How to bend copy (and 9 other things I wish I’d known)

Last October, a few of the “second years” were my creative salvation. I was walking in blind to this strange new world of advertising and leaned heavily on new knowledgeable friends like Celeste, Jess, and Samuel for the creative and mental hand-holding that I needed during my first year of graduate school. How exactly does one become an art director? A copy writer? An AdGrad in the creative sequence? They have now graduated and embarked on new advertising adventures of their own, and my class, the new “second years,” have taken their place. I’m pretty embarrassed to say I only know one new student, Lizzie (and it’s because she has my name). I’m certainly going to try harder to “be there” for you (pl.), but in the mean time… new friend to new friend… here are some of the things I’d wish I’d known a year ago.

1. I think the #1 thing I’ve had to get used to in our creative classes is the way we discuss “ideas”. We talk about ideas as if they are actual beings. We’re dying for a spot at the lunch table next to that cool idea. We turn over every rock searching for it. We come home hoping an idea will be standing in the living room, and once it’s there, we yearn for it to ask us to dance. We learn so many similes about what coming up with an idea is like: it’s like the ding of the elevator when you realize you’re on the right floor, it’s like the crack you hear when the bat hits the ball. Well. Noone told me that my arm would be exhausted from swinging the bat in the first place. We start fantasizing so much about the idea of an idea, that the entire task of brainstorming becomes so daunting and overwhelming that it ends up stifling us. Or at least it ends up stifling me. When our creative application came out last fall, I spent 60% of the time worrying about what would happen if I didn’t get into the creative program, 20% of the time thinking that my “idea” wasn’t good enough, 15% expressing these concerns to my loved ones, leaving me a measly 5% of energy to actually come up with something. Learn to enjoy the process. More importantly, chill out. Aebayleen grabs her little girl’s cheeks in the The Help and says to her “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” I am here, right now, to tell you that you are brilliant and that everything will be okay. Ideas will come. And it’s perfectly fine not to fully grasp how to produce them yet.

2. Read

3. Read

4. Read

5. Read: I remember leaving a particularly enlightening Creative Strategies lecture thinking “Yes! This is what graduate school is supposed to be like.” It’s the moment when you are humbled by your professor’s brilliance and the fact that you are knee-deep in out-of-state tuition loans *almost* doesn’t matter. You just connected two very distant dots. In that moment, it’s all worth it. It would be awesome if I felt that way every day I leave class, but …I just don’t. My first semester I had a billion questions and probably only 100 of them were answered. Then I started reading. You know, those books that the brilliant professors recommended in the first place.

Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple, Squeeze This
Pete Barry’s The Advertising Concept Book
William Burks Spencer’s Breaking In
Nancy Vonk & Janet Kestin’s Pick Me
Robin Landa’s Designing Brand Experiences
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It
John Steel’s Perfect Pitch
Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers

For me, reading Hey Whipple was on par with an entire year of learning in our program. The Advertising Concept Book comes in close second. Halfway through last semester, I wished I’d spent a little more time reading and a little less time instant-streaming. Every chapter ends up being an outstanding lecture.

6. Push It, Think Laterally, Human Truths, and all those other what-have-yous. In the portfolio sequence, you will hear these things over and over. and over. I wish someone had sat me down and told me exactly what they meant. Pushing an idea means that it needs to be tweaked, reworked, and improved upon. It’s the acknowledgment that something is there (a nugget, Maria likes to say) but the idea hasn’t yet reached its full potential. You’ll hear it all the time at critique: “You should have pushed this further” “That could have been pushed” “This obviously wasn’t pushed far enough” so much so, that you’ll probably want to push the critiquer in the face. According to Pete Barry, pushing an idea results in a more lateral way of showing something or saying something. Hence, thinking laterally. Literal ideas are obvious, lateral ideas are more original, unusual, or surprising (but say the same thing as the literal thought.) Examples:

Other phrases you’ll hear… “bent copy” (the play on words, the punch, the meaningful twist) paired with a “straight” visual or a bent visual paired with a straightforward headline. Luke Sullivan says, “Don’t let the headline flex any muscles when the visual is doing the heavy lifting.” You’ll also hear our teachers talk about the “U-turn” or “twist.” That’s when you think a headline is going one way, and then it takes you somewhere entirely different/surprising. I survived Portfolio 1, but I still haven’t entirely learned how to talk all this talk.

Yes, and Human Truths or “truisms.” Those are facts of life, rather than hard, statistical facts and figures. Glasses make people look intelligent, you’re either a cat person or a dog person, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Great ads usually have an equally great human truth behind them.

7. When a T3 recruiter came to our class and told us what the company was looking for in an intern, her long list ended with “…and knowing Fireworks is a plus.” My first thought? “Girl, I can light a mean bottle rocket.” We have to know the programs, but there are no advertising classes to teach them. Photoshop, Indesign, and Illustrator are just scratching the surface. Fireworks, Final Cut, Dreamweaver, Word Press, the list goes on… I would purchase a Lynda subscription and start learning now. Even if it’s only a for a half an hour a night, even if you already know Photoshop, and even if you still have four pages left of your Theories paper.

8. Start your own dictionary. Some of the entries in mine include: CMS, POS, USP, Supposition, API, Nod factor, Parity product, Wire framing, Web GL …basically any time I ask myself, “What the…?”

9. Once you start the creative sequence (or now), get to know the professors. For the first little while I thought of them as the untouchables. Their shirts were spun with golden fibers and their offices were dark caves that should be avoided. Come to find: they’re willing to share with you everything they know. But you have to ask.

10. And finally, buy sharpies in bulk. It’ll be cheaper.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011.

I’m trying to get back into the habit of blogging. I don’t know why it’s such a struggle for me because I honestly used to love my LiveJournal. I would look forward to sitting down for an hour to write a post, I’d immediately check to see what friends might have commented on said post, and I admittedly had a very high number of user images (created, of course, in Adobe Photoshop 3.0). Pages and pages of my highschool-self ramblings. Student council trips, breakups, getting grounded by my parents. It was good stuff. To get back in the habit of writing (which is a good habit to have) I’m going to try and occasionally post on my Tumblr what I learned in class that day. Not only will it act as a typed record of my notes, but I think reconsidering concepts that were discussed earlier in the day reinforces the idea even further. Of course. (I think that’s straight out of Walter Paulk’s How to Study in College …tellyouwhat, that Cornell note-taking system is GOLDEN.)

So. …okay. Here are some of the things we discussed today in “NonTrad”, which is the shortened, trendy class title Casey and I started using for Nontraditional New Media Concepts:

Whenever you are brainstorming for potential ad ideas, try thinking of the one word that describes your brand. That single word may be able to take you places. Let it help tell the story. For example, what is the one word that describes Volvo? 

Safe.

How about UPS?

Fast.

Also consider the potential for people to talk about your idea. Is it an idea worth spreading? Would you tweet about this execution? Or call a friend to tell them about it?  Expand your mind to consider many possibilities. If one execution isn’t possible in a certain medium, it may be possible in another. Change the business model! 

Natura Kaiak is a fragrance sold in Brazil exclusively through representatives who go door-to-door. The company wanted to announce online that their fragrance was changing, and look what the advertising agency came up with:

You should decide the purpose of the advertisement you’re creating, whether it’s long-term awareness, a brand image change, or a more short-term goal (such as trying to track the number of purchases within a certain time frame).

Also consider repurposing. For example, a stain on concrete could very well represent a stain on clothing. What is a food truck normally used for vs. what COULD a food truck be used for? 

Don’t be afraid to intentionally be vague. It creates curiosity. And of course there should always (always, always) be a head scratch that is clever, unexpected, and relevant to your target audience. 

AGC meeting in an hour! Gotta peace out!

-lizzie

for Mac users!

laaane:

keiadnae:

• Open Terminal.

• Paste this code: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

• Press Enter.

• WATCH STAR WARS.

This is why I work for Apple.

(Source: keia-was-here)

Branding artwork and museums

Happy ALMOST Halloween! An article came out this morning in my hometown newspaper, The Sunherald, about the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, MS. It’s a really exciting time for the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. The museum (opening this week!) is designed by internationally renowned architect Frank Gehry. And in fact, they are marketing the museum as a “Frank Gehry attraction.” I’m sure you recognize the name… he designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Dancing Building in Prague, and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Or most notably, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. He is not a small-potatoes kind of architect. The museum will house the vessels of the famous Mississippi Gulf Coast ceramicist George Ohr, whose pottery emphasizes organic twisted forms in earthy brilliant glazes. Ohr was also a little twisted himself. :) And what a potentially clear branding opportunity the museum has! Unique art in a unique building in a unique setting. “It is an extraordinary privilege to have Frank Gehry, the most influential architect of our time, working on the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art,” said former Biloxi Mayor Jeremiah O’Keefe in an article in the Mississippi Business Journal. “The union of Frank’s innovative design with the expressive sculptural vessels of George Ohr and the cultural heritage of the region will create a harmonious village of art, culture and history, unlike any other in the South or the nation” (Gillette). You can clearly see the Mississippi “Mad Potter” had a very distinctive style:

George Ohr, Compressed vase, c. 1897-1900 Photograph © 2006 Robert A. Ellison, Jr.

George Ohr, Five red vases, c. 1895-1900 (except second from left, c. 1898-1910) Photograph © 2006 Robert A. Ellison, Jr.

And the style of the building is equally distinctive. Gehry’s drew inspiration for the museum from the surrounding oak trees and artwork that would eventually be inside.

The final building:

Artist: Frank Gehry

An interesting read to learn more about advertising and branding museums is James B. Twitchel’s Branded Nation.  Chapter 4 titled “Museumworld” is all about The Art of Branding Art, and although his writing style comes across as a little cynical (okay, a lot cynical…), it’s full of interesting information about the role of government (or lack thereof) in the progression of branding art, the shift in museums as more of a consumer experience, and marketing the art in cities such as Florence, Italy (Renaissance world!), and Giverny, France (Monet’s backyard!) like Disneyland. With the awful lot of bad art sloshing around in a awful lot of places, I’m thrilled a musuem teensy tiny part of the world I grew up in has the opportunity to compete with brands like the MoMa, the National Gallery, and the Met.

Gillette, Becky. “ Gehry’s Ohr-O’Keefe architecture drawing international attention,” Mississippi Business Journal. June 2003. http://bit.ly/cwbgQC

idea theft

Agency: Lew’Lara/TBWA Creative Director: Felipe Luchi

  Advertising Agency: BBDO NY, USA Creative Director: Wil Boudreau Copywriter: Geoff Bentz Art Director: Mike Hanley Photographer: Alison Dyer Print Producer: Erin Breen

Great ideas, right? But do you like them a little less when you check out Karen O’leary’s Etsy page:

or the camouflage series by Liu Bolin:

My last entry got me wondering whether or not ad agencies steal ideas from professional artists all the time. It seems infuriating at first, but really, I’m not sure the artists are completely justified. Artists are trained (at least I was) by studying other artist’s art. It’s kind of like… if your mom is already a great cook, why would you venture into the kitchen alone? For example, if there are already famous drawings of the human body that are aesthetically strong, it seems almost silly for me not to learn from what has already been produced. And my teachers thought so too. I had assignments to copy famous drawings as far back as middle school. It just makes sense that artists would practice copying other art to become better artists themselves—it’s a way of training both your hand and your eye.

So that’s my argument #1: artists are copiers anyway.

And it has been happening for Centuries. Argument #2 I don’t even know if originality truly even exists any more. I think it’s a matter of reframing every single situation and finding new ways to solve problems.

I just learned all about the history of sculptural ads via this Time Magazine article (from 1928?). Since famous artists were often employed to draw or paint pictures for advertisements, C. F. & F. G. Carling in Hollywood, California, thought it would be smart to employ sculptors for similarly commercial purposes. They hired this guy:

Finn Haakon Frolich, who made a statue of a cow standing next to a mother and child for a dairy advertisement. I unsuccessfully looked for far too long to find a picture of that cow statue because I wanted to juxtapose it against a Got Milk ad. …I bet it’s in a book somewhere. I would argue with Time Magazine in that sculptures were being used for advertising way back when churches hired artists. Michelangelo’s Pietà in Rome is pretty good advertising for the Vatican, no? While I could talk about 2-dimensional composition every day of the week, my only knowledge of sculpture was a 3-d design class four years ago in Mississippi, so I can’t justifiably make claims on either the history of sculpture or analyzing the forms.

I do want to note, however, that with our attention spans getting smaller and smaller and our need for constant interactivity getting greater and greater, it makes sense that 3-dimensional sculptural advertisements turn heads. With this type of advertising, the consumer is able to engage an additional sense, the sense of touch, when walking by.

Here are some modern sculptural advertisements that I could find:

Agency: JWT, London Executive Creative Director: Russell Ramsey Art Director: Darren Keff / Phillip Meyler Copywriter: Darren Keff / Phillip Meyler Agency Producer: Sofie Holmstrom

Advertising Agency: Sukle Advertising & Design, Denver, USA Creative Director: Mike Sukle Art Directors: Andy Dutlinger, Jeff Euteneuer Copywriter: Jim Glynn

And oh man, check out this drama. The left image is an advertisement for UPS from the agency Ogilvy & Mather, in Jakarta. The right: a sculpture from the New York artist Ryan Johnson.

Read the rest of the Time Magazine article here, the scoop on the Ogilvy rip off here, and you can check out the rest of the Denver water campaign here.

Image of Finn Haakon Frolich from: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA accessible online.