Down with recycling

There's currently a trend in the industry where companies are reusing old ideas. A few examples, coke and the kids singing on the rooftop ("I'd like to buy the world a coke/teach the world to chill), produced in the 60's. Alka Seltzer, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing", originally produced by Wells Rich Greene. Recently reshot, almost identically frame for frame, using "Ray's parents" from "Everyone Loves Raymond." From a strategic point of view, the advertisers were trying to tap into the nostalgic brand equity that these campaigns have. In a time of fickle client relationships, impossible deadlines, and exceedingly high expectations, I could see how strategically it would make sense to try to remind consumers why they love the brand in the first place by using campaigns that were successful in the past.

However, as a creative, I think it's a piss poor attempt at generating ideas by relabeling them. It's lazy and just isn't as good the second time around. We are killing ourselves everyday to come up with ground-breaking and innovative ideas. I can see how the pressure to produce a golden nugget could make someone so desperate that they use the archives as an emergency idea grab bag and present it as a decent, fresh concept. It's doing a disservice to themselves and the consumer. The original concepts don't even mean the same thing to a new generation. And when you become complacent (i.e. reshooting a commercial identically), there is no room for improvement and innovation. The only argument I can make for this trend is to push it further. If you take an old idea and turn it on its head, so it's executed even better than the original, yet relevant to your audience than I will throw a little support toward the idea of recycling. But other than that, come up with your own G-damn ideas.

Child labor. Except with larger, older creatures.

This is what we have to look forward to.

Honda Civic "Choir"

Holy shit, you gotta see this. Click on the title.

masochists

Brain aneurisms are fun. We have to convince ourselves of that or we're not going to make it. All that work and all those all-nighters. And you're still not in love with the work. My eternal optimism is keeping me afloat. I am blindly lending my faith to those that tell me that one day the heavens (or whatever you believe in) will open up and you'll see the light. But until then, this is a dark, dark time in our lives. I'm sticking to the law of averages theory. If you have a hundred ideas, at least 5 of them have to be decent. Is that margin too narrow? Should I check my numbers and break out the abacus? I'm nervous.

Ad Doom and the Revolution

Most of the advertising out there is obtrusive, obnoxious, unimaginative, and irritating. But have you ever wondered why? What is the common element in their ad equation? Bad strategy? Clients from hell? Flat creative? If there are people like us out there all trying to bring advertising out of its own ass, where are the results? Or are we just spoiled at this school by being surrounded by gifted creative people with vision? Maybe we forget that most people's perception of advertising is the shmucky stereotype of advertising. And that some of those people are actually creating advertising. Quite frightening. But then there are rare occasions of success and creative breakthrough that revive the pulse of those that work toward something better. The revolution is just beginning.

Push it real good

Commercial that is standing the test of time for me. Nextel commercial where three offices guys are jamming out to a beatbox playing "Push it" by Salt N Pepa. Fourth dude comes in firing frantic business questionsat them, questions are all calmly and efficiently answered using Nextel. Three guys continue gyrating to early 90's hip-hop. Nice.

Just one sentence

I don't know if this is something all writers deal with, but I sometimes have trouble just getting something on paper. It's the perfectionist in me. The thought that whatever I write down has to be the best thing I've ever written. So I mull it over in my head til I think it's polished, then I write it down. And to my surprise it is still quite crappy. A lot happens from the brain to the pen. So I find it much more productive to just write it down, just scribble something down, anything. Half-formed thoughts, jokes, two word sentences, doodlings of the underworld. I'm getting better at practicing diarrhea of the pen (as vulgar as that sounds), but I still sometimes find myself wrestling with the white bull all day. But when you write something down you actually have something to work with. And you can kill it all if you want. But you gotta have something to kill first.