Context isn’t everything, it’s the only thing

A couple of years ago I went to a Caravaggio exhibition at The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. One of the greatest painters ever, it was always going to be packed.

In fact so many people wanted to see it that you had to book a ticket, just like a show at the cinema or theatre. You booked a particular time, then you went along and queued with everyone else. Even then, when we got inside the exhibition it was packed.

It was in the basement, and just coming down the stairs you could see the crowd already. It was almost impossible to get near any of the pictures.

The star picture of the whole show was “Supper at Emmaus” showing Christ seated with three people.

The crowd around this particular painting was about six or seven deep. I don’t think anyone could have enjoyed it or studied it, or spent more than a few minutes in front of it. The crowd was like a single jostling mass, and you had to move with it.

I didn’t even bother trying to see that particular Caravaggio. There wasn’t any point. All year round it’s on show upstairs in the main part of The National Gallery. You can go to see it for free any time you want.

You can have the whole painting to yourself because hardly anyone goes to look at it. I knew this because, when my children were small, they’d asked me how to draw something to look like it’s coming towards you when it’s on a flat piece of paper. I knew a guy called Alan Reid, who was a bit of an art expert. So I asked him where I could find some good examples of ‘foreshortening’.

He said the best example was “Supper at Emmaus” which hung at The National. So we went along on a Saturday, sat on the floor in front of it, and spent a peaceful hour or so drawing it.  

We had it to ourselves because no one had directed anyone’s attention to it. But as soon as it’s in an exhibition downstairs, you can’t get near it for the crowds. Isn’t that an amazing thing?

We seem incapable of judging for ourselves what’s good, we need someone to tell us. If it’s just hanging in a gallery with no one looking at it, how can it be any good? But if it’s in a major exhibition, it must be important and we need to see it.

In Singapore they have an expression for this sort of herd behaviour. It’s called ‘Kia Soo’. Loosely translated as ‘fear of being left out’. Like seeing a crowd, and rushing over to see what everyone’s looking at in case you missed something.

I saw an exhibition once at The Saatchi Gallery. One piece that fascinated me was by Gavin Turk. It was a piece of used chewing gum inside a glass case. It wasn’t the piece itself that fascinated me. For me the real art was watching the people gathered around the case studying a piece of used chewing gum.

They must have passed dozens of identical pieces of gum on the way to the gallery. Probably they’d pass dozens more on the way home. Would they stop and study each one? Would they stroke their chin and ponder on the meaning? Of course not.

They wouldn’t even see them, and even if they did they wouldn’t be worth discussing, admiring, studying, emulating. See we don’t judge the object for ourselves. We judge the fact that someone else says it has merit.

And we don’t want to be left out (‘Kia Soo’). But art galleries shouldn’t be like rubber stamps. They should be fun and provocative, they should stimulate your mind, not close it down. They’re an opinion, not an authority.

Just like advertising awards.

Cognitive dissonance

I’ve just seen a great poster, but I’m confused. It’s a six sheet poster at a bus stop in Frankfurt. It’s just a simple picture of a plate with a knife and fork on either side.

At the bottom is the client’s logo: Fisch Franke. Then the line “Fresh as can be”. But the thing that makes people stop and stare is the poster has live fish swimming around inside it.

See it’s basically a big fish tank and the poster is at the back. And it’s a great poster. It’s got impact, memorability, talkability, communication, and persuasion in spades.

I didn’t go the Frankfurt to see it. My daughter sent me a link to it on YouTube, so it’s even gone viral. Not bad for a 6 sheet poster at a bus stop in Frankfurt. Brilliant poster and I wish I’d done it.

Except.  What I found strange was that everyone thought the fish were cute and fascinating and watchable. Clearly these people loved fish. Children were trying to attract the fish to the front of the glass so they could make faces at them.

Probably they even give them names and come back to the poster, again and again, to look for their favourites.  But the poster is promising to kill fish just like these for you to eat. Isn’t that strange?

We really find the fish cute, and yet the poster’s promise is to kill fish exactly like these and put them on our plate, asap. And it works because it powerfully demonstrates the most important aspect of buying fish to eat. Freshness.

I think it’s a great poster, and I’m a vegetarian. So I’m confused.

I was on a radio show once, being interviewed by Lorraine Kelly. She asked me if I didn’t feel guilty at the way advertising portrayed animals. I asked her what she meant.
She said that advertising always made fun of animals. As an example she said the PG Chimps campaign trivialised monkeys.

I asked her why that was a problem. She said it wasn’t fair to trivialise animals, as it would encourage people to disrespect them and treat them badly. I asked her if she was a vegetarian. She said she wasn’t, but what did that have to do with it?

I said if I was an animal I’d rather people laughed at me than killed me and ate me. So I thought her attitude was hypocritical. She said she didn’t mind killing cows and pigs and sheep because they weren’t cute. But monkeys were cute and she wouldn’t kill and eat them.

What she said made no sense to me, but it made perfect sense to her. And vice versa.

People don’t conform to a universally agreed set of rational beliefs. People aren’t as simply predictable as we’d like to believe. They don’t always fit onto the one-dimensional PowerPoints we use for client presentations.

Sometimes things happen that shouldn’t happen. Sometimes things just don’t make sense, but they work anyway. Sometimes it’s hard to understand people.

And that’s awkward when that’s our business. That’s why we have to reinvent the wheel every time. That’s why briefs can’t be done on auto-pilot. That’s why the creative process starts before the brief is written, not after.

In fact confusion may not be a bad place to start. Come at problems out of a question, not out of an answer.



 

The punters haven't read the brief

When Frank Lowe was CEO of CDP, he asked Ron Collins to come into his office. He said they needed something really special for a new client.

Frank said it had to be something really outstanding, something absolutely amazing. Ron said, “Okay Frank, where’s the brief?”

As Frank walked Ron to the door, he put his arm round his shoulder. He said, “You don’t need a brief Ron. I don’t think a brief will help you.”

I think Frank understood that sometimes a brief can actually get in the way. It can actually harm the creative process. Especially if what we’re trying to do is bigger than just conventional advertising.

If we’re trying to get into the language. Competing against television programmes, films, the Internet, music. None of those start with a brief. They start when someone has an idea.

Someone thinks they’ll write a book. Someone else reads the book and thinks it’ll make a great stage play. Someone else sees the play and thinks it will make a great film. Someone else sees the film and thinks it will make a great TV series.

In the case of all really great mass-market pieces of entertainment, the idea appears before the brief. Of course we can’t do that.

We can’t have an idea about something and then go looking for a client to sell it to. For us the opportunity to do advertising, the brief, comes before the idea. So naturally we start from there.

This means that, over the years, briefs have become formulaic. Worse than that, they’ve become documents that cannot be deviated from.

Before an account man, planner, or client looks at a piece of creative work they say, “Let’s just remind ourselves of the brief first.” Why is this? The consumer won’t have read the brief before they’re exposed to it. So we’re judging the work in exactly the way the consumer won’t.

Why not experience it the way the consumer will? Look at the work first. Then you can ask yourself the really important questions about it. Will it stand out? Did I enjoy it?  Do I know who it’s for?  Do I know what’s it’s saying?

When you’ve got those answers, then you can look at the brief. Then you can see if the ad does what the brief says it’s supposed to do. Because, if you read the brief first, you’re not judging what the ad does. You’re judging it against what it’s supposed to do.

And here’s a really shocking thought. What if the final work was BETTER than the brief? What if it’s worth relooking at the brief in light of the work? Because what will be judged by the consumers is the final work, not the brief.

But the brief has become the limits of creativity. If the work doesn’t tick all the boxes, we don’t want it. The brief was always supposed to be a springboard for great work.
Not a straitjacket.

But about 75% of the creative opportunities have been taken away before the brief gets anywhere near the creative department. The marketing strategy has been decided. The communication strategy has been decided. The research methodology has been decided. The consumer insights have been decided. The brand personality has been decided. The proposition has been decided.  The media has been decided.

What does that leave the “creative” department? Words and pictures. Oh yes, and they can pick a director.

There’s really not much room left for any truly creative activity. All that has been taken away and handled in a not very creative way. What this leads to is departmentalisation and silo-thinking. Real creativity happens when different people from different disciplines get together to overlap and have ideas about what each other does. That’s how we get fresh thinking.

We don’t always have to use it, but it will help jog us out of our rut.

These are my personal rules for briefs:

1)    Read and sign off every brief before it goes into the creative department. Then forget it.

2)    Don’t re-read the brief before you look at the work.
Come to the work fresh.

3)    The wrong brief early is better than the right brief late.
Often the original thinking is right, if it isn’t you can always put a better brief in later.

Stay open to possibility. The brief should be the floor, not the ceiling. Mainly, lighten up. This is supposed to be fun. Fun in, fun out.

The Interview Dilemma

Blokes are simple creatures. Most of us naturally want to be helpful if we can. Other blokes usually ask us a question because they want an answer.

If someone asks us how to fix a carburator, or a leaking tap, we’ll try to give useful information. But useful information isn’t always what’s wanted.

For instance, when your wife asks you, “Does my bum look big in this?’ The correct answer is not: “Maybe, but that could be because of the colour.  Light colours do make things look bigger. If you want your bum to look smaller try wearing something black. Or maybe vertical stripes, they’re slimming. Or maybe a longer jacket to cover it up a bit, that’ll help.”

That would be considered useful information if you were talking to another bloke. But it won’t go down well with the wife. Because she wasn’t actually asking you a question. She didn’t want your opinion. She just wants you to tell her what she wants to hear. “No dear, not at all, your bum looks fine.” Whether it does or not.

This is a difficult concept for most blokes. How is a lie helpful? If I lied to a mate, and he found out, he’d never ask me again. But there’s a grey area here. When a nice lie is considered better than the truth.

A big lesson about life, especially in interviews, is that the truth is not always appropriate. Because most people are looking for reassurance, not help.

Mark Waites, Creative Director at Mother, was telling me he was preparing a talk for a bunch of students. Several senior ad industry figures had been asked to give graduates a single, piece of really important advice.

Mark’s was: “Pray you never hear the word ‘nice’ in an interview.” His said, if someone is looking at your book and they keep saying ‘nice’ you’re dead.

Because the bottom line of what they’re really saying is, “I don’t think this work is good enough, but I don’t want to tell you that because I don’t want you to think I’m rude. So I’d like to end this interview as painlessly as possible.“

That’s the problem I have with interviews. Most people will remember you as ‘nice’ if you say their book was ‘nice’.

But of course ‘nice’ isn’t effective. ‘Nice’ won’t help you get a job. Worse than that, ‘nice’ won’t even tell you there’s a problem.

You’ll just carry on wasting time believing everything’s okay. Because that’s what most people want to believe. We don’t want to hear the truth. Because the truth is uncomfortable. It involves change and work.

Which is why most people who come for interviews don’t actually want any advice. They want a placebo.

Here’s an important, uncomfortable question. What’s the most important step in fixing a puncture?  The step without which, nothing else can happen?

Is it undoing the wheel nuts? No, more basic than that. Is it getting the spare wheel ready? No, it’s more basic than that. Is it jacking up the car? No, it’s more fundamental than that.

The most important step in fixing a puncture is admitting we’ve got a puncture in the first place. Unless we admit that, we can’t do any of the other things.

Undo the wheel nuts. Check the spare. Jack up the wheel. Nothing can happen until we admit we’ve got a problem.

But of course no one wants to admit they’ve got a problem. So we don’t.

We’d rather carry on, believing the bumpiness is all the road’s fault. And our friends, and ‘nice’ people, agree with us. So we can’t fix the real problem.

And that’s the dilemma at an interview. How do you tell if someone genuinely wants help and advice, even if it’s painful? Or if they just want a warm, comfy, ineffective ‘nice’?

If you ask someone if they want you to be honest, of course they’ll say yes. No one will say, “I’d rather have a pleasant lie than the unpleasant truth.”

So what do you do? Do you tell everyone the truth? In which case most people will think you’re rude and arrogant. Or do you tell everyone their work is ‘nice’? In which case you’re just wasting your time and theirs.

So the real question is, why do interviews at all? Which of course, is why most creative directors just ask you to drop your portfolio off in reception.

The new business dilemma

Suppose you are a doctor. A man comes to see you and he’s limping, you examine him. You say, “It’s an easy diagnosis, you’ve got a broken leg.” He says, “I don’t want a broken leg.”

You say, “That’s understandable, but you still have a broken leg.” He says, “I’m the patient and I don’t think I’ve got a broken leg. I think I’ve got a sprained ankle.” You say, “Well I’m the doctor. I’ve seen lots of these, and you’ve got a broken leg.”

He says, “You may be the doctor, but it’s my body and I think I know it better than you. So when I say I’ve got a sprained ankle, that’s what I’ve got.” You say, “Of course you know your body, but you’re not an expert in medicine. I am, and I say you’ve got a broken leg.”

He says, “Well I’ve told you the problem I want fixed. Now you can either fix it for me, or I can go down the road to another doctor and pay him to fix my sprained ankle.”

What do you do? Lose the patient, or give him the wrong treatment?

If you’re in advertising, you treat him for a sprained ankle and take the money. Because the first rule is to keep the client happy. Obviously you don’t want to lose the client.

There’s an expression in American basketball, “You can’t shoot the ball if you ain’t got the ball.” And that’s how it is in advertising. You can’t do any great work unless you have the account.

So you do whatever it takes to win the account. Otherwise you’re stuck with the Benn/Kinnock dilemma.

Tony Benn was a very principled left wing politician. He was originally Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Viscount Stansgate. But he believed deeply in the principles of socialism. So he helped pass a law that allowed him to become the first person ever to renounce a peerage. He renounced it all and changed his name to Tony Benn.

The trouble is, real socialism is a bit too extreme for most people. And political parties have to sacrifice a lot of their more extreme principals to become electable. Neil Kinnock understood that very well.

When he became leader of the Labour party, he set about reforming it. Watering down or getting rid of some of the more fundamental socialist principles it had been founded on. Principles he thought stopped it achieving power.

Benn and Kinnock had a massive row over these reforms. Benn said to Kinnock, “You’ll just have power without principles.” Kinnock said to Benn, “That’s better than principles without power.”

Well is it, what do you think? Maybe it depends where you come from, your background. Kinnock came from a poor family in Wales. When you’re poor the most important thing is survival.

Tony Benn had been brought up in the lap of luxury, survival was never even an issue. So, because survival was assured, principles became the most important thing.

During the cold war there was a serious risk of nuclear annihilation. One Russian bomb could destroy London. In the USA and Europe you’d often hear the phrase repeated, “It’s better to be red than dead.”

No one wanted to be communist, but if you had to choose which would you choose? It’s a more extreme version of the advertising dilemma.

Do you try to win new business by giving the client what you know he wants? Or do you give him the right answer even though you know he doesn’t want it?

As Bill Bernbach said, “A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money.” It’s the Kinnock\Benn dilemma.

We need to find a way to pick our way through the two extremes. In the old days Saatchi had a rule of thumb for whether they accepted business or not. “We’ve either got to be doing great work on a piece of business, or we’ve got to be making money on it. If we’re not doing either of those, we don’t want it.”

That may not be the ideal solution. It probably isn’t the only solution. But it is a good pragmatic route through the dilemma.