Did you know that Rafael Nadal plays with bald balls ?
You do now.
And so does the entire audience at this year’s Singapore IAS Conference.
Because that was just one example which the great Adam Morgan gave of how people use restrictions to improve their creativity.
Nadal, as you’re probably aware, is a great top-spinner. And top spinners love to play with shaggy balls.
(This is all taken verbatim from Adam’s speech, by the way. It’s not me being childish.)
But in order to make himself the best top-spinner in the world, Nadal practises with bald balls and bangs his around the court till it hurts.
(OK. That is me being childish.)
You see, the title of the conference was “Creativity on a Budget”, and frankly I can’t think of a better title for a conference.
Now I’m not sure what the morality is of spilling the beans on another chap’s speech, and given that I’m always going on about morality in advertising (there’s a short book for you, ha ha) – I ought to be careful.
So I won’t pass on all Adam’s brilliant stuff about how brands can fight bigger brands and win.
But I can’t resist telling you about his idea to dig out the contract between DDB and Avis from the early 1960s.
In the honeymoon period of just winning the account, Bill Bernbach sat down with the CEO of Avis and wrote a contract suggesting how both sides should work together.
And the 7 points they agreed upon were stuck up on the walls of all relevant offices.
Point One was that Avis know about car rental, DDB know about ads. Essentially, it was about mutual respect.
Point Two was a wonderfully clear and to-the-point brief, stating that all work produced “would attempt to persuade frequent business renters to try Avis”. Compare that with the latest brief you’re working on right now. How clear and to-the-point does yours look ?
Point Three stated that both parties were engaged in “a serious attempt” to create advertising that worked 5 times harder than Hertz’s. Because Hertz’s budget was 5 times bigger than Avis’.
This was about impact. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with Matthew Charlton once, who ran Johnny Walker at BBH for many years. When I asked him how they got such great work through (because TBWA were working on Chivas at the time) – he said that the client had agreed 3 words that described the brand at the very beginning of the process. And one of the words was Pioneering. Once they’d agreed that, only fresh work would fit.
And you can see how DDB’s contract with Avis would have led to similarly high standards of freshness being demanded.
Point Four went on to say that Avis could “approve” or “disapprove” ads, but not “try to improve” them.
Hmm. Tricky to see how that would work these days.
Like Point One, times have moved on, and it’s no use just wishing the old days were back.
But a recognition of the skill sets that lie within agencies is long overdue.
Point Five is fascinating. DDB agree to put forward only ads that they “recommend”. What’s odd about that, you might think ? But the paragraph goes on to say that DDB must never put forward ads “to see what Avis think of that one”.
Wow.
All those years ago, but it feels like Bill Bernbach is sitting in any number of offices round London today.
Point Six was about media selection, and stated that it was NOT about “cold numbers”. “Conviction should prevail”, the contract said, “compromises should be avoided”.
Lovely stuff again.
And Point Seven was a complete anticlimax. It should have said something like “Tell the truth, because losing the trust of your customers is the worst sin you can commit.” But it didn’t. I just made that up.
Bill’s point Seven was about how all their ads would be approved by Ford, who obviously had some skin in the game.
But six out of seven ain’t bad.
Personally, I was never a huge fan of the commandment about coveting your neighbour’s wife’s ass. So, getting 100% is never easy.
Now the really, really difficult question is how many of those Points could be usefully tried out today ?
Because the relationship between client and agency has changed fundamentally.
It’s more mutual, more collaborative, more overlapping.
But still.
I love the balls of where Bernbach was coming from.
Big, shaggy balls.
Like the ones Rafael Nadal dreams about.
P.S. I’m giving a talk at Wolff Olins this Thursday at 6.30. It’ll be pretty much the same speech I gave in Singapore, so if you caught it there, feel free to duck out of this one. Personally, I’m just wondering if I’ve got the number of “o”s, “f”s and “l”s right.
