Headvoid lifts the lid on the ad industry

[headvoid]

I may, or may not, start to write things about my industry and the pointless, absurd, egotistical nature of it all.

The first one is a rant:

Here is a new advert that Reckitt Benckiser commissioned from Mother, a rather talented agency but also an agency that are starting to believe their own hype:

Here is the fluff:

Stephen Butler, Creative Director at Mother says “The category has talked itself into an unnecessarily prosaic creative approach over the years, which presents a fabulous opportunity for Nurofen to exploit. With this in mind we have created a brand world that will set Nurofen apart from everybody else and allow us to tell all sorts of extraordinary pain relief stories in an imaginative and engaging way for the first time

here is the ad
[youtube]i2JWIcgu7Ag[/youtube]

Now, here is my approximate guess at what happened.

1. A long winded brand planning process was commissioned
2. Reckitts, long known for their "TELL THEM THE BENEFITS OF THE FUCKIN PRODUCT" approach to advertising were a little nervous at first.
3. Eventually, a lot of money was spent by people in rooms, looking at diagrams, studying well edited vox pops and possibly listening to someone called a "planner" who doesn't actually plan, simply puts one word on a PowerPoint slide and talks a lot.
4. Lots of interesting concepts were shown, some very left field trying to excite and make a client think differently
5. During this process the creative (probably called Juan and from Brazil) shows them a video style piece.
6. The client is confused with all the talk of brand architecture and cloud mapping and remembers the nice style piece video.
7. "I know what I want" he or she says. can it be just like that bit in the video with the robot?
8. The creative says no, the account handler says yes, if you give us a lot of money.

The bit in the mood video that the client liked was this:
[youtube]5cK7aaclb9M[/youtube]

 

[Fuddlemiff]

Your views intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

My dad used to work in the advertising industry (back in the good old days, when he could be a colour checker despite being colour blind, as well as a financial director all at the same time) and I've heard a few horror stories of how things started to go toward the end.

Not to mention, that, as a "creative" myself, I can totally see step 8 happening. You tell the client it's a bad idea. They disagree. You explain in further detail, with a slightly whiny tone that it really really is a bad idea, hoping that they'll keep in mind what your job title is as you say this. They disagree again. Frustratedly, you do as they ask because they're paying you a lot and you know you can make it look good enough to go on a showreel, even if it's intellectually fucked in the arse.

Later, someone mentions to an acquaintance that you were involved in the project, and you do your best to play down your role in it.

 

[Mentalist]

My mother worked as a copywriter at an the advertising industry for over a decade and helped start an advertising agency called Mosaic so I often hear a lot of grumbling from her at how devoid of talent and how ego driven the whole thing is these days.

Tell us more, Headvoid.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I'm eating this up.

 

[FBI parte due]

I like the part where you make people who are paid far, far more than me sound like a bunch of tedious mongoloids.