Awards are like oxygen. You don’t really pay them much attention unless you don’t have any. But these glittering prizes aren’t about inflated lungs, they are about inflated egos. If they do serve a purpose, it isn’t really to recognise talent, more to lubricate the commercial cut and thrust of the industry and shore up the fragile self esteem of its pawns and kings.
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Posts Tagged ‘clients’
The gong remains the same. Is it worth winning awards?
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010Where the art is. The perils of working from home.
Thursday, November 25th, 2010
As a rebellious young punk, the two lifestyle choices I found most objectionable were the possession of a mortgage and the obligation to work in an office five days a week.
And so, inevitably, it came to pass that in later years I found myself owing a considerable sum to a building society in exchange for a house and spending long days in a procession of creative studios in corporate office buildings. That’s growing up for you.
Fulfilment failure – the best way to waste a budget.
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
What’s the best way to waste an advertising budget? Perhaps hiring Wayne Rooney would do the trick. Maybe booking loads of space in the breaks in ‘72 Degrees North’ would squander that cash pretty effectively. How about a 48 sheet poster campaign at the South Pole? These options would certainly see your client’s expenditure go the way of mortal flesh, but there’s a better way and it’s happening all the time. I’ll call it ‘fulfilment failure’.
Everyone’s a critic. Aren’t they?
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
“After all, one knows one’s weak points so well, that it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.”
Edith Wharton
If there’s one word to be heard in every creative studio in the country, at least once a day, it’s ‘subjective’.
Whether it’s a debate about the benefits of monochrome photography versus colour imagery, long headlines as opposed to snappy straplines, pack shots or lifestyle visuals, blue backgrounds or red tints – you’ll find someone in favour and another against. So it would appear the value of creative work is subjective and opinions are like bumholes – everyone has one.
Who wants to be in Creative Review?
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
We all do. Let’s face it, that’s the honest answer. We’re all creatives, therefore we’re all big, blinking show-offs, therefore we want our work splashed across a ruddy great DPS in the next available issue of CR. And don’t say you don’t, because you do.
Do you have a client from hell?
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
We all know the overused retail mantra “the customer is always right”. It’s been rammed into our consciousness since we got our first Saturday shops as grumpy teenagers and began having to deal with The Great British Moron. In my experience, the customer is more often than not, wrong, but seeing as they are ultimately paying your wage, a little patience has to be applied before you start reaching for their jugular.
The ads don’t work.
Thursday, April 14th, 2011To expect a poster, TV clip, mailer or website to perform such a commercial miracle, is really to misunderstand advertising’s place in the world. To see ads as mighty, evil arm-twisters, permeating every aspect of our lives and every corner of our brains, is laughably glib and actually flatters the advertiser’s abilities.
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