The Need for Pure, 100% Not-From-Concentrate Talent

The advertising industry never ceases to amaze me. The talent. The timeless ads. The fucking bullshit.

On a tip from Adpulp I just read this Newsweek piece on Peter Arnell. You know, Tropicana (and Pepsi) re-branding dude. Or maybe douche is more appropriate.

This quote from Arnell (single out on Adpulp as well) pretty much sums it up:

Arnell also can't understand the kerfuffle over his work for Tropicana. "Can you imagine such mishegoss over a freaking box of juice?" he says. "I can't believe that for the rest of my life I'm going to be known as Peter 'Tropicana' Arnell." He says Tropicana overreacted to complaints. "I have my own perspective on it. But it's not my brand. It's not my company. So what the hell? I got paid a lot of money, and I have 30 other projects. You move on." (Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, says Tropicana will continue working with Arnell.)

If the Newsweek article is half true (and I believe it's more than that) then Arnell is a prime time asshole. But it's not really my place to berate Arnell, I'm sure he has his own not-a-fan club that will take care of that. Rather, this brings me to a plague of advertising: great minds getting recognized and paid for their greatness and then slipping into a coma of douchebaggery.

I have no doubt that Arnell is a fairly smart guy, you need to have a pretty good head on your shoulders to run an organization like his. I have no doubt that the countless other CDs and CEOs and other C-level executives that have risen to similar postions around the world are talented as well. But why do so many have to turn into ass-clowns?

Is it the money that corrupts? The power? The corner office?

I don't have an answer to that question.

But I do have a solution.

Bring in the juniors.

That's right. Let's give those who have no resonable claim to fame or fortune the chance to attain it. Let's re-inject the passion into the system. And let's make it a booster shot straight to the heart.

But, you might say, won't the juniors just become old douches in a few years?

Yes, some will. It is inevitable. But we must continue to flush the system of inpurities while gulping down a nutrient-rich double dose of high energy, fresh idea spouting youth.

I believe that deep down, most people are good. Even most people in advertising. I've run into far more immensly talented, genuinely caring souls than I have asshats in my brief ad career.

So what are you waiting for? Clients, juniors, seniors, and everyone inbetween or outside, I'm calling on you to boycott the bullshitters and champion the pure, passionate individuals around you. Flush out the old, move up the truely talented in the ranks and backfill with juniors.

Ummm, you taste that? That's pure, 100% not-from-concentrate talent. And it will do this industry some good.

How Twitter Killed My Blog

Hi, uh, do you come here often?

I feel like a stranger on my own blog. It's been a while since I've devoted some serious time to it. Too long in fact. But it's nobody's fault but my own. Well, maybe Twitter is to blame as well. But more on that later.

I had an interesting conversation with my girlfriend the other night. I was ranting about how this really awesome place (www.bikefurniture.com) that makes furniture out of bike parts is, in my opinion, making a huge mistake by not listing prices on their website. I went on and on about how you need to make it as easy as possible for someone to buy your stuff and if you don't list a price I'll assume I can't afford it, whether that's actually true or not. Once I composed myself she turned to me and said "What am I supposed to do about it? Why don't you blog it or tell the company so someone who cares can actually do something about it."

And that's when I realized I needed to return to blogging. (ps- that bike furniture is AWESOME, but I'm not going to email you to find out the price. If you'd like me to buy it I need to be able to do so in as simple a way as possible.)

Aside from this revealation I also realized that I had fewer "urges" to blog. I attribute this to my increasing use of Twitter. I also wonder if other bloggers feel the same? It's so easy to bust out a few quick tweets that many of my thoughts, rants and ramblings get channeled there as opposed to on here. As I logged in to write this post I realized that I can compose a whole tweet in about the time it takes me to log into Blogger. In an age where instant communication is becoming more instant everyday I see this as a long term issue that blogging service may need to address. Obviously micro-blogging won't kill macro-blogging(?) but it could pour some water on the fire.

So I guess that's my long way of saying, "I'm back." Thanks for listening.

A better way to develop new advertising talent

What’s the best way to develop new talent in advertising? Current thinking says that aspiring creatives should get an internship to get some experience under their belt, but is there a better way? A way to benefit agencies AND young talent? Dave Trott over at CST thinks creative youth teams are the way to go. It goes something like this: decent sized agencies (and arguably this is only possible in medium and large agencies) have a junior and a senior creative department. The junior department serves several purposes:

One, it puts heat under the senior department. The juniors are hungry to make their mark and willing to put in the long hours necessary to take their work to the next level. This in turn puts pressure on the senior team to bring their “A” game because if they don’t there’s a junior waiting to step up at a moments notice.

Two, the agency gets a talent at a reduced cost. Obviously the juniors won’t make as much as the senior team, but they will make a decent wage. They might have to pick up a weekend job (when they aren’t at the agency), but they aren’t working for free.

Three, the young creatives benefit because they get full-scale real work, not just scraps. Too often interns get table scraps from the other creatives instead of getting the true real-world experience. The regular creatives keep certain work for themselves, which is fair in an internship situation, but it doesn’t give the maximum experience to the intern.

Four, the agency has a unique edge to pitch clients. They have a youth team that is a little younger than most creatives. A little edgier. A little hungrier. A little closer to “the streets.” This sort of thing can become an asset when pitched to brands looking for that youthful vigor. And a lot of brands are looking for some youthful vigor these days.

Five, the next Alex Bogusky (or insert your favorite creative here) is out there. She might be interning for you right now. Or he might be putting in 14 hour days for your rival across town. Would you know it if they were working for you right now? (every CD reading this shakes their head yes) I don’t think you would. Because that is the inherent problem in most unpaid internship programs. They only get scraps of real work so their chances to shine are reduced. They aren’t paid, so most have to hold down second or third jobs to afford to give you a couple days a week for free, so they can’t always give you as much time as they’d like to. Sure, these could be viewed as excuses a lazy young creative would give. But if you think highly enough of them to bring them on for an internship in the first place, why not maximize their chances of showing you their greatness?

Where do internships fit in? Reserve them for those currently in school at the junior / senior level or as a short term trial before becoming joining your junior creative team (after all, someone has to put pressure on the junior team.) Let them get some scraps of real work, but also give them some full campaigns (even if it’s not real work) so they can show their skills. It’ll help you better evaluate whether to offer them a junior position or not.

I know a lot of agencies have junior creatives. But why not expand it into a department, complete with a junior CD? Why not leverage it as an asset rather than making it a place for the overflow from the senior creatives? Why not light a fire under your senior staff? Why not push your agency to be better?

Nomination for Douchebag of the Year

Note: this is an official call for entries in the first ever Douchebag of the Year contest hosted here on justinmccammon.com. If you have a Douchebag you'd like to nominate please send a story stating the Douchebaggery committed by the person to justinmccammonblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Obviously this contest will run until the end of the year.

I was driving with my girlfriend to get some ice cream when I saw the first sign of the douchebag...a bumper sticker with too many words on it to read from a safe distance. Luckily, we were at a stoplight so I was able to pull forward and read it.
It said:

If it's worth dying for in the middle east, it's worth drilling for in the US.

So let's examine this a bit closer. The "it" being referred to is obviously oil. So this person (and I consider all bumper stickers to be representative of their owners) says oil is worth dying for. I don't really care where he thinks it's worth dying for, because we have a problem right here. Oil is not worth DYING for. Under such logic the US could just give some poor souls to [fill in your favorite oil producing country here], they could kill them, and then we could get a few barrels of oil, say 100 barrels per person. Does that sound fair (it's not too far off from the current conflict in Iraq)? Of course it doesn't, because there are very few of us outside prison walls that believe trading human life for anything, especially oil, is an OK thing to do.

Now that second part of the bumper sticker, about drilling in the US. First off, this was on a full size Chevy truck. Not the biggest, but not the smallest either. This truck also had some aggressively treaded "off-road" tires on it. One could assume this person likes to enjoy our wonderful national parks and forests and the "off road" experiences they provide. In the same breath of air, this person is also calling for such places to be overrun by drilling operations is search for that ever elusive gusher. But back to the truck; and this is the part that really gets me: If this person believes that oil is worth dying for why aren't they driving a Prius? What this person is saying with the bumper sticker and vehicle combination is that not only is oil worth dying for, but I'm going to use up more oil than really necessary to get my ass around and if more people need to die to get me that oil than so be it.

In the end, what I really wanted to do was to walk up to the guys window and remind him that the army is still looking for volunteers. I mean, if oil is worth dying for, why the hell is he still over here?

Counterpoint:
OK, so maybe this bumper sticker is really tongue in cheek and this person is a huge environmentalist who is actually running their truck on biofuel. Not likely. There are few other ways to interpret the bumper sticker other than the way I have above.

On Free Speech:
Just to be clear, I'm not saying this person shouldn't be allowed to say what they're saying, but rather I'm upset that such a mindset has been adopted by one (and probably lots more) of my fellow countrymen.

The Denver Egotist Thinks Denver Ad Schools Suck. Meanwhile CU Students Win Some One Show Pencils

Irony strikes again! Recently the Denver Egotist was busy bashing Colorado schools for not pumping out incredible students filled with natural talent (they don't believe talent can be taught, but would like schools to try harder at teaching students how to... wait I feel a headache coming on). At the same time CU students Eliot Nordstrom and Phil Van Buren were busy accepting their gold One Show Pencil for their Doritos work. CU's Austin O'Connor probably didn't get a chance to read the Egotist story either, he was busy getting the Patrick Kelly Scholarship from the One Show. (to it's credit, the Egotist did name CU's program the best in the area)

Actually, speaking of students, I'd bet a lot of them missed the Egotist story since the New Denver Ad Club was holding it's "Connect 2008" job fair on Friday. I made the trip down to the event and found a lot of agencies eager to help develop Denver's talent. I may have even landed myself a fall internship. Strangely enough I didn't see The Egotist at the job fair even though they claim to have "seen almost all the portfolios" of all of Denver's ad students (granted, I don't know who is behind the curtain at the Egotist, so maybe they were there, anyone care to share some insight?).

Here's my take on this: I think the Egotist might be getting at something, but they're a bit off target. Schools can only take you so far, the rest if up to the student. If you want to succeed and go the extra mile you will, regardless of what school you attend. Schools can only augment and support the effort (and talent) provided by the student. For example, UNC's marketing program is almost devoid of any advertising classes / support (two classes are offered specifically on advertising). That doesn't stop me from pushing for more and getting my hands on all the ad books I can, reading CA, CMYK, countless blogs, and attending creative workshops. I want it, and if UNC won't give it to me I'll get it elsewhere.

So maybe the problem isn't with schools so much as it is with students? What do you guys think? Let's hear it in the comments.

The Arcade Fire: Black Mirror

One of my favorite bands, The Arcade Fire, has an impressive new site up for their single "Black Mirror" over at www.rorrimkcalb.com (look at the url in a mirror, I didn't get it right away). You can remix the song as it and the video plays by pressing 1-6 on your keyboard to take out / add in various tracks of the song. While I love the band and the song, I have to say the 3-4 minute load time is a bit out of control, especially since I have a pretty fast connection normally. Ultimately though, I feel like the content is cool enough to justify it, but like I said, I'm already a fan, YMMV.

Oh, a few other complaints, relatively on topic: 1976 productions did this site and I thought I'd go find their site and check out some of their other stuff. Nope, not a chance in hell. Try googling 1976 productions to see what I mean. Then try urls you think might make since (1976productions.com, 1976production.com, 1976.com, no, no and no.). So alas, I thought maybe I'd find it on Creativity's website since I read about it originally in their March dead-tree edition. Ha! You want to access an article more that a week old? Pay up buddy cause now you need a print AND an online subscription. You want to share Creativity's content with everyone on your blog? Forget it, we keep our content to ourselves, we're not going to share it with anyone, because, you know, then people might read it and check out our website and bring in some ad revenue or maybe subscribe and then we'd get some additional revenue and page hits and boy would that suck because we're Creativity magazine and we hate sharing our content with everyone, especially you.
End rant.