Why does a 29 year old man like the X-Factor?

I realised on Saturday that the X-Factor is actually the TV equivalent of, what in the motoring industry is called, a cut and shunt.

Like the dangerously shonky offering of two cars badly clamped together the X-Factor is a cynical money making vehicle that has been put together without care or feelings for anyone who ends up being taken for a ride in it.

However, I can’t help but love it. Well, actually, I can’t help but love the first three or four episodes, because this is when all the freaks, weirdoes the idiotic self-deluded muppets turn up and make what is usually a horribly dull ***-fest of a TV programme not just bearable – but captivating car crash telly.

Case in point – those two idiots from Wales. The one with the horrible voice and his charisma-less brother who was not just content with having a tache which looked like he’d nicked it from a 13-year-old but decided to stand next to his warbling sibling saying random words in a faux Jamaican accent. They had to be escorted out by the bouncer. Brilliant. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ICq1vBu6VQg

However, when the competition proper gets going I wouldn’t mind if a BSkyB satellite fell out of the sky and crushed the lot of ‘em. I actually go out of my way to ignore the self-congratulatory little show-offs that make it into the later rounds.

But herein lies the problem. I realised that this meant that I was, in essence, an evil man who actually delights in seeing other humans being ritually humiliated by a dishwater dull Geordie and a man with a Lego haircut.

To be honest, this didn’t perturb me for too long, its partly true, because I then thought – hang on, a lot of these people are so misguided and self deluded, that a) they deserve it and b) by the time they get home they’ll have convinced themselves that they were so good the judges were just not ready for their jelly (or some other commonly used phrase). So should I ever feel sorry for them?

So this got me wondering if the people (middle aged women and, what we used to call Teeny boppers) who fill the audience every week in the latter stages and cheer and chant for the contestants (and will no doubt buy the first single of the eventual winner) actually like the first three or four episodes.

Or is this just a genius way for Simon Cowell to ram two classic TV genres together to double its exposure, double its income and keep a steady stream of viewers over the entire series? 

It is basically the *** half-breed of the classic talent show, think of New Faces, (the older UK audience are a sucker for this type of thing) and the cult degradation and human torture show, such as Takeshi’s Castle generally favoured in the Far East but adopted by the younger Jackass influenced heartless generation – and I am hooked. 



 

Are NDA’s worth the paper people have to sign on?

 The Health Lottery really shot itself in the foot this week (not that it matters massively as it’s not going last that long even if it does manage to get off the ground) a I think it opens up a valid topic of debate around NDA’s.

As part of its pitch process the Health Lottery made its agencies sign an NDA so strict that the agency that won, who decided that the best plan to launch the Lotto challenger (which needs to sell 5 million tickets a week from the first week to stay in business) was to use a celebrity to give it instant momentum, was not allowed to tell the celebrity until it had signed the contract on the business.

Because of this, unfortunately for them, the celebrity, the hilarious Harry Hill (side note: Is Harry Hill’s TV Burp one of the best programmes on telly? I reckon so), who trained as a doctor before finding fame, decided that he could not morally or ethically agree to it and pulled out.

So now the Lottery company has gone for its second choice agency (well almost – at the time of writing they were still sorting contracts) and has lost a week in what is already a ridiculously short production schedule with the first draw in September. And, by the way, plumped for an idea that doesn’t have a celebrity. Right or wrong?  

Why was secrecy so important? In fact, why, overall, are NDA’s becoming stricter and stricter and more important?

Fair enough, I can see why an FMCG company like Mars might not want a rival to know that it has created a new bar that contains Fois Gras and liquid chocolate (please take the hint Mars) but I’m pretty sure the company would be clever enough to leave enough room not to scupper their own launch.

Plus, information is always going to get out no matter how strictly you try and cover it up so it really doesn’t seem like good business sense to make your own life, and that of the agency’s, so much more difficult.

Is this the case or are they a necessary evil?
Also – ten points to the person who works out the hidden agenda lurking behind this piece.

Is John O’Keeffe going to bring some life to a lifeless role?

“I can honestly say in all my time running a WPP agency I haven’t had one conversation with either Neil French or Robyn Putter.”

This is the bemused comment of the head of a WPP agency, a big flagship WPP agency, when questioned about John O’Keeffe’s new role as the worldwide creative director at WPP.

By the way, Putter was the replacement for Neil French (if you don’t know why he left the job I’m not going to tell you) who seems to have disappeared into some global creative hole – if anyone knows his whereabouts can you tell us please?

Anyway, back to the point. The quote begs a few questions. Can one man, even one with O’Keeffe’s obvious talent, really have any sort of power or influence over a company that is so vast?

They would be forgiven for thinking they can. But that doesn’t answer why someone in that role for more than a year would not at least once visit a London-based flagship agency of one of its biggest creative networks.

Maybe creatives go in with all the confidence and vigour but quickly lose their determination when the reality of the power struggles within networks, not just agencies (where they can be ruthless) but multi agency networks, becomes apparent.  

Think of a huge network with over a hundred offices. Then think of the levels of power O’Keeffe will have to delve through to get absolutely anything done. Creative head, global creatives, regional creatives, country creatives and individual agency creatives.

If he did manage to see any work though this process it’d be so old by the time it gets out that not only will TV be a dead medium, but so will digital - and we’ll all be eating food in pill form and living on the moon.

With not enough knowledge on what the role actually is it’s hard to make any sort of judgement (see next week’s Campaign for a fuller picture) but initially it looks like a big role with no real power.

I for one hope he prospers and enjoys it. But I think its fair to say he’ll find it an almost impossible mission making any sort of impact or difference. If the, shall we say slightly eccentric, French couldn’t give it life, then who can?
 

A Brooklyn hotdog and a quarter of Aniseed Twists please

As I walked down the alley way just off Brewer Street towards the (almost redecorated) offices of Brooklyn Brothers on Thursday night (it was the official launch party) and past Ye Olde sweet shop that is just next door, I couldn’t help but think back to the cutesy line that George Bryant, one of the founders, came up with when I first interviewed the start-up about trying to “bring a bit of the East Coast to London”.

Add to the sweet shop the overflow from the very British pub next door and even with yours eyes closed to a squint you’d find it difficult to think you were anywhere near New York.

However, once inside the loft-type building the feeling became much more Big Apple and much less big furry Beefeater hats.

The nearly finished space with coffee bar, courtyard and a big projector showing on white walls has a very American feel.

However, I’m still not sure whether it was the vibe of the place or the smell of the hot dogs that were being cooked and devoured consistently throughout the night that led to this.

Encouragingly a lot of people showed up to wish the fledgling agency luck – one of whom being the now almost consistently be-jeaned Michael Baulk.

The man himself commented on my won chosen attire of white linen jacket and silver trainers – I felt very honoured (notice I haven’t mentioned what he actually said – just the fact that he made a comment is enough for me).

By all accounts everyone had a great time and if the agency can pick up business like it can grill hotdogs, it should be a huge success.





 

Cannes prize winners bring on Deja Vu

The age-old debate over the difference between homage and plagiarism took a new twist this week. An email landed in my inbox from French ad-watcher Joe La Pompe, highlighting some of the award winners and shortlisted entries from this year's Cannes Festival, which may bring on a sense of Déjà vu.

All the pieces, judged on their own merits, are well worthy of their success in Cannes - but it has to be admitted that there is something distinctly familiar about some of these submissions.

Take a look at the comparisons and let us know how much you think the 2008 ads have been influenced by their predecessors - and whether you think it matters.

You can view more comparisons between similar ads at Joe's website, www.joelapompe.net

2008: Aquafresh Flexigel Toothbrush
Agency: Callegari Berville Grey
Country: France
Award: Lion d'Argent


2006: Colgate Flexible Toothbrush
Agency: Young & Rubicam Hong Kong
Country: China

Big Pimpin'

 On my way home from seeing Jay-Z, AKA the Jigga Man, AKA J-hova, AKA hip hop’s first CEO, at the 02 Wireless Festival last night, where I’d been hanging out with the likes of Simon Amstell and Rio Ferdinand (well, I ate a huge burger near them), I couldn’t help thinking – well done 02 (and Emily Eavis for that matter).

In the past few years the ‘big outdoor music event’ has exploded in popularity. It seems that the capital hosts a one day/weekend event at least twice a month while if you had a camper van and a free summer you could easily spend at least three months travelling round the UK hitting a festival every week.

Festivals, which were once the bastion of hippies or rockers, are the cool thing to do these for anyone – no matter what their music taste, dress sense or family status.

Some festivals go so far as to having child care centres and champagne bars – which is great in a way, even middle class Londoners with kids and a people carrier should be able to see live music, but it has lead to a huge dilution of good bands actually turning up to many of these festivals – especially the very corporate ones such as V.

Naturally, as the audience becomes more middle of the road, so do the groups playing. Slowly but surely the staples of the festival scene, rock, metal and, to some extent, hip hop (its natural showiness makes it perfect for huge events – 60,000 people throwing up their diamonds last night can’t be wrong, surely) have slipped away – making way for easy listening and MOR staples, such as Keane and Snow Patrol (who, along with Razorlight seem to play every festival everywhere), mixed in with older musicians such as Neil Diamond or Sting – hardly inventive or boundary pushing.

So, I think its great to see such a corporate company like 02 really pushing the boundaries with their choice of stars (ok, so Jay-Z is still a fairly safe bet, but its much riskier than booking Keane or Snow Patrol again – which would be so easy).

It also shows that the company is really sticking to its guns of positioning itself as the service provider that does music – something I’m sure they thank VCCP for continually.

And just for the record, the Jigga is brilliant. A true showman who had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand – The rap about England was the stand out moment, closely followed by Big Pimpin.

Britain's Got Talent idents fail to deliver

Britain’s Got Talent - which reached its miserable climax on Saturday night - could have been prosecuted under the Trades Description Act. But it wasn’t the title that really got my goat – it was the programme's equally misleading idents for Dominos Pizzas.I was under the impression that food ads should show the featured product looking its very best. Indeed, any marketer worth their salt will use a degree of poetic license to increase the attractiveness of their client’s comestible (see this site for some amusing examples in packaging).

So what on earth was going on with these Dominos idents? A loyal user of my local branch, I almost choked on my Pepperoni Passion when I saw the ads. Whenever my delivery boy arrives at my door, he always bears a perfectly-cooked taste sensation - crispy on top but melt-in-the-mouth.

However, the pizzas in these ads look like they have never been anywhere near an oven – the cheese is not even slightly brown, for Pete’s sake. These pallid excuses for pizza look even less appealing than the frozen thick-crust variety that the UK suffered in the early 1980s. I suppose it is difficult to install a proper pizza oven when you are on location, but why didn’t the creatives just ring out for a few? If I was a Dominos executive I would be more than a little upset.

Fiat's Brazilian test drive

Aegis-owned AgenciaClick, Sao Paulo, won a cyber gold at the Wave Festival in Rio last week. It was for an anti-drink drive banner campaign for Fiat – but it wasn’t the work the agency was most proud of.
Ricardo Figueira, VP creative director for Isobar Latin America, told me about a “virtual test drive” for its five year old client that sounded a lot of fun – and effective.
Bang on target for its 20-something audience, the online campaign offers the chance for up to five people to “get inside” a Fiat Punto and embark on a virtual test drive.
Using web cams, everyone in the car is able to see each other and converse during the three to four minute ride. Not only that, text messages to passengers’ mobile phones are broadcast out loud for others to hear, causing much hilarity and prank-playing among friends, Figueira says.
Naturally, Fiat also texts its own messages into the car (having accessed mobile numbers via the online registration process), giving more information about the vehicle.
In the first month, the number of “cars” running at any one time reached 2,000, carrying 5,000 people. Impressive.
Riders are also offered a voucher to win a Punto when entered in a draw at a dealership - a mechanic that reveals 70 per cent of people who have so far requested real test drives at dealerships have taken the virtual drive. And that’s the real test.
The campaign launched the Punto in Brazil at the end of last year and “Punto. You are in command” picked up a cyber silver at Wave. It’s much more of a full internet experience” than the gold-winning banner campaign – but inevitably less emotional than one which drives a life-saving message.
You can attempt the drive at www.fiatpunto.com.br
Would it get anywhere at Cannes?

Brazilian WLTM partner for hands-off relationship

If you are Russian, Indian or Chinese and plan on going to Cannes this year, be ready for Nizan Guanaes.The passionate Brazilian ad man is on the prowl for a new partner or several. “I have a lot of love to give out,” he says. “I am going to Cannes and I only want to flirt with Russians, Indians and Chinese.”

Guanaes, a stalwart of the Brazilian ad industry who left DM9DDB to set up his own agency, Africa, is looking to rapidly build an international network under his ABC brand (incorporating advertising, branding and content).

He was also on the look-out for new relationships at Wave. “You might be my new partner,” he told delegates.

Refreshingly, he fessed up early on in his seduction to a big temper and pledged to remain distinctly hands-off. “You won’t have to live with me every day,” he promised. “I won’t show up in your office.”

His business model is entirely decentralised, in fact, with Guanaes acting merely as “creative manager".

“I don’t run anything,” he admits. “I find working is one of the least productive things I can do. You have no time to think or look. I want to produce a different model.”

His aim: to be one of the 10 most important agency conglomerates in the world in five years’ time. “If God agrees.”

Surfing the Wave - festival soundbites

A quick trip through the seminar surf at Wave…these are some of the gems I have enjoyed the most:

“You only win against a poker champion if you invite him to play chess.”
Nizan Guanaes, the founder of ABC, Brazil, on changing the agency model and building a new network

“I don’t believe in campaigns, but ongoing advertising. Old-style advertising is like bowling: you send the bowls down towards the target. The new style is more like pin-ball, flipper. The ball keeps coming back to you and you keep it alive.”
Matias Palm-Jensen, creative president of Swedish digital hotshop Farfar

“I don’t think the web is in beta; the world is in beta. Everything is changing. So we have to be willing to make mistakes. We can’t see the hole – we don’t know what will score 30,000 points.”
Faris Yakob, digital ninja at Naked Communications, New York

“Advertising has gone beyond interactivity.”
Brazilian PJ Pereira on why he recently left AKQA, San Francisco, at the height of its success. “It put me in a box I couldn’t get away from.”

“To know how to charge (clients) is the field of creativity that interests me the most these days.”
Nizan Guanaes, who claims he charged a client $1m for an idea that took three days of his time to create. “The client said fine.”

“All the parameters which defined the industry have ceased to exist. There is no set form or scarcity of space any longer. It’s attention that is now scarce. We used to buy attention. Now we have to earn it. Attention has been reallocated across the world.”
Faris Yakob

“Even the cleaning women in this hotel are singing Samba. It’s fantastic – I want to live here.”
Half-French, half-Swedish, globe-trotting Matias Palm-Jensen, settling in to the Brazil tempo.

“We are living in a relationship economy. That doesn’t mean having consumers develop content for us – as a lot of people have mistakenly done. It means them informing what we do.”
Kevin McKeon, ECD, Strawberry Frog, New York

“90 per cent of clients say, ‘let’s start a social network’. We need to stop that.”
Farfar’s Matias Palm-Jensen

Brazilian adland get bangs for its buck

“God has finally put on God’s t-shirt. Brazil is having a magic moment.”
With these words, revered Brazilian creative Marcio Moreira, vice-chairman of McCann Worldgroup, summed up the sentiment of a nation whose economy is on the rise and an ad market looking for a stronger voice on the international stage.

Brazil’s time has come. With a stabilized currency, its first national credit in years, and the discovery of oil off its shores, the “B” can now truly hold its place in the BRIC line-up, alongside Russia, India and China.

So, to its ad industry. It wants to expand its business overseas via international clients and campaigns, but its major export currently is its talent.

Prominent examples of those who have taken the gringo buck are Fernanda Romano, the massively networked and outspoken digital expert who has just joined JWT, London and PJ Pereira, who until recently worked at AKQA in San Francisco for several years. Even Moreira himself worked in Europe for 20 years before settling permanently in New York.

Factors to which the international demand for Latin American creatives are attributed are manifold, but a new one to me came from Brazilian Rodrigo Butori, now at TBWA\Chiat Day, Los Angeles.

Economic reasons and tight deadlines means things here have to be effective. Things might change so we are used to having to be creative in a very short time. We have a tight rhythm,”he says.

“Who wouldnt want to employ someone so hardworking and fast working, who doesn’t complain’, for not very much money?”

Mad Men: who exactly is Don Draper?

OK. Before we go any further, I concede. After early suspicions and a mid-series slump, Mad Men has won me back.

The reason? Don Draper. We now know enough about him so that every scene now packs a real punch.

We know that he is not the slick, infallible adman presented at the start of the series. Instead he’s riddled with insecurities and at odds with his past.

In fact he’s even not “Don Draper” at all. He’s Dick Whitman, a war veteran who died 10 years ago. He’s also the son of a prostitute who escaped a drunken father by going to war in Vietnam.

Mistaken for dead, he decided not to return home. Only problem is that his brother, Adam, has caught sight of him and has never since stopped searching. Watching Draper’s past catch up with him is nerve-wracking.

Draper’s past has also put a new light on his career at Sterling Cooper. Why has he ended up in advertising? What motivates him? Clearly not six-sheets or billboard ads but something deeper and more perplexing.

I also wonder why whether we as an audience are supposed to sympathise (or even forgive) his behaviour which is often morally reprehensible?

And if not, how is he still such a darn sight more likeable than any senior management at SC?

Mad Men, through Draper, is posing many interesting questions. Just  don't expect the last episode on Sunday to answer them all. 

DIgital Ninja caught with his trousers down

The Naked Communications Digital Ninja (“that’s what happens when you let geeks invent their job titles”) Faris Yakob is more used to his freak-out hair drawing attention than his butt. Until Rio.

First, his appearance on the seminar platform caught the eye of a reporter from Brazilian daily paper O Globo (a Wave Festival sponsor), who was particularly enthralled by Yakob’s under garments and decided to include him in a “style” feature.

When asked to pose for a pic, Yakob, characteristically, stopped in the main thoroughfare of delegates leaving the seminar hall and dropped his Diesels to reveal more. Turns out he has a passion for funky boxers. Luckily, he didn’t overhear the reporter translate his article to me when it appeared the following day: “I said he had small, coloured balls in his shorts.”

But Yakob butt show didn’t end there. At dinner in upmarket restaurant Gero with a crowd including Donald Gunn, Matias Palm-Jensen, creative president of Swedish interactive agency Farfar, and top bods from highly-awarded Brazilian Agenciaclick, the Digi Ninja’s undercarriage took centre stage once again. A waiter eventually had to take a knife to cut free the tangle of material and chair.

More from Suzanne Bidlake in Rio:

On Copacabana Beach

On Copacabana Beach

As the Wave Festival gets underway in Rio de Janeiro, Campaign  takes the creative temperature of Latin American advertising.The location is Cannes writ large. With the long expanse of palm-fringed beach and La Croisette-style road separating it from the  Copacabana Beach Hotel, Rio’s answer to the Carlton, the Wave Festival definitely brings to mind that certain week in June in the south of France.

Yet, something is missing. I was going to mention the expanses of empty rooms, save for legions of beautiful, smiling attendants, on hand, seemingly, to service your every whim. The elegant – but virtually untouched – swimming pool area. The acres of stunning hotel terrace, bedecked with flowers, swathes of luxuriant fabric and sumptuous sofas, which lies pretty much vacant for much of the day…You’ve guessed it – there ain’t many people here.

But to judge Wave on that would be churlish. This is its first year and 200 delegates is perhaps not bad going. Give it the 52 years Cannes has had to stick its flag in the sand, and Wave might just be topping 11,000 attendees also.

More than that, the absence of heavy networking of a morning might be more to do with the Latin temperament than anything else. In fact, the seminar hall was rammed on the afternoon of the first day, with people standing or sitting on the floor.

Wave might take heed of  Goafest, the Indian ad festival, that in only its third year attracted 3,000 delegates last month, making it the world’s second biggest ad festival after Cannes.

Neon advertising reborn in Kuga viral

There is nothing new in using neon lighting in advertising. But the latest virals for Ford’s new Kuga range have surely given the medium a new lease of life.These impressive clips use a new method which creates the effect of “painting” with strip lights onto moving film. They were created for the Italian market by the Milan outpost of WPP’s Wunderman, and directed by Tak Kuroha for production company Indiana.

I called Tak earlier, and he said the exact technique must remain a secret. However, he did let slip that it involves one camera focusing on the lights, with one trained on the action. He told me: “90 per cent of these effects are produced live on the set – there is very little post-production involved.”

Tak worked on the ads with an Amsterdam-based art collective called PIPS:lab, which carried out some early experiments with motion light painting. Tak said that although the shoot itself was fairly brief, the preparation - constructing a technical set up which had not been used before – was pretty time consuming.

I think the results were worth it – it’s pretty rare you see something that strikes you as truly pioneering, but I think this set of virals fits into that category.

Watch the virals below and let me know whether you agree.