Shah snapped a picture of me pointing at my bedroom window on West Doty Street. (see above) We drove by the saloons that started me on a path that could only end in 12 Steps. I remembered working on the newspapers here, all three of them. I recalled my goofy roommates: a Korean exchange student and a farmer’s only son. Of course they adored me. Me with my long hair, an earring, bandanna and Judas Priest concert tee shirt. Sexy!

All those thoughts. And a hundred more. I think now the reason I hadn’t gone back to school was because it reminds me of a time I can never have back. (Insert violin music here)

We closed the evening in a small, glitzy bar non-existent in my day. The cliental were very dressed up. Guys in jackets. Dresses on the girls. Shah told me it was part of a relatively new phenomenon on campus he called the “Sex in the City” phase. Lots of martinis and cosmos. Silky clothes. An upscale vibe with more than a hint of implied sex later. Back when, we drank 7&7s against a juke box blaring Van Halen. Most of the time we went home drunk with a sack of junk food. A musician friend once wrote a song about it: “If you can’t get a girl, get a gyro.” Progress.

Look, I don’t have a moral to this story, or a theme, or even a point. I just wanted to capture a bit of it before another 23 years passed me by. Who knows –the next time I return to UW it might be with my daughter in tow.

Anyone who happened be in that class I welcome your post. Validate my trip beyond these waxed over memories!

Of mice and mad men: ruthlessness and sensitivity in the creative department.

“I do think we are our own worst enemies. Creatives are a cynical lot. Shadenfreud is real in our ranks, and not just in Chicago but everywhere. A byproduct of competition and creative insecurity, it always will be.”

Those are my words from last week’s blog. That is my hypotheses. How else do we explain the sensitivity and ruthlessness we so regularly see in our industry? Often these defects of character are on display simultaneously. I’d argue, when are they not?

While no one took umbrage at my statement, at the same time I counted numerous unhealthy recriminations about ad people, places and things on other blogs. You know what I’m talking about: Accusations that a certain creative team lied about their work. Vicious innuendo linking a creative director and a TV producer. A fallen CMO and that infamous gift of Effen vodka. And so on…

Coming up in the creative ranks at Leo Burnett my partner(s) and I had to compete with any number of teams looking for the same outcome: the agency’s recommendation. And then it was the client’s turn to debate and decide. This process was and is a brutal tournament. The odds are almost always against you. Even the best of us lose more than we win.

It’s a humbling journey necessarily fraught with politics.

Maybe the creative director has somehow seen his work rise to the top…again…at the expense of your work…again. It’s called cherry picking.

Maybe the client is predisposed to buying junk work and the agency, craving revenue, is obliged to give it to them. The cheesy “B” team is more than happy to provide. The copywriter has his eye on a new bass boat. The art director wants her kids in the British school. They know pleasing the client equals pleasing bonuses. Your brilliant work is left to rot behind the dead plant in your office.

My favorite culprit: the brilliant presenter who gets the nod even though her work is undeserving. Your campaign is superior but Kimmy is a better dancer. I’ve been on both sides of this one.

These are a few of the challenges facing us in the creative department. There are more. The result is the same. The winner makes ads. The losers go back to their cubes and pretend to respect what just happened to them.

Any wonder we are insecure and act accordingly?

No agency is immune. And neither are any of us. Who hasn’t purposefully given poor marks to a competitor’s work on Adcritic? Or made a snarky comment about this person or that ad in the blogosphere?

Resentments build. They keep us awake at night. We fantasize and conspire. We remember (sometimes falsely) how the other team won. We forget how to lose properly. Losing with integrity is one of the greatest lessons of our business. Maybe one day I’ll learn how to do it.

What’s the point of this discussion? Like a lot of you I’m passionate about my job. Like you, I think I’m pretty good at it. One blog snark said I once ran up the hallway shouting, “My words are my pearls!”

I’m not denying it. But this discussion is about the slimy mollusk, a far more likely discovery. What do you, Gentle Reader think about all this? One things for sure: If I don’t get comments on this post I’m sure they’ll turn up on someone else’s.

The ECD exodus in Chicago. And then there were…

Paul Tilley vacated his post in unimaginably tragic fashion. But the fact remains DDB has no Chief Creative Officer. And now our creative community in Chicago finds itself beset by two more high profile defections: Mark Figliulo is leaving Y&R for a glitzy post at TBWA/CD in New York and Marty Orzio has resigned from Energy BBDO for an unknown job presumably in New York. Rounding out our foursome would be the long-time vacant spot at JWT.

Is this pattern indicative of something foul or is it merely coincidence?
Let’s review. One man committed suicide. The ECD from JWT was fired. Figliulo is taking an once-in-a-lifetime gig. And Marty Orzio is going home. Taken in the aggregate these circumstances hardly seem related or symptomatic of sea change.

Still, it does beg certain questions. Namely, is something wrong with our city’s advertising community? Last year Chicago’s creative awards show became almost as infamous as the great Clios fiasco in the late nineties. Look it up. Both shows were undone. The Clios are coming back. I am on a committee with other local creative directors to try and resurrect ours. Marty, Mark and Paul were on that committee. Clearly, we have our work cut out for us.

I do think we are our own worst enemies. Creatives are a cynical lot. Shadenfreud is real in our ranks, and not just in Chicago but everywhere. A byproduct of competition and creative insecurity, it always will be.

Yet, I don’t think Chicago is beset by worse circumstances than any other city. Orzio’s beloved New York has not been a Mecca of creativity for decades. And Figliulo is taking the reigns at a shop in more disarray than the one he’s leaving.

Other than a handful of shops around the country, who’s really tearing it up? Crispin. WK. BBDO. Not many.

In short, things are tough all over. But I like our chances –both my shop and Chicago’s. At Euro RSCG, the bleeding from previous years has stopped. And while I can’t rightfully speak for any other agency in town, A number of them are very capable of opening up their creative engines.

Some prominent ECDs are leaving, yes. But look at it this way. Now we have choice jobs in play. Who out there will fill them?

Creativity: “Easy as fishin’ you can be a musician.”

Indulging my sweet tooth for insider info, I came across a comment from an unknown soul (Anne) on Agency Spy. Her commentary surprised me. Partly because it was controversial. Partly because I agreed with it. Here’s a portion for your consideration:

“You know what kills me? That Neil French believes in the idea of creative work being so “blood-sweat and tears” driven, when it’s actually breezy work. No one will admit it. Because if clients realized how quickly creatives can come up with good ideas, perhaps we wouldn’t be paid as much.”

I’ve taken the remark out of context, which isn’t fair to the author. Criticizing that indomitable buffoon, French, she had much to say. But I only wanted to address one aspect of her missive: Do creatives have it easy? Are we, as the author suggests coddled and over-paid?

Lord knows we can make a fine living doing something we adore. I know I do. But I’m not sure calling it “breezy” is proper. Maybe Anne meant “fun” Add that word into her comment and we get a new and perhaps more honest appraisal: “If clients realized how (much fun it was) coming up with good ideas perhaps we wouldn’t be paid as much.”

But wait a minute. Clients do know how much fun we are having. For one thing, we tell them. I do. From the pitch on I proclaim how passionate my team will be with regard to their business. When we show work I get excited. I have fun.

Creating and pitching work is one of the most fun things in life. Those of us who do it are blessed. And, yes, we would create ads for less money. Fact is we do create ads for less money. It’s called Pro-Bono. We are always on the prowl for interesting clients that will let us do interesting work. They don’t pay well. My business partners allow me to pursue these small fry because the work we do for them often attracts bigger fish.

Pitching. Searching for inspiration. Snaring ideas. So much of what we do is about fishing, isn’t it? Well, I happen to love fishing. What could be more exciting that reeling in a brilliant idea or catching a huge client? Now that’s my idea of fun!

However, as the waters become over-fished clients become hard to find and even harder to catch. Very wary, they don’t bite on the first shiny thing they see. You’ve got to know what you’re doing. If you don’t you’ll get skunked.

As far as the creative process goes, most every idea has been done before. All the strategies have been mined. For true insights one has to go deeper and deeper still. Coming up with something new is near impossible. Yet we are asked to do so EVERY SINGLE TIME. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For most of creativity is a labor of love. But that does not make it “breezy.” Otherwise clients would just come up with campaigns and to Hell with us, which is something almost none of them do.

An agency driven by fear is a nightmare.

Who’s worse: The sadistic account guy, who must always be in control? The vainglorious creative director, who cannot take criticism? The Client from Hell, who is never satisfied and always angry?

A triptych of dicks! Egomaniacal yet insecure, if they have one thing in common it is fear. Fear of being undermined, usurped or just plain found out.

Whatever, I’m scared of Fear. It’s a four-letter word. It’s an “f” word. Fear can do more damage to an ad agency than almost anything, even a dress code. Oh, the horror of fear.

By definition the creative process is fearless. Scared people don’t make anything well except walls and weapons. Humphry Davy and Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb to put out a fire. They were looking forward, which is what creators do. Invention is the by-product of an open mind.

Inside an agency, a fear driven person is battening down the hatches. He plays not to lose. Mind closed, he is constantly preparing for war yet, ironically, ill equipped to win it. The Man of Fear often has a big title. He wears it to meetings like a medal. Always on high alert, he justifies anxiety by claiming the client is always on high alert: They hate our ideas. They are talking to another agency. They are angry…again… with us! When The Man of Fear enters a meeting negativity follows him like bad cologne. Never happy, he often loses his temper. Like a pigeon, he shits on work and then leaves in a flap. He can be a client. More likely, as described above, he is one of our own. I’ve known thankfully just few.

Right now we are at the mercy of one such client. I liken his leadership to that of Hitler in the bunker. In denial over his many stigmas, he is defensive and cruel beyond contempt. I feel sorry for us. Under his yolk we are but slaves.

My fantasy: When a client is scared we are not scared with him. For that’s not empathy; that’s stupidity. On the contrary, our job is to help deliver him from that fear. Make his pain go away. It’s damn hard. Instead, we vacillate between anger and anxiety. Otherwise known as fear.

When a client brings fear into the agency we must try to contain and manage it. Face it properly. Pulling the fire alarm should only be done in an actual emergency. It’s damn hard staying cool. Invariably one of us freaks. Anger and anxiety take hold, sort of like those creepy vines in “The Ruins.” Sadly, we become driven not by the urge to solve our client’s problem but by his fear. We become fear-driven slaves.

FDR famously said: “We have nothing to fear but fear it self.” But what’s the great depression compared to a branding strategy dispute?

Upate: Cabot “Tidal Wave”

While the house in long gone (a wind storm literally knocked it down 2 days after shooting!), the actual commercial is being built right now. In less than a month it’ll be complete and I’ll post it right here. So far it’s looking very good. We got the rough cut approved. The CGI house in Paris (Mikros) is creating the tidal wave, deep-sea fish, etc.

Thank you for your patience. And for asking about it in the first place.

FYI: Next week’s post will be about FEAR and FEAR DRIVEN PEOPLE and how they can paralyze a creative department.

-SRP

Ex-Burnett Execs score big in Hollywood. “Truth in Advertising” to air on TNT.

A few years ago, one of my best friends, John Coveny left Leo Burnett -not happily I might add- to join one of his best friends, Hunt Baldwin in pursuit of a career as screenwriter in Los Angeles.

By their own admission, they were running on vapors when the proverbial big break came. The writing duo got in on the ground floor helping to pen a rookie drama called “The Closer.” Maybe you’ve heard of it. Kyra Sedgwik. Emmy nominated. Golden Globe winner.

Anyway, after writing a number of episodes for this top drama they aimed their quills at the Advertising business. The result: an hour long drama called “Truth in Advertising.” Featuring a stellar cast, including Eric McCormack from “Will & Grace,” the team produced a pilot last fall.

FYI: Yours Truly provided John with a bunch of props for the pilot, including real ads from real clients. Effen Vodka. O&I Shoes. If you look carefully, they’re scattered about the fictional ad agency as they would be in ours. In addition, “Truth” used a bunch of my old advertising awards to pimp up the main character’s offices. (I knew all those Mobius awards would come in handy some day.)

A while back, I saw a rough-cut of the pilot and thought it was a gas. Yesterday it was green lit and 13 episodes have been ordered for the cable network. Coveny & Baldwin are not only the head writers but producers as well. The link below has more details.

In 2009 “Truth in Advertising” is going to show what it’s like when a creative director (McCormack) battles suits, mortgages a marriage, chases awards and otherwise tries to keep it real while getting ahead in Advertising.

With all the drama surrounding Chicago’s beleaguered advertising community, I wonder if the truth will be stranger than fiction.

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