Watching consumate professionals Tim Lovejoy and Louise Redknapp on the flacid neither-one-nor-the-other Sunday morning stodge Something for the Weekend.
Saving grace chef Simon Rimmer is explaining what he will be cooking this morning. He starts with fish soup and moves on to mushroom pie. But as the pre-recorded pie images appear Tim cuts in. He isn't happy.
"I'm not sure about the fish soup, to be honest".
Simon is thrown. This didn't happen in rehearsal, and he knows it looks shoddy to be talking about fish soup over a visual of mushroom pie. He flannels. Louise, sensing that the train is coming off the tracks and the need for extra input, deploys her unique brand of inarticulate repetition posing as insight.
"What gets me is, you know, it's fish......SOUP?"
Tim steps in and clarifies his objection. Fish is wet, and soup is wet. It's just not quite right. We are now back to Simon, having seen every stock mushroom pie image in the BBC library. He looks like he wants to cry. He now has to cook fish soup for these morons. When he does they don't like it - it contains coriander, which they both HATE. They can't really explain why, though.
Sunday 19 December 2010
Friday 10 December 2010
Ad hoc
Once upon a time I wanted to work in advertising. I thought it was a way to get paid to think of puns. This theory was shattered during a work experience stint at a flash London agency which largely entailed reuniting hundreds of video cassettes with their cardboard cases (except for the day I spent touring toy shops trying to find plastic tiger claws for a Frostie’s product launch - the equivalent of a sending an idiot apprentice out to fetch some tartan paint).
That wasn’t what put me off advertising, though. What did it was someone explaining to me that the majority of people in an agency are battling to reconcile two opposing forces - the client and the creative team.
Take a commercial for ketchup. The client wants a 30 second shot of the sauce slowly leaving a prominently logoed bottle and landing deliciously on a salad or one of the other healthy foodstuffs people generally put ketchup on. The creative team don’t give a toss about sales of ketchup but do want to impress their mates and win awards, so suggest something surreal and nonsensical - a gorilla playing the drums, say - and promise that it will set Twitter ablaze. Everyone else then has to find a way of combining art and commerce in a way that won’t get them fired.
This interplay has been playing on my mind recently because I’ve become completely obsessed with this omni-present tube advert for Cheltenham racecourse:
It has to be assumed that the client took the driving seat for this one. Imagine the creative meeting.
Agency ponce: "OK, we’ve brought some samples of the tube ad and we think you’re gonna be rilly excited, guys - the creatives have really thought their berets off on this one. We’re seeing a clean white background, big central image of a beautiful black racehorse - but what’s this? That’s right - it’s got human hands holding banknotes instead of hooves! And it’s wearing a fez and smoking a pipe! I know, eye-catching or what?"
Client: "That’s very nice, Julian, but could you do something a bit more, I don't know, wife-beater-y? Just off the top of my head, I’m seeing a florid complexion and a screech of self-loathing as the children’s trust fund gets blown on an 11-1 long shot. Boozy simple-minded aggression. This ad needs to be like looking in the mirror for every overpaid city worker with anger-management issues. Are your guys up to the job?"
Agency ponce: "Hmmm. Marcel is very attached to Tote the Gambling Stallion but I’m sure he’ll come up with something. Just to clarify - you want an image that will put all right-minded people off ever visiting any racecourse ever again?"
Client: "Exactly."
That wasn’t what put me off advertising, though. What did it was someone explaining to me that the majority of people in an agency are battling to reconcile two opposing forces - the client and the creative team.
Take a commercial for ketchup. The client wants a 30 second shot of the sauce slowly leaving a prominently logoed bottle and landing deliciously on a salad or one of the other healthy foodstuffs people generally put ketchup on. The creative team don’t give a toss about sales of ketchup but do want to impress their mates and win awards, so suggest something surreal and nonsensical - a gorilla playing the drums, say - and promise that it will set Twitter ablaze. Everyone else then has to find a way of combining art and commerce in a way that won’t get them fired.
This interplay has been playing on my mind recently because I’ve become completely obsessed with this omni-present tube advert for Cheltenham racecourse:
It has to be assumed that the client took the driving seat for this one. Imagine the creative meeting.
Agency ponce: "OK, we’ve brought some samples of the tube ad and we think you’re gonna be rilly excited, guys - the creatives have really thought their berets off on this one. We’re seeing a clean white background, big central image of a beautiful black racehorse - but what’s this? That’s right - it’s got human hands holding banknotes instead of hooves! And it’s wearing a fez and smoking a pipe! I know, eye-catching or what?"
Client: "That’s very nice, Julian, but could you do something a bit more, I don't know, wife-beater-y? Just off the top of my head, I’m seeing a florid complexion and a screech of self-loathing as the children’s trust fund gets blown on an 11-1 long shot. Boozy simple-minded aggression. This ad needs to be like looking in the mirror for every overpaid city worker with anger-management issues. Are your guys up to the job?"
Agency ponce: "Hmmm. Marcel is very attached to Tote the Gambling Stallion but I’m sure he’ll come up with something. Just to clarify - you want an image that will put all right-minded people off ever visiting any racecourse ever again?"
Client: "Exactly."
Saturday 4 December 2010
Web 3.0
Akira the Don has a storming new website. Check it out: www.akirathedon.com.
Going engagement ring shopping today. My wallet is whimpering and hiding in the bread bin.
POST-SHOPPING UPDATE: I am also hiding in the bread bin.
Going engagement ring shopping today. My wallet is whimpering and hiding in the bread bin.
POST-SHOPPING UPDATE: I am also hiding in the bread bin.
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