17.10.2008 by Zoltan

Pastures old for yours truly…

Its been just over 2 years since I joined de-construct London back in the heady summer of 2006. Remember, the only decent summer in northern europe this century? At the start of this year I was given the opportunity to creatively lead and help startup de-construct’s Amsterdam office.

The experience has been fantastic, and I have learnt so much about the ‘business’ of advertising but after 8 months I’ve decided that this city is just not for me.

So it’s back to Ol’ Blighty for me as of next Monday. I am extremely fortunate to be taking up the position of Associate Creative Director of R/GA London. They are doing work that is quite simply unlike any other agency I’ve ever met and I’ll be working on some amazing clients. The combination of (relative) youth and raw desire in the management team was too-good to refuse. Well, that and the fact that they walk away from well paying jobs when the client wants to dilute the idea beyond recognition. These are the type of people everyone should work for, but not many do…

15.10.2008 by Zoltan

BAD08 - Poverty of ideas

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year’s theme is poverty. Rather than comment on financial poverty and helping the under-priviledged, I thought I would write a bit about poverty of truly original ideas in advertising because that is what I know (something) about.

Known politely as ‘inspiration’, and not so politely as plagiarism - largely depending on whether you’re the originator or not - our industry is driven by the fuzzy grey line between the two. There are countless examples, from Fallon’s bunnies to today’s news that BMB is being sued by the makers of iBeer for stealing their awesome idea and ‘recontextualising’ it as a piece of branded content.

The fact is that lot of good, even perhaps great, advertising is the recontextualisation or mashing-up of other people’s ideas for commercial purpose. Contrary to what most practitioners believe, advertising is not often at the cutting edges of creativity, characterised by a few flashes of brilliance in between long periods of failure (being anything but one of these flashes). We’re too concerned with the commerical imperatives of the client to be in the lucky position of being able to fail until we get it right.

In itself this is not necessarily a bad thing. What is a terrible shame is that the industry as a whole is just not very good at giving credit where credit is due. It could be fearful creatives desperately trying to defend their positions/process, or account men and women being good at their jobs to assuage the client’s distress, or project managers trying to manage their never-big-enough budgets. Or it just might be that the person who’s idea you are appropriating just isn’t interested in commercialising their work. And this must also be respected. But whatever the reason, this poverty of ideas - and in their vacuum, poverty of legitimate credit - has to stop.

I don’t have any magic pills that can change any of this, and I don’t think anyone does. Sure longer timelines would help. As well as not working with pedestrian clients wanting just a-n-other “one of those”.

All comments welcome on how we might address this? I’d love to know your thoughts…

08.10.2008 by Zoltan

Terrifyingly close to reality

Still off-topic on the political tip, but at least this comes courtesy of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. They’ve made a whole bunch of ads against McCain, but this is the pick IMHO. And like Tina Fey’s hilarious Palin impressions, its unbelievably scary because the humour is actually just the reality.

08.10.2008 by Zoltan

“A really bad Disney movie”

I loved Matt Damon in ‘Team America’ and didn’t think he could actually do anything better. But he’s back with some succinct observations on Palin’s nomination. A sad indictment indeed on the general state of American apathy and I can only hope that his celebrity will convince some people to get up and vote this November…