Onslaught - 2007 - 2023

Well of course I love this next commercial and the values it stands for, but as I've said in the comments over here and here, and indeed to the client Unilever (the owners of the Dove brand), I don't think it's honest for a multinational to put 'keep-it real-credentials' in the 'Campaign for real beauty' while they sell skin whitening creams to among others, Indian subcontinent and South East Asian countries that are by nature blessed with dark skin.

Just doing the focus groups for these kind of products can be quite tough for those of us who think a bit about the effects on the culture of the societies that we make advertising for. Take Thailand for example, based on qualitative research, some office secretaries (for example) will choose who they take to lunch in a group based on the whiteness of skin.

The darker skins are considered too 'rural' for those who want to climb the whiter skinned ethnic Chinese communities that effectively run S.E. Asia in business terms.

The aspiring English classes also used to take a dim view of darker skin in previous centuries because it indicated an agrarian lifestyle working in the fields. So I'm not trying to speed up cultural and media literacy development in these countries (or maybe I am), but I am suggesting to Unilever that specifically on it's skin whitening creams, it puts a disclaimer on ALL those products that Unilever embraces skin of all colours.

Otherwise its a bit hypocritical to be a campaigner for real beauty, when it's fake beauty and discrimination that powers one of the fastest growing skin care categories in many parts of the developing world.

Update: I see that the original video was pulled for copyright reasons but that a remix is now resurfacing for the same issues of resource exploitation but this time the targets are Nestle.

Email Subscribers Take Note

When Google disposed of their RSS Reader, it was not because of cost. It's because Google are evil as GOG and didn't want those of us who were learning at the speed of light to use their platform to do it.

It staggers me that the flaccid marketing communications crowd, populated by some very astute brain power, haven't commented once that the censorship on Google has turned a world class search engine into a clown-tool, suitable for the most bland information approved by big tech, big-pharma and small noodle or very large porn.

I would hate to be in a big media job as the world learns they've injected themselves with toxic, DNA chemicals.

Money can't buy you trust.

Those days are over and you burned yours while someone fiddled.

Book mark me.

My Life in Advertising

I donʼt think that this should be a guide towards getting into advertising - if anything it should serve as a how-not-to-do-it with a few nuggets picked up along the way.

As a friend of mine put it some years back when I declared my occupation, ʻoh thatʼs so 80ʼs” and she was right. We were among a handful of people dancing on a catwalk after a fashion show was over (the music still was kicking off) and so I guess the glamour remains in pockets if you keep your eyes peeled. 

Burmese royalty links or so she claimed.

Nevertheless, Iʼve always loved advertising and when a vacancy arose in a small below-the-line agency called Counter Attack in London on the Albert Embankment, South London at the end of the eighties. I not only applied for the administrative role in advertising but was elated to be given a position that exceeded my experience based, I was told, on how I conducted myself at interview stage.

I loved all the people there and it was my first full on taste of people who work within the creative industries. Iʼve been hooked ever since. When the ad business produces superstars they shine greater than any other business Iʼve ever know.

Truly inspirational and clever people to work with.

I was however young enough to subsequently chop around and try a few different opportunities including a spell with a direct-marketing printing outfit in Nottingham where I was a useless sales person in their London office.

However, no incentive could have been greater than to strike out abroad on account of falling in love with a young East German au pair from Leisnig in Germany not that long after the Berlin wall had come down.

I had a fascination with politics and particularly Communism, that in part explains why Iʼm currently inhaling deep lungfuls of power and bureaucracy here in Beijing with a view to getting a grip on global politics for the next twenty or so years. They will be important decades.

My German experience proved to be a pure blend of Victor Hugoʼs Les Miserables (something positive only occurs about 200 pages-in and nothing happy happens until the end) and Franz Kafkaʼs The Transformation.

Itʼs a book in itself, that part of my life and I shall enjoy sharing it as I kept a detailed and extensive journal of that period which never happened again till I took up blogging.

On my return to the UK I had no intention of working, given the weight of events I had experienced during this period which even took me out to the Far East for six months where I learnt Thai and worked for a Direct Marketing company. So, back in England I felt pretty numb about life with no inclination to work for some time, and so I enrolled for a marketing degree at the age of 23. They let me in on account of my advertising and marketing experience (and secondary school qualifications) and I had three wonderful years of doing what came naturally to me.

Studying marketing and design.

My only regret was I probably could have scored a first class degree if I put my mind to it. I was however diligent with the lectures and tutorials which compensated for my refusal to do exam revision, except for one memorable all nighter where an accountancy student took me through profit and loss, cash flow, and financial statements. Amazingly 3 months of lecturing on a subject that bores me to tears was condensed into a night of rough scribbles on paper and I passed with flying colours. Or at least just flying.

As ever with these things some serendipity is needed. Just before I graduated I went to a party and spent a whole night talking to a young woman who later revealed that she was a copywriter from the ad superstars of the day called HHCL and partners - I think she found me interesting as she ignored her partner for the night. I was in awe of a living breathing creative from the agency I most wanted to work at. Yes folks I slept my way to the middle.

Thatʼs categorically not true, but meeting people and being interested in them is a sure fire way of being seen as interesting. So is encouraging gossip like the anecdote above, and so when the opportunity arose to interview with HHCL. I grabbed it and was fortunate enough to have been mentored by one of the intellectually toughest planners I have ever encountered to this day.

It was Mark Piper who memorably gave me his copy of the Koran before it really mattered because he was that kind of guy. A voracious reader and a heavyweight intellect. If you donʼt know the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims youʼre probably best off working in a bank or something. Planners are information whores. They suck it in any way they can get it and the best of them know how to process that information into something that matters. Youʼre either into it or not. The rest is down to accumulating experience.

A year later almost to the day I joined Howell Henry, I resigned. I remember it well because I could have stayed on a couple more weeks and secured my annual bonus but I wanted to get as far away from someone as possible. So I jumped on a plane did some interviews, secured a position, and moved back to Thailand, with its welcome tropical heat, the most awesome food, amazing culture not to mention Thailandʼs unique place in the DNA strands of the planet and undeniably the hottest women in the world outside of The Emirates and maybe Estonia.

I decided to accept DDB in Thailandʼs offer, and due to my London experience became one of the few Planning Directors in that part of the world. I had an incredible time sharing what I knew with people who had never even heard of planning. We won business, banged out some ads and life was good. I was 29 years old, earned a comparative fortune and lived like a king. There are few finer buttoned down yet buttoned up feelings in life than waking up knowing that your maid has crisply ironed to perfection every shirt in your wardrobe.

Moving on, about a year and a half after joining, our agency was mandated by New York to merge with a HUGE local agency that I knew I could never join on account of the Managing Director wearing a polyester tie. He wasnʼt trying to be ironic either so I took my severance and had the brilliant good grace to have a couple of clients that wanted to continue working with me. AXA insurance and my best ever client and later close friend VW.

This launched what Iʼve retrospectively called my ʻexecutive freelance careerʼ (thanks Rob) which took me round the world from Europe to Asia. The freedom of working for oneself is great as it allowed me to take some self indulgent yet also enormously rewarding lifestyle decisions like pile the rum and books in equal measure either side of me; shoulder high, and plough through the stuff that I believe has contributed to my intellectual calibre with more validity than any degree ever could. I cherish that more than any 73% increase in year on year sales ad that I was ever involved with. I probably thought I was Hemingway or something.

Iʼm thinking the likelihood of anyone having read this far is very low and highly likely that those same people if they exist are asking, ʻyeah but whatʼs this got to do with me?ʼ is high.

Bear with me.

Towards the end of 1996 I decided to relocate to London and get to know all these amazing people who were sharing their ideas and thinking through blogging. Those people were single handedly responsible for me falling back in love with communication theory, business and creativity all over again. I had been getting more and more stale with the more interesting work projects coming from things like market entry reports for multinationals into India, than cracking out another ad with superlative families, beaming superlative white shiny teeth and all the other things that I have talked about which are directly related to media literacy and is the most important subject to learn about if considering a career outside of the M25. Or rather how to challenge it.

I learnt something else while I was in London and that is the interaction of online and offline which is I believe not only the most critical relationship to be managed outside of the monologue to dialogue shift. Its the reason Iʼve set forth once again to take the next stage of my life here in China. Iʼm not sure if I can handle another winter here but whatever happens Iʼve learnt something important and met the people who matter because despite thinking this would be home for a while I now know I need to tick off a few more boxes before the energy begins to ebb.

Many young people have asked me how I could have led such a wild and exciting life. The truth is that I had the energy to do it when I was younger and was frightened of it all at the time. Now that Iʼm older there is little that fazes me but the energy to relocate once more diminishes with each passing year.

So what are the most important lessons I can share? Well read the 48 laws of power and there you have a comprehensive list of 48 immutable laws I have broken. Donʼt do that please. There is one maxim that is important and will help you in a planning/advertising career more than any abundance of intellect, more than any charisma or creative surplus or rock and roll lifestyle:

Itʼs nice to be important, but itʼs important to be nice.

Lastly if youʼre considering a move into the marketing communications business and you have no regard for the great challenges we face as a planet you will always be restricted by the limitations you have set yourself. Selling stuff is easy. Selling the right stuff the right way takes courage, vision and patience.

I know because Iʼm still waiting.....

The War Business & Trauma Porn

Don't get me wrong, the creative execution really tugged at my heart strings in a big way. 

Great track by Queen, authenticity in the execution and a bit of fun had along the way.

I'm also revolted that we seem to be just as slick at healing child-trauma programs as we are in creating the trauma in the first place. I guess 

I need to contact War Child and find out if they know the full picture. 

Click on the ISIS tag below if you're still in the dark.

McDonalds Creative Use An Old Idea of Mine

I'm pretty sure it's a McDonalds advertising lie.

British Humour

Anti Advertising Ad - Rebtel - Speak Freely

Unsung Hero - Sadvertising Feels Less Fake

Instead of being hammered with advertising that sells materialism, ego driven lifestyles and a disregard for the planet and humanity this commercial takes a different route.

I just wonder if there's a way for brands that have sincerity to stand out and stand up for values that don't trash the planet or ignore some of the most important issues that we face as a species?

There's more examples on Sadvertising and Thai commercials over here.

Naughty LG Commercial for Big Screens

It's hard to tell if some of this isn't fully scripted but either way it's a flawlessly executed commercial. 

I love the ad but I generally can't go into a bar or restaurant that blast TV these days.

However hats off to LG for seeing this done properly.

Everybody Loves Corporate Commercials

Giving Is The Best Communication - ทรูมูฟ เอช " การให้ คือการสื่อสารที่ดีที่สุด " | TrueMoveH

This Thai commercial was published on 9/11 only a week ago and already has eight and a half million views on Youtube. It's so good I'm going out to buy a USB Internet connection from True irrespective of whether it is a better deal or not than its competitive mobile and internet data carriers.

From time to time, Thai advertising is easily the best in the world.

I can tell you from experience that it's less about strategy than having something important to say. I've talked about this in the past.

Chipotle's TV Ad Raises Factory Farming, Steroids and Antibiotics In Food

I can't imagine the Chipotle are completely farm fresh organic ingredients but this new ad does address the hidden ingredients and suffering that go into most food that is advertised on television. 

I don't see this Chipotle video as a commercial at over three minutes but it is nevertheless superb storytelling and hopefully a glimpse of how the food industry will have to respond to growing claims that they mostly sell low grade ingredients unfit for consumption.

Millions of hits for this ad so it's touching a nerve beyond the advertising echo chamber who have latched onto it given 95% of their output is low concious communications.

Need A Boost?

The latest viral sensation in Thailand by Wacoal Mood's Boost Up Bras.

Reassess Yourself

I've blogged quite a lot about Dove and the campaign for real beauty in the past. Unlike many brands it stands for something rather than the veneer beauty to be found in the photoshop department usually located on the ground floor of department stores. Worth watching.

APG Awards

The Account Planning Group Awards are strategic efficacy awards for advertising, held every year in London. I was last there in 2007 and just found this in my drafts folder.

 I'm quite sure I'm even more curious than you what's on the video. I can only find out if I post it.

Consumerism Has Nothing Left To Say - So Its Talking About Itself

I've always liked this postmodern form of advertising (Like Cadbury's Gorilla) because it's clever, self referential and witty. However I realise it's not about building value and is all about a quick profit (unless there's a long term commitment to  content strategy). It wont last and you can read an intelligent post on the topic over at Eaon's

I'd Wear A Diaper For Samsung

I once interviewed with Samsung's in house ad agency for a position and it was a depressing experience. A bit like joining Lintas under the Lowe Banner.

First American Political TV Ads

Eisenhower wanted to call the military industrial complex the military industrial congressional complex but was advised not to and given that's the definition of Fascism I'd say that's how fast the US screwed up freedom after WWII. I don't believe in party politics any more but I find it weird no American even thinks that political advertising should be removed from Television. It's so toxic.

Thai Women Go Crazy For A White Vagina

Most people in Thailand are dark skinned but as the Chinese plutocracy run the country the advertising reflects their fairer skin. I've written extensively about the pernicious effects of skin whitening creams because if you ever do advertising focus groups you can listen to impressionable young office women choosing who they go to lunch with based on their skin colour as money, career progression and hanging out with the right people is all that matters in the dog eat soi dog world of commercial materialism.

More over here

Update: Original video censored.

Post Ironic Advertising - Be Careful What You Wish For

Headline of the week. No contest. twitter.com/BrandDNA/statu…
— Stan Lee (@BrandDNA) September 8, 2012

And while we're on the subject of normalizing consumption.