Since nobody is reading my tripe, it’s easy to talk about what it’s really like to work in an Ad Agency.
Of course, when I say “Ad Agency” I’m talking about an “Ad Agency” here in Northern Ireland, which may or may not be representative of other “Ad Agencies” around the world. (How the fuck would I know? I come from a shithole in Colorado where an “ad” was a mundane print job selling hay price exclusives and dog castration specials. These would run in the local paper next to a picture of the mayor doing something spectacularly dumbass like opening a swimming pool or blessing a cow hide.)
So… you wanna know what it’s like? (You probably don’t… you’re not reading this. The irony is not lost on me.) Well, here we go…
Today I had a couple of fascinating discussions. Here’s a sample:
“Do you spell ‘Ooof!’ with 3 O’s or 4?” And should all the “O’s” be capitalized or only the first one?
Or would you spell “Ooof” like this, “Oooph!’”?
Another freak-o-rama-thon involved deciding whether or not we should include a picture of a horse in a campaign about a government funded tourist destination. (The answer was “Yes! We can put a picture of a goddamn horse on the ad but it’ll fuck up the design and cause a shitload of problems with your budget cuz you gotta fucking pay for it and you’re already over budget. You twats.”)
Today I had the esteemed pleasure of working with, not just a celebrity voice, but a celebrity voice that totally kicks ass.
I can’t say that I’ve been a fan of Tom Baker from the Dr. Who days. I mean, I’m American, who the fuck is Dr. Who to me? The doc I know best wore fancy sweaters and went by the name of Heathcliff Huxtable (“Cliff” to his friends and insurance salesman).
Even now, after having lived in the UK for 5 years, I still haven’t watched a single episode of this crazy futuristic Who-fest. (I have, however, watched one episode of ‘Torchwood’ which, I believe is either a rip-off or a spin-off of Dr. Who. (It was, for the record: OK.))
So why was I so psyched to use Mr. Tom Baker? Because he’s the brilliant voice of Little Britain (no, I’m not going to hyperlink. You can do that yourself, you lazy bastards.)
He was genius (I’m talking about today and his stint on Little Britain. I don’t know if he was brilliant or not in his Dr. Who days. I told you, I’ve never seen ‘em). He had all of us in the studio crumpled over in tears of laughter (I’m talking about today. Keep up, please).
This ad might not reflect the true impact of what he did (today) but he turned a mediocre script into something pretty damn good (he’s probably done this before). This is why I love writing for radio.
I know this is supposed to be about copywriting in whatever country it is I find myself in (Northern Ireland. Pay attention, people). But that doesn’t mean I can only report on copywriting in Northern Ireland (see previous posts where I said that this is what this is all gonna be about. And then see the shit I posted about the new Weezer video. See? I lied! That’s me! Liar!!!!)
Maybe I’ll just post on all the ridiculous and brilliant stuff that crosses my intellectual path (this, by no means, suggests that I’m intelligent. I’m a copywriter for fuck’s sake!) that has nothing to do with copywriting and advertising. But I’ll still try to work this angle.
Be patient. I’m still trying to figure it all out…
(For some reason, I thought I had something of interest to blog about today. Guess not. Oh well…)
Anyway, we’ll go with this shit. George Sampson, winner of the whatever-year-we’re-in Britain’s Got Talent TV Whore Show.
Maybe this is the right clip. Dunno. I got fed up trying to find the winning YouTube clip. Could be this. Probably not. My point is, this is a perfect time to dump some advertising imagining SOMEWHERE onstage.
WTF? Advertising peeps? Where the hell were you???
(P.S. I didn’t think he was skilled enough to win. But I’m not a 12 year old with a cell phone…)
I actually gave myself whiplash at the Weezer concert at Red Rocks way back in 19 something or the other. It was the Green Album era.
It rocked.
(We all have our guilty pleasures… right?)
In case you feel slightly er…uh…um… slighted by not knowing all the interwub memes (or however the fuck you spell it) in the kick ass Weezer video here’s another vid to help you out.
I swear to god, you mention the Spongebob rant and your kids will think you are Coolio with a capital fucking “C”.
This isn’t exactly when my copywriting career began. But it’s close enough.
I stumbled into my first advertising copy job way back in 1999. This wasn’t produced until 2005. Someday I will fill you in on the gory details of what happened in the meantime. Let’s just say I think this was a pretty fucking good effort for an American dickhead who landed in the Northern Ireland advertising world with no training what-so-ever.
God knows who, what, when, where, why you’ve ever come across any of my writings before but if you’re here you probably know that I’m no self-respecting, mature, sane adult.
I’m a dick.
Get used to it.
This blog will hopefully be all about my exploits as a professional copywriter in the very small commercial world of Northern Ireland (or ‘Norn Iron’ as the locals lovingly refer to it as (yes, that’s shitty English. But, fuck it, proper English has not a goddam thing to do with advertising copy.)).
Should I ever stray from my humble intentions, please flame me and send me to blog hell.
