And one more thing...

I just saw yet another pro-bono ad with a minute call to action and an almost non-existent web address, so I'm back on the soapbox (momentarily, I promise) for just a sec.

Hey, creatives. Yeah, you. If some non-profit organization gives you free reign to produce a piece to raise awareness, funds, site visits, lists of names, or whatever, I hereby make it your duty to GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS. You heard me. Don't lock yourselves into a room and have some wankfest over how many awards your clever visual pun is going to win you.

I've worked with some of these organizations, writing fundraising letters and reply coupons to pull a dollar or two. Some of the top people at these places make as much as you made as a junior. They don't have money to spare. All they have is passion and a mission.

So get the message out. Raise those funds. And zip up your pants, you opportunists.

WTF?

As a copywriter, I can get pretty anal about the proper use of written English. I admit I can be pretty hard-arsed about it, at times. Even unreasonable. After all, I couldn't Photoshop my way out of a paper bag, so why should I expect colleagues to have punctuation-perfect emails and briefs? Let's just call it my pet peeve and call it a truce.

Except.

Except...

Every once in a while, I come across people--people in our industry, mind, people who've studied communication--who have a such a gob-smackingly poor grasp of how to communicate in writing it brings tears of frustration to my eyes. Their emails are long, punctuation-less rambles or sentences with no subject or--lord help me--no verb. How exactly am I supposed on act on something when you omit the dang action word?

Honestly, I try. I read the thing. I read it again. I try putting two sentences together to see if that helps. But, unbelievably, it simply makes no sense--except perhaps in the mental ramblings of whoever wrote the thing. Look: emails aren't free-flow bits of thought. You can't just write what's going on in your head. Yeesh, you can't even write like you talk, because I'm not there and I can't hear the intonation in your voice or see what you're pointing at.

My personal favourite: an email from an AE that started off naming the project, then proceeded to use the name of the project as a noun, verb AND adjective in one run-on sentence of a request. And, pinkie swear, I wrote him back 4 times before caving and calling (they're not big on the phone, our sister-city).

When did written communication become so unimportant? I don't mean this as a rant on chat-speak or internet acronyms--they're intentional and serve some sort of purpose. But how did people with degrees, people who've climbed into advertising, people who communicate for a living, end up unable to get a simple point across?

Look back at old ads and old newspapers, and you'll see not an apostrophe out of place, not a semi-colon (good lord, when do we see those anymore?) omitted. The advertisers of old built their foundations before erecting their message. They learned the basics of writing before breaking the rules.

Sometimes it feels we've got a lot of advertising rebels and not a whole lot of sense.

Just give it a second.

We don't have cable at home. Not because I'm anti-TV or spending my free time doing activities that are highly productive or anything. More like a combination of me being too cheap and liking TV way to much to risk having 300 channels to choose from.

But anyway.

My tech-savvy Art Director brings me in downloads of Lost every few weeks so I can get my fill. And as I sat watching the latest episode last night--fork stopped halfway to mouth--it hit me. Why I like this dang show so very, very much.

It's subtle. Like Monty Python subtle, but without the Spanish Inquisition.

Guy 1 passed guy 2 a book. It was a blip on the screen, no more. And guy 1 didn't say "Here, take [NAME OF BOOK]." and guy 2 didn't respond "Oh, thank you for [NAME OF BOOK}." The camera didn't dive in on a close up or shine a spotlight on the cover. In fact, I had to rewind and play/pause to just the right second to read the title--and just barely.

Nice.

The whole series is like that: paced, tense, dropping small clues and incomprehensible flashbacks that--slowly, slowly--make sense. The writers presume their viewers are smart. That we can add 2 and 2 together all by ourselves. That we don't want to know everything right now, plain as day, in a hurry. We're patient. We like to peer into the dark and around corners.

We want our ah-ha moments. And, good lord, do we get them.

Smart advertising should do the same--intrigue, compel, entice. It should make you think, take a step, meet the maker half way. Because that lovely ah-ha moment is mind blowing. The moment your reader gets it--figures out the little trap you've set, connected all the dots--they feel good. They feel smart. They feel gratified.

Too much advertising is like Monday Night Network Comedy. There's a reason Lost has survived as long and as successfully as it has.

Click.

That is how you end a 2-hour conference call where you're the only one not in the room, way over there in some other city, with 20 other people from 4 different agencies and media houses, sharing a PowerPoint presentation you can't see, with Mr. Booming Voice seated near the phone (and eating chips! From a bag!) and Ms. Itsy-Bitsy-Eenie-Weenie-Whisper Voice at the other end of the room, and your ear is ringing trying to listen for when you come in and your arm is about to fall asleep and you're praying the Art Director in your office won't have a spontaneous meeting and drown out what little you can hear and you can't quite reach your bag of snacks and the emails are coming in and you know when you get off the afternoon is going to be a madhouse and just when it looks like the whole thing is about to wrap up some new voice from far, far, far away starts a brand new topic by showing 30-second spots that you can't see and can barely hear...

It was productive, in the end. But jeezus, people, I had to PEE!

Urp.

Two steamé all-dress' (no onions) for lunch makes for a rather burpesque afternoon. Two hours on the phone with a freelancer (good LORD can some people talk) and I've managed to transfer my nitrate aroma permanently onto my phone. It's now a scratch-and-sniff burger joint.

Baby 1, Mommy's Diet 0

After some thought...

... I got to wondering just what got me so completely riled about those dang awards on Thursday. Besides the unfairness and the wankery and the really bad food.

And it's this, it's always this: The quest for awards sucks.

A nice award can get you a better position, a better job, a bigger pay, perks galore. If someone offered me one on a platter, I'd say thank you very much. I'd be over the moon.

But everyone seems to have it backwards. We're not supposed to create to get accolades--we're supposed to create to sell. To entice. To seduce the man on the street to think a little differently, to feel a little thirsty, to want a little change. If that works, then our job is done.

Looking through the eyes of an award night is like looking in a funhouse mirror. The proportions are off. The priorities are backwards. The work is judged differently, by what it creates rather than who it moves. And try as I might, I don't get it. I can't work that way. I can't think over the heads of the people I'm trying to talk to. I'm not advertising to the jury.

So I jiggle out a coupon. Scribble out a DM. And once in a while, I get to let loose on something big and juicy and it leaves me beyond satisfied. I lick my lips at the end of the day.

I've got Tom Waits on. A inspiring writer if there ever was one. And if there's anyone who could care less about accolades or more about music, it is he. So back to the grindstone my nose goes, hopefully a little humbler and a lot more happy. I'm a copywriter. I write for a living. Pinch me, please.

And hats off to Geo. STFUADYJ, indeed.

Bullies in the Creative Schoolyard

What a farce. What a total wankfest. For the second year in a row, I sat there watching the president of the jury--the JURY--walk up on stage to receive award after award for his agency's campaign of the year. Oh, no--excuse me. Unlike regular old juries, this one simply couldn't decide which campaign was better, so the president and another member of the jury shared top honours AND collected 3/4 of the prizes. All for the same 2 campaigns.

Welcome to our city's annual creative gala. Check your coat at the door (for $2.50, if you please) and watch as we hand each other awards all night.

I'm staring at the awards book now and I still can't believe it. The jury president hauled himself up on stage over 20 times. It felt like your neighbour held a block party, and all night you and all the other neighbours sat and watched as he awarded himself with trophies for Best Dad, Best Lawncare, Cleanest Minivan, and Best Sprinkler System. It was trite and dull and insulting. It was a joke.

I don't know what the other big loser agencies entered, but our humble little private agency--whose name would draw a blank from most--had a great year. And we bat a big one. A really big one.

So we entered it.

What were we thinking?

The guys who worked on this campaign (and no, I wasn't on the team--just an admirer) had a challenge: small campaign, big impact, huge client. And I mean huge, but one of those clients with torque and teeth. So they came up with stuff so teetering on the edge, we had meetings where they'd lay out the layouts in the boardroom and ask people "Is this too much?". And most would cover their mouths, stare, and laugh--that secretive deep-down laugh.

So up the campaign went.

And the phones started ringing.

The newspapers called. The TV stations called. The blogs started debating the merits versus the implied insults. We received two lawsuit threats (to the utter delight of the AE, who spent the week in interviews). But, most of all, it got people talking. People on the street were saying the client's name, talking about the campaign, telling us how they FELT. They were engaged, they were moved. A few were taken aback, but by far most loved it. They loved that it spoke right to them, 'cause it was a campaign that would work here at home and nowhere else. People were--oh yes indeedy--interacting. And it was good. The client was ecstatic. Sales were up. We were in. Our little agency was in.

Not so fast.

Come awards night, the category passed in a flash. Literally. The jury deemed that no entry deserved a win, and only 1 meagre entry, from one of the jury's agencies, no less, even got nominated. End of story.

So the copywriter--hyped on beer and adrenaline--spoke to the jury president at the after party, under the guise of trying to improve their chances for next year.

"Oh yes," said the president. "Yes, I think I remember that campaign. Look, that's a pretty big client. You should have raised the bar a little higher."

Wha'?

I'm not saying the campaign should have won. I'm not even saying it should have beat the other contenders in the category. But to be deemed not good enough to even get in the door?

Look--here's what you need to do to win an award in this town. First, work for one of the big agencies. Then get yourself on the creative jury. And finally, rev up your wrist and reach for your neighbour.

Bullies.