I'm that odd stage of the 'idea' disappearing and reality quietly creeping in.
It's that point when you start to think about the stuff you're going to miss, there's always something.
Mostly, it comes down to predictability. The culture you're used to, people you have a relationship with- the friends, the less than friends- and stuff.
While the reality of the new becomes consideration of the unknown. Because you never really know what a place will be like before you start.
The people of course.
There's also the usual new laptops, phones, payrolls etc.
It's also about the tea making culture – kettle or urn?
And, since I'll be riding within my commute, what's the shower like?
It's amazing all the things you really don't know before you start a new place.
Sounds like something recruitment folks could think about to add value and be a bit different.
I'm not one that rejects them out of hand I might add.
In the right location, an actual dealership if you're researching car buyers for example, rather than a faceless hotel room, they can still shed light on all sorts of stuff.
They might only expose group think and reveal what people claim to do rather than what happens, but in the hands of a good moderator, they can still provide great input.
Not least because herd mentality, and the connection between people, are possibly more important than individual (and mostly illusionary) motivations.
No, I fear focus groups because of the response of those that observe them. The clients, suits (sometimes creatives) and even planning folk lurking behind the one way mirror.
I fear confirmation bias. We're all guilty of it, it's as locked into our psychological make-up as social copying or the way we helplessly admire beauty.
Who hasn't watched a group where a client punches the air when a respondent says they love the product because of so and so?
Who hasn't seen a suit do an Irish jig when one person proves the cleint wrong and gushes about the creative route the creative director wants sold in on pain of death?
What planner hasn't felt a rush of pride when one or two people seem to confirm the proposition, or validate that precious insight?
Hands up all of us. We all notice, remember and cling to the evidence that supports our point of view and ignore or forget the tricky bits that seem to conflict.
All of us.
It's axiomatic.
It's why I tend to read the Guardian and others might read the Telegraph. I'm a bleeding heart left of centre type and don't like hearing anything that might support a more right wing view.
That's why we notice advertising for stuff we've already bought. We want to justify our decision.
That's why, when we've buggered something up, the brain quickly re-arranges the version of events our memory gives us to make it less our fault.
When it comes to brain, memory writes our history to make us all winners.
This is really dangerous in agency life of course.
Where everything is subjective, where there is always the conflict between departments, between clients and agency, between 'creativity and selling' (despite one leading to the other).
It's seductively easy to give into The Dark Side of The Force and find the evidence that lets you win the latest battle in the endless inter-agency, inter company conflict.
Even more challenging, we want to reduce things down to clear stories, simple propositions.
We have segmentations that paint a clear story, as if people that think and feel in only one way.
When, of course, life is messy and contradictory.
Because people are complex, contrary beast that say one thing then do another. They do one thing, then do something utterly different the next.
It's quite possible, to quite Orwell and Doublethink to hold two utterly opposite points of view at the same time and not feel it's a problem. Scratch that, it's human nature.
People are hypocrites. Naturally.
Confirmation bias not only justifies bad decisions, it makes us strive to ignore the contradictions and tensions that make for brilliance of real life.
To not make communications full of meat and drama, the stuff people notice and react to.
To make instead, the stuff that's 'right'. To add to the 95% of crap.
The stuff that breeds indifference.
So what to do?
As a human, it means reading more than one newspaper.
It means meeting as many different people as you can, forcing yourself to listen to them and theiur points of view.
As a planner, it means reading less marketing and planning books and more stuff about real life.
Avoiding the same processes for every job, especially the 'proprietary ones' that look to lock out messiness and create fake clarity and 'single mindedness' as soon as possible.
Less looking for the 'insight' and more gathering as many observations as you can.
Looking for tensions and contradictions and embracing them.
It means making friends with people who work in the opposite way to you, people assertive enough to push their own views onto you.
So you can exist in the eye of the contadiction.
And it means carefully horse whispering in research groups, or when data is revealed, so people are encouraged to see the whole picture. Not the bit that confirms their point of view or suits their agenda.
It also means working differently.
Looking to empower EVERYBODY to own the strategy and proposition.
Because the less you feel you thought of something yourself, the less you 'own it'
The brain won't be as inclined to trick you into defending it to the hilt without even realising it.
You won't do something dumb simply because you thought of it.
It's common for folks in this industry to incrediby cynical and have a good moan.
A common source of conversation revolves around how things were better back in the day.
You know, the days before procurement, when life was simple and clients just wanted ads, everyone got to do TV, when creativity flourished, when everybody was paid squillions and Martin Sorrell was just an FD.
To be honest, it's a common symptom in life. The golden age, that happened to be the one you grew up in, the simple fact that the perfectly brilliant stuff in our everyday goes unnoticed, the truth that we take stuff for granted.
The truth is, there are lots of things now that are better than they were, in life and in this industry. Here's a few:
I'm (just) old enough to remember having to fax artwork and documents to clients,I can remember messing around with films and chromalins and what a ball ache it was getting stuff to the press and editing telly. All that pain is gone, everything can be shared and edited with a few clicks.
The hours are generally better. This will never be a 9-5 job, but the days when it was accepted everyone worked ball shattering hours no matter what they had on are going. It still varies by agency, but in general, if you want a more equitable work life balance, you can find one.
It's much less macho. There are more women at all levels, they are treated properly and they are great. It's fantastic for the culture you work in and the quality of the work, thanks to a generally more rounded point of view.
It's not just a young man's game anymore. Young people are always celebrated, and rightly so, they bring new thinking and ideas, but it seems that it's much less likely you'll be consigned to the dustbin when you hit forty. Experience and maturity is cherished more than it once was.
Variety. There are so many kinds of outfits now, you can always try something new, it's harder to get your head around everything, but there's a lot more to go at.
The rise of globalisation means you can work anywhere. Never has there been such scope to travel. If you have a decent track record, you can take it anywhere.
Agencies have had to grow up. They're not as indulged as they were. Thankfully, we'll always have colourful and interesting people, but bad behaviour, tolerated sexism and bullying and general indulgence of prima donnas is a lot less than it once was.
Blogs, twitter and stuff. Never has there been more information available to so many to help them do the job better. Of course, if we're all looking at the same stuff, being better get's hard, but the other beauty of the internet is that there are far more places to fish.
The onset of digital and social media charlatans make it easier to look good if our okay at the job and have an ounce of common sense.
Emails and general digital stuff make is easier to work anywhere. This has never been a desk job and while the new office balls and chains might be feel constricting, the connectedness means you can get out and meet real people and work in other environments more often.
Laptops, the web, social media etc. It's distracting at times, but it's also easier to look like you're working when you're not.
The rise of all users not only knit cultures, they give people with little self awareness the opportunity to hang themselves in public.
Emails also give folks who can't resist being nasty and talk behind people's backs on email the chance to crash their careers by clicking reply instead of send.
The end of company car removes the shame of being famous for being the worst driver in your agency (personal one that).
The erosion of agency drinking culture removes the real possibilty of career threatening dancing, too much honesty or romantic overtures.
I'll be leaving the best account director I ever worked with, the best staff canteen and many great people.
But in this business, you need to change the gig from time to time.
The moment you feel you're not moving forward where you are, you need to move where you are.
The moment you feel the direction of an organisation isn't where you want to go, it's time go.
More importantly, when you have an opportunity that will entail learning new stuff, that gives you a dose of fear. Where you can try new stuff with people you admire, there needs to be good reason for you not to take it.
I'll be doing a commute that will involve a daily bike ride and train, which is just ace. Not only will I get the wind in my (non-existent) hair, I'll get an hour's reading every day.
Because it's Manchester I'll be investing in a high quality rain jacket (someone accused me of changing jobs to break my year of not buying anything rule).
It will be odd being divorced from the creative product, but I've been noticing that media outfits are increasingly owning comms strategy while creative agencies just implement.Much of that is down to creative agencies focusing too much on the pretty pictures rather than what the pretty pictures are supposed to be achieving. Some of it is just down to shifting rules of engagement.
By the way, they're looking to replace me here. If you're thinking of having a go, make sure you talk to me first. I will be very straight with you.
”– you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for"
It's not about wearing the right gear
It's rarely about inspiration
It's not about how funky your office is in
It's rarely about brainstorms
It's about grit
Hard work
In fact, having difficult stuff on, stuff to rub against only makes the chance of good stuff better
The more you have to think about, the more source material
But in the end, it comes down making something bad
FInding what's wrong with it
And making it better
Again
Again
And again
No amount of All Saints gear or the latest stuff from Urban Outfitters can replace honest hard work
It doesn't matter how much natural light can stop you falling in love with the first idea
The quality of your staff kitchen is irrelevant (but decent caffiene can fuel the work)
“We believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people… This is
the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one
breathing next to us.”
This picture captures all that is good in life. My two little children sitting with Mummy in the sunshine, idly chatting as the world goes by.
Will's tufty mane, and the way the light shines right through Evi's fine, candyfloss hair communicate more about what's really magical in the world in a way no words ever could.
Sometimes I recoil from the awesome responsibility of shaping their lives. Clothing and feeding them is one thing, but helping them flourish in this world entirely another.
But when you see your own eyes looking back at you.
When you're little girl shouts "Daddy!!" and nearly runs you over when you manage to be home before bed time.
When you and your little boy go riding on your bikes together.
When all three of you get covered in flour rolling out pizza dough.
When you hold them close when their upset.
When Mummy rolls her eyes at the three kids making too much noise.
When all four of us are killing ourselves laughing on the trampoline.
When we're all painting.
When they're gazing with awe at the tomatos they've grown.
It's not something to ponder or question. It's not work, it's not a priveledge, it's not fun. It's not an endless quest for patience and stoicism in the face of broken sleep.
It just is.
Unexplainable.
Yet perfectly clear in those chestnut tufts and that cloud of illuminated candyfloss.
It's the year 2000. I'm the worst suit in the world.
An account manager spewing out contact reports with typos.
I'm always late.
I get lost on the way to meetings.
My invoicing avoids losing thousands my whisper every month.
All my energy is going into checking tactical supermarket ads.
None of my them ever have a wrong price or typo. It's a weekly effort that makes the myth of Sisyphus seem a gentle workout.
I'm also shy and hate small talk.It will be a couple of years before tells me the obvious, if I'm going to any good at anything, it will be planning.I'm still waiting to be good at that.
But it's still tremendous fun. The people. The banter. The sheer bonkers nature of working in an advertising agency.
My only saving grace is that creatives seem to like me and clients are okay with me as long we're talking about thinky strategy stuff.
We only have two planners in the agency, I never talk to them, have no idea what they do. I don't realise that doing their job is the only thing saving me at present.
Supermarket ads aside, we're in the middle of developing this print work for a steering group of glass packaging companies. They pay okay, but this is all about getting award winning work out the door. This work this year will win an Epica amongst other stuff. It won't re-write the advertising lexicon, but it's pretty okay. Great for hard working, middling Yorkshire agency.
They will also win some more regional awards and, in a few months, I will find myself waking up in the broom cupboard of a tired, art-deco hotel after a night that's mostly a blank. .
The work in development has come from a simple brief, "Make glass the champion of purity inside andpurity outside" with lots of stimulus about how glass is made and how some of brands that insist on glass packaging is made.
I have no idea that this is a task based brief followed by the shaping the development of work as we go along.
I don't know how fortunate I am to work like this.
I have no idea how incredibly lucky I am to work with an certain, all female creative team who are open, generous and happy to teach me.
I don't understand how great it is to be working with a pair of creative directors who are equally generous, who are friends and, as I learn later, defend me to the hilt in all sorts of situations.
I don't know it's because they can see I care about the work nearly as much as they do.
I don't understand that you need to be this good as a creative to be this generous.
Even thirteen years later, it's rare I will work with their like again. I will still miss them.
Anway, the work only needs one client presentation. Beautiful copy with a twist. But the photography is going to be everything.
The shoot that follows is laborious, but we get there in the end.
The images get re-touched and cropped. We have first stage artwork masters.
This is a big deal to the creative directors.
The art directing half of the team, a latin looking character with great vision, a very wicked side and a drawful of engagement rings from previous betrothals is, naturally entranced with the work.
It's true, the shots are beautiful, the copy is minimal, the logo tiny.
Nevertheless, my heart sinks when I see the 'lager bottle' execution.
It was shot on a fridge, but had been re-touched and cropped to death. It looks like it's on a microwave to me.
I showed it to the account director.
To the other suits.
They all agree.
It's not just me, it's a bloody microwave.
So, I timidly head to the creative floor.
To have the hardest discussion there is with a CD. Not about strategy, not about budget, not even about making the logo bigger.
About craft.
Thankfully, when our hero sits down with Mancini )as everyone called him), he finds the potential antagonist has recovered from his choatic week riding a motorbike accross Cuba. His voice doesn't sound like ET with a throat infection anymore and he even looks moderately cheerful.
So I venture the opinion that the lager shot could do with another look.
So he ventures the view I could fuck off and stick to contact reports.
He, naturally couldn't give a monkeys about the craft skills of other contact report generating account folks.
What we have here is a stand-off in the making. He won't sign off any amends, I won't let it go to the client.
But there's always a way.
If he won't trust my eyes, he'll trust the precision skills of his team.
So we agree he can choose anyone is the creative department, who hasn't worked on the concepts, to look at the ad and tell us what they think the bottle is standing on.
If they say fridge, we won't change a thing. If they say microwave, it's back to re-touching.
So he takes it to one of the best art directors. "Pete, what do you think the bottle is standing on?"
"Microwave".
He's not done.
He takes it to four other creatives.They all say the same.
It's beginning to be a bit like Bill and Ted battling The Reaper for their freedom.
After the fifth confirms the awful truth, he looks at me with a half smile and twinkle in his eye, and tells me to fuck off out his creative department.
A day later, we have a bottle on the fridge, along with some bottled water and some coffee.
The microwave incident never gets mentioned again.
That's the thing about creatives, even when you're right, you're not right, especially about pure craft.
It really doesn't matter who says what needs to be said, as long as it gets said.
It's all a game really.
Unless the creatives you work with are twats.
Which means they're probably not that good anyway.
Being from the North of England, where we like what we say and say what we bloody like, you could say that common sense runs in my veins.
And being on the outside of things certainly does give you the luxury to look at the industry twitter twatter with an 'emperor's new clothers' perspective. It can be frustrating not to be in the thick of it of course, but there really isn't much that changes about the job, just the tools that change from time to time and the culture at large we operate in.
With this in mind, let's look at the excitement over 'brand response' that's doing the rounds.
A sat in all agency, for a client you would have heard of, where the media agency described 'brand response' to the hushed room as if they'd just discovered time travel.
It was little like the scene in the IT crowd where they con Jen into showing a box – 'the internet'- in an all staff meeting as a special treat, and got exasperated when no one laughed at her fuck wittedness. They looked at the black box in awestruck, religious solemnity.
Data that shows us 'brand response' is nearly as effective in the long term as 'pure brand advertising', and builds a sales spike nearly as big as pure tactical stuff, is really useful.
But 'twas always thus.
All this talk of 'brand' v 'response' as the latest thing to save us all seems a bit, well planners and folk talking to themselves.
All advertising is about response, it's just that what that response needs to be will vary depending on business objectives.
'Brand' tends to mean freedom to not bother talking about the product, which allows all sorts of self indulgent stuff that doesn't shift units in the long or short term.
Just as direct response, or promotions lalways risk create the illusion if sales effect amongst people who would have bought anyway.
I remember a bloke from Honda saying they never used the word brand, sometimes it's more 'image up' sometimes it's more 'product up' but there is always a real story about what the company makes or how it makes it.
Simple.
Even simpler, to quote David Abbot, decades ago. 'Tell the truth about the product in a way that cannot be missed'.
Every generation thinks it's thought of everything new under the sun. It's rarely so.
Just in case the previous post came across as a bit cynical, grumpy and flea bitten (it shouldn't have, it's simply hard won learning and unvarnished truth with tongue firmly in cheek) here's a much more cheerful counterpoint.
I'm ashamed to admit I'm old enough to remember:
Faxing artwork to clients for approval (used to be a suit)
A sense of magic and wonder at sending my first works email
Having to know what CMYK meant and the difference between a film and chromalin
When agencies were discussing if they needed a website
When everyone was telling clients blogs we're the the future
In short, I may not have done as much with my career as I would have hoped, but I've been doing it for a while and there have been some standout moments of mirth and full on joy.
They outweigh the negatives by the proverbial country mile. The downsides are a Star Destroyer, but the ace bits are the Death Star. You have to be happy with that.
Some of the funny bits have been previously hinted at.
Unfortunately, the mind plays tricks with the memory and the most recent are the most accurate and vivid.
But the great moments of fun and joy can be summarised as, in no particular order, and this is just the tip of the iceberg:
The thrill of watching telly and your stuff (or the stuff the creative's did) actually appearing in the commercial break for the first time. TV is a slog, but it's understable why everyone still wants to do it. It's magic.
But that's trumped by work that works. It's just ace when you know you've actually made a difference to the fortunes of a company. Especially if you've taken the time to meet the real people on the ground in that organisation and know that you've contributed to their bonus, job security or even saved their job in rare cases.
An all female creative team who were just a joy to work with when I was still said account manager. Generous, smart and always not bothered with the male, macho creative thing. I wrote some of my best briefs because I'd talked to them first.
A copywriter who worked in Doncaster who was as humble and modest as could be, yet was quintessentially brilliant. We worked as a 'planner and creative team' most of the time. I still miss working with him
An account director I work with now, he knows who he is
Junior people. It's endlessly invigorating to be around energetic people in their twenties who haven't learned the rules and don't care and always ask why. Mentoring people makes YOU better because you have to justify your own habits and recieved wisdom. And when you see them do well, and pass you in flash of genius lightning. It's wonderful
Creative reviews where you see spine tingling work. Where the brief and all that stuff melts away and you see stuff that's just great. Every creative review has the potential to change the game.
The people. The best thing about this industry is the people who tend to live in primary colours.You don't get into this business to make tons of money. Even the interesting job itself can hard at times, but this industry is mostly populated by great people who you want to be around.
Meeting Fred
Getting to work on endlessly different stuff. I've worked on supermarkets, showergel, womens' haircare, biscuits, football, computer software for labs, glass packaging, banking, cars, engine oil, homebuilding..the list goes on and every new client and new market is a chance to learn something
Meeting folks from around the world
Awards do's. Yes they're self indulgent, yes they mean nothing, but don't deny the fact they're bloody good fun
Overcoming my own shyness and introversion. I'll always fear small talk and big groups, but doing this job has forced me to stretch my limits
Some friends I've met who will be friends for life
The kindness and generosity of the best and most talented people in this industry. I've always found that the very best, who are still good, no matter how senior, to be very free with advice and encouragement. At its best, this industry enables you to do anything
After doing real jobs, like call centres, care homes and waiting on tables, getting paid to look out of windows and think and generally do interesting stuff isn't work, it's a privilege
Pitches. Brilliantly stressful. You never feel part of a team like you do on a pitch when it goes well. The way the fear when you read the dreadful client brief, and the flailing while everyone searches for light to be shed, turns into the joy when that idea comes and you know you can move on something.When you can't wait to get into the meeting room to share your ideas with the clients
Creative people. Sociopaths, awkward, but to be honest, when they're good, the most committed, talented and inspiring people you could work with. Admittedly, the ones who try and make up for talent with ego attitude and the latest gear from All Saints can be a downer, but when they're great, they're really great
I was a failed suit. I was given the chance to be a (haven't failed too badly yet) planner. This is an industry of second chances. Some of the best people and most I've met have had professional car crashes. In this game, there are always second acts
This list is not exhaustive, it's just a few things that spring to mind. It's easy to moan (I do) but we should stop and be grateful
NORTHERN PLANNER 