Pleasing is a disservice

I live in America. The home of bald Eagles, Laverne & Shirley, and spending over a year on a single marketing brief. “It’s because the market is so much bigger” you’ll hear. The thing is the I have no qualms spending a year on something as long as it’s really, really good. Like ...

Manifesto help

You start. You start with repeating parts of a sentence. Then, you add a few words from the ambitious yet refreshing strategy. You ask a question that’s not really a question? You don’t really answer it. But you take a pause. To make sure it feels like you have. ... ... The music elevates. Coldplay’s Clocks usually does the trick. More ...

With Coronavirus, can creatives actually work from home now thanks?

It takes a deadly virus to knock Trump off the news cycle but there we have it. Coronavirus, thanks to someone kissing a bat is now the daily reality we all face. It’s created a run on common commodities, created panic in the aging ...

The Art Directors Have Won

I can remember when I first became an art director. I flipped a coin with my ad partner and lost. Aside from a few art director roles I’ve consigned myself to fact that I write better than I can design. If the converse was ...

Dancing in the Dark – Social as by Ad Agencies

Over the last few years there has been a definite pivot from the traditional above-the-line ad agencies towards servicing social media. Why? Well, it’s certainly not for the prestige or the brou-ha-ha. After all social is the ugly sister of media (displacing radio for last place in the glamor stakes). The majority of ...

Of Mice and Men – Droga5 and the story that every London start-up goes through

Elon Musk once said “Running a start up is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood.” Ouch. In the wake of Nik Studzinski’s departure from Droga5 London you have to look at advertising start ups with a similar philosophy. In London there have been ...

Ad creatives in London v New Zealand

Sometimes I look back on my time in ad agencies in New Zealand and wish I could’ve told my former self to have stuck it out there for longer. The reason for this is as one famous Australian ECD once said, “advertising in New Zealand is like playing tennis without a ...

Inverse emotions

If you type in Neville Chamberlain into Google Images you'll find what this post is all about. To backtrack a little, Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of Team Great Britain on the lead up to WW2 and the first year of it. He's remembered for being completely out of touch ...

Key West Inc.

Beyond Miami and the glades, there’s a bridge that leads to the Keys. If you’ve never been on them, you need to before you die – the most famous of these bridges is the seven mile bridge. It divides the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a bridge ...

I see ad agencies

We need ad agencies like I need cancer. We are bombarded and berated with bright neon lights purloining everything from hand sanitizer through to funeral care. Yet we tolerate their existence. We even endorse them at certain points in our life. Could advertising be some sort of reflection of humanity, that we ...

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