There's all sorts of psychology type research that reckons we're much happier with a job we feel has a point, where we see some sort of end result (what it doesn't take into account is people that derive meaning from what they get outside of work and are happy to just punch in and punch out but there you go). We also appreciate something a lot more if we've had to make some effort to make it or get it – from suffering the Ikea flatpack to Nike ID.
That's why a good planner wants to get involved in the creative process and involves creatives in strategy. They're not creative wannabes, they know that the only point to an agency is making stuff (yes I know that sometimes our best advice can be about nothing to do with creative work, but how often does that really happen unless you work in a brand consultancy – and if you do, how ON EARTH can you live with th fact everything you do is mostly pointless until someone else makes some sense of it) in the end we make stuff, and there's nothing worse than handing over some thinking you're really proud of and then being told to butt out. Not to mention, because we value what been produced from our own fair hand, creatives will work with a strategy if they feel they've been involved in it.
That's why so many first reviews are exercises in creatives exploring what the strategy should be through different routes – they want to work it out for themselves. Best to let that happen before you burn too many hours
That's also why planners slave over powerpoint charts too much – they want to feel they're making something too.
..and why planners could do well to respect creatives being a bit defensive over their work. Most of it ends up in the bin.
Yesterday was supposed to be the 'Great North Swim indoors' i.e 6 kilometers in pool under two hours, to justify the money sponsors have kindly donated and eradicate my former condition as a mess of nervous energy, carbs and frustration.
I say former because nature has taken things into its own hands and hit me with a chest infection. With any look I'll do it next week, but under hours is becoming more of a challenge,
As the ever lucid John pointed out, the equilibrium of the finely athlete is easily upset. Now, despite the lacing of acerbic wit that laces any Dodds statement, and the fact that my body is far from finely tuned, more of an amateur tribute band, it's true that properly training for sport isn't really that good for you.
A body using up its energy to recover from the damage training does to it can't fight infection as well, a body that is more highly strung than most is more prone to aches and pains. It's a bit silly really, isn't it?
That's why I feel sorry for lemmings in gymns and stuff that workout for vanity. You can see them, not really enjoying second, pain etched on their faces, but pushing on. Then you see the others, mostly not in a gymn, working just as hard, or harder, but you can see the joy in their eyes. Their doing it for how it feels, to feel alive. I couldn't do it just to look good, but when you look like me, there wouldn't be much point – it would be a bit like trying to improve a DFS ad by casting Angelina Jolie…
There's a quote that goes something like, 'History is written by the victors'. That's probably wrong, but basically it says you have to be careful when you read the history of stuff because it hasn't just been recorded, it's been interpreted and and, to be honest, maligned to suit the circumstances of the writer.
That's why I get a little shirty with people who bemoan the times we live in and long for the bygone days when life was simpler, when kids could play outside and we could all have good honest clean fun. It was never like that really.
The thing is, things were not really better, they were just what you were used to. Ask a 20 year old if they would like life without the internet, Sunday closing and even shops closing on a Wednesday afternoon and they'd recoil in horror.
Remember the 80's with affection if you like, bits of the music were good, there was also Thatcher, mass unemployment (far worse than now) and Barbara Whitehouse.
So do be a bit cynical about 'The Golden Age' of anything. Mostly it wasn't, it was just a time when people older than you wished things would stay as they are. That includes advertising. I know there was more money in the 80's, I know you got massive budgets and just put stuff on popular telly channels – but there was also burn out, backstabbing, cocaine and naff people driving naff sportcars. And most if the ads were not any good, like most of them are no good now.
Once upon a time, when I was working somewhere else, there was one of those Great Re-inventions of the Creative Brief. You know, where the boxes get moved around a bit and the their names undergo a little tinkering, before it's unveiled to much fanfare. One of those.
As with many journeys, the end was much less interesting than what tumbled out in the struggle (internal projects are always a struggle aren't they?) to get there. As part of that, the planners actually went out and asked the creatives what they wanted from briefs, and naturally, much of that became what creatives wanted from planners.
First point, the creatives didn't see planning as the people to solve the strategy puzzle, in fact, most of them didn't have much of clue what planners really did. They saw themselves as much more than making the answer compelling, they saw themselves as the problem solvers. You can argue all you want about the fairness/veracity of this view, but it does demonstrate the need for planners to include creatives in the process.
Second point, the briefs and briefings that creatives really found useful were not the bullet hard single-minded ones (despite what they actually claimed), or the ones where someone persuades them to do what someone else wants, they were the ones packed with ideas around a theme, a direction. In other words, don't tell creatives what to do, make them think, just make sure you're making them think about the right stuff!
Nick Southgate thinks most planning blogs are useless. His main argument (I think) is that most share opinions rather than actual fact, which is fair enough but that's actually what I find most valuable as a writer of one and a reader of others.
Facts are my day job, actually that's not true, it's making facts compelling. Facts are easy, great facts are less so, making them compelling bit is bloody hard. That requires imagination and inspiration – blogs are good for that.
One way of working is to get an opinion fast and then test it to destruction – you need a good start, something to get you looking somewhere…so blogs that share good opinions are useful in my book.
The problem is when readers assume what it written is gospel. There are a few blogs that pretend to be The One Truth, that's not healthy, but most are just venturing an opinion and working things out in public. That's good, as long you take them that way.
Remember these? Good weren't they? Who says that brand storytelling etc is anything new? I guess the only thing that would be different now might be each character having their own Facebook account, the book, the extra episodes online, the exclusives and the leaks and maybe even releasing new characters and story arcs to hardcore fans and maybe letting them in on the story.
The dynamic at the heart of the story is unreleased sexual tension. It's not the only beating heart to a good story, but it certainly is a good one.
Like this..
This….
This..
And this…..
And this ;-)….
But it's not in this (nor any chemistry whatsoever)…
Like most good elements to a story, we can relate to UST because we see our own lives reflected back at us. Something ad people and genuine entertainers could do well to remember, we want new stories of course, but in reality, we want stories to talk to us about our own lives. It's just that it's usually more powerful when the context isn't humdrum real life but something else. That's why I get annoyed at so called down to earth, community focused clients wanting to only exist in hyper-reality – people don't want their own lives played back at them exactly. Look at soaps, they are not reality, they're exaggerated in almost everyway.
I wanted to pick an argument with someone who opined that Shakespeare is overrated. Fair enough if you consider the emphasis he gets in schools over other's (even Ben Johnson in his own era), but there's a reason. No one has consistently told us about ourselves in a collection of works like Shakespeare, mostly because he has the knack of dealing with universal truths and issues by placing them in unreal settings.
The debate over Shylock – understandable victim of prejudice or a warning against greed is echoed in arguments today over someone as a terrorist or freedom fighter, layabout or forgotten generation.
Rosalind in 'As you like it' was a great source of inspiration for some work I did on dressing up and being able to play with your appearance and identity – how wearing a costume changes you inside – or brings out a version of you hitherto unknown.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if you're making an ad, writing a book or scripting a film, whatever the setting, storytelling needs to talk to humans about humans in some way to be truly great and in many cases, it's more powerful when it's not 'real'.
By the way, a useful rule for UST is the same as food – if you lick it, you have to eat it.
One of the things being a Dad makes me lament is the passing of those times we could go see a film whenever we wanted. Which was plenty.
However I fully intend to see Scott Pilgrim, mostly for work related reasons. This might sound daft, but I think it got things anyone involved in brand communication need to think about very hard and very quickly.
Hollywood is scared. Forget the record revenue figures and look at the actual individual sales for films and you find they are down. One theory is that people that have grown up on multi platform doodahs and video games just don't enjoy linear, one way 90 minute pieces of entertainment (and there's downloading of course).
What is Hollywood doing? Rather than embracing a bit of complexity and treating their audience as the sophisticated people they mostly they are, they trot out the same old blockbuster crap, aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator.
They turn to ever more incredible effects, refusing to accept that when people get used to the spectacle, they soon found out you've left out an actual story. I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but it's the story that people love. The Dark Knight may have been a sequel to Batman Begins, but it was the story, the depth, and the acting that made it…and it didn't even have a happy ending.
Have you seen Robert Altman's The Player? You should. It's bitingly observant – not just about Hollywood but marketing in general.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should to anyone who is still trying to make message based ads, but don't get smug digital people, you're worse. Some of you believe that people will fall in love in the coolness of your technology. when course that Wizard of Oz moment happened long ago. They're seeing behind the curtain and finding nothing but a charlatan. Even worse, some of you know this but know you can still make money selling this to clients – which, all in all, is just as bad as making Transformers 3, or other even more pertinently as far as Scott Pilgrim is concerned, Prince of Persia.
So back to Scott Pilgrim. It's not a film that blatantly rips off a video game, it's a film that IS a videogame. The plotting, editing, aesthetics have as much to do with a video game experience as a movie. It embraces the new culture, it doesn't rip it off or blatantly ignore it.
That's something marketing people really need to learn. Ignoring how people consume and enjoy culture is bad, papering over the cracks with coolness is worse, it has the opposite effect and, most of all, getting involved with stuff they love only works if you do it with 100% commitment.
Bits of Hollywood are starting to get this. The Matrix is one the first, and best examples, of a complex story told across multiple platforms – the films left much for DVD extras etc to fill in, and even more for forums and fansights.
TV is way ahead of course, with multi-layers and channels. From the depth of the Sopranos and The Wire, to the number of platforms Dr Who is now told across.
That's why I got interested in the apparent green light for film version of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The books are not for everyone, I happen to like them. But a complex story told across 7 books, with yawning backstory for the reader to fill in (or buy the graphic novels if you're that way inclined) with strands that appear in other books, if you can be bothered to read them, just can't be adapted to cinema without losing most of what makes the books good (in some people's opinion.
So they're not. They're filming three movies with on ongoing telly series to wrap around them. Here's hoping there's a video game that complements and adds to the narrative rather than just re-works it.
Of all people, George Lucas seems to be way ahead of the curve. I could write a saga on the prequels and why they were better than received wisdom seems to think, but few would disagree they lost the charm and story of the originals. Yet Lucas has created a mammoth universe you can take as far as you want, through books and games. Some of the games are just shoot em up, but most actually add to the saga and reveal new bits and bobs, if you care about that. And you don't even had to read or play them…you just join in a forum and share with those that do.
Anyway, I'll be interested in Scott Pilgrim because it's a great example ( I hope, I haven't seen it yet but people who have seem to give it the thumbs up) treating your customers with respect and staying relevant. Marketers (and the rest of Hollywood) take note.
An obese man struggling to get out of his Porsche in a car park
Someone about to throw his chocolate wrapper on the floor until he realised he wasn't alone
A very attractive girl admire herself in a shop window until she walked into an OAP
A skinny jeaned teenager in tears on an unspecified conversation on his iphone
A shoplifter sprinting away, security guards in hot pursuit
You see I work only 5 minutes from a large shopping centre, which is fortunate since I'm an enthusiastic people watcher…or maybe I'm just really nosey.
Either way, I find it really healthy to give myself a healthy dose of real people, rather than the made up ones you see in segmentation study.
There's more drama, intrigue and insight in one hour wandering around a mall than any TGI run or blog post.
It's really important not to limit yourself to the usual research sources, or even the more lateral, crumbly little bits on the internet when it comes having ideas about how people behave.
It's dangerous to base your future success on what other agencies are doing or the cool trends you read in PSFK. Original ideas depend on original stimulus – if you just fish where everyone else does, guess where that leads?
There is nothing as surprising, nothing as interesting or admirable as real people going about their lives. It's how you watch them that makes all the difference.
NORTHERN PLANNER 