Watching the Olympics over the weekend i noticed a bunch of ads for Apple’s geniuses.
In a departure from the cool nothing-but-the-facts ads of the Steve Jobs era, these are intended to be funny.
Unfortunately, the ads are “funny” in the way that every other advertiser (that isn’t Apple and doesn’t have amazing products and services) tries to be. And it smacks of that same desperate desire to be noticed and liked.
Dudes, you’re Apple. Not Best Buy. You stand high on the mountain top, so please don’t stoop to the level of everyone else with a TV budget.
If you MUST be funny (and I’d think long and hard about that) remember there are different types of funny. And there are ways of being really entertaining without resorting to comedy: everybody’s default.
And these ads just feels flat and uninspired. The antithesis of everything Apple has come to stand for.
Herb Vogel passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Herb was a postal worker in Manhattan. He was also one of the most important collectors of modern art in New York.
Together with his wife Dorothy, a librarian, Herb amassed a modern art collection that rivaled Charles Saatchi’s in its importance and breadth.
Here’s how they did it.
They lived off Dorothy’s income as a librarian and poured Herb’s postal wages into buying modern art.
For decades they scoured the artists’ lofts of lower New York, attending endless openings and befriending up and coming artists. Constantly looking for pieces of art that spoke to them in some way.
And because they were ahead of the curve (they couldn’t afford not to be ahead of the curve) they bought art (for cash) that later ballooned in value.
In 2008 a wonderful and truly inspirational documentary about these two was released and was an immediate sensation. It was rather sensibly titled “Herb and Dorothy”.
“How can two ordinary people possibly amass such a valuable art collection?” was everyone’s reaction.
Well, they did it by not playing by the rules, basically.
Herb and Dorothy did it for fun.
And they stuck at it for years and years and years.
“Herb and Dorothy have eyes that see”, one New York art collector put it in the documentary.
I remember reading it years ago and being a bit confused.
“IT’S ALL ABOUT THE IDEA MAAAN!!!” my younger self admonished.
But the more you execute the more you realize how much that is true.
Like Bill Bernbach said: in a work of genius, execution becomes content.
And the truth is that brilliant execution alone trumps everything else. And always will.
It’s like the expression “it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s luckier to be smart”.
Because execution is herding whole bunch of variables and making the whole thing tick just right.
So luck plays a part.
But you’ll notice it’s the same people who execute well consistently over time.
.farG yrreG uoy ta gnikool m’I
Because executing is its own distinct skill.
I have been very lucky to have had an enormous amount of creative freedom in my career. And nothing beats having your instincts validated. It feeds on itself.
So you need freedom to get any good at execution. You need to be the responsible one.
I can still vividly recall the paralyzing feeling i would get on yet another purely executional shoot for Budweiser upon being told that no client would be attending this shoot. A mark of both how much they trusted us and how jaded they were with shooting beer ads. But now I had to be the f**king client too? Fucking great!
And I would, reluctantly, be the client. Somebody had to be!
I’d worry about the glassware (no fucking pint glasses!) and make sure the bottle label was somewhat legible if it was in a shot. I once even had a post house insert a bottle of Bud into a scene in a client approved Budweiser spot because I (the client) noticed that there wasn’t a single shot of the beer in the ad. I actually felt bad about this. I had gone completely mad!
Because nothing encourages deep and holistic thinking better than being the one whose ass is on the line.
(NOTE: best when played full screen and with the speakers turned up)
We recently shot this :90 film epic to promote a Lunchables promotion that we created with client Lunchables.
Hang on, that doesn’t sound nearly impressive enough. Let’s have another go at this.
Just so we’re clear: we (the escape pod) first came up with the idea for the “never be bored again” promotion for Lunchables (let’s call that stage one) with Lunchables (our client). And then we (the escape pod) conceived and executed this epic cinematic film (that will run in cinemas) to promote the promotion (called “never be bored again”) that we (the escape pod) created (let’s call that stage two) with our client (Lunchables).
That’s much easier to remember.
Well, as part of this “never be bored again” promotion, we are giving away the stuff every kid would love to have. such as an amazing customized tree house designed by America’s preeminent tree house designer. And tons of Nerf blasters and a lot of other great stuff. You know, stuff kids really, actually want. Not what we adults want them to want. Or what it’s PC to think that they want.
Hat’s off to Hasbro by the way for being cool enough to partner on this.
And hat’s back on, briefly, and then back off again to commend the Lunchables team at The Escape Pod for pulling all this together. Lots of people needed this one to turn out good. That’s always tricky!
We’re breathlessly excited about this because it was such a dream thing to shoot: pure childish joy.
To achieve this, we retained the services of a director whose work I’d seen and admired years ago. And coincidentally the ad that he’d shot featured a treehouse, as subject matter. I would like to point out that this was NOT the reason we hired him. We’re not that literal! We swear! That would be sad.
His name is Ray Dillman and he’s housed at the venerable MJZ in LA, a great production house that has never let us down.
Ray is a true artist and a gentleman and he was great fun to shoot with. He even got Irish breakfast on the craft services menu on the second day of the shoot. It was really good too. Except for the baked beans. I’m kidding Ray!
Ray, and Eric Treml,his Austrian DP, had a lot of fun shooting this one. It was fun just to watch them have fun shooting it. We just basically were along for a very pleasant ride. Everyone was in complete agreement about everything. Getting hot English tea (with milk and sugar) delivered to camera one was our biggest hiccup of the day.
And we got our compadre from the Budweiser glory days, ace editor Mike Coletta from Redcar Chicago, to cut this one. And he really did a great job. I still find it exciting to watch and I’ve seen it a million times. I think that’s the test of a great edit. Thank you Mike.
The music kicks ass doesn’t it? That was rather deftly handled by Lorne Balfe. You may know his work. Little thing called Pirates of the The Caribbean. Heard of it? That was him and Mr. Eric Zimmer.
Radar Studios in Chicago stepped in at the last minute to do a very tricky job exactly right. Thank you Radar guys for creating the crucial ‘here’s what this is all about’ portion of our epic. It is seamless and epic and completely in tune with the body of our spot. No easy task. You saved our bottoms!
Sound design, which was really tricky on this one (it’s going into cinemas only remember. great sound only please!) was excellently noodled by Drew Weir at Vagabond Audio.
Color, another tricky one, again coz it’s cinema, was handled by Mike Matusek of Nolo Digital Film here in Chicago. Home of the best chicken Tikka Masala in Chicago.
And a shout out to our cast of amazing kids. There are some bona fide stars in this one. And it was a very physically demanding shoot. Lots of running and gunning over two hot summer days in the woods of Ventura county. Thank you Emma Nelson at ocean park casting in LA.
Finally, and most importantly, a big thanks to our wonderful clients the Lunchables brand team. Thank you Boyd Tubbs,Thomas Bick, Reed Damon, Kelly Herbert and Joe Fragnito.
Recently it was announced that French agency-gobbler Publicis has purchased the outstanding 51% ownership of BBH, the legendary UK ad network in which it had a 49% ownership stake.
They now have complete control of it. And the BBH founders are deservedly chilling out.
You have to give it up for Sir Hegarty and pals.
They’ve had an unprecedented run and created a lot of landmark advertising.
I know that personally experiencing the cultural splash their Levis work created in the 80s was one of the big factors that led me to pursue a career in advertising.
And I’m glad it did. Impacting the culture has to be the goal at all times.
I’m also glad I called up John Hegarty when he was interim CCO of their New York office for a period in the early ’00s. I just wanted to meet him. And he said to swing by the office. So I did.
We chatted at length about the industry and his Irish ancestry. I was surprised at how much time we spent talking and how interested he was in what I had to say. We talked for three hours.
He enquired about hiring me but I really wasn’t interested in moving back to New York at the time. But i was flattered no end.
I was a huge fan of his work. And i was canny enough to bring along my copy of the D&AD Art Directors Book for him to sign before I left.
I hear he now owns a vineyard in France. Good for him.
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Ever since he’s retired, John Hegarty has really been letting adland have it with both barrels and calling bullshit on an industry that is even more awash with bullshit than it ever has been. And that’s saying something. Adland’s decade-long … Continue reading →
I recently came across this lovely idea. It’s a forum for directors (and creatives, i think) to talk about their very first shoot. My old partner turned Hollywood director Justin Reardon was profiled in it recently. I love ideas like … Continue reading →
