The thrill of the chase

I've written here about how hard it is for agencies to let an account go, even when the hour is late and it's way past time for them to say goodnight.

The flip side of that, and no less sad and demoralizing, is when agencies somehow manage to get themselves an invitation to pitch an account they don't have a chance in hell of getting.

The advertising landscape is littered with storyboards from small, start-up agencies with one office, a purple bean bag chair, a five-year old laptop and a staff of three who all thought they had "just as good a chance as anyone" to land General Motors. Or American Airlines. Or Budweiser. Or Hilton.

It's only after these global accounts go through the review, and do what they were inevitably going to do in the first place - award their business to a global agency - that these agencies feel the cold water tossed in their face, and come to the grim and true-from-the-start realization they never had a chance.

Never. Had. A. Chance.

Despite the amazing creative they did. The unbelievably thorough presentation deck. And the supermodel receptionist, who's brother's cousin's nephew's best friend went to an improv class six years ago with one of the hundred and seventy brand managers, which is how they weaseled an invite to the dance in the first place.

Lot of good your principal involvement, unmatched agility, media agnostic positioning and social integration did you.

It's not hard to see why they take the shot. Every agency wants to play in the big leagues. They all want a showcase account they can hopefully do some killer work on, then use it as a calling card to get into pitches with other global clients they won't stand a chance with.

There's some lesson to be learned here about a sense of entitlement. And believing that just because you have some brilliant insights that's going to be enough get the job done.

Sometimes, many times, with clients that big, sad but true, great ads are the least of it. They're looking for infrastructure, global presence and some actual media leverage to support the effort. Or maybe they're just looking for an agency with some maturity, both figuratively and literally.

The point is, in every industry there's a hierarchy. Steps to climb. Dues to pay. Even if you've been in business a while, it still takes time to arrive.

Everyone wants to be the agency that has the insights the client is going to spark to. But even more valuable to them would be an agency who knows who they are. Knows what they can do and can't do.

Not that you asked, but my suggestion would be to play to your strength. Build your story by going after accounts you can actually win.

If you're as smart as the presentation deck says, you'll know who they are.

Best practices aren't

Clients and agencies both love to take refuge in "best practices."

The general definition, at least when it comes to advertising, is that they're a method, technique, style or set of defined guidelines that've shown results in the past better than had they not been used. They're tried and true. They've worked before. They'll work again.

Which begs the question: how do you know?

The truth is best practices make both sides feel they're doing the right thing - the optimum that can be done. It provides acceptable and universally understood cover if the effort fails.

In reality, what they do is slam the door (or block the road - it was the better picture) on new ideas. "Best practices" is the quintessential synonym for "It's worked before, it'll work again."

The problem with that line of thinking is the same one dice have at the crap table: they don't care what the odds are. In other words, best practices are just that. Until they're not.

Next time someone asks if you're using best practices, tell them not a chance. If they ask why not, say it's your best practice against mediocre work.

Pharma it out

My late great friend Jim Benedict was talking to my wife one time about my somewhat confrontational style when I think someone is full of sh#t or something is worth fighting for, and he told her "Jeff draws lines." He was right.

And professionally, pharma is one of the places I draw them.

Now before you think it's just my relatively-in-check-for-advertising ego talking, I don't think I'm too good to do pharma advertising. And if you look at some of the...ahem...work I've churned out over the years, I'm certainly not above it. It's just that with the cliche stock photography, see-and-say headlines, painfully corny metaphors and miles of legal copy, I wouldn't know where to start in creating the kind of work pharma clients seem to buy. It's an extremely different sensibility.

I mean to me, two people side by side in separate bathtubs seems counter intuitive for an erectile dysfunction ad. Unless he has another condition we don't know about (insert penis joke here - yes I said insert and penis in the same sentence). But I digress.

I have an art director friend of mine who's been working on pharma accounts for the past year. It's not pretty, but she approaches it like she does every assignment she gets at any agency: she gives 110% and tries to create the best work possible. But it's like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football: she'll never be able to move them beyond where they are. It's a big industry, and they. know. what. works.

Which may be the reason my friend, like so many of my friends, has adopted my tried and true philosophy: the checks clear. And the silver lining is pharma checks clear bigger than most.

I used to pride myself on the fact I could work on any account in any category. But, as Clint Eastwood said in Magmum Force:

I wouldn't know where to start if I was asked to write one of those Sit 'N Sleep spots that litter the radio landscape. And I wouldn't know where to start on an ad for painkillers, catheters, arthritis medicine, yeast infection ointment or any of the other pharma ads that seem to show up on every third commercial.

I suppose as those ads become more and more prevalent, and the drug companies need more and more creatives to do them, none of us should ever say never.

But remember, talk to your headhunter before taking a pharma assignment to see if the job is right for you.

Working on pharma accounts may cause side effects including migraine headaches, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, ringing in the ears, verbal diarrhea, overall discomfort, rash decisions, elevated blood pressure and thoughts of career suicide.

Analyze that

“That” is a funny word. Not funny ha-ha, but funny in the sense (that) a lot of people think (that) you need to use it when you don’t.

As my fellow copywriters will attest to, one of the items on the job description is being able to edit your own copy. Not with a machete like account people or clients are prone to do, but with a scalpel. What’s usually required is a surgical, precision paring down of the word count to bring whatever brilliant idea it is into sharper focus. And down to time.

For me, the first place (that) I direct this effort is at “that.”

I don’t think (that) there are a lot of words as expendable as “that.” I know for a fact (that) most agency proofreaders don’t agree with me at all about this. They think (that) they’re not doing their job unless they put back all the “thats” (that) I’ve taken out.

Apparently it's true (that) proofreaders are paid by the word.

Anyway, next time you’re writing a letter, note, list, blogpost, copy or whatever, when you go through it to make revisions and fine tune it to a sharp, brisk read, the first place I’d start with is “that.” You may have already noticed (that) all the “thats" in parenthesis are completely unnecessary.

Now that I re-read it, the same might be said for this post.

I didn't do that ad. Why do you ask?

Campaign ideas don’t want to be bad, but like Jessica Rabbit said, sometimes they're just drawn that way.

The fact is an idea can often look good on paper, then get lost somewhere along the way to executing it.

And I'm just man enough to say that sometimes bad work happens to good writers: the lousiness of some of my spots has been my creation and mine alone.

For example, the am/pm mini mart spot where I made a joke about the son in the family being adopted. Immediately after it aired, they started routing all the complaint calls from adoption advocacy groups to me so they could tell me, in very raised voices, why adoption jokes weren't funny. I listened patiently, then told them I was adopted and I thought it was hilarious.

I’m not, but sometimes you just want the noise to stop.

Then there was the absolutely awful campaign my partner Doug and I presented for Suzuki cars using the cast of LOST. There were several spots, but the highlight (lowlight?) was one where instead of a blue VW van, we had them discover a Grand Vitara on the island. We liked the show and we wanted to go to Hawaii, so sue us.

It's a good thing it never went anywhere. It wouldn't have been nearly as good as this one:

I don’t remember this, but my wife swears years ago I wrote a radio spot where the characters were building a house out of meat (SFX: Hands slapping ground beef). This was pre-Lady Gaga. Obviously I was way ahead of my time, which is so rare (see what I did there?).

This isn't the first time I've written about good and bad ads. I posted a piece here about it.

But I'm beginning to think putting up posts running down the list of bad ads I've done is probably not the most career-enhancing move I can make. So forget you've seen this.

Just like you did with all those bad ads.

Because I don't want to

If you know anything about me, and really, if you’ve been following this blog you probably know more than you want to, it won’t come as any surprise I have no problem saying no to things I don’t want to do.

I've found it's the only way I can have some sense of control and balance in my life, and make time for the things that are most important to me.

I can't imagine having a job where I didn't have that option. It’s one of the reasons I like freelancing so much.

As a freelancer, there are a lot of ways to say no. If the situation allows, the best way is to just say it. For example, like the time I got a call from someone who’d gotten my name and number from a friend(?) and offered me a gig writing about the many involving and fascinating aspects of waste management. Naturally I got the call while I was in the middle of lunch.

Anyway, I told him that as attractive as waste management sounded, I wasn't the right guy for the job. Thanks but no thanks.

I’ve also turned down jobs I didn’t want in other ways. I've priced myself out of the gig (“Yes, you heard right: $5000 a day.”) Of course the risk with that is they have the money and might actually say ok. In which case I retreat to my fallback refusal tactic: availability.

If a client's willing to throw the vault at me on a job I don’t want to do, I follow it up with a question I know I can always answer to my advantage: “When do you need it?”

Hey, sometimes the timing just doesn’t work. Especially when I don’t want it to.

I don’t mean to sound like all I do is find ways to avoid work. I don’t. I like working and all the benefits it brings to my family, my life and my bank account. But I am past the point of taking any job just for the money, and writing for any client who happens to find my number.

By the way, if you didn't flinch at that $5000 day rate, I'm available whenever you want me.

The first manifesto

From airlines to peanut butter to Japanese car companies, they all want one. And not just one. One like the one that started it all. And agencies want to give it to them.

The manifesto. That crisp, concise group of words that at once lays out the philosophy, character, promise, mission and direction of a company.

My friend Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen is the best manifesto writer working, and he's written more of them than anyone I know including me. But as he'd be the first to tell you, even when it's right in front of them, they don't always see it. In a global campaign gang...effort for a luxury car company, I won't say which one - Infiniti - Rich wrote an incredible manifesto. I walked in the conference room where it was pinned on the foam core with about 25 other, lesser manifestos, and was in awe. In fact, I gave it the ultimate copywriter compliment: I wished I'd written it.

At the end of the exercise though, Infiniti stayed with the work it was doing.

The benchmark for all manifestos is and will always be Apple. But that particular one is uniquely reflective of an uncompromising leader with a singular vision. Two things too many companies are lacking.

But don't think I'm completely against them. I'm not. They're good for business.

So here's to the crazy ones. Because people who are crazy enough to think they need to hire freelancers to write manifestos are the ones that do.

AT&T Jew-verse

Everyone has to live with a certain amount of denial in life. Otherwise, we'd never cross a street, get on a plane or eat at Jack In The Box for fear of what could happen to us. It's how we manage everyday risk and emotion.

Since, according to this article, the average consumer can be exposed to between 3000 and 20,000 ads a day, and actually see and register about 250 of them, commercials - especially bad ones - have also become one of the things we have to deny in order not to be overwhelmed by them. Out of necessity, they become white noise.

It'd be a second career getting mad about all of them.

However, there is one commercial so bad, so hateful, so grating in the most primal way, I feel pointing it out is less of a gripe and more of a public service. It's this one:

Here's how I'm pretty sure the meeting went.

CLIENT: What do you think the kid should look like?

ART DIRECTOR: Well, he should be...

ACCOUNT PERSON: We were leaning towards a "New York" look. (actually does air quotes)

CLIENT: You mean Jewish.

ACCOUNT PERSON: Yes, you know, curly hair, big nose...

Laughter erupts in the room.

CLIENT: Can we have him say some Jew sounding words?

WRITER: Like fancy, schmancy or for cryin' out loud?

CLIENT: Yes!

ACCOUNT PERSON: (hamming it up - no pun intended) Oy vey, we'll do it.

ART DIRECTOR: Maybe an argyle sweater, so he looks like the old Je...uh, old "New York" guys you see in the jewelry mart.

CLIENT: I love it. What do they say?

ACCOUNT PERSON: Mazel tov?

CLIENT: That's it!

Laughter erupts again.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Jews on TV. I can even tolerate the stereotyping. But what I hate is a stale concept, long past its expiration date, that's been done a gazillion times before - in this case a kid talking like a wiser, older "New York" grandfather to kids slightly younger than him who, for some inexplicable reason, know how to act their real age.

And wagging the corn dog while he's talking must be a Jewish tradition I'm not familiar with.

It's frustrating because it's AT&T. A big client with a huge advertising budget and decent production dollars to spend, and this is the best they (and their 65-year old, Jackie Mason loving writer/art director team) could do.

Then, just to make sure there's absolutely no escape, they run the crap out of this spot. You can't turn on the TV without seeing it everywhere. Maybe the kid got them the air time wholesale.

The best advice I can give the team, or anyone else associated with this spot is that same advice that works managing life's risks.

If someone asks if it's your spot, deny it.

Satisfaction

Consider this a companion piece to my friend Rich’s post The Way Advertising Should Be over at the fabulous Round Seventeen.

I can’t remember where I found this letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol. It’s been floating around for a long time, but it always brings a smile to my face. Come to find out that Mick is exactly the kind of client we all want.

Who knew.

Let’s break it down shall we. First, Mick makes sure Andy knows how happy he is that he’s going to work on the project. A little positive reinforcement right off the bat - always a good thing.

Next, he provides the materials Andy needs to get the job done. Andy doesn’t have to have his staff call The Rolling Stones Ltd. offices to see what assets are available, what they can use, if there’s a style guide and what format they can be sent in.

Mick goes on to talk about his past, admittedly limited experience with the process, but he clearly understands something most clients don’t: the more complicated it gets, the worse it is. He then tells Andy to do “what ever you want…” , clearly expressing his complete trust in Andy’s taste, experience, thinking and opinions.

Then, he doesn’t put him on a deadline. He doesn’t try to grind him. Instead he offers him as much money as he needs to get the job done correctly.

He wraps it all up saying his representative will call with further information, but if he in anyway tries to rush the project, Mick wants Andy to just ignore it and take the time he needs to do it right.

All I can think is working with Mick must be a gas gas gas.

I have to believe there are still clients like Mick Jagger out there. I’ve even had some that have given me a few of the liberties Mick gave Andy. Still, in the same way it’s hard for a client to find all the qualities he wants in one agency, it’s even more difficult for an agency to find all the qualities they want in a client.

Which only goes to show you can’t always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes…

The laws of freelance

In the same way there are laws of nature (gravity, motion, slow drivers when I'm in a hurry), there are also laws of freelance.

The most inevitable one is when it rains it pours.

In the past week, I've had no less than four inquiries about my availability - two directly from clients, and two from agencies.

That's the good news.

The bad news is all four are asking if I'm available to start working the first week in June. I know, it's a champagne problem to have.

But as nice as it is, another law of freelance is the gig ain't there until it's there. On the long list of things I can count on, like my kid's asking me for money, I know for a fact at least three of these jobs - or all of them - will not happen. Why? Well for one thing, asking about availability is not the same thing as being booked.

Jobs get pushed back all the time for a million reasons. It needs more research. The direction changes. The release date changes. The product changes. The need for freelancers changes. Any number of things can wish a job out to the cornfield.

So the only thing I can do is deal with what's on my plate at the moment for that first week of June, and say yes to all four. Because until someone books me, I'm available.

And if I'm not available when the job actually happens, then they'll either wait for me (yes, it's happened), or they'll move on to the next name on the list (happens all the time).

What I always hope is if I'm not available when someone calls, they at least ask me for the name of a writer they can call. I like being able to refer my friends and hopefully return some of the goodwill I've received many, many times over from my copywriting pals.

Now the waiting begins to see who, if any of them, get back to me.

In the meantime, if you want to have lunch or see a movie, guess what? I'm available.