june redemption

hello reader peeps. not many posts in may but with very good reason, i was offered a full time placement at an agency called founded, which you'll be hearing all about in my next lengthy post on wednesday. full time MA + full time placement = cut down in posting. to soften the blow of these lengthy adland posts and to sweeten the deal because it's been a while, i provide you with a bit of em punning at its finest (ahem).

attention sikh

what is advertising?

i feel i have a pretty strong idea of what advertising is now. i've dug out this old eddie izzard clip and a couple of quotes i've enjoyed along the way.

"advertising is based on one thing, happiness and you know what happiness is? it's the smell of a new car. it's the freedom from fear. it's the billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing, it's ok. you are ok." 

don draper

"the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket." 

george orwell

for those hoping for a more serious definition, i recommend wikipedia.

now i ain't sayin she a gold digger

a place for you to rack up the fruits of your failed relationships.

leave it to levi's

on saturday night i met up with charlie, a friend that i was at camberwell with, who's now also pursuing a career in advertising and is studying at sca 2.0. he was telling me that diesel don't make men's jeans above a 34" waist which led me to think of this:

an agency visit, a workshop and a book walk into a blog

last week started really well with a trip to adam & eve to meet james read, one of their young planners. i was particularly interested in finding out about how to create a strategy for a brand; how you come up with an end line from a vague brief. james talked to us about the hunches that lead to his propositions and how it’s important that he backs up his research with social knowledge. he explained about establishing a brand model, summing up exactly what the brand is about, researching the brand’s competitors and about tapping into a cultural movement, as ben & jerry did with their back to the roots culture. james linked us up with this simon selik ted talk and advised us to check out the royal mail media centre to access the mintel reports. i really enjoyed meeting james and i'm very keen to get a placement at adam &eve.

later in the week rick keisewetter ran a two day comedy workshop for us where we made with the funnies. rick, who’s a copywriter and comedian, explained to us that it’s hard being chinese, because he’s japanese... we learnt about joke structure; the set up and punch of a story but the main thing that we learnt, which applies to both comedy and advertising is the importance of editing. less is more. through doing a lot of writing and reading aloud we discovered how you can make a phrase much punchier and funnier by cutting it, often almost in half, to fantastic effect.

a little snippet from my set:

“This was followed by Dad giving me ‘the talk’ over dinner, using Monopoly he explained about passing go and not picking up my £200 as Mum cringed into her Shepherd’s Pie.”

rick was really engaging and patient. it was a helpful way of learning the importance of concise communication as well as having a laugh and getting to know my classmates better.

i also finished reading dave trott’s ‘creative mischief’ last week. i really enjoyed it, it was accessible, informative and i recommend it to anyone and everyone (for what my review’s worth). some of the main points that i’ve taken from it are:

•  purchase decisions are made on desire and permission.

•  don’t be right, be interesting.

•  people buy a product for what it does but they buy a brand for what it says.

•  the difference between scepticism and cynicism (and all this time i thought i was a cynic).

•  “like” is a feeling, not a thought.

•  there is a need for emotion and reason within advertising; no grit, no pearl!

•  the brief should be the floor, not the ceiling.

read it.

may the force be with you, and you and you and ba ba ba!

for anyone who was in any doubt, i am an out and out geek. i'm in a star wars state of mind this week. kicking things off with my own work; a knitted hat set for mum, dad and baby.

princess leia wig

r2d2 beanie

felted baby yoda hat

and what's a star wars family without an at-at dog?

bones mello, the at-at dog

and to finish things off in a tidy orderly fashion, i came across this beautifully designed star wars font from the curious brain.

sophistipuss

this kitty remains terribly austere in his cat beret. to make your very own cat beret you can find the pattern here.

2 hamsters a £

so i was thinking; if twenty pound notes looked more like this then the bus lady who "didn't have change for a fiver" and wouldn't take me the three stops i needed to go in order to top up my oyster card needn't have been such a douche. what ever happened to those little books of tokens for the bus anyway? were they just a pre-oyster thing? oh why can't we all just go back to trading in livestock?

"a single to tottenham court road please."
"that'll be a guinea-pig please."
"here's a rabbit."
"and here's your hamster change, good day."

an hour in the life of me

i have recently been cooking in a kitchen that is not my own. this of course takes much more brain power than cooking in your own kitchen where it's badaboombadabing, finished! this is not a metaphor. it can often involve minor compromises - they have a plastic spatula, you're used to using a wooden one - that can throw you BUT CONCENTRATE!

hypothetical situation: "i have laid out my ingredients, now where can i find a potato peeler?"

exhibit A

you know it's in there but you won't be able to start the rudimentary preparations for your dinner until you have sorted through the egg slicer, coffee frother, pineapple ringer, potato scrubbing brush, potato scrubbing gloves and not one but two melon ballers of equal size. why? who's that ambidextrous or in that much of a rush that melon-balling becomes a two-man job?

it'd be ocd and quite rude to tidy up a mess that is not your own in a house that is not your own.

"there. isn't that better?! see how i have conveniently arranged and categorized each item using the dewey system. i've even taken the effort of capturing this beautiful moment on film and uploading it to thingsorganizedneatly to share it with the world. aren't you glad you invited me to house-sit?"

this is not a true story but the fact it could be and the time it's taken to think and write about it has led me to evaluate the priorities of my saturday night, blog and life. yay (pity me)!

can i be your friend?

well done english national opera. lol'd at 1:28.

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Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say...