Dave Trott’s Blog

NO ONE LISTENS TO TECHNOLOGY

Dave, you've switched to all caps. Is there any hidden meaning or lesson to be learnt? By the way, my last encounter with Vivaldi was his Four Seasons [sans Frankie Valli] being played down a telephone line while I was on hold to my mock friendly local bank. Though, considering my financial predicament, 'Big girls don't cry' would be a better choice of tune.

Hi Grilla,

Sometimes I post from home on a Mac, via Firefox.

Sometimes I post from the office on a PC, via Explorer.

The technology does what it does.

It doesn't

always space it

the

way I want either.

I agree entirely with the sentiment. It always has been, always will be, the music, or the idea, that matters.

But is it true that while the technology hasn’t changed the music itself, each of the format changes you highlight has changed the way in which we experience the music? The richness, the depth, of the experience has evolved. As we’ve moved through wax cylinders, to 78rpms, to vinyl long-players, through CDs, to MP3s to wherever-on-earth next, the stuff that surrounds the music has changed. It probably started with just knowing who had played on the record, through alternate-takes and b-sides, through sleeves delivering lyrics and biography, booklets full of tour photos and lead-singer daubings, and now band websites, blogs, and tweeting.

Which I guess is really just added-value. It doesn’t fundamentally change the quality of the core product – the music doesn’t get better or worse depending on the format. But the experience, arguably, has got better (or at least, deeper). And it is the technology that has enabled this. To your point, it hasn’t created it, but it has added to it.

Which is where I find the challenge lies. Keeping clients, and a new generation of creatives, focussed on what’s the product and what’s the added-value.  Because they seem so seduced by the bright, shiny peripheral technology stuff and all too keen to start adding value before they’ve created anything worth adding to.

Just love the David Abbott quote. Says it all really

but sometimes, just sometimes, the medium is the message.

Dave, thanks for the clarification. Technology regularly shows us we're not always in command of it.

Hi Dave,

I've just been grilling a few creatives on another site,

giving them your famous 3 points of reference:-

"What is the product?"

"Who are you talking to?"

"What are you trying to say?"

This is just SOOOOOOOOOO important.

Because they were all becoming immersed in computer graphics talk,

and I feel a great need to take them back to basics.

At Saatchi the only question anyone asked was

"What is the idea?"

A moment's hesitation in answer to that question and you were dead meat.

Having now been labelled "The Antichrist:" by the smoothies,

I have decided to let them have their tears and get their breath back.

I'd rather do a powerful idea with cheap production techniques any day

than an enormously expensive production of an execution

which brings me to the other important thing

the difference between an idea and an execution.

It's so obvious when it's been hammered out of you,

but not until it is. I had to go on a D&AD course for that to happen.

I knew that way, there would be no place to hide.

I know it really hurt when I had it hammered out of me.

But I'm so glad it was.

And that's thanks to you and that little D&AD book

How to get your first job in advertising.

Which is living proof of less is best.

Well worth a read even now.

Dave, I couldn't agree more. a great idea works wherever, whatever - so how come most job ads for creatives are now digitally specific. As in "digital art Director' or 'Digital Creative Director?'

Hi Peter,

Where you see a job ad like that the adjective is usually more important than the noun.

They're not really looking for a creative director.

They're just looking fo someone who knows 'digital'.

The 'creative director' part is just a face-saving title.

I quite like Telstar actually. And local Wye-valley loyalty forces me to rank Newent boy Joe Meek above those wearisome and overrated Scousers.

I can also supply another interesting aside on the connection between creativity and technology.

The most complicated piece of technology anywhere in the world in the 18th Century was the church organ. They were the supercomputers of their day.

And, according to Paul Johnson in his book Creators, if you needed your organ repaired or improved in the early 1800s, you called for a German bloke.

Called J S Bach.

So perhaps creativity and technological understanding aren't always separate!

Dave,

That's a great reply to Pete's question.

All the technology required for great ideas are a pencil and pad and a few brains and a bit of time gathered around a table. The rest is execution.

We could even crack an open campaign brief online to prove the point.

I agree that the idea must come before you pick the technology.

You can't get those the wrong way round.

But the kind of idea which does function well through digital channels isn't necessarily the same as the kind of idea which functions well through traditional ones.

They're of an altogether different breed.

While you don’t need to start composing music that works on MP3 players, I think you do need start composing ideas which work well through digital.

Yes - wit, controversy and tone will be as important as ever.

But digital ideas call for a greater level of interactivity than traditional.

They need to offer more content or additional services.

They need to be establish a two-way conversation. etc. etc.

The ideas still need to be great ones, of course, but they've changed shape.

Don't you think?

Hi Thomas,

Yes digital is content driven.

the trouble is the content is getting in the way of advetisiers ideas

because people in the industry are being herded like cattle

to  think everything has to be content driven. Bla Bla Bla...

The result?

a massive trail of cattle running aimlessly around the adland

proclaiming they have seen the new Messiah.

Idea becomes lost in the dust of confusion

and once the idea is lost, everything else just falls apart.

It's not new.

The same shock horror hit the industry when HJ Heinz decided

to cancel all their TV spots for a poster campaign years ago.

All the luvvies got in a flutter over it.

It was just a poster campaign that didn't work on TV.

Here's another example:

A VW has many benefits.

List all the benefits all in one ad as a headline and all the impact is lost.

That's online content.

Make one good key point loud and clear, and you've got their attention.

That's advertising.

There's a massive difference.

If content drove everything every ad would be an advertorial.

The most effective ads have been the ones that deliver a Knockout punch.

Britain Isn't working.

Beans meanz Heinz

lipsmackinthirstquenchingacetastingeverfizzin pepsi.

The only sound you'll hear in a Rolls`Royce is the ticking of the clock.

Waaasssssuuup.

what is it? 90 percent of people dont read body copy?

body copy is content.

The whole model is trying to be pushed upside down

at a time when the IAB apologise for a £50m miscalculation?

what is going on?

Amy Kean posted this next door.

It says it all.

www.youtube.com/watch

Hello Kevin

do you see a difference between body copy and long copy?

I agree that the 'idea' is the creative spark and that a knockout blow will grab attention, but isn't there room for additional creativity in long copy - regardless of context?

Isn't the art of the writer their ability build empathy, to create tone and to tell an engaging story that leads the reader to realise a unknown 'need', create a bond, raise a smile, consider a change, etc.

Is that just content? Or is that the follow-up left and right to the kidneys that really puts the punter on their knees?

Nice one, Gotnoteef,

Dave Abbot's Chivas Regal ad, and a shot I saw of him once in his office with his feet up on his desk writing bodycopy longhand tells me great Advertising copy is crafted. Hours and hours are poured over it getting the tone of voice for long copy absolutely right if a great ad is given the attention it truly deserves.

Body copy for me has usually been just the mandatories, or maybe there's a few key selling points the client wants to get across. The best advice I ever had was to read all radio, TV and Copy out loud. If it sounded naff when I read it, I'd find where it didn't flow properly, or where it began to get boring or weak.

When I mentioned content regarding online, the trouble is there is so much of it.

For me it's the difference between happily sailing a boat on a summer's day through Teddington, compared to trying to keep a ship afloat in the Fastnet race in a force 10. Online is so overpowering in it's sea of content, and the speed of which it is necessary to be delivered, there is little time to craft it, and no money available to even supply the demand in a largescale professional way.

An ad grabs someone's attention: this is the key thing for me, then they are seduced by the remaining statements into a sale.

Online is a different media.

For me it works differently because someone is already looking for something, and we don't know what that something is. It could be any one of the 20 benefits on a VW because the mind is looking for something in a predetermined manner whereas advertising is there to disrupt your thinking.

I love a comment Trevor Beattie made years ago in Campaign along the lines of:

"I'm on a bus going somewhere, I'm thinking of stuff, I have things on my mind. Suddenly I see an ad. It passes me by, I'm not interested, I have a life to get on with. I'm busy. I don't care about your ad or your product like you do.

That told me if I wanted your attention, I'd better throw away the catapult and grab a  bazooka, and it's made even harder now because the man on the bus is probably online foraging like a pig to find truffles.

I'd like to hear Dave's views on this Gotnoteef,

as I'm sure we all would.

Hi Kevin,

I’m basically working class, I grew up in London and New York, and I was trained at art school.

So for me the best copy is the least copy.

I’m a fan of the “get in, say it, get out” style of writing.

I’m not saying other styles aren’t good, just that I’m not so good at them.

And I always believe in finding out what I do best and doing that.

That way I’ll be better than other people at one particular thing.

Instead of being not very good at lots of stuff.

And I agree with your Trevor Beattie quote.

I never read anything by Howard Gossage, but there is one quote of his I like:

“People don’t read ads. They read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.”

I also agree with what Alex Bogusky said, “I hate advertising.”

If we only think in disciplines we become formulaic.

Yes the man on the bus is probably online foraging like a pig to find truffles.

But what if you provide the truffles?

A game, a funny video, recipes, film competitions.

Obviously no one seeks out ads, but if what they seek out just so happens to be an ad - or branded content of some sort - then the model we're working with is altogether different from the 'knock out blow' traditional depends on and much closer to the 'right and left to the kidenys' gotnoteef refers to.

We're not making an ad and asking it to be looked at.

We're making something they already want to look at making into an ad.

Sounds like a fun dinner party!

Hi Dave,

The one thing that gets my adrenaline going is writing ads.

"Get in, say it, and get out" explains how I feel so well when writing.

The hardest part is knowing when to get out.

Writing for ads is like the Thomas Crown Affair.

He asks himself "Should I stay and nick another Monet

or should I get out while the going is good?"

The burglar that gets caught is the one that tries to steal too much.

He gets sent to jail by public outcry or the ASA.

It has to be just right.

Hi Thomas,

I think you're right.

Online is a different medium requiring a different kind of writing.

It's conversational like this site.

In conversation theres room for discussion.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Advertising has a warfare strategy.

Each agency is pitching their brand as the best purchase

for the consumer's money.

The consumer is free to choose.

The best ad pitch wins the business from the consumer.

As Dave mentions, "Less is best".

I wrote two books once just for the hell of it.

The exercise was great.

One true story. One novel.

Re-reading it some time later,

I could see where repetition appeared.

Where it became dull and lifeless.

I had to learn to edit and be hard on myself.

My favourite book is still "The day of the Jackal"

by Fredrick Forsythe, because I just could not put it down.

It's such a compelling read.

I guess that's the key between both disciplines.

It has to be a compelling read, although it is tougher

online because you're writing in an ever- changing

environment. With advertising the thinking is up-front.

I guess one discipline is pro-active writing whereas the other is reactive writing.

That's why big ideas always come from Advertising, and new ideas are created online as a direct result, and that's why advertising has to lead the way.

A hydro-electric power station is as good as the volume of water it has to power it, and right now the advertising industry is going through the worst drought on record.

Kevin,

My preference for short, punchy copy isn' just in ads.

I have a short attention span, so I like that style everywhere.

Books, blogs, newspapers, SMS, whatever.

I agree with Helmut Krone.

When he was putting the first VW ads together, he looked at Julian Koenig's copy and thought it looked off-putting.

So he started cutting spaces into it, to open it up.

Then he got Koening to rewrite his copy to fit.

Which is how the one-word sentences was born.

Someone once asked Elmore Leonard the secret of great writing.

He said, "Lot's of white space on the page."

I'll go with that.

At BMP you could always tell the writers who came from University and the writers who came from art school.

The Uni writers used pencils and the art school writers used typewriters.

Because the University writers were listening to the words, to see if they sounded right.

Whereas the at school writers were looking at a block of copy to see if it looked right.

Basically I don't think there's a rule.

As Deng Xiao Ping said, "It doesn't matter what colour a cat is, as long as it catches mice."

Louis,

I may be being a bit slow here, is that sarcastic?

Thanks for your patience.

(hope that wasn't too short)

Thanks for all your opinions.

This is why I enjoy Dave's blog so much - people sharing ideas, answering questions and offering the opportunity to learn from their experience.

Hopefully it will make gotnoteef a better person.

The long and short of it is....Content needs Context. The moment content loses context, it's too long.