Latest RANTS articles

Research: Creative Friend or Foe?

So, it’s a sunny South African Friday afternoon. Five of us are huddled around the boardroom table, staring at the telephone that sits in front of us. Faintly you can hear the sound of creatives enjoying a few drinks at the agency bar downstairs. I’ve been here before. Eagerly awaiting the call from a potential piece of business you just pitched, to hopefully tell you that you’ve just been appointed as their new ad agency.

Adapt or #Fail. Darwin and Marketing: Businesses Have to Evolve

There’s great turmoil in the world of creative agencies. Marketeers are under pressure, budgets are low and it’s still uncertain whether or not the budget for the second half-year will even be available. But never mind… the agency world has always had it’s highs and lows, and hopes are high that a little life will be breathed back into the budgets in 2013, allowing us to dismiss the current climate as a temporary blip.

Creative Vomit

It’s a common phenomenon for creative people all over the world. They love what they do with mind and body, and when this is compromised, reciprocal events can arise quite literally and with the full co-operation from vital organs.

This is by no means a weakness. On the contrary it means you have a point of view, a stomach, a standard to keep, you have ideas and most importantly you care about them.

Embracing the Unknown

I once presented a chart to a client many years ago that unintentionally scared the hell out of him. It was based on a speech that you may be familiar with, about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq by the then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. My chart had three concentric circles. Inside the smallest circle was written ‘What we know,’ inside the next largest was written ‘What we know that we don’t know,’ and inside the outer circle was written ‘What we don’t know that we don’t know.’ This particular client didn’t really appreciate my honest suggestion that, despite our best intentions, we can only depend on so much for the long-term plan we were proposing. He wanted it all figured out, a guaranteed roadmap that he could show to his boss.

How Advertising Lost its Relevance

Say what you will about advertising, it’s origins, the characters and charlatans who have practiced it, the geniuses whose ideas fundamentally changed the playing field, the impact of various media and each one’s unique ability to reach and touch consumers in meaningful ways, ads today are often side shows meant to distract from reality rather than enlighten and inform.

Nigel Tufnel and The Hard Sell

Among the people I know who’ve done any real time in ad agencies, most agree that their best ideas never got past the boardroom presentation. Yet I vaguely recall, when the Cannes reel would get passed around, some clients asking, “why can’t we do work like that?”, a backhanded indictment of the agency for the usually banal pap that was their advertising.

Why We Hate Pre-Testing

If you’re a client who’s spending several million dollars on an ad campaign, you want some assurances it will actually work, right?

So you do a few focus groups to put your campaign in front of some “real consumers” at the concept stage to see what they think.

It all sounds like a reasonable way to ensure success- or at least reduce the risk of outright failure.

Why Your Idea Sucks

I hear it all the time. In fact, I’ve even done it myself and just recently a good friend of mine said it to me over a beer: “man, I had this great idea the other day but I didn’t write it down.” Sounds like a pretty shitty idea to me…

How to get off the spec merry-go-round

Imagine you want a made-to-measure suit from one of the best tailors in the business.

The catch? You don’t let the tailor take your measurements or ask you what you like or dislike. If the tailor is very lucky, he’ll guess that you wanted a double-breasted blazer in navy with gold buttons. If not, you’ll pay him 20 bucks for his time and move on to the next shop.

Retro Super Bowl Thoughts From a Digital Guy

Lincoln Bjorkman
EVP, Executive Creative Director.
Digitas NYC
I turned on Super Bowl XXIV and I stepped into a time machine back to those pre-Bubble years before the turn of the last century. Ah yes, ‘twas was a simpler time. The first half of this retro-Super Bowl was all nostalgia… I kept waiting for those retro team [...]

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