An archive of my writing.

Technology, terror and total nonsense.

December 2014

Why do they bother? Politicians, I mean – and specifically their ideas concerning technology. Because each and every time they open their mouths on the subject, they make utter fools of themselves.

A shining example of this idiocy appeared last week, in the wake of the dreadful attacks in Paris. Naturally, being self-serving types, governments of all hues like to seize on a big international story, manipulating it for their own ends. And so it was with the Charlie Hebdo incident. Once the assurances of an absolute commitment to freedom were out of the way, the Tory-led coalition began to explain exactly how they would go about restricting our freedom by sneaking around in our electronic communications. Only this time, their plan involved wrecking the whole of the UK’s IT industry, by insisting all the nation’s software would require to a ‘backdoor’ in its code. This, they figured, would allow security services to pop in, have a look round and pop out again; thereby keeping us safe.

I’m certainly no software developer, but this immediately struck me as being hopelessly flawed and dangerously ignorant. Indeed, the gap between the actuality of software design and the understanding displayed by policy-makers is so vast, I’m surprised they’re not building luxury apartments in it.

First of all, there is no way to make this retrospective. So even if this legislation was introduced tomorrow, it wouldn’t apply to any laptop, desktop, phone or tablet in current use. Nor any of the immense stock sitting in shipping containers or warehouses. Given most hardware has a lifespan of about ten years, this ‘backdoor’ notion suddenly seems massively futile. But it gets worse, much worse.

Any programmer will tell you, it is just not possible to create a ‘backdoor’ which allows ‘good guys’ in and keeps ‘villains’ out. Such a facility is in fact, an open invitation to hackers and crazies.

No other country is proposing this approach, which means anyone coming to the UK – including, business people and tourists – would be unable to use their devices here, as they wouldn’t comply with the ‘must spy’ laws. Then there’s the issue of ‘open source’ software. Although many mistakenly believe this phrase means the product is free, it actually means the code is available to any developer who wishes to improve it; and that work can take place anywhere in the world, often simultaneously. There is simply no way the UK government can police this process. Therefore, masses of ‘open source’ kit would continue to be deployed in Britain, without the back-door.

For the record, the UK would also have to persuade Apple, Microsoft, Google and a few hundred others, to write operating systems specifically for us. How would that work? Would we pay them millions of pounds to do it? Even if the manufacturers were vaguely tempted by the money, they’d balk at the stranglehold this would put on the commercial market here. It’s no exaggeration to say this tampering would deal a lethal blow to Britain’s IT and digital sectors. I trust that’s something the politicians would be keen to factor into their financial planning.

Of course, I haven’t even touched on the moral and civil rights issues raised by the concept of a government demanding invisible access to the back-end of all our devices and platforms. It’s worth noting that only regimes as repressive as those in China, Syria and Iran indulge in this level of intrusion. Do we really wish to join such a dubious roll-call?

Actually, I don’t believe our rulers push for this sort of legislation out of a sharpened desire to compromise us all. No, this is all about knee-jerk reaction and an all-consuming unawareness of technology’s nuance and structure. However, the ‘I don’t know what I’m talking about’ factor can be just as pernicious as anything more conspiratorial.

Undoubtedly, resisting terrorism takes us rapidly into the technological realm. But if we look to the political class for the answers, we’ll clearly be waiting a very long time.

Opportunity knocks. Or does it?

January 2015

A new series of ‘The Voice’ begins on BBC1 this weekend. Although Kylie has flown the nest to be replaced by Rita Ora, we can be confident the formula will be much the same: rotating chairs in the early rounds, followed by a pretty regular singing contest for the remainder. I don’t imagine it will break any viewing records for the Beeb, but it will serve as a useful filler for the ‘Strictly…’ slot, without being quite as dire as ‘Tumble’.
That said, there is a spectre haunting ‘The Voice’. A phantom that, unless it is exorcised, may well kill the show stone dead. You see, in three series of the competition, it has yet to produce a solitary star.

Every TV format contains an essential element; a crucial aspect without which it collapses. This differs from genre to genre, but the importance doesn’t waver. For a game show, the ‘game’ must draw the audience in by allowing them to play along. The reward must be appealing but attainable, and there should be sufficient jeopardy to create real excitement. Equally, a talk show demands a quick-witted host; not just famous, but capable of blending their own patter with that of the guests. Just ask Michael McIntyre how difficult that can be.

Then there’s the modern telly talent show. Once upon a time, these things were only slightly more elaborate versions of the holiday camp equivalent, with ‘clapometers’ determining outcomes and a bewildering array of ‘talent’ on display (younger readers may be surprised to know there was a very successful act which involved a man beating himself with a tin tray). As there were only three channels, the contestants acquired a modicum of fame simply by appearing on the programme, and those with above average abilities often went on to be celebrities in their own right. That is no longer the case. Faced with the rivalry of games consoles, YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, a million websites and a thousand digital channels, it has never been harder to get famous via the television.

ITV’s ‘The X Factor’ has a better track record than ‘The Voice’, of course. Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke and One Direction owe their stardom to the show. This is partly due to the clout that Simon Cowell carries in the industry. Once he takes a winner under his wing, they have a reasonably good shot at the big time. However, even Simon’s hit rate is negligible. For every Leona, there’s a Steve Brookstein, and for every Alexandra, a Leon Jackson. And remember, One Direction came third to Matt Cardle, and Susan Boyle was from ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ – and she didn’t win either. The point being, the prize for which all these singers are clamouring – fame and fortune – is actually unlikely to be available, even if they win. Whether Ben Haenow will have to dream it’s over, only time will tell – but not much time.

For a surprisingly long period, viewers have been content to accept this position. Caught up in the swirl of lights and tears, it’s quite easy to ignore the fact that we’re not necessarily witnessing the birth of a new pop star. Nevertheless, I feel this is now becoming more of a problem. Ratings for ‘The X-Factor’ are still buoyant, but the trend is very much downwards. And I’m not sure ‘The Voice’ has ever quite captured the public’s imagination in the way the BBC hoped.

Eventually, as with all entertainment trends, these singing contests will have had their day and we’ll all move on. I can’t help thinking that day will be hastened by their wobbly ability to fulfil their primary brief – to turn ordinary folk into glittering superstars.

Tough truths for advertising in 2015.

Here’s 2015 in all its fresh-faced glory. Swollen with potential and pitfalls, what will this new year bring? Frankly, I have no idea – but I do know there are a few troublesome boils the advertising business needs to lance before we go much further. Here are those pustules:

Social Media – Not The New Paradigm After All.

It all looked so exciting, didn’t it? A fabulous new medium through which to engage the consumer with stupendous campaigns – and free to access, too! Yes, forget all that fusty old stuff, social media is the future. Or not. As usual, the truth is a bit more prosaic. Of course yer Twitter and yer Facebook have a part to play in any successful campaign, but broadcast and print remain very much in the mix and are likely to remain so. So, time to take a deep breath and calm down, social media hasn’t turned the world upside-down after all.

Treating The Audience Like Children – Let’s Stop That.

Television is the principal offender here. I’m not entirely sure how or why this has happened, but copywriters have taken it upon themselves to produce scripts which address fully grown adults as toddlers in a nursery. Just observe Halifax and their appalling ‘well done you’ campaign, patting the public on the head for doing their jobs well. Or Activia and Gok Wan talking about ‘happy tummies’. We’re infantilising and being infantalised;  unhealthy, unhelpful and should cease without delay.
“You aren’t even in the game without your own anthropomorphic mascot.”

YouTube ads – Too Long.

Broadcast ads which the viewer can skip after five seconds – who’d buy them? Well, in the crazy old 21st century, just about every advertiser on earth. Any YouTube clip of interest is now preceded by an advertising spot, which indeed, can be swerved after the opening seconds. Naturally, that’s exactly what most users do, thereby ensuring most of the message is lost. The obvious solution for the advertiser is to make the ad just five seconds long – but nobody seems to have twigged. A five second ad is a creative challenge, sure – but that’s the only way to derive maximum value from YouTube. Time we returned to the ‘blipvert’, methinks.

Cuddly Creatures Have Peaked.

2015 and those meerkats are still going strong. Good. I still believe the Compare The Market/Meerkat saga is one of the most entertaining and compelling campaigns in recent years. The trouble is, once it had taken off, every advertiser in the UK wanted their own. From Monty The Penguin to Neil The Sofa Sloth, in 2014 you weren’t even in the game without your own anthropomorphic mascot. All good fun, but we’ve seen them all now. How about we leave the meerkats to it and encourage clients to look at more original concepts?

Posters Don’t Win Elections.

It is highly amusing to see political parties discussing their pre-election advertising spend in terms of poster sites. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that our lords and masters are stuck in a 1980s creative ghetto, maybe the famous ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster still burns so strongly in the memory, they can’t see past it. Either way, it’s 48 and 96 sheets all the way till early May. Doesn’t say much for their thinking in other, more important, areas does it?

An open letter to Ed Miliband.

Dear Ed,

You are in an enviable position.
More than anyone else, you have the potential to dislodge the coalition administration. This is a crucial endeavour. It only requires a scintilla of awareness to see the harm caused by the callous cruelty and rampant ideology of Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith – enabled by the spineless milquetoasts of Clegg and Alexander. As they shred the welfare infrastructure that has protected Britons from disease and penury for five decades, people have become fearful, anxious and resentful. The responsibility for stopping this is quite a burden, but you asked for the job and now it’s yours. My burning concern is that you are fumbling the ball.

Yesterday, Labour’s press office released a message on Twitter confirming you would not restore funding to the arts, in the event of an election victory. It was written as a boast, but is in fact, a travesty. Arts professionals are your natural constituents, thousands of them are looking to you to defend their position. Yet you abandon and disappoint them in fewer than 140 characters. What’s more, your official role is to oppose government policy (the clue’s in the name), not to trumpet how closely you’ll match it. If you’re chasing the votes of those who believe austerity is good for us, you’re on a hiding to nothing. They have the Tories to comfort them.

No, your priority must be to offer an alternative. ‘Tory-lite’ is a deeply unattractive proposition, both to those on the left and Tory supporters themselves. I don’t know who has persuaded you into this stance, but they are fools. Such an offering will only leave you deserted, left, right and centre.

And don’t be drawn into an endless debate on ‘the deficit’. It’s a trap. In truth, most of the electorate don’t even know what ‘the deficit’ is, but have been convinced it is something very bad created by the last Labour government. Your message must be clear: you’ll take the country’s borrowing seriously, but will refuse to pay down overdrafts by depriving people of essential social services and vital care. It’s time for the super rich and their tax-swerving corporations to make a proper contribution, so emphasise that your administration will alleviate the savage cutting and conniving blame directed at the less well-off, by ramping up the pressure on those most able, but least willing, to pay their share. I promise you, there are hundreds and thousands of us waiting for someone with the guts and fire to say that.

UKIP has moved to seduce the disaffected right. In the same way, you need to reach out to the left. Playing brinkmanship with Farage is a mug’s game. Your job is to expose his bigotry and explain why progressive thinking trumps knee-jerk xenophobia every time. We need to hear that.

I’m sure your advisors are making great efforts to ensure you never come across as radical. Resist them. It will be your downfall. Scrapping over a tiny space on the centre right will finish you. That island is already massively overcrowded, but there is open territory on the liberal, progressive left. The Greens don’t have the clout or energy to make it their own, but you do. So you must overcome the paralysis of low personal poll ratings and the blazing headlights of the oncoming ballot, preventing you from making a stand.

On a daily basis, the coalition presents you with open goals (the A&E crisis being just the latest), but all too frequently, you’ve failed to take the shot. Admirably, you did resist the vested interests of Murdoch and the rush to war in Syria, and that’s the spirit you need to rediscover. However, when we see you holding up a copy of The Sun and grinning, we wonder whether that political courage was just blind luck – that actually, you’re pliant and weak.

Although I haven’t voted Labour since the criminal deception of the invasion of Iraq, it is still my instinctive party of choice. But – no matter how much I detest the Tories and their cowed enablers – you cannot take my support for granted. There is a real onus on you to demonstrate a vision and belief divorced from Cameron’s counsel of despair; a convincing strategy of inclusiveness and compassion. Anything less will cost you the election, and nothing less will do.

Regards

Magnus

AND THIS WAS THE REPLY (You may wonder whether Ed, or any of his people actually read the letter):

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email to Ed Miliband. My apologies for the delay in replying.

Your comments have been noted and Ed is always grateful to hear people’s views and suggestions as to how matters can be improved and believes that people such as you, who take the time to write in, provide a crucial input to the political process.

Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch with Ed Miliband to share your views.

Regards,

A Williams

Office of Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

Tea’s off.

December 2015

I’m not a hipster. That particular role is denied to me thanks to my great age, and my inability to grow a thick bushy beard. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little taste of the hipster world. So last weekend, I headed for the achingly fashionable E1 district of London to stay in a painfully trendy hotel.

I use hotels quite often, and frequently they are of the predictable, utilitarian, corporate chain variety. This place was refreshingly different. It had a funny name, for starters (which I’m not going to quote, for reasons that will soon become clear). It was a knowing misspelling, with missing vowels, and could easily have been attached to an iPhone app rather than a hotel. Also, on arrival, there wasn’t a reception desk in the accepted sense. Just a fellow stood at a tall pedestal table with an iPad. And the walls in the lobby were decorated with pithy phrases, over packing cases in the shape of animals. A little pretentious, but intriguing.

The room, I loved. It was really big, with a massive bed which sported an integral television. A large, bright window lit a low, expensive-looking couch, the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was a stuffed toy, a mural of dog in sunglasses covered one wall, and the dressing table was built from an old palette and industrial hosepipe. If that all sounds a trifle daft, then it was – but in quite an exciting, stimulating way. Once I’d managed to secure some extra pillows, I was very comfortable and slept like a top.

One hip hotel, one satisfied customer – yes? Well, not quite.

After my smashing kip, and having done a spot of work while still in my comfy bed, I headed down to breakfast. My order was simple, a cup of Earl Grey tea, toast and jam – all of which were on the menu. I then settled back with the paper, and waited for my snack. And waited. And waited. After about fifteen minutes, I went back to the (predictably vintage) bar and asked after my order. ‘We’re just making it!’ was the reply, and I returned to my place. Ten minutes passed. Still no breakfast arrived. I then spotted the hotel’s manager having a coffee at an adjoining table, so I told him of my plight. He had a word, and assured me it wouldn’t take a minute. It didn’t. My tea and toast continued not to come. So I told the waitress to cancel my order, as I was leaving. She tried to persuade me to stay with the news they were just searching the building for some tea. Yes, really.

Of course, this experience didn’t harm me at all – and was very much a first-world problem. But it did reinforce a frequent problem with brands presenting themselves as arch and trendy. With so much focus on being amusing and unexpected, and commissioning re-claimed furniture, this hotel had somehow failed to ensure they could provide a basic guest with a basic cup of tea. While all the eye-catching bells and whistles were in place, that basic service was missing.

There’s a lesson here. By all means make your brand a bit edgy, witty or alternative – that’s fine, and a good way to be noticed. But before you have all the fun in creating that clever image, you must ensure you’ve done the groundwork – like buying a few tea bags. Because, if you don’t, your customers won’t remember all the smart little touches, they’ll remember the hopeless incompetence. And that’s not very hip, is it?
 

 

On The Record.

May 2014

How much would you pay for a copy of Nik Kershaw’s album ‘The Riddle’? Should you wish to add it to your iTunes collection via Apple’s store, it would cost you about £5.50. On Amazon’s marketplace, you could pick up the CD for £7.65. But in a hip store, in Sheffield’s Meadowhall Centre, a second-hand vinyl version would rush you £12.50.
In the age of Spotify, Google Play, file sharing and Grooveshark, something curious is happening. The oldest commercial music format is attracting impressive sales, at premium prices.

In 2013, just over 780,000 vinyl albums were bought in the UK. That’s the most since 1997 when 817,000 were sold, and also represents a 101% increase on 2012’s numbers. The total for 2014 is expected to be higher still. Obviously this is a tiny percentage of all music bought, but it is still a noticeable and expanding market. So who’s buying vinyl LPs and why?
Interestingly, the sales figures for turntables are more or less static. So, either many people still have their record players and have returned to the purchase of product to play on them, or a cross-section of the consumer base is forking out for vinyl, but isn’t playing it. That latter explanation at first appears ludicrous, but I sense some truth in it.

‘Hipster’ isn’t a new label – it reaches back to the jazz-age, but its use as rather derisory handle for a certain breed of male urbanite is quite recent. Alongside the hipster’s impossibly tight jeans, giant spectacles and an obligatory beard come various lifestyle accessories – an iPad, a waistcoat and a penchant for old records. This is particularly apparent at Spitalfields Market, on the boundaries of the City of London and the beginning of Shoreditch, the hipster’s natural territory. Here, dotted amongst the designer dresses, handmade jewellery and artisan coffee, are dozens of vinyl stalls – enthusiastically attended by clutches of the aforementioned hirsute gentlemen, busily flipping through dog-eared copies of ‘Parallel Lines’, ‘London Calling’ and ‘Live And Dangerous’. In their pockets are electronic devices onto which they could download almost any album with a few stabs of a forefinger, and at a fraction of the cost.

What we’re witnessing here is a fetish. Twelve inches of black plastic, covered in a printed cardboard envelope have become an object of desire. Just like those spherical black and white TVs, or those tripod Philippe Starck lemon squeezers, the functionality of the vinyl LP isn’t the point – it’s the totemic value and the fashionable cache which is attractive.

Of course, these are not the only folk buying analogue music. Many professional DJs still favour the grooved format (although many don’t), and there is still a clutch of fans who take great pleasure in tracking down obscure US soul recordings, or ‘Anarchy In The UK’ on A&M. Then there are those who insist that music simply sounds better when generated by a stylus dragging its way through plastic bumps and valleys. The hunters after rare discs I completely understand. There is a definite thrill in acquiring something original and scarce – it’s the same satisfaction offered by ownership of a first edition of Winnie The Pooh, The Naked Lunch, or issue one of Action Comics. DJs know their trade and the best tools for the job, but the hipsters and audio fiends baffle me.

Buying and owning vinyl LPs as a fashion statement is similar to adopting veganism for style purposes. The consumer choice is easily made, but the deeper significance of the behaviour or product is ignored or unknown. Surely exploring the collected works of Steely Dan, absorbing the lyrical wit and complex composition via one’s iPhone, is far cooler than snapping up a battered old copy of ‘Katy Lied’ and propping it up in your Hoxton lounge, hoping one’s dinner guests find it nicely offsets your ‘upcycled’ dresser.

I’m also bemused by the claims made for vinyl’s sonic superiority. I’m completely aware that an MP3 audio file is very compressed, measured against an analogue record. But there are so many variables in the playing of the two formats, that a straightforward comparison is almost impossible. Someone crowing about the depth and richness of the vinyl experience, is often talking about the brilliant reproduction of their classy turntable and amplifier. If they were to listen to their cherished Miles Davis collection on the old JVC music centre I lugged from flat to flat throughout the eighties, I suspect they’d reach for an iPod in an awful hurry.
It’s incredibly swish to bemoan the soullessness of the CD and the homogenized feel of the MP3, but let’s be honest, unless you happen to be an acoustics expert or a particularly exacting connoisseur, has that difference every really detracted from your listening pleasure? If an MP3 comes across as a touch tinny, a better set of headphones usually solves the problem, doesn’t it? In fact, the poor performance of Apple’s standard-issue cans has done more to fuel scepticism than any actual format failure.

Like any music buff in his forties, I remember vinyl’s glory days with affection (album artwork has certainly never been more impressive), but I also look back fondly on my Chopper bicycle without wanting it back in my life. How soon we forget the irreparable damage a determined scuff or scratch would inflict on a favourite disc. How casually we disregard the memory of onerous cleaning and polishing our record collections demanded. What’s more, with every play, each LP came closer and closer to its demise.

Without hesitation, when CDs became the majority format, I switched to buying my music on those smaller, silver discs. When CDs were superseded by digital downloads, I happily embraced them. The delivery mechanism has always been considerably less significant to me than the artists and their music. And it seems to me that those fuelling the resurgence in vinyl have their priorities a bit skewed.


 

 

Vote For Me I’ll Set You Free…

May 2014

As you may have noticed, there’s an election on the way. It’s not one of those important ones, where we get to choose a bunch of be-suited clowns to spend five years making a wholesale mess of everything. It’s one of those other ones, where we get to appoint some galoots to claim eye-watering levels of expenses in Brussels and Strasbourg for doing nothing noticeable.

Anyway, as is the tradition, this allows any party fielding a certain number candidates to access our telly channels for two or three minutes just before the news. These are ‘Party Political Broadcasts’ – advertisements for those parties, by any other name.

Many people, with better things to do, studiously ignore these spots. But I’m a bit of a politics anorak, so I’ve watched all the current batch. What’s striking is how incredibly tame and dull they are. At a point when the political situation has rarely been more contentious and animated, the Tories, LibDems and UKIP chose formats so bland, predictable and lame, they are barely distinguishable from the thousands of tiresome corporate videos floating around the internet, explaining last quarter’s sales peak and the recent opening of an office in Stevenage.

There were, however, two exceptions. The first came from the BNP. Now, you are welcome to disagree but to my mind the BNP are an odious bunch of deluded, ignorant nut jobs. Even if they’re not (they are), their broadcast would do nothing to persuade anyone otherwise. The BNP, it seems, have taken great umbrage at their creepy cartoon being denied clearance for transmission. It isn’t clear why they have been prevented from showing their badly made clip, but they can’t. So they’ve used their precious minutes to bang on about it. Rather than present a reasoned argument for their unhinged points of view, they loaded up their film with paranoid ranting about ‘the truth’ and some imagined conspiracy against them. Good luck with that, Mr. Griffin.

Then there was the Labour Party’s effort – and a curious thing that was to be sure. Shot to resemble a 1950s Pathe News bulletin, the entire film takes the form of a ‘comedy’ sketch. Called ‘The Un-credible Shrinking Man’ it seeks to portray Nick Clegg as a man visibly diminishing in power and influence, in a room filled with guffawing Tories. Very curious. First of all, it isn’t remotely funny, which rather takes the sting out of it. Of course, politicians should never try to be amusing. It’s usually cringingly awful, and while this is far from the worst example, it still falls very flat. Perhaps more baffling though, is the target.
Anybody with a fleeting awareness of British politics knows the Liberal Democrats have a bit of a problem. They’re all but finished. When they leapt into bed with Cameron’s Conservatives in 2010, they bought themselves a taste of power denied to them for decades, but the price was high. As the coalition government slashed at public services and propped-up the ultra rich, Clegg’s gang became seen as their lapdogs. Which is certain to obliterate the LibDem vote in both the Euro and general elections. So why Labour have focussed their guns on Nicky-boy, rather than the Tories, is quite a mystery.

That said, we should at least give Labour some credit for trying to do something different with their allotted airtime. It was a brave attempt, but misses its mark by some distance. In common with the competing parties, it was an attempt to run down the opposition without offering any firm policies by way of an alternative. That annoys people. And probably goes some way to explain why voter turnout next week will be disappointingly low.


 

This is the news...

“Good morning, here’s the news/And all of it is good/And the weather’s good.”
(Carbon/Silicon, The News)

Earlier this year, Jeremy Paxman suggested some editions of Newsnight should simply inform the viewing audience there was nothing much to talk about, before rolling the closing credits. Knowing Paxo, he was probably just being provocative, or even presaging his recently announced departure from the late night current affairs stalwart. He may even have been nostalgically recalling the time when a very young BBC informed listeners just that; there was no news that day and everyone could retire to bed early. Whichever, he was certainly hinting at something of an existential crisis in the modern news media.

Alain De Botton (a man so imbued with philosophical brain power, it has forced the very hair from his follicles) has also joined the fray, with a typically cerebral take on things. He proposes ‘The News’ should be retitled ‘Some News’. His argument being that for every missing airliner, there are thousands more which reach their destination unscathed, but also unreported. He feels this gives us a skewed view of our world. Presumably, he imagines we are entirely ignorant of those successful flights and therefore, based on news reports, see air travel as fantastically perilous. Unfortunately, it’s very tricky to imagine anyone rushing home to catch an hour-long bulletin on all the unexceptional things that have happened that day

So are Jeremy and Alain right? Is ‘The News’ in crisis? Well, it is certainly in flux. But before we go much further, perhaps we should determine exactly what ‘news’ is. Because I would say De Botton is being obtuse. His concept of the everyday occurrence having the same currency as the unexpected or highly consequential event, is more than a little harebrained. The actual content of any news bulletin will always be a subjective, editorial decision – however, we can probably all agree that news stories must at least be exceptional, interesting or significant. ‘Planes Arrive Safely’ is clearly welcome information, but as it isn’t exceptional, interesting or significant, it isn’t news.

A few years ago, some ‘important’ media bods hit on the idea of ‘hyper-local’ news. This was a plan to introduce radio programmes, newspapers and websites catering to very small territories – no more than a few streets. For a while, there was much excitement, as it was thought a whole new market for news had been uncovered. Alas, any moves to actually build such networks soon foundered. Why? Because exceptional, interesting and significant stuff doesn’t occur in sufficient volumes in that tight a space. Plenty happens, but very little of it is ‘news’. As Danny Baker so pithily puts it ‘Boy, that was dull. But it was very local.’ We’re probably seeing the death knell of this misguided proposition in the slow, painful humiliation of ‘London Live’ – a hyper-local TV channel, currently on air and occasionally, with literally nobody watching.

‘Citizen journalism’ has made more positive progress. Although the title isn’t really adequate, as most of those involved are not really journalists and, conversely, professional journalists have always been citizens. What is actually taking place under this flag is media activism. Very few news organisations ever dared imagine such sophisticated reporting tools would become available to them, let alone the general populace. Nevertheless, in scores of nations, bus drivers and butchers, chefs and chauffeurs have in their pockets recording devices which can capture, video, audio and still photography, then rapidly place that data on a global media platform. That’s not really journalism as it’s unmediated. But in a situation like the Arab Spring or the bombardment of Homs, it is very powerful news.

When Japan was struck by the terrible Kamaishi earthquake in 2012, I was communicating via Twitter, with someone I don’t know but whom I follow. He lives in Tokyo and was describing the shocks and aftershocks as the quake tore across the city. He was doing this in real-time and from the midst of the unfolding disaster. I was reading his live updates on a chilly and quiet railway platform in North Yorkshire.
This was news at its most profound. Gripping, massively topical, incredibly authentic, exceptionally significant and utterly fascinating. Thankfully my Twitter friend was unharmed, as his tweets had pulled me closer to a breaking story than any bulletin I had seen in the preceding 45 years. And all without the need for a script, producer, studio or suit.

It’s this kind of immediate reportage that has put the big news organisations on the back foot. What they offer in competition (other than men in suits) is ‘analysis’. Analysis is important. Without the background delivered by geologists, emergency workers, and others appearing on the official broadcast bulletins, all I would have were those panicky Tokyo tweets. Yes, analysis is important, but it’s not news. I already had the news, more rapidly and pointedly than any professional broadcaster could manage.

I’m always rather surprised when one of those regular furores arises, accusing a paper or broadcaster of bias in their reporting, as though it had ever been any other way. Indeed, most news outlets are fanatically proud of their allegiances and angles. The right-wing agenda at Fox News, although often comically extreme, is actually the station’s USP and a magnet for a massive viewership. Although The Guardian once splashed with the strapline ‘Free Thinkers Welcome’ it is quite openly a left-leaning liberal newspaper; less crass than Fox News, maybe, but still affiliated to a particular political standpoint. This is what I mean by journalism being ‘mediated’. It is the reporting of events through a particular prism. I don’t mean that pejoratively, I just think it’s inevitable when human beings attempt to relate factual stories.

The exception, of course, would be the BBC. Or at least it ought to be. Because the Beeb is paid for by the general public through a compulsory tax, its charter insists its output is completely free from bias. That’s a noble principle, but one I fear, it is impossible to achieve in practice. That’s not to say the BBC’s news content cannot be trusted. On the contrary, it’s arguably the most robust coverage of the world, in the world. However, where its ideal would be a static pendulum, frozen at the untarnished midpoint, in truth the BBC tends to move evenly to and fro to produce relative objectivity. I say ‘relative’, as it’s hard to give the national broadcaster an entirely clean bill of health when it carries stories from Strictly Come Dancing in its flagship news programmes.

It may make us uncomfortable, but ‘news’ is actually a commodity sold in a competitive marketplace where the viewer/listener/reader is the consumer. One may choose to consume only those outlets which offer their wares for free at the point of delivery: ITV, C4, BBC, Metro. Or one may choose to pay for one’s news: The Daily Mail, Sky, The FT, The Times Online, The Sun – and so on. What’s more, we can select which flavouring we want sprinkled on our news and whether we want to read it, hear it or watch it. Every operator in this market offers a slightly different product, but they would all label it ‘news’. This is a reasonably healthy state of affairs when one considers the confection and mendacity that passes for news in Burma or North Korea. But what is worrying the news vendors, is the possibility the consuming crowd will dwindle to a point where the market is undermined, its members finally more convinced, excited and satisfied by the information they build between them – on Twitter, on YouTube and a million other forums.

We haven’t yet reached that point, but the market is very saturated with suppliers, all hungrily searching for a sustainable and profitable model. Right now it’s hard to see what that model will be, and how it will shape this surprisingly ancient and staggeringly contemporary thing we call ‘news’.
Although I think we can safely say it won’t involve an announcer or banner headline declaring ‘Here is some news. There isn’t much to tell you today.’


 

 

Can You Feel The Force?

May 2014 

The news that the next ‘Star Wars’ film will be a sequel to episode six – ‘Return Of The Jedi’ – fills me with genuine excitement. That it will star Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew is thrill upon thrill. However, if this information makes you tut and roll your eyes, you may wish to move along. This piece will do little relieve your cynicism.

I was just the right age for the first ‘Star Wars’ picture – 13 years old in 1977. As a senior teacher, my mum could rarely be persuaded to allow me time off school. So I can only assume a rush of blood to the head was responsible for her decision to grant me a Friday afternoon away from lessons to make the trip to the Odeon Cinema on Nottingham’s Angel Row, where this newly-arrived blockbuster was showing. Actually, I was already very aware of the movie. For weeks, the papers and TV news had carried shots of block-long queues in Los Angeles and New York, and then London. What’s more, I was also a massive fan of science fiction. So my veins were pumping with anticipation as we took our faux-velvet seats in the massive auditorium with the giant screen that was ‘Odeon 1′.

 I realise now that my mother’s sacrifice was twofold. Not only was she foreshortening my formal education, but she had absolutely no enthusiasm for any film in the space fantasy genre. I did though. In fact, I haven’t been quite the same since.

In the 1970s, movie directors and producers had to be on their mettle. This cinematic decade was so creatively rich and stunningly diverse, it’s startling to reflect on its canon. ‘Saturday Night Fever’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Jaws’, ‘The Sting’, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, ‘The Exorcist’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Taxi Driver’ and on, and on. Many of the best films you will ever see were made in the seventies and most of Hollywood’s current output might well die of shame in comparison. Nevertheless, against this superlative backdrop, George Lucas was swimming against the tide.
Sci-fi was out of favour (you’ll notice none of the pictures I listed were of that genre), and Lucas struggled to pitch the ‘Star Wars’ concept. Perhaps it was because his screenplay was so off-trend that it attracted so much attention. Well, that and the thumping good tale he had to tell. The closest comparison, was Stanley Kubrick’s ’2001: A Space Odyssey’, released in 1968. Admittedly, this was a huge hit – but other than a blanket of stars, ’2001′ had nothing in common with ‘Star Wars’. The former was an existential meditation on mankind’s evolution and subsequent place in the universe. The latter, a fantastical saga, closer to the ancient legends of the Greeks, or the fairy stories of the Brothers Grimm, than Arthur C Clarke’s philosophical study.

Around this time, a tremendous, one-off magazine was published which explained Lucas’ influences and inspirations. From Laurel & Hardy (R2D2 and C3P0) and Dracula (Darth Vader), to WW2 dogfights (X-Wings vs. TIE Fighters) and medieval warriors (Jedi Knights) – it was fascinating to see how ‘Star Wars’ embodied so many of the storytelling tropes which preceded it. Good against evil; imprisoned princesses; farmboys becoming heroes; pirates and wizards, in its roots, it’s a very traditional tale, but presented in an amazingly fresh and enchanting way. Without doubt, ‘Star Wars’ was the movie of my childhood.

While this new film excites me, it also gives rise to much trepidation. Unsurprisingly, the original picture’s all-conquering success ensured sequels. Pleasingly, the first – ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980) – was a creative triumph too. A little more bleak and grown-up than the first outing, it’s regarded by many an aficionado as the best episode of the set. Even ‘Return Of The Jedi’ (1983) didn’t let the side down. Ewoks aside, it does a fair job of wrapping up the narrative strands and of course, delivering the climactic reveal. In all honesty, by 1983, I’d matured considerably and lost some of my passion for the space-opera, but I was still reasonably content by the triumvirate’s concluding chapters.

And there it would, or maybe should, have ended. Unfortunately, George Lucas was eventually persuaded there was plenty more juice left in the ‘Star Wars’ fruit. In the mid-nineties he digitally retouched the first three films and sent them out again; and in 1999 he released a prequel, ‘The Phantom Menace’. Anyone who shared the awe I felt when watching the 1977 film will understand the dismay and disappointment which accompanied this new production. The game was up in the first few seconds. When the famous, scrolling explanatory text, rambled on about ‘trade federations’ and ‘senate hearings’, we instinctively knew this was not what we’d signed up for. Worse, the casting and script were a debacle. The saga had never really been known for its deep and nuanced dialogue, but ‘The Phantom Menace’ plumbed new depths of tedious, unconvincing writing. And to call Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman wooden would be to insult timber.

As a prequel, none of the founding characters featured. Instead, the lead was the young Anakin Skywalker (eventually Darth Vader). In the second prequel (‘Episode Two: Attack Of The Clones’ – please keep up) Anakin was played by the handsome, but staggeringly under-talented Hayden Christensen. Painfully, not only is Mr. Christensen incapable of carrying a major motion picture, I’d be surprised if he can carry a mug of Horlicks to bed. By the third prequel (‘Episode Three: Revenge Of The Sith’ – maybe you should take notes), even the most stalwart ‘Star Wars’ fan was forced to admit something had gone badly wrong, and what began as a lean and gripping adventure was now a turgid, confusing mess of CGI and scenery-chewing performances. Don’t ask about Jar-Jar Binks. We don’t talk about Jar-Jar Binks.

Now, we’re on the precipice once more – and this time, the stakes are even higher. The ensemble from that initial, wondrous film – the one that means so much to those born in the mid-sixties – has been re-assembled. We’re about to see what happened after episode six (‘The Return Of The Jedi’, remember?). It’s entirely possible this will be a soaring, life-affirming event – perfectly crafted to whisk us back to that early-teen, captivating magic. JJ Abrams is directing and his track-record is pretty good. In recent years, he has successfully re-booted the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, so the signs are encouraging. But there’s many a slip between a droid and a Wookie, and after those clunking prequels there’s much to make us apprehensive. Not least of all the suggestion that episode seven will be titled ‘An Ancient Fear’, worryingly close to ‘The Phantom Menace’.

If the rumours are true, we’re to expect at least three more ‘Star Wars’ pictures, so here’s my plea to George Lucas and JJ Abrams: please tread very carefully, gentlemen – for you tread on my dreams.


 

 

Everybody’s a DJ nowadays.

April 2014

The BBC notwithstanding, and a peppering of community outfits aside, there aren’t really any independent radio stations left in the UK. It’s all ‘networks’ – which is a rather overexcited way of saying a large corporation bought lots of stations and imposed their brand and format on them. Money doesn’t just talk – it also broadcasts, it seems.

One of these networks is called ‘Smooth’. It’s owned and operated by Global Radio, can be heard in most regions of the country, and vaguely promises “Your Relaxing Music Mix”. It’s all very tame and predictable stuff, a bit like Radio 2 on an off day with intrusive ad breaks. But it does provide gainful employment for some of the nation’s jobbing jocks. Or at least it did.

Earlier this year, Smooth Radio underwent a bit of a revamp. This is something broadcasting companies find hard to resist. Convinced a bit of tinkering will unlock a veritable treasure trove, they cut loose with new logos, shows and line-ups. One only has to look at ITV’s history of rebrands (about six in fifteen years), to appreciate this reluctance to settle on an identity with which they’re happy.
In the case of Smooth, the most obvious change was the sacking of Lynn Parsons, Simon Bates, Gary King, Pete Waterman and David Prever. Andrew Castle, Myleene Klass, Kate Garraway and Tina Hobley were the replacements.

You may have spotted a notable difference between the former cast and the latter. Whatever your opinion of Parsons, Bates and their former colleagues, they are all seasoned radio professionals. Pete Waterman may be better known for talent shows, Kylie and old trains, but his DJ credentials are pretty robust too. The usurpers are a different matter. They all come from telly. Andrew Castle and Kate Garraway shared a sofa at GMTV, Klass is a former pop singer and reality person, and Tina Hobley is an actress from Coronation Street and Holby City. In a cynical mood, one might easily get to thinking this grouping was hired for their fame, rather than any proven skill behind a microphone.

Presenting radio programmes is a lot like writing. Everybody thinks they can do it, and in a way, they can. They just can’t do it very well. I’m certain many people imagine Bob Harris, Rhod Sharp, Annie Nightingale, Johnnie Walker and Danny Baker, do nothing more than boot up the ‘on-air’ light, gab for a bit, play some songs and go home. Of course, they all approach their programmes in different ways (Baker famously writes all his notes on the train on the way to the studio), but their incredible broadcasting skills simply cannot be acquired or imitated by any chump with an agent who fancies a go.

The key here is experience. Without exception, those five presenters have dedicated hundreds of hours to the perfection of their craft. It’s no accident their programmes make us feel we’re the only listener, holding us in stasis – unable to move from the wireless, making us laugh, gasp, dance – making us listen. It’s an art which cannot be bought or assumed, because it’s only available to those who have a natural talent which has been chiselled and polished for decades.

No television channel worth its salt would dream of choosing a complete novice to front a show on the strength of their fame in another field. Modern radio stations do that all the time.

I vividly recall the comic actor Peter Serafinowicz covering Richard Bacon’s 6Music show one Saturday afternoon. Now, I like Serafinowicz, he has an unhinged charm which can be enormously entertaining. In this instance, he was worse than hopeless. He’d fallen into the trap of thinking ‘It’s only radio’. Utterly unprepared and apparently unrehearsed, he filled two hours with gaps, pauses, stumbles, fumbles and desperately unfunny adlibs. What’s more, he did the same the following week. I hope he would now admit radio is much, much harder than it sounds.

From time-to-time, I’ve done stuff on the radio. Pirate stations at first, then some local work, and more recently online. I know the basics and I can put together a reasonable programme. And yet, I’m painfully aware how short I am of the air time needed to be ‘effortlessly’ great. Because I work from home, I listen to an enormous quantity of radio. This has made me acutely aware of the subtle expertise which distinguishes an adequate broadcaster from a tremendous broadcaster. Those who fall into the ‘tremendous’ category are never folk moonlighting from their mainstream jobs. They are never TV wonks picking up a bit of freelance, nor are they actors or comedians. They are real radio people, with fader marks embossed in their fingertips, and headphone dents in their scalps. And you know what, once they retire (or can no longer get a gig), there will be no-one there to do the job properly.

When that new Smooth Radio gang was announced in February, a very wise man tweeted “It appears people who run radio stations don’t like radio very much”. He has my wholehearted and disappointed agreement.


 

 

What to watch?

April 2014

On 11 December 2008, Project Canvas was announced. A joint venture between the BBC, BT and ITV, it replaced the failed Project Kangaroo, a proposed video-on-demand service which was refused a licence on competition grounds and ended up as the SeeSaw service. Project Canvas was designed to be different from Kangaroo, in as much as it was a device that would connect to the internet rather than delivering a video-on-demand outlet, acting as a single content portal, much like the music video equivalent VEVO. The there was Roku and NOWTV. Oh, and Freesat and …

Hang on, hang on. It doesn’t take a genius to spot a problem here.


When I was a nipper we had three TV channels BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. As a teenager, Channel 4 arrived. A decade later the Astra satellite began beaming the Sky networks and finally – rather unnecessarily – Channel 5 booted up. This was hardly a TV landscape to rival the hundreds of stations on US telly, but for a while it felt like a reasonably adequate selection.

I think we all knew there’d more. There’s always more in our consumer-tastic world, but we alos suspected more channels never, ever means better channels. Those who had Sky reported, almost with pride, how hopeless many of the stations proved to be (Wine TV or 24 Hour Psychic Readings, anyone?). And yet we all quite fancied that spread of shows we knew the Americans had. After all, that’s the British way. To tut and frown at the USA and then gobble up everything it offers, from wars to media outlets.

And now we have it. More. All those stations, pouring through the ether, the internet or fibre-optic cables, through the skirting board and into our eyes. So, what’s wrong with getting what we wished for? Well, nothing, except it’s all arrived in a dreadfully haphazard way. It feels as though dozens of broadcasting companies all had vague, but different ideas as to the best way to pump more content at us. But instead of forming any sort of cohesive market, they all rushed forward at once, all touting an alternative device or platform, all claiming to be delivering the best.

Take Netflix. Now, I’ve been hearing about Netflix for quite some time. Largely thanks to the massively confusing plethora of outlets, I’ve paused at regular old Freeview (I can’t abide most sports, so Sky holds little attraction to me). However, over the weekend, I decided I’d initiate the free Netflix 30-day trial. Hooking a laptop up to my telly with an HDMI cable, I prepared to plunge into a new galaxy of premium content. I figured if I liked it, I’d be happy to part with £6.00 to keep the service going. Then I entered the library.
Okay, I admit there were some juicy ‘box-sets’ available – principally ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘House Of Cards’. Beyond them? Almost nothing. Scrolling through the movie titles was like looking through the racks of one of those video rental sections in the back of a village shop. Just acres of straight-to-DVD eyewash. Using the ‘search’ feature, I picked three or four titles I fancied. Not a sausage. None of them was on Netflix.

Needless to say, I shan’t be signing up for the extended deal.

And herein lies the flaw. Where do I go now? Amazon Premium? YouView? And what’s the difference? There are far too many systems, boxes and carriers to make a considered choice – and I’m just as likely to stick with my Freeview than I am to explore further.

Competition is healthy in any sector, but if a market becomes overly diluted, the consumer is left perplexed. And in broadcast media, where viewing figures and advertisers are everything, that’s no good at all.


 

 

On Britpop.

April 2014

35 years since Freddie Mercury grew a moustache, three decades since the release of ‘Return of The Jedi’ – any excuse will do. A defining feature of 21st century media is an unbridled love of the arts retrospective. And here comes the latest: Britpop. A Stuart Maconie special on Radio 2; a Jeremy Vine phone-in; heavy coverage on 6Music, this is obviously a big deal.

Isn’t it?

If we’re being slightly glib, the history of British popular music can be divided roughly into eight era-defining genres: Rock and Roll, The Beatles and the swinging sixties, hippy rock and prog, Punk and the new wave, the New Romantics, Hip-Hop, indie, Acid House and dance. Some interesting side-roads (ambient, folk rock, metal) notwithstanding, they are the benchmarks by which we measure the pop timeline. By the reckoning of some folk, Britpop deserves a position on that list. It doesn’t.

The mid-nineties were a bit of a transitory period for popular culture. The underground explosion in electronic dance music was now firmly overground, and being remorselessly milked by the record industry; Kurt Cobain was dead and Madchester had long since fizzled out. Musically, the biggest stories were the overarching dominance of Take That and the unexpected popularity of Oasis. Nothing wrong with that. Those eight milestones in pop history didn’t slot together like Lego bricks, they dovetailed into one another, creating grey-area overlaps. However, that’s quite inconvenient for radio producers and music journalists, all clamouring to be at the heart of a profoundly important ‘movement’. So, in this instance, they invented one.

In 1993 Blur were struggling. Their album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ had been reasonably well received by the critics, but they weren’t exactly shifting truckloads of units. With a final roll of the dice they produced their masterwork, ‘Parklife’, and were suddenly elevated to the same lofty platform as Oasis. The ensuing showdown between the two bands is well documented. Releasing singles in the same week, the two band face-off even made the Ten O Clock News. All good sport and a mildly diverting spectacle. To the media movers, though, it was enough to start constructing a rock Wendy house. Something was happening and they were going to make sure they were at the leading edge. In reality, that ‘something’ was just a couple of pop groups racing each other to number one with, as it happens, two of the worst singles either had released. But by now, the wheels were in motion.
In and around the newly fashionable Camden Town, a clutch of willowy youths with floppy hair and Wrangler jackets formed a handful of unexceptional bands. Fortunately for them, they were in just the right spot and drinking in just the right bars. Hitherto unknown boozers like The Dublin Castle and The Good Mixer fell under the eager gaze of the NME and Vox, and any patron with a guitar was declared part of an exciting new scene. A cover of Select magazine proclaimed ‘Yanks Go Home!’ – rejecting their former darlings Nirvana and Pearl Jam in favour of fresh outfits with names like ‘Menswear’ and ‘Denim’. The point is, this enthusiasm wasn’t pushing up from the UK’s gig-going, CD-buying citizens, it was being foisted on readers and listeners by a press pack with a mission to conjure something magically hip from a reasonably prosaic hat.

Of course, at that time, there were some fabulous bands producing some tremendous work. Suede are undoubtedly one of the finest acts of the last few decades; Elastica’s debut album remains a splendidly spiky, bolshy and juddering thing. Despite retroactive hipster wisdom, even Oasis were a great outfit for a while. Just revisit ‘Champagne Supernova’ for some very pleasing, grandiose British rock.
This is true of any era – good bands, bad bands, excellent music, terrible music. It is not in any way an indicator of a burgeoning movement worthy of a name. Nevertheless it got one.

It’s hard to identify exactly what qualifies a notional pop music trend as a fully-fledged movement. That said, we can probably assert that it needs to be new, contrasting with its immediate predecessor; initiated by a grass-roots fan base; centred on a common vision and providing a fresh perspective. Britpop did none of this. It was only ‘new’ because the media said it was. In fact, most of the bands simply merged a bit of indie with a bit of sixties guitar. Far from contrasting with whatever went before, this was a clear continuation of styles laid down by The Smiths, The Kinks, The Stone Roses and others. There was no accumulation of hardcore fans, as there had been with punk and acid house, no unusual looking crowds massed outside venues preparing to immerse themselves in a revolutionary happening. And Britpop had absolutely no vision or alternative perspective. If it had a mission statement, it was to drink expensive Japanese lager and appear on TFI Friday. That’s not a movement.

The writer Miranda Sawyer says Britpop (of which she’s an avowed enthusiast) was a completely different animal from ‘Cool Britannia’. Actually, ‘Cool Britannia’ was nothing more than the politicisation of Britpop. 1997 may not have heralded a brave new world for pop, but it certainly ignited a new era for British government as Tony Blair and New Labour landed in a swirl of D:Ream and flashing smiles.
On a wave of optimism and goodwill, Blair seized his day, rarely missing an opportunity to press his rock credentials on the electorate. Photographed manhandling his Stratocaster into Number 10, and busily telling The Observer how much he loved The Clash, he was obviously eager to cast himself as the first rock and roll Prime Minister. Unsurprisingly, once he’d moved in, invites were issued to the luminaries of this Britpop thing (7 for 7.30, bring your own union-jack guitar).

And how they flocked to his door. If we were ever uncertain whether Britpop was anything more than a confection of Radio 1 and London media mollies, then the sight of Noel Gallagher and Alan McGee swilling bubbly with the Blairs must surely set us straight. No pop phenomenon worth its salt could ever bear scrutiny when its protagonists have broken bread at the heart of the establishment. Once you sup with The Man, you’re dead in the water. There is much to dislike about Liam Gallagher, but his flat refusal to have anything to do with the Cool Britannia/Downing Street shindig, does him no end of credit.

So, what exactly was Britpop and what did it want? After the searing agony of 2008’s financial crash, it’s easy to forget all the other economic doldrums, but the mid-nineties was one. Encumbered by a Tory administration, up to its underpants in scandal and led by the lacklustre John Major, whatever bubble we’d been enjoying had burst and we were in recession. The situation, although not quite catastrophic, wasn’t exactly fun. The perfect platform, in fact, for some kind of cultural upheaval, something brash and exhilarating to propel us into the next century. But pop life will never be that predictable, the planets refused to align and there we were, twirling in the wind with only a copy of ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight, Yeah’ to stave off the pre-millennial tension.
Hunters after the hip and the happening abhor a vacuum as much as nature, so they forced the issue. Scrabbling around for some action, high-profile hands fell on any half-competent metropolitan beat combo, threw them in a blender with every act signed to Creation, poured them into a pint pot in the kitchen of Supernova Heights and garnished the whole watery cocktail with Damon Albarn’s rapidly acquired cockney accent and Chris Evans’ spectacles. Served to a decidedly lukewarm nation by Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq, this was Britpop: a manufactured stop-gap, a papering over of the cracks. Barely adequate as a ‘thing’, not a single act was willing to say they were part of it. For most folk, Britpop only existed in the minds of those who said it existed.

Which makes all this misty-eyed celebrating all the more unnecessary and bizarre. Because, as Britpop never really happened, it begs the question, what exactly are we recalling with such glee? Euro ’96? The Bluetones only hit? Meg Matthews’ parties? What?

I was living and working in London throughout this period, and I’d love to tell you every street, from Kentish Town to Colliers Wood, was leaping to the thumping beat of Lush and Echobelly. That we were frantically Britpopping away, without a care in the world, ecstatic in that very moment to be alive. But we weren’t. What’s more, nobody was talking in animated tones about ‘that brilliant Britpop that’s happening.’ If all this nostalgic hoopla is making you worry you missed out on something, then relax, you didn’t.

By all means, take the chance to give Pulp’s magnificent ‘A Different Class’ another play; go ahead and warble along to ‘Animal Nitrate’; never hesitate to blast out Manic Street Preachers’ astonishing ‘Everything Must Go’ all day long – but resist the temptation to gaze at that period through wistful, moistening eyes. The mid-nineties were just the mid-nineties and Britpop was just a figment of others people’s imaginations.


 

 

Happy Easter…

April 2014 

Easter, eh? Not as big as Christmas, and yet more substantial than Pancake Day. Still, a very good time to slow down and kick back. Here’s what you’ll need: some high-quality family members or friends, and small amounts of chocolate crafted to look like enormous amounts of egg-shaped chocolate and sold for £6.00 plus. (They’re hollow y’know? HOLLOW!)

Here’s what you won’t need: one of my rants about spelling, briefs, creative standards and young people. Well, you’re in luck. Because instead, I’d like to draw your attention to a campaign which recently broke in America.


The details are largely explained in the clip. But just to give you a bit of background, the ad agency posted a job listing on various recruitment websites. The position was based at a company called Rehtom Inc. and it read like this:

• Standing up almost all the time
• Constantly exerting yourself
• Working from 135 to unlimited hours per week
• Degrees in medicine, finance and culinary arts necessary
• No vacations
• The work load goes up on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and other holidays
• No time to sleep
• Salary = $0

The listing received two and half million page impressions although, perhaps not surprisingly, only 24 people applied. Those people were told they would be interviewed on their webcams, and these encounters were recorded. The resulting videos formed the basis of the campaign.
“I saw the pay-off coming, but others may not.”

There’s just a couple of things to note. It’s a bit of a teaser thing, so you’ll need to watch to the end. I also thought it was interesting to see the ways in which the candidates pushed back at the interviewer. Very typically American and assertive, I’m not sure the average Brit would have been this bold, or wouldn’t have stormed out in a fit of pique.

You’ll also see the interviewees are stunned when they hear the job description and lack of a salary, despite the fact they read the original posting. Suggesting they didn’t. What’s more, they are genuinely overjoyed to find they’ve been tricked. Let’s hope they received an appearance fee.

Also, I saw the pay-off coming quite early on – but others may not.

The work is through a Boston agency called Mullen, and I caught it on adweek.com. See what you think, enjoy your Easter break and try not to scoff too much thinly-spread, ovoid chocolate. (Hollow, remember).


 

 

Firefighting.

April, 2014 

Getting an advertisement completely and utterly wrong is quite an art. For starters, it takes two parties who at least profess to know what they’re doing: the client and the agency. Then the brief must wildly misunderstand the nature of the audience and the messages to which it will positively respond. Finally, the whole shooting-match needs to be approved, green-lit, budgeted, produced and broadcast – all without anybody sticking their heads above the parapet to proclaim the project an enormous mistake.

Pleasingly Vodafone have managed just that.


Vodafone have problems. Not that they have no money (they do, loads of it), or that they’re not an internationally recognised brand (they are all over the place). No, their problem is that many people don’t like them very much. This is partly thanks to the fact most people are deeply suspicious and hostile towards massive corporations, but mostly due to their habit of arranging not to pay the corporation tax they owe the UK exchequer. Along with Google, Starbucks and others, Vodafone are high on a hit-list of companies doing rather well in Britain, but somehow avoiding the levies paid by ordinary folks and smaller businesses.

Whether or not you share the outrage directed at the mobile telecoms giant, or couldn’t really give a stuff, is entirely up to you. However, it would be a fool who didn’t acknowledge the damage such publicity does to a brand. Usually, when an advertiser experiences a level of bad blood, they ensure their campaigns either counteract the criticism or, more often, ignore the issue altogether and continue to plug the benefits of the product or service they’re selling. Not Vodafone.

It’s hard to know if the ‘Firefighter’ ad, currently enjoying heavy rotation on commercial telly, is designed to reassure those who believe the firm to be grasping, heartless monsters, or whether it was made in blissful ignorance. Either way, it’s a disaster.

My superficial objection is to the spot’s tooth-grinding triteness. All that slow motion heroism as we view a manifestly unconvincing fireman completing a hopelessly staged mission, is worthy of a nineties Gillette commercial. Add an equally inauthentic female voiceover (with a quaint regional accent, naturally), bemoaning her husband’s reluctance to let her know he’s okay, layered over a slab of forgettable music which somebody imagined was emotionally stirring, and you have one achingly stupid and glib advertisement.

All this would be horrifying enough, but then we must consider that dastardly taxation difficulty. You see, what Vodafone is pushing is a claim that 77% of the emergency services use their networks. They don’t elaborate, so we have no idea if this is in a personal capacity or as part of their life-saving duties. And it doesn’t much matter. Because screaming in our heads is one thought: ‘Yeah? And how are the emergency services funded, Vodafone? Through taxes, that’s how. And you don’t pay your share do you? You cheating twunts!’

I’m summarising here, but that has been the general drift of the social media comments I’ve read. Did they really imagine the reaction would be any different? That this heap of vacuous bilge would set everything straight and we’d all love Vodafone again? Because it doesn’t and we don’t. Not one tiny bit.

Nevertheless, my mobile friends, congratulations are in order. Because Vodafone and its agency (I won’t name them, they can probably do without the embarrassment) have managed to produce an ad which misses every target with unerring efficiency. And that really takes some doing.

If you really wish to see this thing, it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK_wF0hAQEs


 

 

Communication breakdown

April 2014

When the dreadful story of the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370 dawned on the world, it was notable how many people pontificated ‘Surely all those satellites and things can track a plane anywhere.’ Some hotheads even went as far as to suggest this was a conspiratorial red-flag. Those with power knew where the plane was, they just weren’t telling us.

There could be no clearer indication that technology is the defining force of the early 21st century, than the public’s inclination to frame the tragedy in those terms. They were, of course, wrong. Quite obviously a plane can vanish because it did.

The psychology of our relationship with the gadgets and systems shaping our lives is a fascinating thing to observe. It’s also a difficult thing to observe, for (at least in the developed world) we are inescapably part of that grand experiment. I am writing this on a laptop computer. When it’s finished it will be added to a database which will display it on a website. I’m wired in, as part of the process. I’m one of the thousands of ghosts in the machine.
However, I’d like to think I have just about enough objectivity to examine the nature of my own perception of technology, and that of my fellow human beings.

In just the way readers and viewers adamantly insisted the Malaysian jet must be detectable, our picture of technology is always slightly removed from reality. How often do we hear that every movie and every song is available to every person at the click of the button? But that isn’t true. We can stream a large amount of content for a modest charge, or we can choose to share various files, illegally and for free. But no streaming service carries everything (try listening to The Beatles or AC/DC on Spotify) and file sharing can be very fiddly and long-winded.
Equally, we’re told – and readily believe and repeat – that smart phones give us almost unlimited access to information and media, wherever we go. Not quite. Most 3G networks come unstuck on trains and in remote locations. Data load in central London has a tendency to slow connectivity to a snail’s pace.

Technological advances since the turn of the millennium have been extraordinary. The BBC is now able to plan an online-only future for a whole channel. Footage can be shot and distributed globally with astonishing speed and effectiveness. Nevertheless, these systems are undeniably patchy and regularly fail. Look at Skype. A tremendous innovation, but witness the frequency of dropped connections on professional broadcast services; or Skype your family abroad and wade through the intermittent picture quality and wooshing sounds. This will improve – and yet, we tend to think we have the utmost in video telephony at our fingertips. We’re literally, getting ahead of ourselves.

My generation has become an unofficial IT helpdesk to our parents. This isn’t a complaint (at least, not against parents). I’m delighted my mother uses the web and a Kindle – I’m just disappointed she can’t set up, troubleshoot and adjust the devices she owns with ease. She’s not daft, and the machines aren’t rubbish. Unfortunately the designers, manufacturers and service providers are failing her and simultaneously failing their own technology.

The functionality of Skype, Twitter, facebook, Google, YouTube and so on, is astonishing. Some services are stunningly brave and hugely impressive. But the infrastructure and our ability to exploit these services properly is muddled and flawed. Can you imagine the benefits to the economy, employment, emergency services and national cohesion, if we enjoyed a government-backed, high-speed, wireless broadband network? Not necessarily free, but strong, reliable and ubiquitous. Not a single major political party is proposing this. Why? Because their willingness to understand, let alone deploy, digital technology is woefully inadequate. From ministers asking for social media to be turned off in districts experiencing civil unrest, to adult content opt-ins – let alone the eye-watering sums written off in hopelessly mismanaged IT projects – our ‘lords and masters’ are hobbled by their ignorance and confusion.

Looking to corporations to realise the vision we have of our digital world, would also be misguided. The ‘Windows’ operating system underpins the vast majority of the planet’s technological endeavours. It is also widely regarded as a cumbersome, badly plotted and inadequate enterprise. Thanks to Microsoft’s near monopoly, there’s little impetus to improve. Indeed, each new release brings a fresh flurry of complaint and dismay. The potential for a smooth, dynamic system is there; complacency and clumsiness holds it back.

Of course, it is often mooted that Apple are the exemplars of technology perfected. Well, are they? It’s certainly hard to imagine a more efficient, intelligent mobile device than the iPhone. Then again, I have recently been using a Mac laptop for some work in which I’m involved, and it’s a pretty unsatisfying machine; as fiddly and unintuitive as a PC, just in different ways. What’s more, no company which happily issues iterations of the disastrous iTunes suite, can ever truly claim to have conquered the management and expression of beautifully simple digital concepts.

I’m no technology guru. I can’t really code, have little idea how hardware functions and only possess a relatively rudimentary grasp of the mechanics behind many websites. But I know enough to believe we are squandering a great deal of the promise offered by digital tools. It feels as though we have it all, and then we realise a 300 tonne aeroplane has the capacity to fly off the grid and into oblivion. We fantasise the modern world is a technological powerhouse, as sleek and flash as an advanced starship. All too frequently, it’s as wobbly and undependable as a particularly poor Tardis.

We can do better than this, but somehow we don’t.


 

 

The Spaghetti Monster and the nature of belief

March 2014 

In the UK, we have the odd instance of a fringe school pressing for the right to teach archaic or arcane ideas to children. This is usually the desire to include creationism, or other religious notions, in their science classes. In the USA it’s a much, much bigger bone of contention. After all, it was America which saw the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’, a 1925 hearing which accused a teacher of illegally teaching evolution. If you’ve ever been to the southern United States, you’ll know their enthusiasm for traditional Christianity makes Britain appear to be a seething hotbed of pagan heresy, and the arguments raised in the ‘Scopes Trial’ continue to this day.

In 2005, the Kansas State Board of Education decided local schools were entitled to replace evolution with ‘intelligent design’ in the science syllabus. Or at least present it as an alternative. ‘Intelligent design’ is a halfway house in this debate. It doesn’t advocate a belief in Adam, Eve and Eden, but nor does it accept Darwinian natural selection. Instead, it proposes the universe was designed and built by an intellectually aware being.

Responding to the Board of Education with an open letter, a man called Bobby Henderson noted the Board’s decision didn’t specify the precise deity involved in ‘intelligent design’ and therefore the creator was likely to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). He was, of course, being satirical. His point being that any theory which does not provide solid evidence can be made to point towards any conclusion, no matter how ridiculous. What’s more, he insisted his FSM beliefs were as valid as intelligent design, and demanded his ideas receive coverage in classrooms too.

Perhaps inevitably, in the internet age, the Flying Spaghetti Monster became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Supporters of Henderson took on the FSM story as fully-fledged religion, with its own scriptures, iconography and church. Do a Google image search and you’ll see the FSM has been allocated an accepted appearance, complete with meatballs. You may also see a man who has been allowed to wear a colander on his head in his driving licence photo, as it is ‘religious headgear’.

So popular has the FSM become, it is now used in philosophical discourse to demonstrate the way the burden of proof lies with anyone making a claim of truth, not with those denying its veracity.

Bobby Henderson was concerned with religion and education, but the FSM phenomenon provides a valuable lesson for those of us involved in advertising. The Kansas State Board of Education were offering up a proposition (‘intelligent design), in the same way an advertiser proposes the benefits of a product or service. Mr. Henderson was placing the onus on the Board to prove the authenticity of their hypothesis, which is exactly what a consumer will do when they engage with an advertising campaign. Within certain legal restrictions, any advertiser is able to make any claim for their goods or business: ‘friendly’, ‘easy’, ‘delicious’, ‘reliable’, ‘beautiful’ and so on. These adjectives carry minimal weight unless there is evidence to support these assurances. Whether this is in the form of testimonials, scientific research, statistics or free trials is up to the advertiser and their agency – but the necessity to prove the proposition is undeniable.

Many campaigns fail to take this essential element seriously, carrying nothing more than empty boasts and promises. Without exception, they’re the weaker for it. In fact, to the audience, they’re nothing more than Flying Spaghetti Monsters.


 

 

Just one last thing

March 2014 

A recent episode of the resurrected Jonathan Creek attracted some criticism for its plot structure. The audience was shown the crime and the culprit at the beginning, the storyline then followed Creek as he solved the case and fingered the wrongdoer. Of course, aficionados of American detective show ‘Columbo’ would have been familiar with the device. Indeed, they would probably have interpreted it as an homage to their favourite show.

Between 1968 and 2003, ‘Columbo’ played in 44 countries on 80 networks. Arguably, it is the best cop show ever produced.

At its height in the 1970s, competition on US TV was fierce. ‘Kojak’, ‘McCloud’, ‘Starsky & Hutch’, ‘Cannon’ – the networks were brimful of idiosyncratic policemen (and in the case of Angie Dickinson’s ‘Police Woman’, policewomen). Yet somehow, the short, swarthy fellow in the decrepit trenchcoat stood apart. All these series pivoted on the titular character, there was just something more endearing about Lt. Columbo, something more empathetic and believable. Perhaps it was Peter Falk’s insistence on providing his own wardrobe that made the difference.

Interestingly, the unmistakable Falk was the third actor to play the role. The character was created by William Link, who saw the detective as heavy set, advanced in years and grey haired. Which is why New York actor Bert Freed was handed the part, seven years before Falk. When Link and his partner Richard Levinson took the concept to the live stage, they cast 70 year old Thomas Mitchell in the lead. Even when their idea was eventually picked up by NBC, they wanted Lee J Cobb or Bing Crosby to star. It was only when they found neither was available, that they settled on the much younger Falk. By such accidents are legends born.

From the start, ‘Columbo’ – both the character and show – intentionally defied tradition and expectation. Every episode was feature length (around 100 minutes) and was often broadcast in a specially created slot called ‘The Midweek Movie Mystery’. What’s more, it wasn’t uncommon for the detective to make his appearance halfway through the story. Even today, a script using this mechanism would quickly find its way to the waste-paper basket. The movies ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘The French Connection’ were enormous hits in the 70s, influencing shows like ‘Kojak’ to be tough and aggressive. Not ‘Columbo’. Although there is always an on-screen murder, graphic violence is never an element. More specifically, Lt. Columbo is never seen to carry a gun. These are not action shows, they’re games of cat and mouse, intense intellectual battles between scheming, venal killers and a shambolic Italian police officer with savant-like detection abilities.

Although I was a massive fan of ‘Starsky & Hutch’, I watched ‘Columbo’ throughout my childhood because my dad was an enthusiast. However, it’s only in later years that I’ve come to appreciate the programme’s unique subtleties. There’s a very smart class battle running through the format. In his wreck of a car, cheap suit, twice-smoked cigars and stubble, Lt. Columbo is a blue-collar, downtown detective. Clearly the Los Angeles Police Department don’t lavish an enormous salary on the man (most unfair when you consider his hit rate). But his adversaries are the cream of LA society. The Californian setting is key here, because it sets Columbo against the ostentatious and wealthy citizens of Hollywood and Bel Air. Composers, producers, TV executives, hoteliers, gem dealers and plastic surgeons have all seen their murderous activities fall apart under the razor-edged inspections of the grubby cop they unfailingly see as their inferior.
Herein lies the enduring appeal of the character. We’ve already seen the dastardly deed, now we can get behind our everyman hero as he takes down the over-proud, the snobbish and the indulgently greedy.

It only takes a couple of episodes for the viewer to feel they know Lt. Columbo intimately. As with Mrs. Mainwaring and Mrs. Daley, we never see his wife. But we hear so much about her, we can easily picture their run-of-the-mill home, bloodhound asleep on the rug, meatballs bubbling on the stove. Falk also imbues the character with a glow of decency. Always polite (even the murderer is ‘sir’ or ‘madam’), never less than apologetic as he wheedles a deception out of suspect, we know he’s on the side of the wronged and the unfortunate, without him ever having to say so. In short, it’s impossible not to like Columbo. If you were ever unfortunate enough to be done-in, to make way for a rival lover or open the gate to an unearned fortune, you’d want this guy on the case.

Towards the end of his life, Peter Falk suffered with dementia. He became so ill, he had no recollection of making this wonderful TV series. Which is particularly poignant and sad, as millions of people across the world will never forget it.

 


The bower bird and the pitch.

March 2014

After hundreds of thousands of pitches, to hundreds of thousands of clients, you’d the think the creative industry would have the process off pat. Sheer statistics would suggest pitching has now reached critical mass, a point whereby every presentation is the perfect presentation, an unfailing system for winning new business. It hasn’t though.

Pitching is still as stressful, arbitrary, flawed and unpredictable as it ever was. So many variables are hard-wired into the activity, any certainty is negated every time. For instance, the decision-making panel may change at the last minute, or you may leave the boards in the cab (as happened to a colleague of mine). The whole show may even be postponed by a month or you may have raging flu.

All that said, there are some pitching mysteries we can unpick. One popular misconception is the notion that the speculative creative work should solve a client’s problem. Of course, more often than not, the document inviting an agency to pitch will contain a brief to be addressed, and it would be foolish to ignore it. However, the team should never imagine this is the same as a brief they will be asked to tackle if they are fortunate enough to secure the account. The prospective client would probably deny it, but they actually want to see creative work that intrigues, surprises, entertains or stuns – even if it is a campaign they would never run in the ‘real world’.

You know those bower birds. The feathered fellow that builds a fantastically elaborate home, festooned with bits of sweet wrapper and pebbles, the better to attract a mate? That’s pitching, right there. The bower bird doesn’t need this ostentatious construction for any practical purpose. He’d be just as protected and warm in a basic nest. Nevertheless, he knows he’s in a hard-nosed competition for breeding rights, so he needs to show what he’s made of.

Many agencies could learn from the bower bird. It’s so easy to drill down and down into the detail of a potential client’s profile, wrestling over the minutiae to ensure every base is covered. That’s one approach, and it isn’t necessarily wrong (remember, pitching is still an inexact science). But inevitably, much of that detail will go to waste. There will never be enough time to cover it all in the average pitch. To my mind very broad, very impressive strokes work best. It might be all surface, but if the client is sufficiently bowled over by those strokes, they’ll want to work with you so much, they’ll trust you on the detail stuff. That’s not to say you can afford to be utterly cavalier in your strategy, nevertheless you should never forget why you’re there: to show off.

Self-belief is infectious. If you believe you are the best provider (and if you don’t, you should consider whether or not you should be pitching) – then make sure the client knows it. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and it’s crucial to remain the right side of it, but mapping out an incredibly detailed solution to a brief is unlikely to be as attractive as a lively, engaging, impassioned display. The bower bird doesn’t expect a female to inspect every twig of his creation, he wants her admire the glinting tin foil and colourful stones. He’s not in the business of getting it right, he’s in the business of winning.

 



Who pays the merry man?

March 2014

Michael McIntyre’s new talk show launched on the BBC last week, and the fee the comic has attracted for six episodes stands at half a million pounds. Once again, this raises the perennially thorny issue of stars, money and the BBC. Can half a dozen, derivative chat shows really be worth £500,000?

Well, there’s an argument that anything is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it, so by that token, McIntyre’s creation IS worth the candle. However, this assumes market forces are in play. If a commercial broadcaster (ITV, Sky, Channel 5) wishes to pay a certain sum to an entertainer for their ideas and services, thereby ensuring a programme doesn’t go to a competitor, then that is largely a matter for the star and the channel. In this instance, the broadcaster is making a triangular calculation: the cost of the programme versus the expected audience versus the advertising revenue.

Played correctly this is a game with three winners. When the BBC is buying the show, these hard-nosed commercial gambits are absent, making the deal much harder to unpick.
The BBC would undoubtedly claim it is forced to operate in a free market, even though it is a wholly subsidised, not-for-profit organisation. As such, it must pay the going rate for an enormously successful comedian. If they don’t, he will simply take his talents elsewhere. This is the standard line when the earnings of a performer at the Beeb fall under the microscope. We heard it when Jonathan Ross signed up for six million annually, and again when Chris Moyles landed a million and a half for his Radio One Breakfast Show. It seems a reasonable and logical argument, but is it?

I may be wrong, but I find it unlikely that Sky and ITV were both bidding to secure McIntyre for a chat show. ITV already has Jonathan Ross on those duties and Sky, for some reason, doesn’t really operate in the territory. The insistence that the star’s fee must be competitive only holds water if there is a genuine competition. We should also consider the kudos of the BBC. Many entertainers actively covet a gig with the national broadcaster, so the lure of big money becomes less essential.

There’s another highly significant figure in all this, of course. Every star has an agent and their job is to sell their client’s work for the best price to the most appropriate customer. Astronomical wages might be products of the market, but they’re negotiated by the agent. This leads me to suspect the BBC is in rather too much awe of popular faces and their ‘people’, and so fails to play hardball when it’s contract time. Whether it’s Gary Lineker, Steve Wright or Michael McIntyre, it would be interesting to see what would happen if the BBC said ‘No thanks’ more often. Would Gary, Steve or Mike be instantly snapped up by rivals? Maybe. Would it matter if they were? Not really.

The truth is, many of these stars are not half as irreplaceable as they imagine. The world is full of capable, inspired and very keen entertainers, presenters and disc jockeys. Most of whom would jump at the chance to work at the BBC for something approaching an average salary. Factor in some financial acknowledgment of their skill and we’re still a long, long way from the six figures we see being spent on others.

The BBC is funded with other people’s money, and that is something they cannot escape. It’s a unique arrangement, which brings many benefits. But with that spending power comes great responsibility and, at a time when the Corporation is actually axing stations to balance the books, it’s crucial they justify every penny spent. Some would say half a million pounds worth of Michael McIntyre is entirely justifiable – I’m not sure I would be one of them.


 

 

A rough guide to watching a mate’s band…

March 2014

You don’t have to accept the invitation, but …
Remember, your mate wasn’t being polite when they asked you along to their show. They’ve invited you because they have a gnawing fear that nobody will turn up. Consequently, they’re firing around the place asking everyone they know (and complete strangers) to attend. If they’re wrong and the room is heaving, they won’t notice whether or not you’ve made the effort. But if they’re right, and it’s just the doorman and the bassist’s mum, you’ll be squirming like a salted slug as you explain your absence the next day.

They’ll ask you what you thought of the gig, but …
Once the gig is over and post-set cold drinks are being taken, there’ll be just one topic of conversation: ‘What did you reckon then?’. Stay focused. Your mate is not looking for a Lester Bangs-style analysis of every note and nuance. In fact, they’re not even looking for honesty. Whether the performance was akin to Springsteen at Hammersmith or a legless Pete Doherty busking in a toilet, all they want to hear is ‘Blistering, man. You were on fire up there.’

They’ll ask you for a hand loading out the gear, but …
That’s the thing with a mate’s band – no staff. The sound guy comes with the venue, the manager is the drummer’s uncle and there are absolutely no roadies. Roadies want paying, and by the time the band has split the £25 fee between them, and put it all in the bar till, there’s as much budget for road crew as there is for a helicopter home. However, you should feign a war wound or lumbago. Have you ever picked up a bass bin? It’s easier to give a rhinoceros a piggy-back (rhino-back?) than it is to manhandle PA equipment into an estate car. And once you do, you’ll realise the guitarist has spent the whole ‘packing away’ period chatting up a girl waiting for a taxi.

They’ll ask you to ‘get the crowd going’, but …
The loyalty of friendship is rarely so tested as it is by a request to whistle, cheer, clap or (save us all) dance to a mate’s band. Bear in mind, if you agree to this most undignified of duties, you will be expected to rise from your table, run to the front and begin your promised gyrations and cat-calls from the first number. At best, the rest of the room will assume you have lost your mind and will point in pity and laughter; at worst, the bouncers will assume you have lost your mind and will escort you to the nearest pavement. Laughing.

You’ll be leant on to give band members a lift home, but …
Predictably, the van outside belongs not to the band, but one member of the band. He or she was quite happy to pick everybody up that afternoon – however, they are now exhausted and looking forward to a Pot Noodle in bed. What’s more, they are more than aware of the likelihood that the singer, brimful of cheap lager, Drambuie and jazz cigarettes, will projectile vomit as soon as he’s in a vehicle. Not only that, but the keyboard player’s girlfriend lives three counties away. Of course, this hazard is easily avoided by ending the evening royally drunk and not owning a car.

You may be asked to join the band, but …
If the evening has gone particularly badly, it’s not impossible that at least one band member will quit there and then. For some reason, it’s usually the one with the really expensive rig. At this point, even if your musical range extends no further than one chord and a set of bongos in the loft, the crisis-stricken group may turn to you. After all, they’re booked to play the scout hut in the next town in a fortnight and they can’t let down the ‘fans’. Refuse. Tell your mate you’ve just accepted a job as a lifeguard in the Yukon. Or you’re about to enter NASA’s astronaut training programme. Honestly, however flattered you may be, you don’t need the hassle of being in a mate’s band. And your other mates don’t need the hassle of coming to your gigs.


 

 

Getting the message

February 2014

‘Merry Christmas’ – that’s how it began. On 3 December 1992, Neil Papworth from Sema Group, used his PC to send this written seasonal greeting to the phone of a Vodaphone executive. By 2010, 6.1 trillion SMS text messages were sent annually. That is remarkable growth by any measure, but here’s a funny thing – SMS use is now shrinking, and at least one person thinks texting has had its day. That person is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and his thinking is no idle whim. Facebook just bought messaging platform WhatsApp for something approaching $20 billion. $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares and $3 billion in restricted stock units – to be precise.

WhatsApp was founded in 2009, and despite the lack of an apostrophe and some early technical problems (it didn’t work), by 2013 the tool had 200 million active users and a staff of 50. So far, so successful. I’m sure the WhatsApp people were delighted when, earlier this year, their invention was valued at $1.5 billion. A few weeks later, the Facebook deal was complete. At which point, they probably needed a lie down in a darkened room. $19 billion is such an extraordinary amount of money, we humble mortals can’t really make sense of it. If it helps, one could buy a Picasso, a private island, an Egyptian pyramid, an American football team, a US political party and still have change for fish and chips on the way home.

So what makes WhatsApp worth this mountain of gold? This is, after all, the largest commercial acquisition in business history. Well, it doesn’t stem from its ability to make huge profits – at least not directly. Maybe it’s my stupidity, but having read through the WhatsApp business model and Facebook’s plan for the brand, I’m no wiser. There’s lots of stuff about mobile pricing packages and something Zuckerberg calls Internet.org (a vision of a web where every service is free, apparently), but we’re a long way from buying a banana for 10p and selling it for 20p.

I suspect Facebook’s strategy boils down to one thing: domination. Just as Google will invest squillions of dollars maintaining their position as the emperor of all search, Facebook will pour fortunes into projects designed to sustain their all-conquering status. Indeed, we can be pretty certain both companies are striving for much more. It’s impossible to ‘own’ the internet, but Google and Facebook would like to come close. Zuckerberg clearly believes the future of instant messaging is app based and has the financial clout to snap-up the market leader.

This is a new economics. Traditionally, companies become valuable and attractive when they prove their ability to generate healthy profits. That is no longer essential. As we can see from Twitter’s valuation (around $15 billion), market status trumps booming balance sheets in the digital world. Curiously, the same is true of Facebook itself. These firms are acquired (or floated) for prices based on the expectation of huge rewards at an indeterminate point in the future. There are no bank statements, budget reports or vaults stuffed with cash – just subjective potential.

In short, WhatsApp is worth $19 billion if you’re prepared to pay $19 billion for it. It’s worth whatever you think it’s worth. Whether you see that as a radically fresh way of doing business or a catastrophe waiting to happen, is up to you.


 

 

How ‘ambition’ became a dirty word

February 2014

Do you remember Cait Reilly? She was the graduate who brought a legal case against the government after she was forced to abandon her voluntary work with a museum, and replace it with unpaid ‘work experience’ at Poundland. Both situations allowed her to receive benefits, however the former was contributing to her ambition to become a professional curator and the latter ensured Poundland’s shelves were filled a little quicker. Cait’s complaint wasn’t that she should be expected to do something useful while claiming welfare, but that the activity should increase her prospects. Poundland were supposed to be ‘training’ her, Cait insisted they weren’t.

The post-war, baby-boomer generations never faced this difficulty. Society had arranged itself in such a way that an individual’s educational achievements largely matched their employment opportunities. Some would train and excel in manual jobs. Those fortunate enough to attend university would go into the professions – teaching, law, medicine and so on. Opt for the Civil Service and you were literally handed a ‘job for life’. I’m generalising somewhat, but on the whole people were able to influence their futures through education or apprenticeships. There was a reasonably clear route to follow. It was also expected that subsequent generations would enjoy a better standard of living than their parents.

It wasn’t a perfect world. Women still struggled to achieve equality in the workplace and one’s class also had a great influence over one’s career. Nevertheless there was a tacit contract whereby qualifications allowed access to a certain status and income. This has vanished. Although we constantly hear politicians and commentators positing the idea that ‘hard work’ will always bring reward, it is manifestly untrue. In fact, it would be more accurate to say there is little anyone can do to realise an ambition with even a sliver of certainty.

Recently I encountered the phrase ‘job snob’. This refers to a person who feels specific occupations are ‘beneath’ them – that they deserve better. Well, that’s only valid if we assume that qualifications, application and effort are entirely dispensable. Spent four years supporting yourself through college? Well, don’t get any fancy ideas – those call centres won’t run themselves. You thought all that knowledge and insight would be valued and appreciated? Get over yourself, kid.

These opinions frequently pour from the mouths of those who have already achieved a comfortable career – and whose education was supported with grants). What they’re actually saying, is that ‘ambition’ is a dirty word and ‘aspiration’ should be crushed lest it give rise to a sense of entitlement. In the case of Cait Reilly, it was suggested she should work for Poundland for free, until she could land a full-time role in the museum sector. That sounds reasonable until you actually try it. The process of applying to those employers would actually be hampered when it was seen she had spent a year in low-market retail. She ran the risk of losing sight of her ambition as she worked, for no wages, in a shop.

I am not arguing that everyone should automatically be handed the job of their dreams simply because they fancy it. What I am suggesting is that we should help young adults to achieve worthwhile careers, in which they are motivated, interested and committed. Whether that is in retail, museums, health, hospitality or advertising. Because telling them hard work is all that is required, then dismissing their graft and enthusiasm at the crucial point, is unfair and harmful to the economy.

To succeed as a nation, we need ambitious people, prepared to learn and train to achieve extraordinary things. When we allow them to clear all the hurdles before presenting them with disappointment and discouragement, we break the education/employment contract. And that’s bad for everyone.


 

 

Tweeting for tickets

February 25, 2014

You may not have noticed, but they held the Brit Awards last week. You may not have noticed because the TV coverage attracted fewer viewers than any Brits this century. Whether this is a failure of broadcasting, marketing or pop music will remain a matter of conjecture – but the pre-show PR is certainly being flagged as a disaster. Why? Well, here’s the story …

House PR is the outfit tasked with the job of whipping up some enthusiasm for the musical ceremony. Unexpectedly, earlier this week they found themselves in the eye of an unwelcome storm, when it was revealed they had been offering press passes in return for promotional tweets. A guy called Tim Walker from that bastion of rock and roll The Telegraph, let it be known his accreditation appeared to be dependent on his willingness to send out positive messages on social networks. Which is when the media crowd erupted in a cacophony of outrage. How dare a PR agency attempt to influence the reporting of an event by offering rewards to writers? What an affront to press standards, what an assault on freedom of speech!

 House PR, countered by saying they considered it their responsibility to “pursue all coverage opportunities”. And they’re right, it is. I’m not sure what their detractors think a PR agency does. Perhaps they imagine PR involves baking tasty cakes and delivering them to old ladies. Or re-homing unwanted puppies. Who knows? But getting all flustered when it is discovered showbiz journalists are offered freebies (in this instance a press pass is essentially a free night out), smacks of naivety at best and hypocrisy at worst.

I’m not a journalist, but in my capacity as freelance writer I regularly cover a summer music festival in Oxfordshire. I receive free tickets and backstage passes as part of the deal. These documents are offered by a PR agency, without any pressure to ‘big-up’ the event. However, there is an unspoken expectation that I will at least provide the festival with some exposure and am unlikely to rant about its awfulness. Happily, it’s always a tremendous, well-organised weekend so my ethics remain unstrained. But my point is this: publicity has always depended on a symbiotic relationship between the media and organisations seeking a profile. I’m sure there are some journalists who have never accepted an invitation, service or product as part of a PR campaign, but they’d be few and far between.

It’s so easy to become all puffed-up with indignation when this mutually convenient relationship passes across the public radar, but it’s a ridiculous reaction. PR has operated in exactly this way for decades. I’d be amazed if the Brit Awards didn’t capitalise on reporters’ desire to attend, by asking a little something in return. Bribery? Maybe. Unusual? Not in the slightest. Indeed, as you read this, invites and packages are landing on the desks of journalists across the world in a bid to capture some limelight. What’s more, most of those journalists are delighted to receive them.

Of course, it’s important the arrangement doesn’t become utterly corrupt. Paying a reporter cold hard cash to favour a particular brand would be unhealthy, if that reporter claims to be independent and writing freely. That’s more the realm of the copywriter, and copywriters don’t claim objectivity. It’s also unsavoury when a journalist covering serious matters – politics, finance, law – are swayed by gifts. Safe to say, nobody thinks The Brit Awards have any consequence for the wellbeing of humankind, so why the hullabaloo?

Indeed, if the marketing and PR campaigns surrounding The Brits can be said to have failed in any way, it’s in the low TV ratings and generally poor reviews for the show. The fact that journalists were invited in exchange for tweets is nothing more than PR business as usual.


 

 

Use and abuse

February 2014

Yesterday was ‘Internet Safety Day’. Which pretty much proves the pointlessness of things having days dedicated to them. Unless the internet was substantially and provably safer for the entirety of 11th February 2014, or yesterday marked the point when the web became irrevocably less hazardous, I don’t really see what the whole thing was for.

That’s not to say the internet holds no perils. It does. In fact, scientists have shown that it is safer to swim blindfold through a crocodile infested swamp with an unstable hand grenade, than it is to hook your laptop up to a wi-fi router. The question is, what should we do about it?

A survey by thinkbroadband.com, has established that 27% of Brits believe they should have the unreserved right to remain anonymous online. Fair enough – that’s freedom, right? And we all enjoy a bit of freedom, don’t we? Well, ignoring the fact that the NSA and GCHQ have shot a pretty big hole in the concept of online privacy, the attractive notion of digital anonymity comes with a host difficulties.

Imagine somebody starts an aggressively racist forum (actually, don’t imagine – there are plenty of them out there). Rapidly, every meathead with a barrow load of bigotry to share, is piling in with bucket-loads of prejudiced vitriol. Steadily, it becomes clear certain members are getting organised and intend to take violent action against a minority ethnic group. This is spotted and reported to the authorities. Unfortunately, the authorities can’t take action because these half-brains are all plotting away anonymously. That’s the sort of ‘freedom’ it’s hard to get behind.

Other anonymous users may take the opportunity to scare the wits out of reasonable, decent people by threatening their safety and wellbeing. Let’s say they choose to do this because a young woman suggests a female face should appear on a new banknote. Yes, we’ll say that, because that actually happened. Two people were successfully prosecuted for their trouble, but many others weren’t. Tracking down the perpetrators was difficult for two reasons. Firstly, those with the power to move against the offenders had very little understanding of the internet and its architecture. And secondly, the idiots committing the offences were anonymous enough to evade detection for a good few weeks.

Please don’t get me wrong. I loathe regulation as much as the next liberal, and the open nature of the internet is probably its most positive feature. But for every witty, razor-sharp blogger (ahem) there’s at least two loose screws, desperately covering their massive inadequacies by making life miserable for other people. Some of whom are children.

We certainly can’t expect HM Government to sort this out. They couldn’t prevent large swathes of the country vanishing under sewage and sea water recently. However, I do think there’s a good argument for an independent, transparent, non-profit body operating something akin to a web passport. With the participation of major sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google, membership of certain services would be dependent on this virtual document. Users would be free to call themselves whatever took their fancy on the platforms, but their actual identities would be recorded securely in another location. Should it be evident a user has become an abuser, the ‘passport’ would be withdrawn – temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the abuse. In extreme cases, their details would be presented to the police.

Of course, this would do little to eradicate those hidden networks operated by conspiring deviants. That I accept. Nevertheless, it would go some distance in mitigating the more obvious and blatant misuses of the web, which are clearly capable of generating real distress and harm to blameless individuals.

When it comes to internet freedoms, something needs to give. Because freedom ceases to be anything worthy of the name, as soon as it impinges on the liberty of another. That’s as true in the virtual arena as it is in the real world.


 

 

Spirits in the material world

February 2014

It was pretty easy to read the original hippies. They’d say they were all about the exploration of the mind and a universal brotherhood of peace, but ‘free love’ was just a way to get laid more often, and the ‘psychedelic experience’ an excuse to get ripped to the scalp on a buffet of heavy narcotics. Essentially, the whole movement was a large-scale, drug-fuelled orgy in a headband.

Nothing wrong with that.

No, it was the revival of hippy thinking, twenty odd years later, that brought all the trouble. Because, as with most revivals, it completely missed the point. Out went the suede fringe jackets and giant bongs, in came crystal energy and orbs. Where once we had Jimi Hendrix and Mama Cass, now we had Deepak Chopra and Jomanda. Welcome to the ‘New Age’.


I enjoy a touch of the esoteric as much as the next man – indeed, the lure of the exotic has led me into a host of adventures and, occasionally, trouble. But the ‘New Age’ holds no temptation – mostly because it is incredibly silly and therefore monumentally dull.

A woman I knew in the nineties was very much into this stuff. I liked her, which is why I was persuaded to attend some ‘New Age’ events. I figured the only way to approach these things, was with an open mind. Hours of unbridled scepticism would have been too exhausting. I tried, but the entire culture was clearly an exercise in the exploitation of the naive.

For starters, everything was fantastically expensive. A couple of minutes having your ‘runes’ read was twenty quid; half an hour lying on a bench, with lumps of quartz on your back, cost the best part of fifty pounds. My friend ‘treated’ me to a photograph of my ‘aura’. The apparatus was quite obviously fitted with a light diffusing lens, producing the requisite, wobbly blur. These people were purporting to offer a spiritual alternative, but were actually making investment bankers look like ascetic hermits.

Then there’s the music. Good grief. There’s plenty to enjoy in the ambient field, as any Brian Eno fan will confirm, but that’s not the same thing at all. ‘New Age’ music is nothing if not plentiful. On websites, at fashionable markets, across pop festivals and certain exhibitions, it’s impossible to miss the mountains of CDs with names like ‘Mantras In Harmony’, ‘Into The Light’ and ‘The Spirit Of Wesak’. They’re all the same. They’re tinkly, wooshy, flippity-floppity, tuneless and empty. All the same and in endless supply.

‘New Age’ philosophy is not only flimsy, it’s quite capable of being insulting too. If I were a native American, keeping bar in a Cherokee casino, I’d be more than a little perturbed to see rich, white businessmen, peddling a horrible mash-up of my traditions, dolphins and fortune-telling. Devout Buddhists would be forgiven a similar annoyance. As an atheist, I find many aspects of the world’s major religions perplexing, but at least they are rooted in a general, collective belief. ‘New Age’ adherents are putting their faith in an amorphous conglomeration of anything that takes their fancy, leaving them vulnerable to the money chasers who attach themselves to the ‘movement’. This relationship is every bit as exploitative and unhealthy as those TV appeals from imploring, red-faced evangelicals. Some folk are so busy believing, they’ve stopped thinking.

The ‘New Age’ may well have risen and evaporated in a puff of its own ectoplasm, had it not been for the eagerness of celebrities to embrace its various strands. From Madonna’s ludicrous Kabbalah fixation (again, a rather insulting take on Judaism), to Gwyneth Paltrow’s alternative lifestyle site, every unproven and whimsical notion now has a famous face to endorse its dubious claims. Of course, Homeopathy has hit the mother lode – it has Prince Charles to promote its evidence-free treatments. Rather sadly, many people are easily convinced by a fool with a public profile, and so this tumbling ball of half-thought and make-believe perpetuates. At one extreme it’s merely infantile; at the other, people are encouraged to entrust their health to charlatans proposing a ‘no food’ diet, or coloured spotlights as a cure for cancer.

It’s just possible I’m missing something here. Maybe certain stones do have a sprite living within them (available for sixty US dollars). Perhaps a burning cone of waxed paper shoved in my ear, will improve my hearing and balance. I’ll never know. Because I prefer to place my belief in the proven, the visible and the tangible. If that makes me a grumpy, aging cynic, then so be it. Bring on the ‘Old Age’.


 

 

The name game.

February 2014 

For all their impeccable ‘greatest band of all time’ credentials, The Beatles will always have one fatal flaw. That name. It’s a painful pun, influenced by the equally poorly named The Crickets and what’s more it’s the refined model. They were, of course, formerly The Silver Beatles.

Still, at least they were trying. The Fabs’ contemporaries didn’t set the bar particularly high. From Gerry and the Pacemakers to Freddie and the Dreamers via the very literal Dave Clarke Five, beat combos seemed to be treating their monikers without due care and attention. The exception would, I suppose, be The Rolling Stones who got a bit lucky thanks to Muddy Waters.


No, it wasn’t until The Beatles dying days that the art of the intriguing and innovative band handle really came into its own. With a dollop of irony and a comment from Pete Townsend (who had already picked a pretty clever title for his own outfit), the world was introduced to Led Zeppelin – a phrase we have now heard so many times we don’t see the meaning any more.

Through the 1970s the floodgates were pretty much open. A satanic Boris Karloff movie gave us Black Sabbath, Richie Blackmore’s grandma’s favourite colour brought Deep Purple and a spitting, farting Nik Turner delivered the unforgettable Hawkwind. And you thought it was something psychedelic and mystical, didn’t you?

In a golden era for group names, the decade threw up coincidences – The Lovin’ Spoonful and 10cc both taking their cue from ejaculate; Genesis and The Grateful Dead from biblical references – and statements of intent. Punk and the new wave certainly set out to sweep away the rock establishment as represented by bands like Queen (named for more regal than sexual reasons) with records like ‘God Save The Queen’ but they showed no intention of slacking in the band name stakes. From the brutally frank, The Clash (“How appropriate” said a magistrate sentencing the band’s Paul and Topper) to the more esoteric Buzzcocks (not a vibrator reference as you might assume, but an adaptation of the question ‘What’s the buzz, cock?), the late seventies saw, if anything, an escalation in the excellence of the art.

If the soubriquet Sex Pistols (no ‘the’) isn’t the finest band name of all time, it is the sterling work of the bands from the following decade that overshadow it. For here in the conservative, homogenized 21st century one will look long and hard to find the poetry and exoticism of identities like The Teardrop Explodes, Wah Heat, Killing Joke, Bauhaus and Echo and the Bunnymen (who along with Siouxsie and the Banshees used the ‘and the’ format to much greater effect than those the early 60’s outfits).

For some sorry reason though, we appear to have lost the desire or ability to produce band names to inspire anything more than a shrug. The Arctic Monkeys is a rotten name for a group – worse when Alex Turner says he just thought of it once at school. Wow, what an anecdote. And what is it with Black Eyed Peas? Who in 1985 would have opted to name their gang of rock and roll brigands after a beany pulsey thing? I am honestly struggling to think of a band which has achieved success since the turn of the millennium sporting a killer moniker. Mumford and Sons? Kings of Leon? The Feeling? I’m not running down the output of these fine musical fellows, but the names are just so anaemic they’re paler than Sophie Ellis Bextor. Who has a great name, by the way.

So when did it go so wrong? When did we stop getting a little trill of excitement when somebody mentioned a new act named Sisters of Mercy or Joy Division? It could be the rise of the talent show / boy band brigade – Boyzone (a worse pun than The Beatles and stupid now they’re men), Westlife (meaningless and dumb), Take That (juvenile) and Girls Aloud (just silly) – that have dragged down the standard.

But wouldn’t it also be fair to point a finger at the single syllable sinners of the 1990s? Pulp, Blur, Ash, Lush, Curve, Cast, Verve – that’s right, I mean you. Very lazy, very trite and, although they had three syllables, Oasis are not exempt. It’s bad form to be named after a leisure centre chaps.

Worse still to call your next band Beady Eye.

 

 

What you wish for…

February 2014

UK cancer statistics are frightful and frightening. For every three people who read this article, one will acquire some sort of cancer in their lifetime. The disease doesn’t discriminate, striking the very young and the very old, the rich, the poor and the average.

Thankfully, many cancers can now be successfully treated, and survival rates for the breast and testicular varieties are impressive. However, other cancer types are far more aggressive and resistant. One of these is pancreatic cancer. A mere 3% of those affected will live for five years from diagnosis. As you might imagine, the charity Pancreatic Cancer Action (PCA) is battling hard to improve that statistic, which is why they have launched an awareness-raising advertising campaign. And a very controversial campaign it is proving to be.

 I must stress that I have no expertise in the treatment or prevention of pancreatic cancer. Indeed, I am only vaguely aware of the pancreas being located between the stomach and my spine. But I do have some experience in charity sector advertising, and was very drawn to this work.

The poster-based campaign, features real people with pancreatic cancer. Alongside their images are large quotations marks, and within those marks “I wish I had breast cancer” (or in the male version “… testicular cancer”.

You can see why the campaign has caused a stir.

Then again, that is surely the point. I know charities, quite rightly, attract preferential rates from agencies and media shops – but it would be a shameful waste of a precious marketing budget if the advertising went unnoticed. Thanks to these provocative headlines, pancreatic cancer has achieved a wealth of exposure across radio and TV today. And, of course, has ensured its place in the Creativepool magazine; exactly what third sector marketing is supposed to do. You might argue the work is too blunt, too tasteless or too confrontational – but you cannot argue it is unsuccessful.

In a radio phone-in concerning this campaign, callers suggested PCA are pitching one cancer against another, trying to show pancreatic cancer as somehow ‘worse’. I don’t agree.

When serious illness crashes its way into the lives of the unsuspecting, everything is about harsh realities. What will happen? When will it happen? What can be done? And beyond these immediate anxieties lie cold, hard facts. Some cancers have undergone more research, have more effective treatments, and offer better outcomes than others. If I were unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with cancer, and it turned out to be one of the less treatable kinds, I would probably wish the same as the people on the posters. I think we all would. In fact, I can’t imagine a better way to convey the terrifying nature of pancreatic cancer, than through these headlines.

It’s all too tempting to think of charity advertising as soft-focus, weepy and emotional. Actually, it’s a very competitive and challenging business. After all, it’s tough enough for consumer brands to cut through the marketing noise and persuade the public to spend on things they actually want. To encourage people to notice and support a ‘good cause’ is demanding indeed. In this arena impact, drama and shock, are as important as emotion, sympathy and appeal. Perhaps more so.

Pancreatic cancer poses an appalling threat, so I’m pleased this work is stirring up a hornet’s nest of debate and discomfort. That’s how charities gain attention, focus and funding.

This is advertising at its most powerfully human and I wish it all the luck in the world.

 

 

What defines a professional writer?

February 2014

Most days, I take time to read the work of other writers online – and today was no exception. Prompted by a link on Twitter, I visited an article which several users were recommending. They were right – in terms of subject matter and content, it was excellent.

However, the spelling and punctuation were all over the place. This would be tolerable, if not quite forgivable, had it not been for one thing. The article, which appeared on the author’s personal blog, was written by a professional freelance writer, who regularly contributes to national and international newspapers and magazines.

 This quite took me aback. Initially because I expected better from a successful writer, and then because of the implications. Clearly, this person submits work to publications, and enjoys regular commissions, without heed to basic rules. Either they don’t know how correct English is constructed, or they don’t care. Or both. What’s more, the editors taking delivery of their work are quite happy to pay for articles which are essentially wrong.

It now occurs to me, with astonishment, that it is quite possible these editors cannot tell correct punctuation and spelling from the opposite, either.

Perhaps I’m just hopelessly naive. Maybe this practice has been commonplace for years and, like a fool, I have been taking needless time and trouble to proofread my work before submitting it to clients. But, if so, I have to wonder what defines the professional writer from a body who just fancies writing something.

This speaks to a greater malaise, of course. Reluctant though I am to accept it, the generation following mine were educated to believe spelling, grammar and punctuation were rather un-cool anachronisms. ‘Expressing yourself’ was all that really mattered – the technicalities were largely irrelevant. The evidence for this policy is all too obvious. I once worked with an account handler, about ten years my junior, who had no idea of the difference between ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’. She was a graduate – and she wasn’t alone.
Judging by the emails and text messages I receive, almost nobody knows when ‘your’ is correct, and when to use ‘you’re’. This afternoon, discussing this matter with an acquaintance who teaches, I am told this attitude is still the norm. Which is dispiriting, but at least these errors aren’t being made by people professing to be professional writers.

Such a drop in standards must have occurred in the last two decades. I say that, because I started my copywriting career around twenty years ago, and I wouldn’t have had a sliver of success had I not had a grasp on these fundamentals of writing. Indeed, I would have been laughed out of the business.

You might argue that none of this matters. If words are misspelt, so what? If apostrophes and capitals are just loosely sprinkled over text, like hundreds-and-thousands, who gives a hoot? Well, imagine if someone was repairing your car, but only had a vague idea of its workings. Or an individual was decorating your house, but used a spoon instead of a brush or roller. You’d get your car back and your house painted, but the quality would be dreadful and the results deeply unsatisfying. You’d only get a proper job from a professional who actually understood their trade.

I suspect apathy is at the core of this problem. If sufficient numbers of people cared enough, then correctly written language would still be the gold standard. It would certainly be the minimum requirement for a professional. For a professional writer isn’t simply a person who is paid, but an expert with the ability to present intelligent and compelling copy, properly constructed and correctly spelt.


 

 

Where now for man raised by puffins?

February 2014

From Cicero to Aubrey Beardsley, human beings have never had to look too far for individuals touched by the hand of creative genius. But finding intellects so inspired, profound and insightful they actually manage to predict the future, is more of a challenge. George Orwell would be one; Chris Morris would be another.

Clearly, British comic talent is abundant. The lugubrious struggles of Tony Hancock, and frantic characterisations of John Cleese are so accomplished, there’s no reason to think they won’t be enjoyed for centuries yet. But Morris is a case apart. At the risk of finding myself in Pseuds Corner, I’d say he is much less a clown, and more akin to the distant great grandfather of satire: Euripides.

 Annually, in an event called the Festival of Dionysus, ancient Greek audiences would be presented with three tragic plays, back to back. To lift the mood, by then so weighty and moribund, the fourth and final performance would be something very different, a ‘satyr play’. These sarcastic comedies featured foolish, drunken and lecherous characters, shown as half men, half goats (Satyrs). However, the audience knew each one actually represented a high-ranking, public figure – and that playwrights like Euripides were using absurd comedy to hold a mirror to the face of society, and the feet of its most powerful citizens to the fire.

In 1992, when I first heard ‘On The Hour’, Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci’s spoof news show on Radio 4, I wasn’t quite so naive as to think I was hearing a real current affairs programme (although some listeners were fooled, as their complaints revealed). But neither did I know I was listening to ideas and formats which would later be adopted by genuine, serious producers.

‘On The Hour’ transferred to TV in 1994 as ‘The Day Today’, where the painfully keen, observational strength of Morris and his team – including the part-formed Alan Partridge, covering sport – was even more obvious. The devil was in the detail. Behind over-elaborate opening titles, an overly-loud signature tune played; not ludicrously extended, but just long enough to make play of the swollen egos and self-importance so prevalent in ‘heavyweight’ broadcasting. The satire began with the music.

There was so much to admire about ‘The Day Today’, that it would require a book to describe it all. So let me seize on the on-screen graphics as the perfect example of the concept’s brilliance. It’s no exaggeration to say these computer-generated images were actually more advanced than those of the news programming targeted by the show. Which was entirely the point. Morris foresaw an era where the colours and shapes framing the presentation would overtake the importance of the stories. To see how prescient he was, I’d urge you to watch an episode of ‘The Day Today’ followed immediately by fifteen minutes of Sky News, Fox News or CNN.

And just look at the presenters’ names: Collaterlie Sisters on finance, roving reporter Peter O’Hanraha-hanrahan, and US correspondent Barbara Wintergreen. By some quirk of reality, broadcast journalists do tend to have unusual handles – and yet I don’t think anyone spotted this before Morris and Iannucci.

‘Brass Eye’ came next. Not a million miles from ‘The Day Today, this time Chris turned on the investigative reporting of ‘Panorama’ and its ilk. In lesser hands, this may have come across as a demolition journalism, but it’s clear the work admired the crucial nature of the hard-nosed expose, while tearing into the unnecessary melodrama, hype and artifice in which it is often packaged. Again, ‘Brass Eye’ looks uncannily similar to the overly amplified documentaries we endure in 2014. Distracting, bombastic music; clumsy physical metaphors (I recall a large 3D map of the British Isles, lying in a hospital bed), and barely concealed contempt for the public.

Today, very few current affairs programmes avoid the use of social media to canvass comment from the audience. These messages are then relayed, ad nauseum, by the presenter. Morris spotted this trend, long before it swept the media, and beautifully dismantled it: “We’ve been reading your opinions which are stultifyingly dull and massively ill-informed. Keep them coming in.”

While I’ve only managed to highlight a handful of instances in which Chris Morris accurately predicted the absurdities, excesses and vanities of the modern media, they are legion. In the 21st century, you can see the sneer and attitude of Morris’s anchorman (also called Christopher Morris) in Jeremy Paxman. Chris prefigured The Jeremy Kyle Show in his mock AIDS debate (“Do you have good AIDS or bad AIDS?”); and in the highly controversial ‘Brass Eye Paedophile Special’, he foresaw the unhelpful hysteria now surrounding and hindering child protection.
Anybody who has seen his movie ‘Four Lions’ will also know that, thanks to his skill and perception, even terrorism has a darkly comic aspect.

Perhaps, when Morris sees his satire becoming truth, he fears he has failed. After all, for all his biting observation and searing illumination, the self-absorbed media still takes its output to the extremes he so pointedly ridiculed. Hopefully though, he simply allows himself a wry grin and a nod of the head, pleased to be in the unimpeachable company of Orwell and Euripides.


 

 

Closed ears

January 2014

In 1999 a website called Napster appeared on the internet. With little in the way of its own content, and certainly no means nor intention of producing or releasing music, it set a ball rolling that in 2013 tumbled most of HMV’s high street stores like pins in a bowling alley. That ball is still in motion.

Napster was the first platform designed for large-scale file sharing. Its unique interface allowed users to search each others’ computers for MP3 files and download the ones they liked. However, the file wasn’t ripped directly from a single host. Instead, the system pulled small pieces of the MP3 from every contributor holding the file – reassembling it when the action was complete.

At first, if it paid any attention at all, the music industry was utterly blasé about the site. Highly profitable and worth many billions of dollars, the business was loaded with self-confidence, hubris and money. Why should it care about a pokey little website, whose technology it could hardly comprehend? Only Napster didn’t remain pokey or little. Offering kids free music in exchange for nothing more than a little patience, its renown, popularity and user-base spread like a summer bushfire. By the time the entertainment business opened its eyes and ears wide enough to understand the implications, it was almost too late.

This was the tipping point; the moment the record industry had the opportunity to grasp the digital nettle and make this new concept its own. What Time Warner, EMI, Virgin and the rest should have done, was to buy Napster. This would have made Shawn Fanning, John Fanning and Sean Parker very rich men, given the music companies an astonishingly new and advanced means of distribution, while simultaneously neutralising any threat from piracy.

Instead, like the clunking corporate beasts they certainly were, they called in the lawyers. Millions of dollars were spent pursuing Napster and its members through umpteen courts. Tales began to emerge of high-school teens receiving notice of aggressive litigation, for the crime of opening their PCs to the network. In a sample case, a sixteen year old girl from Ohio was prosecuted for making 900 tracks available on Napster. She faced a jail sentence.

In the meantime, Napster’s operators were busily arguing they had breached no copyright laws, as they hadn’t distributed so much as a bar of music. A fair point and a technicality which made a straightforward, rapid judicial ruling highly unlikely.

Then, the whole affair slipped into Spinal Tap territory, as world-eating rock monster Metallica, rather astonishingly, pitched the might of their legal team against any of their fans detected sharing their music. Possibly the least rock and roll move a band has ever made.

After thousands of hours and untold fees, the lawyers won. Napster in the USA, was served with an unswervable diktat and closed. Perhaps it didn’t know, or just didn’t care, but the recording industry had just paid a fortune to initiate its own decline. In a knee-jerk rush to obliterate the very technology which would have carried the business into the new millennia, the suits and their attorneys had squandered their chance, trying desperately to re-bottle a particularly lively genie. Put simply, they invested a packet in an exercise of wholesale denial.

There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. Napster may have fallen, but inevitably, a dozen replacement peer-to-peer services sprang up to take its place. And because of the rough handling meted out to the original site, their attitude to the establishment was far more antagonistic. Consequently, the possibility that file sharing might be a shot in the arm for the record business, was neutralised. Two parties, with remarkably similar aims (the distribution of popular music to fans) were now sworn enemies. What’s more, the pirates had the upper hand.

Enter a third player to the adversarial arena. Apple had managed to make the MP3 the principal music format in little more than a couple of years, thanks to the rise and rise of the iPod. And just as the music retailers were crowing about their hollow triumph over Napster, iTunes emerged. This was the middle ground. A direct download, paid-for music service (no file sharing) offering a large and growing library at about 70p a track. Totally legal and legitimate, but controlled by a computer company, not a record label. And with no need for a bricks-and-mortar store, this was a further, savage blow to traditional music sales. Throw in Amazon’s dominance of the faltering CD market and the forthcoming advent of Spotify, and it’s easy to picture the former giants of recording and vending, blinking in shock and awe as their might and glory was casually usurped and carried away.

It could have been so very different. Had the big labels spotted the limitless potential in the platform Napster built, embraced it and used their substantial resources to construct bigger, better networks, they may not be the weakened businesses they are today. Maybe HMV’s shops would have closed anyway. Or perhaps they would have been transformed into vast MP3 libraries and technology centres. Who knows? They’re gone now and there’s more than a faint line between the decision to mount a witch-hunt against file sharers at the century’s turn, and the failure of music’s retail business model at the dawn of 2014.

Clearly, when revolutions arrive, it’s important to be on the right side of history, because there’s only one winner and no option to change your mind.


 

 

For what it’s worth

January 2014

‘The Creative Industries’ – it’s a phrase we hear all the time, isn’t it? But what exactly does it mean? Well, if you’re a government statistician, it refers to: public relations and communication activities; advertising agencies ; and media representation. Actually, they’d probably include design, architecture, fine art, theatre and music – but for their Creative Industries Economic Estimates 2014 document, which has just been published, they’re using the first three as examples.

The figures in this publication are equally surprising, pleasing and significant. For instance, The Department Of Culture, Media and Sport (how can one department oversee graphic design and hockey, by the way?) suggests that one in twelve jobs will be provided by the creative industries in 2014. That’s 2.55 million posts. Wow!

Perhaps more importantly, in this era of economic gloom and sinking pessimism, the DOCMS reports a 6% growth in ‘creative’ jobs in 2011/2012. This figure outperforms other sectors by 0.7%, so we’re clearly doing something right.


With this in mind, it strikes me as both funny and frustrating, that a ‘creative’ role still isn’t seen as a ‘proper job’, when the sector is thriving in such an obvious way. So often we hear some talking head, complaining that young people only want to work in TV, advertising, PR or similar. But those critics are hopelessly out of touch, because it’s clear these ambitions are not only realistic, they’re pretty sensible.

It wasn’t always this way. A hundred years ago, the UK was an industrial country. We made things and exported them. Steel, coal, textiles and tin all flowed freely from our ports, destined for every and any corner of the globe. London may have had its share of law firms, estate agencies and banks – but, on the whole, the rest of the country was a manufacturing power house. As recently as the 1970s, our pits whirred and heaved with frantic activity, and car plants like Dagneham and Leyland buzzed with productivity.

For better or worse, that all changed in the 1980s. The Thatcher administration, fiercely opposed to a unionised workforce and nationalised industries, cut and sold the factories, mines and warehouses on which the modern economy was built. As you’d imagine, we fell into recession.

However, from that slump, a new model grew. Generally known as a ‘service’ economy, we now thrive on intangible products: travel, finance, consultancy, IT and … creativity.

Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us. For centuries, the UK has been a giant of the creative arts. From Benjamin Britten to Benjamin Zephaniah, Christopher Marlowe to Chris Martin – something in our cultural mix gives us an enviable tendency to produce exciting and original creative ideas. And that’s before we’ve mentioned The Beatles, Shakespeare, Sex Pistols, David Hockney, David Bowie, JK Rowling, Pink Floyd, Monty Python, Joy Division, Dylan Thomas, The Clash and Kate Bush.

More specifically, the world has always admired our advertising. It could be argued that the glory days of British ads are now behind us – nevertheless, even the mighty USA still recognises the superiority of our agencies.

This government document simply contains the numbers which prove something we’ve always known. We are a naturally creative people, in a naturally creative nation. Our creative industries are not only a vital part of our economic structure, in many ways they are its foundation.


 

 

Anatomy of a headline

January 2014 

I’ve always loved advertising headlines. Long before I embarked on a copywriting career, I’d amuse myself by creating new versions of lines I saw in magazines or tube trains. Even as a kid, my mum (an English teacher) would point out headlines she thought particularly witty or smart; I’d mentally collect them too, on my journey to school and share them with her on my return.

Of course, these days, my interest in headlines is coloured by the fact I’ve been writing them for twenty years. Indeed, sometimes it’s hard to see them in the same light as a non-copywriter, as I tend to dissect them, try to imagine the creative process and the brief, and assess their impact.

So I thought it would be an interesting exercise to document that thought process in this column. 

I’ve chosen an ad fairly randomly. Just a print execution that struck me while reading The Guardian’s Weekend magazine in the bath. The ad is for Virgin Active Health Clubs and, although there’s some styling from an art director, it’s largely a piece led by its headline.

‘Don’t Just Live. Live Happily Ever Active.’

That’s the headline, and I’m pretty sure it caught my attention because I quite liked it, while simultaneously finding it flawed. Of course, it’s very easy for one copywriter to criticise the work of another. I haven’t seen the brief, nor do I have any awareness of the ad’s journey, before it arrived at the press-ready stage. In fact, other than knowing the work is through Karmarama, I have no background. This is all just instinct.

I suppose my principal observation would be the word count. To me, it’s too long. To be precise, it’s too long by these three words: ‘Don’t Just Live.’ The more I read the line, the more superfluous the opening phrase becomes. ‘Live Happily Ever Active’ has a strong impulsion to it, forming a call to action in its own right. The reader expects the last word to be ‘after’, so when ‘active’ takes its place it pushes the brand’s key word into the memory. ‘Don’t Just Live …’ dilutes the power of the line and reduces the value of the pay-off.

There’s also a problem with the repeat of the word ‘live’. The line is only seven words long, and two of them are the same. Worse still, they are consecutive. I know rules are there to be broken, but in this case, the rebellion actually weakens the ad.

As this is part of a much larger campaign, centred on the line, these are details that matter.

So, reducing the headline to ‘Live Happily Ever Active’ would improve things considerably. However, I wonder if that wouldn’t be better remaining a branding strapline. This is obviously a strategic advertisement – published to raise brand awareness rather than tactically promoting an offer or membership deal; and yet it doesn’t really say anything any competitor wouldn’t or couldn’t say. Ultimately, the line doesn’t give me a reason to join a Virgin Health Club over another gym.

That is not to say I don’t think the ad works. In many ways it does. The typography is pleasingly retro and hip, and the layout nicely strikes the eye. After all, it drew me in – and I am the last person to find a ‘health club’ attractive. No, I’m actually recording these comments in order to demonstrate the sort of games a copywriters play in their heads, when perusing advertisements. By the time we’ve finished, every ad is re-written to our liking.

Headlines are very subjective things – and, while I may have chosen to work this example quite differently, the actual author may well have felt they had crafted the line to their perfect satisfaction.

That’s the thing with copywriters, we’re never off-duty.

Facing facts.

November, 2013

Say what you like about Tesco, but they know how to create a fuss.

A couple of days ago, the digital, broadcast and print media fell on a story about the retail giant and its latest advertising wheeze. As a plethora of reports rushed to tell us, advertising screens in Tesco petrol stations – and soon, stores – will now be scanning the faces of customers to calculate their age, gender and preferences in order to expose them to the appropriate marketing messages. 

As you might expect, all this has been accompanied by a storm of protest. Groups such as ‘Privacy International’ and ‘Big Brother Watch’ built up a right head of steam, accusing the supermarket of any number of intrusions, conspiracies and machinations. What right has a retailer to examine, interpret and use our visual identities for their nefarious gain? It’s a fair question, but does it stem from a considered assessment of the facts, or something else?

Of course, I wholly accept that Tesco has its own spin on this – and it is likely to be every bit as partisan as the opinions of the objectors. However, the firm is at pains to explain the screens only detect the presence of a visitor within their vicinity, at which point the machinery will attempt to ascertain the person’s sex and how much time they spend on their transaction. Nothing is recorded, nothing is stored. And to be honest, I think that’s quite close to the truth.  

Technical innovators are awful braggers. The companies engineering our futures are very fond of describing what they ‘foresee’ – what may come to pass. They revel in describing the astonishing functions their kit will carry in the next iteration. There’s a good reason for this. They want us to stay hungry and in a state of subconscious anticipation, ready for the next release, the next model. If a manufacturer had created an advertising display screen which could spot anything more than the vaguest details, we’d have had it thrown at us for months before its release. Tech businesses have no interest in conspiracy, it’s too secretive. If their box does something no other box can do, they’ll be more than happy to tell us. Repeatedly.

That’s not to say that Tesco, or any number of other multi-nationals, wouldn’t leap to embrace this sort of ‘Blade Runner’ marketing opportunity – to a certain extent they have. But I’m sure it’s nothing like as sinister and sophisticated as their opponents believe. What’s more, when and if media technology reaches this feared disruptive level, it will fall under the same regulation as CCTV.

So where does this leave us? Well, if Tesco is investing a bundle into screens that change when I approach them – then serve me an ad they think I’ll like – I look forward to seeing them. Thanks to ad tracking systems on the web, a host of advertisers already throw their banners at me, based on my searches and visits. Rarely with any success. It will be intriguing to see whether in-store screens can do better.

In the meantime, I’d respectfully suggest that interested commentators take their cues from cool-headed research, rather than slightly hysterical editorials.

Finally, if these devices still have you feeling uneasy, you may be reassured to know they’re made by Amstrad – the people who brought you the enormously effective e-mailer phone. 

 

 

Take no prisoners.

November 2013

Lou Reed died on my birthday. So, that evening, I set aside the cards and crisps to read the tributes and obituaries rapidly filling websites and social media. Understandably, people were shocked and sad. To many, Reed appeared a permanent fixture in the rock landscape – like Keith Richards, he was grizzled and gnarled but venerable and invincible. Men like Lou aren’t supposed to die.

Thanks to the undeniable influence of his work with the Velvet Underground and as a solo performer, the famous – from Iggy to Bobby Gillespie – added their voices to the flush of tributes. Reed’s death genuinely felt like an unwelcome milestone in music history, which is why fans and DJs, writers and singers, critics and musos didn’t hesitate to publish their appreciation of the man. I just wonder whether he’d have given a hoot.

Lewis Allan Reed was born in Brooklyn at the height of World War Two, in 1942 – and he was surrounded by conflict throughout his life. As a teenager, his bi-sexuality was noticed by disapproving authorities, who subjected him to electro-convulsive therapy by way of a ‘cure’. Once established as a musician, his relationship with patron and mentor Andy Warhol, whom he adored, was dogged by friction. When the pop-artist insisted the Velvet Underground take the model Nico as their singer, Reed angrily objected (although he did go on to write songs for her).

Even within the band, Lou despised stability. He eventually fired Nico, co-founder John Cale and incredibly, Warhol himself. Consistently volatile and irascible (barely adequate descriptors), upset and confrontation were as much a part of his make-up as lyrical brilliance, and a fascination with life’s seamier territories.

‘Transformer’ wasn’t Reed’s first solo album (that was the almost forgotten ‘Lou Reed’) but it was certainly his most significant. A near perfect collection, and a collaboration with David Bowie and Mick Ronson, it was a huge success, making Lou a proper rock star. Typically, he resented the achievement almost immediately, feeling the record had nullified any work which may follow. Many artists claim they don’t much care whether their songs sell or not, Lou Reed was actively disgusted by his hits. He was driven by an ambition to bring the sensibilities of the novel to the rock album, but never, ever, by the desire to be liked. Quite the opposite. With a grinding inevitability, he later made an enemy of Bowie.

If art’s intention is to inspire and challenge, Reed’s focus was firmly on the latter – the former merely a by-product of his talent. Perhaps unfortunately, this combative attitude wasn’t restricted to his music. Reports of ruined interviews, trashed by perceived offence and terminated by stubborn walk-outs, are legion. Whether Lou was really a die-hard misanthrope, or simply got his kicks from generating discomfort and intimidation, he never let on. Nevertheless, it’s obvious he derived satisfaction from conjuring bad feeling, leaving frustration and bitterness in his wake. Psychologists would call this a ‘defence mechanism’, a fortress of comfort thrown up by a fragile and vulnerable psyche. Possibly so, but cold comfort to those who simply wished to make a connection with an artist they admired.

Of course, there was more to Lou Reed than rancour and attitude. He married twice, his first wife was the designer Sylvia Morales and they were together for a decade – an eternity in American showbusiness. His second marriage was to the performance artist Laurie Anderson. Friends and associates confirm they were a devoted couple and Anderson writes movingly about their last days together here.

So perhaps, across the years, the rest of us have been witnessing nothing more than a performance. Or at least a gross exaggeration of the real Lou Reed. A character designed to represent the ultimate moody, arrogant, tortured artist. Maybe he was defying us to engage us, pushing the world away to draw it closer to his vision.

Lou recorded ‘Metal Machine Music’ in 1975. Despite intricate examination of the record, by countless devotees, it is simply a grating slab of feedback. However, it does have merit as a perfect reflection of Reed’s public persona: difficult to enjoy, brutal, alienating and impersonal, but somehow fascinating, dangerous and excitingly subversive.

Lou Reed didn’t expect or demand praise, acclaim and adoration for ‘Metal Machine Music’. It was what it was, and your reaction was your business. He felt the same way about himself.

 

 

In the laptop market, competition is fierce. So many brands, designs and features – manufacturers are constantly looking for innovative ways to make their kit more attractive. Interestingly, none of them has ever released a machine emitting the unmistakable pong of cat pee. Until recently.

It seems a mistake in the construction of Dell’s Latitude 6430u Ultrabooks ensured they arrived reeking of feline urine. Which is a novel feature, but perhaps one not guaranteed to boost sales. Now I should point out that Dell have assured us the problem has been fixed, didn’t emanate from an animal and all new purchases come up smelling of daisies. Or at least smelling of laptops.

But just in case the glitch appear again, I’m pleased to present a print-out-and-keep guide to marketing computers that smell of kitty wee.

– Pitch your product to actual cats. They use urine to mark their territory, so they’ll be delighted to own a ‘pre-marked’ laptop. Y’know, to deter other cats from reading their emails or altering their Facebook status to ‘chasing a piece of string’.

– Run a big campaign in ‘Anosmia Gazette’. Anosmics have no sense of smell, but that doesn’t make them any less likely to covet shiny new technology. To them, their widdle scented ‘puter will be a straight-up marvel without drawbacks. Until, I suppose, their non-asnomic friends call round and say ‘You ought to take that cat of yours to a vet’.

– Set up a tie-in promotion with Febreze. Perhaps including a free case of the odour repellent with every Latitude 6430u, would prove attractive to punters and go some way to alleviating the surprise and disappointment that comes with a toilet flavoured Dell.

– Assure users that the nasty honk is caused by the heat generated by the astonishingly rapid speed of the processor. You may have to wear a hanky over your face while you’re working, but boy, look at that thing go!

– Put a kitten in every box**. People love kittens. So much so, that they’ll find it impossible to blame Tiddles for ruining their new laptop and just say ‘Aw, sweet!’ a lot.

– Take the Dell badge off and replace it with an Apple logo. Those trendy types need taking down a peg or two. Before you know it, Shoreditch will smell like a giant litter tray.

– Deny everything. “No madam, we’ve never heard that complaint before. Do you own a cat yourself? Well, there you go then.”

– Enforce the ‘No Pets At Work’ rule at the Dell factory. Ruthlessly.

– Answer the customer complaints line with a confident ‘Miaow’.

– Encourage ‘Pets At Home’ to stock Dell computers. Shoppers will only realise it’s their kit causing the whiff when they get their laptop home.

– Create a new ‘normal’. Somehow persuade all the other manufacturers to impregnate their machines with a variety of animal sprinkle – bear, wolf, giraffe, unicorn, that sort of thing.

– Label the whole batch ‘Limited Edition’.

– Clothes pegs.

Hope that helps.

* May not be an actual publication
** Don’t do this


 

 

The most ineffective press ad ever?

Posted onOctober 29, 2013 by magnusshaw

I’m sorry for implanting a most unwelcome picture in your head, but I was taking a bath the other evening. The radio was on, I was leafing idly through a magazine and that’s when I saw it – the least effective print ad of all time. In fact, it was so ineffective, I was quite impressed. You see, it wasn’t just badly designed or poorly conceived, it actually failed to communicate a coherent selling message on so many levels, it was hard to fathom. Especially as I was beginning to get a bit pink and wrinkly.

Anyway, with apologies for the slightly fuzzy iPhone snap, here it is:

 

Perhaps I pay rather to much attention to ads in magazines, but I do tend to give each one a little review. I suppose 20 years of copywriting makes one slightly odd like that. However, before an ad gets my mini assessment, I always establish what is being advertised and by whom. This ad’s incredible weakness first struck me as I realised I couldn’t really work out the answers to either question.

There were footballers. Yes, definitely footballers. So maybe it was promoting a match or, more probably, a sports channel on which the match was to appear. On the other hand, there was no obvious broadcaster logo or a start time, so maybe not.

Now, I know next to nothing about football, but even I could tell these players were from Manchester United. What’s more, their logo DID appear, albeit in miniature form and at the top left of the page (who places a logo at top left?). Indeed, it was accompanied by another emblem – that of Russian airline Aeroflot. Two clues there then. It was either an ad for Manchester United or Aeroflot. So, seeking clarification, I scanned the rest of the piece.

There was a headline ‘To Asia, via Moscow’. And some copy, very small and almost hidden at the foot of the page: ‘Fly to over 250 destinations across the globe with convenient connections in Moscow.’

Bingo! It was an ad for Aeroflot.

Unfortunately, this only led to further confusion (and bear in mind 99% of readers would be several pages further into the magazine by now). Why would a journey to Tokyo be best represented by three soccer blokes kicking a ball across the route? And why would my journey to Japan be enhanced by changing planes in the Russian capital, rather than taking one of the four, direct flights a day from Heathrow? And, what does all this have to do with Manchester United? Particularly when the advertisement makes it clear the trip will start in London.

Sorry, I wish I knew – but I still don’t have the solution to the paradox. I have a vague notion that some football tournament is due to take place in Moscow soon, but that hardly nails it. This ad wants me in Tokyo, with only the briefest glimpse of a Russian airport en route.

Nope, I thought I could I decipher even the clumsiest of work, but this fella has me stumped. Unless, of course, somebody set out to create the most ineffective press advertisement of all time. In which case, it’s a triumph.


 

 

Music’s most annoying things …

Posted onOctober 29, 2013 by magnusshaw

Gigs starting late:
Obviously this is the one area of the musical arts in which Justin Bieber excels. But in fairness, Canada’s gobbing munchkin isn’t alone. In fact, rock shows never begin on time; the questions is, why? We know the band isn’t being choppered in and the ‘copter is stuck in LA’s smog. For one thing, there’s a bloody great bus outside with their name on a card in the windscreen. And for another, we’re in Stoke On Trent.

We know the rig is humming and ready to go, because we saw the chief roadie flash his torch at the chief sound roadie. What’s more, we couldn’t be more aware of the fact that the talent is still sitting around in their groupie festooned dressing room, knocking back lager tops and smoking roll-ups. So, for goodness sake, won’t someone fix this debacle? Believe me, touring bands, if I’m not home in time for Newsnight and Family Guy, I’ll never rip your material off Pirate Bay again.


Thank-you credits on albums:
Admittedly this has become less of a problem since we all started downloading and Spotifying albums. Mercifully, no act has yet bothered to speak an interminable list of people about whom you couldn’t give a sliver of a hoot, as an extra MP3 track (unless you know better). Nevertheless , on the occasions we haul out an old CD or vinyl platter, there’s an unmissable and alarming tendency for the artists to fill an unreasonable amount of jacket space with a roster of folk without whom that mediocre filler track, halfway through side two, would never have been possible.

I’m not a monster. I think a cheery show of appreciation to the band’s backroom crew is a nice touch. Hell, knock yourself out – include the management. It may count for something when you spend six months glowering at them across a court room. But rolling out a short novella which embraces everyone from the percussionist’s mum and dad, tour manager’s pets and the window-cleaner, to fictional characters, neighbours, chiropractors and a selection of deities, is horribly mawkish, massively egocentric and wholly unnecessary.

Bono’s sunglasses:
I own a couple of pairs of sunglasses. There, I’ve said it. I even have some Ray-Ban Wayfarers I received as a promotional gift from Cadbury (true). And you know when I wear them? Go on, have a guess. Right! I wear them when it’s sunny. Which is usually abroad, what with the UK having an average of 7.6 minutes of sunshine annually and everything. Otherwise, I tend to keep them in a drawer. Because I’M NOT BONO.

I assume Paul Hewson woke one morning, leaned over to Mrs. Hewson and announced with a flourish ‘Mrs. Hewson, I am Bono. I am the lead singer of international music combo U2 and as such, am a bona-fide rock star. Therefore, all the rules of taste, decorum and optical physics no longer apply to me. Henceforth I shall wear sunglasses at all times. It’s my job.’ Then, I assume, Mrs. Hewson said ‘That’s nice dear…’ before attempting to grab a precious lie-in. Then, I assume, she saw the massive, orange-tinted, wraparound spectacles to which her husband was referring. And pulled the entire duvet over her head.

Ticketmaster:
It began quite innocently. Sometime in 1976 Albert Leffler and Peter Gadwa were relaxing in the Arizona sun (the perfect environment for sunglasses, Bono please note) when they hit on a neat idea. They’d buy a bottle of cold pop and have a dip in the pool. Then they hit on another, much bigger idea. Why didn’t they quit their college jobs and flog gig tickets instead? They’d add a little fee on top of the tickets’ face value and that would provide a profit. ‘Not a bad business model’, thought they. ‘We could call it Ticketmaster’. And they were right. On both counts.

Nobody knows when the bad stuff begun. Or if they do, they’re not telling. But it’s clear that, before long, someone (not necessarily Albert and Peter, lawyers please note) started to add other little fees. Y’know, when no-one was looking. What harm could it do? It could be called something like a ‘handling charge’ or ‘holding costs’. Who’d really notice, eh?

Tragically, as is so often the case, these little indulgences soon ran wild. The temptation became overpowering and those little fees escalated to frightening proportions. Before any intervention could be arranged, there were astronomical ‘booking premiums’, ‘international document taxes’ and ‘call and collect additions’. Specialists were called to effect a cure, but to no avail. It was too late. The world would have to accept it would no longer be possible to buy tickets to a rock show and pay only for the ticket. From now on, we’d have to pony up scores of pounds in extras we didn’t want and don’t particularly understand. The only people with the power to change this hideous turn of events were the bands themselves, who could easily sell their own tickets and by-pass Ticketmaster altogether. Unfortunately, they didn’t give a monkey’s.

Audience delegation:
I blame Robbie Williams and Freddie Mercury. They didn’t start it, but they did take it to the extremes we see today. When I first set out on my gig-going career, the most the band asked of the crowd was some enthusiastic bouncing up and down. Then, sometime in the early eighties, I noticed the odd group suggesting we sang a line of a chorus. They even pointed a microphone at us (which didn’t work because it was too far away). It was just a bit of fun, very enjoyable, no problem there. Not until Live Aid anyway.

For some crazy reason, it’s often tagged the highlight of the Live Aid show (it wasn’t, that was Sade’s back). Any road, halfway through Queen’s set, F Mercury esq. took it upon himself to bellow nonsense at the crowd. Sounding very much like Stan Freberg’s comedy version of ‘The Banana Boat Song’, he went ‘Day-O!’. ‘Day-O’ the people hollered back. To be honest, I can’t really bear to take you through the rest of the routine – you know it anyway. The point is, Fred had persuaded the good folk of Wembley stadium to do a bit of his job for him. That is to say, singing. I think they were probably quite dehydrated, so the crowd must remain blameless, but Freddo had lifted the lid on Pandora’s box and there was no retreat.

Thanks to those irresponsible high jinks, we now live in a world where a chancer such as the aforementioned Robert Williams can avoid a hefty 90% of his performing responsibilities by simply giving us the first half of an opening lyric ‘I sit and wait, a dozen angels …’ before chiming in with ‘Now you sing!’. At which point he clears off for a cappuccino and Silk Cut while the hall sings the rest of the song to themselves. Bob then pops back for the roaring applause.

What’s worse, that very same audience has paid Ticketmaster the best part of a collective month’s salary for the privilege of doing Williams’ work.


 

 

Stainless steel

October 2013

The rock gig format is so well established that, until relatively recently, it had become rather predictable and entrenched. But over the last half-decade or so, artists as diverse as Suede and Roger Waters have taken to the stage with a new concept – the album gig. Rather than pick and choose randomly from their back catalogue, and lob in some new stuff, acts have been performing selected albums in their entirety. It’s a notion that has proved pretty successful, if only because it raises the intrigue and breaks the bit-of-this-bit-of-that mould.

It’s also an idea Steely Dan, those virtuoso ironists, have embraced with gusto. Bringing an extensive tour to a close, the band booked seven nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre from September 30th. Across these shows they have been delivering ‘Aja’, ‘Gaucho’ and ‘The Royal Scam’, with a second half of greatest hits. I caught the 3rd October gig, a ‘Royal Scam’ set.


In a world of arenas and ice stadia, it’s unusual for a venue to warrant a mention in a review, but The Beacon Theatre is no ordinary room. Officially the older sister of the better known Radio City Music Hall, the theatre was built in 1929 by Sam “Roxy” Rothafel, one of New York’s great theatrical impresarios. Designed by Walter Ahlschlager, it is a riot of Art Deco style, rife with golden arches and burgundy trimmings. With a low-level stage and proud apron, the auditorium isn’t an obvious rock space, offering a refreshingly plush and personal setting without a breeze block in sight.

Actually, The Beacon is probably the perfect setting for Steely Dan. Both are a little long in the tooth, but remain impeccably stylish, utterly idiosyncratic and loaded with unmistakable character. That the band was superb shouldn’t hit you as a surprise. Intricately constructed jazzy, soul rock has been the Dan trademark since 1967, and that sound is faultlessly reproduced on stage. Not reproduced in a Pro-Tools playback sense, though. Their set is shot through with a crunchy, tangible texture that tells you every note is coming from the fingers and lungs of the fourteen performers. Expertise is evident in every second, but never at the expense of feeling.

Without so much as a ‘good evening’, at 9.10pm on a sweltering NY night Steely Dan launched into the eternally brilliant ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and hardly paused for breath until the closing notes of title-track ‘The Royal Scam’, via a crowd-slaying and extended run through a blistering ‘Haitian Divorce’. Only then were we addressed by a grizzled, but still reliably wiry Donald Fagan.

For the most part, Fagan is centre right – hammering away at his electric piano and deliciously sarcastic lyrics. Infrequently though, he’s on his feet, much to the approval of the fans, tooting a melodica. It’s in these moments that the event feels close to being the ‘Donald Fagan Show’. Not because Fagan is an egomaniac; in fact, for such a key figure in music, in his aging t-shirt and sneakers he’s quite unassuming. It’s more that Steely Dan has always been a partnership – Don Fagan and Walter Becker – and Walter is taking a back seat these days.

There’s no obvious reason for this. He’s very definitely up there and, as far as I can tell, in good health and committed to the band. But it’s impossible not to notice how much he now depends on excellent session man, Jon Herington, to perform his famously complex riffs and solos. To be fair, when Steely Dan first broke up in 1983, Becker put his axe down and concentrated on production. So, I suppose it’s not impossible for an incredibly accomplished guitarist to prefer a colleague to do the heavy lifting in later life. However, it does mean that, excepting a planned warm and amusing chat from Walter, it’s Fagan holding our attention.

As promised, the second act takes us on an indulgently nostalgic stroll through the Steely songbook. We’re not disappointed (unless anyone booked tickets with a craving for ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’). How could we be? ‘Peg’, ‘My Old School’ and a ‘Reeling In The Years’ so rousingly perfect, the house is on its feet cheering a good minute before it is complete – we’d have happily stayed all night, soaking up everything in the Dan archive twice over.

Maybe it was the heat of the night or the influence of the jetlag – but this gig was so loaded with vigour and good vibes, I fairly glided down the subway steps as I headed for my hotel downtown. After all, New York and Steely Dan make a powerful combination and, although the band’s seventies heyday is long behind them, just like The Beacon Theatre, there is still every reason to admire their splendour and revel in their history. They were always a class act. That hasn’t changed.


 

 

All heart.

Earlier this year I wrote a piece for Creativepool, arguing the Red Cross had undermined their advertising by using a woman and her dog to represent the concept of 'crisis'. I agreed the ad was attractively directed, but was ultimately too notional and obscure to connect with the audience and make its point powerfully and memorably.


So today, it's hats off the British Heart Foundation for producing one of the most accomplished and effective charity campaigns in recent memory.

On the off-chance you haven't seen it, here it is.

Brilliant, yes?

I think BHF and its agency have succeeded by defying our expectations. Think of charity advertising, and we have a good idea what's involved. Often a campaign deploys testimonials, either detailing the ways in which a person has been helped by the organisation or indicating the need the charity is addressing. Dramatisations aren't uncommon either. We're shown a reconstruction of an alarming situation to spark anxiety or concern, then a sombre voice-over explains how a modest amount of money will alleviate the danger or suffering we have witnessed.

Then there's the metaphor. Indeed, the Red Cross work is the perfect example of this technique. Rather than a literal demonstration, we are introduced to icebergs representing the spread of AIDS, celebrities clicking their fingers to show us the rapidity of death in the developing world , or a hammer ploughing into a peach to symbolise a violent road accident.

All these routes are perfectly acceptable and can be very effective. Unfortunately, they also risk a certain sameness and therefore a lack of impact - a hazard obviously appreciated and smartly avoided by the British Heart Foundation.

Admittedly, the campaign does use a celebrity. But where there would usually be a Bono or a Brad, here we have the roguish Vinnie Jones; a man known for his somewhat physical approach to football and generally lacklustre Hollywood movies. Famous for his turn as Big Chris in Guy Ritchie's 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', Jones is hardly the obvious choice for a charity's health campaign. Which is, of course, the beauty of the casting. The fact that he pretty much reprises the head-case, gangster role, makes the clip all the more compelling.

There's no golden rule preventing the use of humour in charity campaigns but, for obvious reasons, good judgement is essential. Wonderfully, this ad is not only funny, but sufficiently witty to be thoroughly entertaining. Nevertheless, all this fun would be fruitless if there was no meaningful message in the work - fortunately, the message couldn't be more apparent.

Clearly, in this instance, the BHF isn't seeking funds, it is giving us instructions - and following these instructions could save a life. Making the lesson clear, concise and easily retained couldn't be more important. What's more, the received wisdom has changed and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is no longer recommended for victims of cardiac arrest. Or, in Vinnie's inimitable words 'You only kiss your missus on the lips'. Spot on. We'll remember that, because we'll remember the joke. Next the appropriate speed for chest compressions is seared into our minds. We simply do it to the backbeat of the Bee Gees' 'Staying Alive'. How fantastically simple, appropriate and retainable. Mission accomplished.

I love this ad and I don't exaggerate when I say there's a seam of genius running through it. A huge slab of credit must go to Grey London, the creative agency involved, because this is stunning work. Not simply because it is highly original, genuinely amusing and the best charity campaign for years (although it is all these things), but because the 'hands-only CPR' method the ad teaches has already saved over fifty lives. Those souls will be around this Christmas, thanks to the content of this commercial.

Now, that really is powerful advertising.

 

On report.

The trouble with the Forrester Report

Have you read the Forrester report? If not, do you know what the Forrester report is? Don't worry, neither did I until someone asked me what I made of it, prompting me to run away and look it up.

In some quarters, however, this report is hot stuff. In fact, it's regarded as the little boy, pointing at the emperor and suggesting he may be naked. Because this is a piece of research which asserts: "...it's clear that Facebook and Twitter don't offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave. (And they are) wasting significant financial, technological and human resources on social networks that don't deliver value."
Shocking, right? This fresh universe of novel communication, user-generated content, 'likes' and re-tweets is, it transpires, bunkum. What's more, it's fooling every advertiser and costs a small fortune. That's it then, the game's up.

But hang on. Shouldn't we put some sort of framework around these conclusions. Because, what, on first inspection appears to be a cataclysmic revelation, may just be a bit too broad and glib.

Firstly, before we can agree that social media is failing to satisfy the cravings of marketeers, we must establish exactly what it is they are craving. And that is far from obvious. Every brand and every advertiser is seeking something different; that may be sales, or engagement, or publicity, or brand awareness, or market research, or many other things. The report calls these 'relationships', but that is a generic term, covering a multitude of aspirations. Immediately I can think of a swathe of businesses finding a real advantage from their use of social networks. Are they really not being offered the connections they crave?

Then there's the notion that gormless advertisers have spent the best part of a decade pouring money into communication platforms which bring few or no returns. This is a nonsense. In a very depressed economic situation, clients have been guarding their shrinking budgets very jealously - seeking greater value from their spend and channelling sparse resources only into campaigns which make a difference. There is no conceivable way that paid-for social activity would have been tolerated for so long, if it was utterly hopeless.

Besides, social media does work. I know this because I have deployed it successfully, on behalf of clients and to promote projects of my own. Perhaps I am unique in this, but I doubt it. As with any platform, social media only fails when it isn't used appropriately. Send a tweet that invites users to buy a pizza for £6.99, and the expected uptake will be very modest. But use Twitter to drive traffic to a 'build-your-own-pizza' tool, and you'd probably be onto something. Social networks aren't direct sales channels, but they are incredibly useful for pushing an audience in a particular direction.

Let's just say the Forrester report is correct, and these systems are a waste of time and money. Then what? Are we to abandon some of the most popular sources of attention and information in the world, in favour of age-old posters, press ads and telly spots? Would that demonstrate a smart understanding of customer behaviour and media use? Of course it wouldn't.

There is an onus on the advertising and marketing industries to spend their clients' money wisely, and produce solutions that meet their expectations - but the idea that Facebook and Twitter have no role to play in that process is frankly ridiculous; whatever the Forrester report might say.

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