My favourite blog is AdContrarian.com.
It’s written, Monday to Friday, by Bob Hoffman who owns and runs an agency in San Francisco.
At least it used to be.
Bob just stopped writing.
He said he’s fed up writing about advertising every day.
Burned out, dried up.
That’s a real shame.
Reading the AdContrarian was my daily dose of getting back in touch with reality.
There’s more bullshit in our business than in most other businesses.
And it’s usually just someone not very good trying to jump on the bandwagon of whatever’s currently fashionable.
And what’s fashionable is news.
So it gets a lot of coverage.
And, as with all fashion, most people can’t sift the good from the bad.
Bob was very good at cutting through this.
Not just with rhetoric.
But facts and figures, names, dates, concrete results.
That’s why I’ve directed so many people to his site.
He is the little boy pointing out that the emporer isn’t actually wearing any clothes.
But there’s something more important than that I like.
I like his style of writing, whether it’s about advertising or not.
No nonsense, fast, punchy, and witty.
And that’s why I think it’s a shame he’s stopped.
For me there are two requirements from anything I read.
I have to learn something.
Or I have to be entertained.
If I’m not getting either of those two, why would I keep reading?
From the AdContrarian I usually got both.
But I never got less than one.
So here’s a thing.
Why does he have to stop writing, just because he’s fed up with writing about advertising?
The best advertising works because it’s creative.
You can find creativity everywhere.
And we can all learn from creativity wherever we find it.
I can learn lessons about creativity from Mohammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Max Baer, Vince Lombardi, Billy Beane, Brian Clough, Tony Adams, Jackie Stewart, Bill Shankley, Napoleon, Nelson, Heinz Guderian, Michael Wittmann, Willy Messerschmitt, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson, Winston Churchill, Norman Tebbitt, Tony Benn, Pablo Picasso, Damien Hirst, Tintoretto, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, William of Ockham, Jean Paul Sartre, and Ernie Bilko.
All of these guys said or did something that made me go, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that.”
Just look at the cover of the Sergeant Pepper album.
That’s The Beatles putting all their creative influences in one photograph.
And that was something I pored over at art school.
Why did John, Paul, and George like those people?
What was good about them?
I wanted to know what I could learn from them.
Whatever excites us will probably be something really clever.
And if we think it’s clever it’s probably because it’s creative.
And if it’s creative we can learn from it.
It’ll be good to read.
We don’t have to write about advertising.
Although advertising can be very creative, it isn’t the only form of creativity.
It’s applied creativity.
And there are lots of other forms of applied creativity.
So where else can we find it being applied?
What else took our breath away when we heard or saw it?
And what can we learn from it?
What can we take away and use?
Join up the dots.
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Dave, your 2 requirements are the reasons I read your blog.
Don’t always agree but like the way you think.
Don’t stop writing.
Have to ask - what WAS the lesson about creativity from Norman Tebbit which made you think “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!”
Hi Paul,
Personally I think you can trace the decline, and eventual fall, of Thatcher’s government to the Brighton bombing.
After that Tebbitt left the cabinet to concentrate on caring for his injured wife.
Tebbitt was the enforcer that held the government together.
He was the sergeant who made the troops do what Thatcher wanted done.
He kept her cabinet in line.
After he left, it gradually fell apart.
What I think we can learn from Tebbitt is similar to Napoleon’s quote: “Generals don’t win wars. Sergeants win wars.”
Thanks so much, Dave.
Couldn’t agree more - Bob inspired me to start typing.
I would advise anyone to check out his short and to the point on-line book via his Blog.
As he says: “Getting beyond the fleeting trends, false goals, and dreadful jargon of contemporary advertising”
I was saddened that your impressive list of inspirational teachers included no women. If you give it some thought, surely there must be one woman whose creativity, whose voice, whose very way of looking at the world has struck a creative chord that resonated for you? One?
Normally I don’t separate people by gender Crista.
Or race, or age, nationality, football team, or political persuasion.
I just pick what connects with me.
So it wasn’t a deeply thought out compilation.
It was just a top-of-the-head list to make a point.
But, if I had to narrow it down to just women: Mary Wollstoncraft, Jo Brand, Maggie Thatcher, Joni Mitchell, Emma Thompson, and Lee Miller would do for a start.
Who’d be on your list Crista?
Mohammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Max Baer, Vince Lombardi, Billy Beane, Brian Clough, Tony Adams, Jackie Stewart, Bill Shankley, Napoleon, Nelson, Heinz Guderian, Michael Wittmann, Willy Messerschmitt, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson, Winston Churchill, Norman Tebbitt, Tony Benn, Pablo Picasso, Damien Hirst, Tintoretto, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, William of Ockham, Jean Paul Sartre, and Ernie Bilko…your boys took a hell of a beating.
“Who are your influences?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3paf2TLrgsg&NR=1
Crista,
You can add Ellen MacArthur to that list.
Rosa Parkes from me.
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Judy Chicago, Lee Miller, Georgia O’Keeffe, Lucille Ball, Clarice Cliff, Jessica Lange, Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Anita Loos, Christiane Amanpour, Jo Stafford, Anita O’Day, Jessie Norman, Babe Didrikson Zaharia.
I know that your list was off the top of your head Dave, and I really don’t mean to give you a hard time about your creative heroes. But I am surprised, since moving here from the USA, how women often seem to be left out of the conversation. I hope that anyone who has a daughter will try to make an extra effort to recognize women’s accomplishments.
…Emmeline Pankhurst, Twyla Tharp, Debby Harry, Aretha Franklin. I guess sisters have been doing it for themselves for quite a while.
A couple of northerners from the arts world to finish off with, Beatrix Potter and Emily Brontë.
John,
Love that clip.
Crista
Click on this link about different attitudes to women in the USA and the UK.
http://www.cstadvertising.com/blog/2009/03/if-you-don%e2%80%99t-do-it-it-won%e2%80%99t-happen/
“Why did John, Paul, and George like those people?”
What about Ringo?
I agree with you Pat.
What about Ringo?
‘Tis good isn’t it, Dave.
Clement and Frenais did some good stuff. ‘The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’. The Bank Job was a hoot too. I think they rank with Galton and Simpson.
Alan Parker’s is a good story. Did you ever come across him?
John,
Yeah, I was only a junior but he was great to me.
Always really helpful and lots of fun.
A good sign is that everyone liked him a lot: the crew, the technicians, the clients, the creatives, even the tea ladies loved him.
Definitely an all round top bloke.
Aside from Parker I’ll go with Denis Law, Marcel Duchamp and Lance Armstrong as sources of inspiration. The list could go on and on. Which reminds me of a campaigned I like, ‘ariston and on and on’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5UswFSPtc&feature=related was that one of yours?
Sorry Dave for my forgetfulness. I gleaned from an earlier posting of yours that Dave Cook and Dave Waters wrote the line, ARISTON AND ON AND ON AND ON. Can you remember was it married with this song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSwJ2rjUSdc
Well spotted John.
That was the start point for the idea.
The brief was reliability.
Dave and Dave showed me Ariston and on and on, married to that song.
I suggested Red Grooms for the visuals (going from 2D to 3D)for the first campaign.
Later on Graham Fink saw an animation reel we’d been wondering what to do with, and used it for the repitition commercial.
Tim Mellors suggested redoing the track similar to the Gameboy Graham was playing on.
It’s like spotting the number of touches each player had before the ball went in the net.
How did it work copyright wise? Was it sufficient to slightly change the tune?
In the same realm, I presume that ‘Hello John got a new motor’ was penned before ‘Hello Tosh’. Is it that you need permission from the artist to change the words but not when it come to slightly altering the tune?
In both cases (and lots of others) we bought the rights, from the original artist or owner, for a year.
Sometimes they’ll agree to let you change the words (it’s called a parody) sometimes they won’t.
You negotiate on an individual basis.
I’m assuming that artists can get more by releasing usage of their work as is, as opposed to a one off fee hence the predilection these days of ‘unaltered’ music in ads. Royalties?
I think some are just sniffy about advertising.
Can’t say I blame them always.
I can’t listen to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite without hearing “Everyone’s a Fruit and Nut case…”
Sniffy in a kinda misinformed way no doubt.
‘…It is really the life of kings.’
Good post. I hope you’ve inspired Bob to make a comeback. Missing him already!
Ad industry burn out sucks. Your sanity. Your mojo. Your curiosity. And your desire to be alive. Let Bob Hoffman rest a bit. His love for the things we love about him will inevitably return, when the burn out leaves. But before then let the man rest.