There was a period, a long period, back in the history of advertising when certain things held true. An ad could give advice, for example, or have an opinion and the agency would be pretty certain it would be received as intended. If they made a claim that doctors smoked cigarettes because they were good for your health then you and I would simply just accept this as a fact. If the agency, on behalf of their corporate overlords, assured us that the oil pouring out of a hole in the seabed was actually beneficial to the sea life, well, who could doubt the printed word?

Authority was absolute. At least for the purposes of selling.

The change in behaviour, however, was coming. Our relationship with consumerism and the companies which provided us with product after product was bound to be affected by mass media which showed us different cultures and the impact of our actions upon them. We were given the means through which we could see, test and then question the decisions our political leaders made and we could organise like never before.

These insights into how authority operated affected our relationship with advertising. Like seeing the flaws in a parent as we get older, so were we able to see how misleading the claims of advertising could be.

The past ten years has seen change of this sort again but at an unprecedented pace. The Internet has begun to affect us in ways we were not prepared for and still don’t truly understand. It may well be decades before we adjust to modern life, if such a thing is even possible anymore.

Businesses, and the advertising agencies which represent them, have reacted in different ways. A tiny few have embraced, and appear to understand, the responsibility granted by social marketing but many still adhere to the Authority model, filling their pronouncements so painfully with jargon as to make it appear archaic.

The reasoning, I believe, comes from too much love.

The people who work with these brands all respect the process too much. If a decision is made to make bottled water from tap water then, because they understand the process then they respect the decision. It’s the same logic that swallows the line about a company’s interest being its customers so why would it ever do anything to jeopardise that interest.

The balance comes not from cynicism, however. This leads to being unable to sell what the company has to sell. A cynical creative is one not in a position to see the good in a product that might lie beyond the jargon-filled nonsense.

The balance comes from questioning authority, from demanding it to explain itself in terms you can understand and by using talking points and conversation starters, not declarations.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Forgive the headline. I just wanted to be sure I got your attention.

It’s graduation season when, as the doors open and hats settle, us employers are treated to an onslaught of applicants seeking out “opportunities”.

Most of your applications take the same form: an email expressing hope for any opportunity and urging the reading of the attached covering letter, cv and portfolio.

Your letters are earnest and hopeful.

Lazy bastard students.

I don’t want earnest and hopeful. I don’t want a covering email telling me to read a covering letter. I don’t really want your CV but if you do send it then design it to have impact. Your one brief in this is to sell yourself. From email to portfolio. Sell sell sell.

Why?

Because I want to notice you.

I want you to show me you can think up the sort of concepts I have to sell to clients.

I want to see what you might be capable of.

Why?

Because I’m a lazy bastard employer.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Microsoft seem unable to commit

Now you see it, now you don’t. Microsoft released their new branding device and company tagline yesterday.

And then withdrew it.

It drew the usual polarised opinions on Twitter and then, just a few hours later, was taken down. The tagline was for real but the logos, which showed the Microsoft product family, were not, in fact, new logos. Rather, they were an example of “a standalone treatment to show the flexibility of joined brands” (Engadget).

The opinions, the polarisation, the hate, all of these are de rigeur for any new brand these days. When opinions (such as mine) can be released and propagated within seconds, it’s inevitable. What’s interesting, to me at least, is that Microsoft chose to withdraw them.

Brand design is such a personal art. You either love the logo or you don’t really care. Even the haters will continue as usual once their bile has sunk back again.

So why would Microsoft back down?

When it comes to creating logos to reflect brands, many companies, large or small, want to please everybody. They want something that (as Steve Jobs once proposed) becomes a jewel. Everybody loves jewels. They sparkle, attract our attention and are worth a fortune.

What’s more, we love them instantly.

Open the box and what do you see? That’s right, treasure. And desire plays out upon our faces. It’s the reaction beloved of companies.

When that reaction is lessened, for whatever reason, a company can be thrown into turmoil. They sense a lack of love and fear that will reflect upon their business.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft would do the same.

With Apple being the… ummm… being so well loved by consumers, Microsoft feel threatened. Witness the constant faltering and self doubt over many of their product launches lately. They get buzz but then lose it through the self doubt and inaction. Apple announce a product and then release it. Apple love themselves, Microsoft don’t.

They need to realise that many people are happy with what they produce. It might not be passionate, it might not be vocal.

But they show commitment nonetheless. They should understand that self doubt is infecting their brand more than any perceived criticism.

A little self-love would inspire far more confidence than the efforts of analysts and graphic designers.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Many years ago, I thought I wanted to be a teacher.

The idea of engaging with young minds, being inspirational and starting my own religion and army certainly influenced the decisions I was making around that time. The application form seemed like a formality.

Wanting to capitalise on every advantage I might have in order to wow the course leaders I drafted in the assistance of my sister, already a teacher and a formidable and persuasive presence in her own right.

With her help I wrote a letter filled with the terminology of the day. She knew what boxes to tick and I wasn’t afraid of ticking them all. Attainments, engagements, inspirings – I grabbed them all.

Secret weapon deployed I sat back and waited to be called for interview.

Now, if you are with me so far then you’ll be expecting there to be no interview. You’ll expect me to turn this around and show how getting someone else to do all the work for me didn’t pay off in the end.

If that’s the case then you’d be wrong.

I did get the interview.

Within weeks I was sat in a room at Manchester University going through my application with two of the course leaders.

They asked me a question, a simple enough question:

“Why do you want to be a teacher?”

Easy.

I’d had the same question back on the application form.

I couldn’t, however, remember what I’d written. Something about shaping minds, being interested in educational development – that sort of thing.

So I started to talk.

I opened up about why I wanted to teach. I told stories of the teachers who had inspired me. I talked about my genuine, heart-felt love of English.

I don’t think I mentioned wanting to raise an army.

But I had their attention.

It was only a matter of time before I had my own school. Screw post-grad diplomas. I was on fire.

At the end of my outburst one of the teachers asked me why I hadn’t written all that in my application letter.

That floored me.

So I told them the truth.

I took a deep breath and explained that my sister helped me because I really really wanted to be a teacher and because she was a teacher she knew what other teachers wanted and why they wanted it. She knew the language used in all the literature and then copied by other teachers and so, I explained, I assumed that using all that knowledge in one massive burst of jargon would help me get an interview.

The course leaders listened and then told me one thing: that I nearly didn’t get called for interview because my application was so obviously not my own words.

It was quite the lesson.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes, when I’m reading through a website or a brochure, I wonder what the writer was thinking about.

I’m not sure it was about the job in hand because more often than not it feels as though the writer doesn’t believe in what they are selling.

Which would be fine if they weren’t a writer.

Consumers are allowed, expected even, to be cynical about a product.

Writers aren’t.

They must be the most gullible people in the world because they have the hardest job.

They need to convince themselves that a product is the best thing since sliced bread.

Sometimes that isn’t easy.

But really, when you think about it, it’s something we all do. A lot of the time at least.

Look in the mirror in the morning and within a few minutes you’ll have convinced yourself you are the best looking dog in town.

And you’re not. I’ve seen you and believe me, you’re not.

Not that it matters what I think of course. It’s your face and if you think you’re the best looking dog then you’ll find it a lot easier to convince others of that.

Copywriting is the same.

We get all manner of products thrown our way and many, on the surface, seem a little, well, rubbish.

We can’t tell the client that of course. The evil mercenary in us just wants to take the money and run.

So we have to look a little harder and find what it is the client sees in their own product.

Along the way we’ll produce a list and perhaps end up seeing more than one great thing about it.

We’ll have convinced ourselves.

Convincing others is easy.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

I read copy.

A lot of copy.

I even call it “copy”, something you might only do if you read it and work with it.

Give me a bottle of milkshake and I’ll be turning it over to see what there is by way of.. you guessed it… copy.

I get a bit of a kick when I read something more than the ingredients. Although, if the ingredients are well written then I’ll even get a kick out of those.

What I find, when reading all this incidental copy – what many people might term “blurb” – is that more often than not it is just a space filler, without being honest enough to tell you it’s a space filler.

I’d love to squint at a pack to see the copy say something like:

“I don’t know why you’re reading this but thanks. The boss told me he didn’t like all the white space the designer was using and so could I do something about it. So here it is. I hope you’ve enjoyed it but don’t be too hard on the designer, white space is nice too.”

That would be fun. That would make the time I spent reading it a little bit more pleasurable because, let’s face it, if you are reading the back of a packet then either the instructions were really hard to find or else you are just a little bored and so in need of a pickmeup. Someone who will chat to you until the microwave pings or the slug pellets have all emptied out.

It isn’t difficult for a product to fill that need.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

I can’t argue with that.

What I would add, however, is that the same drive, the same talent, can be found alive and well within the games industry.

If the search for experience, and giving people the ability to access and understand that experience isn’t just as worthy of the “art” tag then I’ll be Pollacksed.

Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Modern Warfare – these are brave strides into understanding and relaying the human experience in a way that can be accessed by millions.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

My phone isn’t very good at making calls. I wouldn’t swap it for another.

I have a computer that isn’t very comfortable to type on. But that’s ok. Because I have another that is. That one just doesn’t show video very well.

Luckily I have a solution for that. I have a third computer that is perfect for typing and has a great screen. Everything looks amazing on it.

Only, it’s not portable.

Many people won’t go to these extremes of course. Many people will have one computer that does more or less everything they need, more or less satisfactorily.

I have a TV like this. It’s not flat. The colour is fading and the sound gives the sensation I’m sat in another room.

I’m ok with that.

Most things in life are about balance, about finding the one thing that matters most to you and just accepting the failings of the rest.

Sometimes advertising has to face up to this fact too.

You listen to a bunch of really cool things about a product and you realise that for every cool thing, there will have been a compromise. It could be screen size, it could be portability.

It will be something.

The trick is to understand what matters most and focus on that.

You can’t be everything to everyone.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been riding a bicycle. After more than thirty years I thought it time to saddle up and try again. Ok, that’s not strictly true. After more than thirty years I was persuaded to try it again.

And yes, they lied. You do forget.

Still, the excitement remained the same. Triggered from the first sound of the chain ticking ; an over-wound clock catching up the years since my last, childhood ride.

It’s a powerful thing, memory. Try as we might to hold onto a moment we find it can slip away whilst other, less desirable memories hold on.

I can’t remember my first kiss even though that is the one thing everyone claims to remember.

I do remember the first time I snuck a book beneath my pillow and, as the sound of footsteps receded, brought out Bobby Brewster and his typewriter to read by the fading light. I remember it because I went to the library on my own that day. I know I wouldn’t have cared about holding on to the memory. I just did.

Advertisers plunder our memories mercilessly. The first kiss image is used time and again to urge us to relate to things things they want us to imagine never forgetting. The not so subtle implication (and why should advertising be subtle?) being that their product is unforgettable.

As a creative it is often important to be able to find that common demoninator of human memory in order to leapfrog the work needed to make people understand the relevance in your message.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Everything in life can be boiled down to a scene within a movie. Worse still, everything can be gently steered towards a scene within a movie.

This simple, but invasive truth is colouring every move I make.

When a friend tells me about teaching English as a foreign language I immediately think of the scene in Good Morning Vietnam where – well, if you don’t know it then chances are you should probably leave this blog for now.

Similarly when I’m mid-flow in an argument I might say something straight from a film. I do. I can’t help it. If the time is right then it just has to play out that way because it felt so good when I saw it played out by Pacino or, ummm… Cage.

It doesn’t stop there.

I’ve even steered an argument towards being able to deliver a line. I haven’t yet managed the “sell crazy someplace else” line but I know exactly how I could push someone towards it.

Clearly, there’s a problem.

The thing is, life and relationships are one thing. It’s easy to start arguments just to be able to deliver a killer line. Life and relationships aren’t serious enough to take steps to prevent myself from doing it.

But creativity, dear god creativity, is.

Imagine my horror, yes, the horror, the horror, as I stare at a piece of copy I’d spent five WHOLE minutes on writing only to realise that somebody else had written it before me.

It’s embarrassing is what it is.

It’s also an area to be keenly aware of throughout the creative process. Sometimes an idea can feel so good, so reassuringly familiar, that it must have been done before. And often it has.

Death is not the end of course and our culture is filled with talented people who make use of this creative saturation and make it their own. Look at Spaced – filled with snippets of other works it remains decidedly its own creature throughout. Self-awareness, keenly expressed, is its hallmark and its creative territory.

Then there is the love-him-or-hate-him Tarantino whose oeuvre is built upon references to popular (and not so popular) culture. Again though, it’s his own spin on these things. His own experience which is brought to bear upon the subject matter that makes the difference.

And that, in the end, is key. It is experience which guides our hand in all these matters. Personal experience. And that’s something that turns a mediocre argument into a divorce settlement.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.