When it all goes badly wrong
Some campaigns will always be stronger than others, but I think we still ought to highlight the true pups. Two concepts currently running on the London Underground have particularly caught my eye.
The first is for a product that fights fungal toe infections, called Curanail. In a wordplay car crash, the copywriter has decided that leaving your malady untreated would be "criminail". This gag is repeated three times in a short poster and laboured to the point of embarrassment in this God-awful TV spot: http://www.curanail.co.uk/tv-advert.html Although the agency creatives and account handlers have behaved in a criminail fashion, it's the client who surely deserves to be doing a stretch in the Scrubs.
I'd carve out another wooden spoon for Savanna Dry. The South African cider is running with some of the most convoluted ad concepts it's been my misfortune to see in a long time. Take this piece of copy, for example, which appears alongside a black-and-white photo of a tube escalator:
"Show your SUPPORT for people who don't know their RIGHT from LEFT. Put LEMON in your CIDER. Support a life less sweet. Savanna. It's dry. But you can drink it."
Enough taglines already for starters. But what exactly are they getting at? Answers on a postcard to Babco (UK) Ltd of Gravesend, who import the drink and obviously employ creatives who are struggling to recognise RIGHT from LEFT themselves.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
A lovely piece of creative for The History Channel, executed here in a platform poster on the London Underground. It's promoting a new show called "Just Another Day", in which presenter Adam Hart-Davis investigates the history of everyday objects. The copy - which parodies a long-running Gillette campaign - is as sharp as a razor. And the art direction is a joy too.Friday, August 31, 2007
Smashing read: Sam Delaney captures the spirit of London's adworld in the 60s, 70s and 80s.Back to the 70s for Life on Mars
If you’d arrived from another planet and were hovering above London’s Soho sometime during the mid 1970s, you might have been surprised to see a group of young, drunken and immensely wealthy humans having the time of their lives. These Bacchanalian admen had forged a revolution in their industry and had broken the monopoly of the suits and straight men who’d previously guarded client relationships on the golf course. As they experimented with their creative craft (and a number of illegal substances), they found themselves inventing ads about Martians in spacecraft. The Martians, however, weren’t interested in the admen. They were more concerned about potatoes.
Confused? Well, it’s time to take a look at Sam Delaney’s highly entertaining book Get Smashed, which documents the antics of the adworld from the buttoned-down days of the early 1960s, through to the hedonism of the 70s and the gluttony of the 80s, when the Saatchi brothers actually believed they were about to purchase the Midland Bank.
There were two truly influential agencies in the transitional period of the 1960s. The first was Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York City, which is perhaps best remembered for selling the Nazis’ favourite car – the Volkswagen – to an American nation that had been happily shooting Nazis a couple of decades previous. The other agency was London’s Collett Dickinson Pearce. Both traded in single-minded ideas, strong art direction and an unshakeable belief in the creative product. CDP were so certain of their proposals that they only ever took one concept to a client, who could choose to take it or leave it. Few agencies today would be so bold.
I was talking recently to Glenn Tutssel, Executive Creative Director of branding agency Enterprise IG, who’s been kind enough to host some of my students on a few occasions now. In his view, it’s only big ideas that are truly memorable. If something’s big enough and strong enough, it’s the kind of thing that you can sum up to a friend in a sentence the next day. An example he gives is the famous poster from Jeremy Sinclair at Cramer Saatchi who’d been briefed back in the 1970s to promote sex education on behalf of the government. His picture of a man with a bulging stomach was accompanied by the line “Would you be more careful if it was you who got pregnant?” Tutssel rightly makes the point that this idea stands the test of time. Take away the 70s haircut and cardigan and the basic premise is still incredibly strong. And when you mention the advertisement to a friend, it’s simple. It’s the poster of “the pregnant bloke..”
Another strong theme of Delaney’s book is the way in which advertising was a training ground for luminaries of the movie industry such as Alan Parker and Ridley Scott. This was an era in which advertising ceased to be a science and took on a new artistic and cultural significance. People were exploring and experimenting. Perhaps that’s why the story is packed full of outrageous anecdotes of transvestite chauffeurs, wanton acts of violence and Serbo-Croat account handlers who’d only ever address fellow agency staff in Ancient Greek. I’m sure it all happened, just the way they said it did. Unfortunately, I arrived a generation too late.
Confused? Well, it’s time to take a look at Sam Delaney’s highly entertaining book Get Smashed, which documents the antics of the adworld from the buttoned-down days of the early 1960s, through to the hedonism of the 70s and the gluttony of the 80s, when the Saatchi brothers actually believed they were about to purchase the Midland Bank.
There were two truly influential agencies in the transitional period of the 1960s. The first was Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York City, which is perhaps best remembered for selling the Nazis’ favourite car – the Volkswagen – to an American nation that had been happily shooting Nazis a couple of decades previous. The other agency was London’s Collett Dickinson Pearce. Both traded in single-minded ideas, strong art direction and an unshakeable belief in the creative product. CDP were so certain of their proposals that they only ever took one concept to a client, who could choose to take it or leave it. Few agencies today would be so bold.
I was talking recently to Glenn Tutssel, Executive Creative Director of branding agency Enterprise IG, who’s been kind enough to host some of my students on a few occasions now. In his view, it’s only big ideas that are truly memorable. If something’s big enough and strong enough, it’s the kind of thing that you can sum up to a friend in a sentence the next day. An example he gives is the famous poster from Jeremy Sinclair at Cramer Saatchi who’d been briefed back in the 1970s to promote sex education on behalf of the government. His picture of a man with a bulging stomach was accompanied by the line “Would you be more careful if it was you who got pregnant?” Tutssel rightly makes the point that this idea stands the test of time. Take away the 70s haircut and cardigan and the basic premise is still incredibly strong. And when you mention the advertisement to a friend, it’s simple. It’s the poster of “the pregnant bloke..”
Another strong theme of Delaney’s book is the way in which advertising was a training ground for luminaries of the movie industry such as Alan Parker and Ridley Scott. This was an era in which advertising ceased to be a science and took on a new artistic and cultural significance. People were exploring and experimenting. Perhaps that’s why the story is packed full of outrageous anecdotes of transvestite chauffeurs, wanton acts of violence and Serbo-Croat account handlers who’d only ever address fellow agency staff in Ancient Greek. I’m sure it all happened, just the way they said it did. Unfortunately, I arrived a generation too late.
© Phil Woodford, 2007. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford lectures in copywriting and creative writing at University of the Arts London.
Get smashed: the story of the men who made the adverts that changed our lives by Sam Delaney is published by Hodder & Stoughton: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Get-Smashed-Story-Adverts-Changed/dp/0340922508/ref=sr_1_1/026-0379973-1636424?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188515810&sr=1-1
Monday, May 28, 2007
Word up
Who’s the daddy? The copywriter or the art director? It’s a battle familiar to anyone who’s worked in an agency environment. Designers are notoriously frustrated by the inability of their writing partners to contain their purple prose and horrified when 50 words of lorem ipsum in a dummy press ad become 150 a week later. The scribes, on the other hand, want as much freedom to express themselves as their artistic colleagues. After all, how difficult can it be to change a layout?
In the early days of advertising, the copywriter was definitely 1-0 up. That’s because the whole idea of art direction was actually only borrowed from the movie industry at a later stage. Yes, design was recognised to be important, but it wasn’t institutionalised within agencies. In a world where traditional press dominated, it was something that was often left to staff members on newspapers and magazines, who tended to have very conservative ideas. By the 1920s and 1930s, there was more understanding of issues such as the importance of typography in conveying messages to an audience. And with the later explosion of colour photography in print and the dawn of the TV era, the balance started to shift in the direction of the artists.
The old adage that a picture speaks a thousand words can certainly be true. I remember an ad for Frazzles crisps that I saw a year or so ago which contained no copy apart from the brand name. (Frazzles, for the benefit of readers outside the UK, look and taste like little rashers of bacon.) The ad showed a cartoon pig who was mistakenly sticking a knife in an electric toaster. It’s an extreme example, but there’s undoubtedly a vogue in this era of texting, email and truncated conversation for advertising copy to be reduced to an absolute minimum. The belief is that no one will tolerate lengthy, explanatory copy of the type that was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
There’s a lovely ad for Royal Ascot on the escalator panels of the London Underground right now. The upmarket racing event is known for its sartorial glamour and elegance, particularly in respect of the costumes and hats worn by the female visitors. In the foreground of the ad, we see a lady dressed up to the nines, with the brim of her hat shading her ample cleavage. In the background, a horse appears to have been distracted by the alluring guest and is glancing towards her. The line simply reads “Heads will turn”.
Hats off to the art director, because this is an ad in which design is king. It looks classy, witty and conveys an idea beautifully. But the three words - “Heads will turn” - are still essential. And this is a point that I labour in my copywriting and advertising classes. The very best ads are still the ones where words and pictures combine to create something that is more than the sum of their parts. An example I often show is an ad for a domestic violence charity in the US that was created by award-winning writer Luke Sullivan. It shows pictures of flowers on a coffin and runs with a headline that says: He beat her 150 times. She only got flowers once. There is a shock value because of the confusion between flowers as a symbol of romance and flowers as a token of affection after death. But it’s a confusion that is only created by the combination of the photograph and the writing. Words alone don’t cut it, because without the image of the coffin, we don’t have the association with a funeral. But the picture of the coffin on its own is meaningless in this context and doesn’t necessarily have a relation to domestic violence.
My conclusion is that copywriters and art directors have to learn to live together and will be much happier if they do. If they could manage a smile for the cameras in Northern Ireland after centuries of conflict, I think we should be prepared to bury our own hatchet. As long as it’s understood there will always be a need for some words.
© Phil Woodford, 2007. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is a former advertising creative director who lectures in marketing and advertising at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Faculty of course directors.
Who’s the daddy? The copywriter or the art director? It’s a battle familiar to anyone who’s worked in an agency environment. Designers are notoriously frustrated by the inability of their writing partners to contain their purple prose and horrified when 50 words of lorem ipsum in a dummy press ad become 150 a week later. The scribes, on the other hand, want as much freedom to express themselves as their artistic colleagues. After all, how difficult can it be to change a layout?
In the early days of advertising, the copywriter was definitely 1-0 up. That’s because the whole idea of art direction was actually only borrowed from the movie industry at a later stage. Yes, design was recognised to be important, but it wasn’t institutionalised within agencies. In a world where traditional press dominated, it was something that was often left to staff members on newspapers and magazines, who tended to have very conservative ideas. By the 1920s and 1930s, there was more understanding of issues such as the importance of typography in conveying messages to an audience. And with the later explosion of colour photography in print and the dawn of the TV era, the balance started to shift in the direction of the artists.
The old adage that a picture speaks a thousand words can certainly be true. I remember an ad for Frazzles crisps that I saw a year or so ago which contained no copy apart from the brand name. (Frazzles, for the benefit of readers outside the UK, look and taste like little rashers of bacon.) The ad showed a cartoon pig who was mistakenly sticking a knife in an electric toaster. It’s an extreme example, but there’s undoubtedly a vogue in this era of texting, email and truncated conversation for advertising copy to be reduced to an absolute minimum. The belief is that no one will tolerate lengthy, explanatory copy of the type that was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
There’s a lovely ad for Royal Ascot on the escalator panels of the London Underground right now. The upmarket racing event is known for its sartorial glamour and elegance, particularly in respect of the costumes and hats worn by the female visitors. In the foreground of the ad, we see a lady dressed up to the nines, with the brim of her hat shading her ample cleavage. In the background, a horse appears to have been distracted by the alluring guest and is glancing towards her. The line simply reads “Heads will turn”.
Hats off to the art director, because this is an ad in which design is king. It looks classy, witty and conveys an idea beautifully. But the three words - “Heads will turn” - are still essential. And this is a point that I labour in my copywriting and advertising classes. The very best ads are still the ones where words and pictures combine to create something that is more than the sum of their parts. An example I often show is an ad for a domestic violence charity in the US that was created by award-winning writer Luke Sullivan. It shows pictures of flowers on a coffin and runs with a headline that says: He beat her 150 times. She only got flowers once. There is a shock value because of the confusion between flowers as a symbol of romance and flowers as a token of affection after death. But it’s a confusion that is only created by the combination of the photograph and the writing. Words alone don’t cut it, because without the image of the coffin, we don’t have the association with a funeral. But the picture of the coffin on its own is meaningless in this context and doesn’t necessarily have a relation to domestic violence.
My conclusion is that copywriters and art directors have to learn to live together and will be much happier if they do. If they could manage a smile for the cameras in Northern Ireland after centuries of conflict, I think we should be prepared to bury our own hatchet. As long as it’s understood there will always be a need for some words.
© Phil Woodford, 2007. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is a former advertising creative director who lectures in marketing and advertising at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Faculty of course directors.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
If your brand were a person, what would the upshot be?
Later this week, I’ll be hosting a workshop for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in London on the ways in which marketing communication is changing. It’s a chance to give professionals in the field an overview of new media and techniques. Everything, in fact, from blogging and podcasting through to guerrilla advertising and alternate reality gaming. Should be fun.
While preparing material for the course, I chanced upon a brand called Upshot Energy – an American drink that packs a lot of power in a small bottle. Upshot have been doing quite a number of interesting things recently, including miniature rock concerts where they crammed a band into a tiny lorry and took them out on the road. Lots of energy, you see, in a small space. Passers-by could watch the musicians perform through glass panels.
Even more interesting is Upshot’s appropriation of myspace.com. Of course, they aren’t the first business to have seen the potential of so-called social media, but their page at www.myspace.com/upshotenergy is interesting on two levels. First, they’ve very successfully adapted to the milieu of the myspace crowd through their extravagant and garish approach to graphic design. Just as importantly, however, they’ve also managed to create a personality for themselves. They unashamedly declare themselves to be a 25-year-old female living in Santa Cruz. Just the kind of person, I would hazard a guess, who typifies their key target audience.
This reminds me of the kinds of questions that get asked at focus groups. If this car were a celebrity, which celebrity would they be? If this celebrity were a car, what kind of car would they be? Brain teasers like this are beloved of agency planners and market researchers as they often reveal surprising things that will never come out in a straightforward discussion. Usually you find out quite unpleasant things that you’d rather not have heard. What Upshot are, in effect, saying is that brands can actually become people on the web. All they have to do is act like an individual rather than a product or a business.
We discover that Upshot would love to meet Mini-Me from Austin Powers and trade blows with martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Her star sign is Cancer and she describes herself as a swinger. All in all, she has a more rounded personality than many of her fellow myspace contributors and you can’t help feeling that it would be nice to meet up with her sometime real soon.
Hey, maybe next time I’m over in Monterey Bay? It would be like so cool to call Upshot up and head to The Wharf and like chill together.
© Phil Woodford, 2007. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford lectures in advertising at the University of Westminster in London and teaches copywriting and creative writing at University of the Arts London. www.philwoodford.com
Later this week, I’ll be hosting a workshop for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in London on the ways in which marketing communication is changing. It’s a chance to give professionals in the field an overview of new media and techniques. Everything, in fact, from blogging and podcasting through to guerrilla advertising and alternate reality gaming. Should be fun.
While preparing material for the course, I chanced upon a brand called Upshot Energy – an American drink that packs a lot of power in a small bottle. Upshot have been doing quite a number of interesting things recently, including miniature rock concerts where they crammed a band into a tiny lorry and took them out on the road. Lots of energy, you see, in a small space. Passers-by could watch the musicians perform through glass panels.
Even more interesting is Upshot’s appropriation of myspace.com. Of course, they aren’t the first business to have seen the potential of so-called social media, but their page at www.myspace.com/upshotenergy is interesting on two levels. First, they’ve very successfully adapted to the milieu of the myspace crowd through their extravagant and garish approach to graphic design. Just as importantly, however, they’ve also managed to create a personality for themselves. They unashamedly declare themselves to be a 25-year-old female living in Santa Cruz. Just the kind of person, I would hazard a guess, who typifies their key target audience.
This reminds me of the kinds of questions that get asked at focus groups. If this car were a celebrity, which celebrity would they be? If this celebrity were a car, what kind of car would they be? Brain teasers like this are beloved of agency planners and market researchers as they often reveal surprising things that will never come out in a straightforward discussion. Usually you find out quite unpleasant things that you’d rather not have heard. What Upshot are, in effect, saying is that brands can actually become people on the web. All they have to do is act like an individual rather than a product or a business.
We discover that Upshot would love to meet Mini-Me from Austin Powers and trade blows with martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Her star sign is Cancer and she describes herself as a swinger. All in all, she has a more rounded personality than many of her fellow myspace contributors and you can’t help feeling that it would be nice to meet up with her sometime real soon.
Hey, maybe next time I’m over in Monterey Bay? It would be like so cool to call Upshot up and head to The Wharf and like chill together.
© Phil Woodford, 2007. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford lectures in advertising at the University of Westminster in London and teaches copywriting and creative writing at University of the Arts London. www.philwoodford.com
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