I've had more than one boss, be it a Head of Production or an ECD, tell me that they don't like their staff to get "too comfortable."
Really? Don't like your people to be too comfortable?
Managers who want their staff uncomfortable believe, in some fucked up logic flow, that a person who is constantly worried about losing his job is motivated to try harder. That he or she will spend more time working, and somehow produce more or better product.
There is a term for an employee who is anxious, perpetually worried that his boss will come down on him, and always afraid of losing his job.
That term is "job seeker."
A person who spends so much time worried about losing his job doesn't spend his time doing his job. He spends his time looking for a different job. Which is too bad. I'll bet agencies lose a lot of good people that way.
Maybe you don't want your staff to become self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy. That makes sense.
But self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy is not "comfortable." It's "complacent."
There's a difference.
Look it up.
I've managed groups, and I've always found this to work pretty well:
1. Create an atmosphere of trust
2. Take all that other shit off the table
3. Let people become comfortable.
When people are comfortably un-worried about losing their job, they become free to concentrate on actually doing that job. They relax, view problems in a more holistic manner, and find solutions they might never have lit upon with a foot wedged up their ass and a monkey on their back.
If you've hired the right people they will be grateful of this, and not take advantage of your good nature.
Managing people is a lot like training dogs. Both species are basically good natured and loyal, with varying degrees of intellect. And both species possess many of the same motivational triggers. To wit...
Reward
Obey command, get treat. Dogs like treats. Simple.
This works pretty much the same with humans. Do job, get compensated. Do excellent job, get excellent compensation. This is good in theory, although I'm willing to bet that many of us do an excellent job and are not excellently compensated.
However, money talks, and most people will put up with quite a bit if they're getting paid enough for it.
Fear
The dog is terrified and will do whatever is asked because the alternative is worse... the scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating, is more horrible to endure than simply obeying the command.
Fear mongers try to keep you terrified in the belief that it will scare you into doing a better job. There is scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating. Of the mental kind, anyway. Although I'm sure the physical kind happens too.
I used to work for a guy like this. With him, everything sucked. All the vendors sucked. They were too expensive and too slow, and their work was terrible. The talent sucked, the director sucked. The editor sucked. The rough cut sucked. You sucked.
He used to send e-mails about this. Mean ones. We called them "you suck" e-mails. The more he sent, the less effective they became, until finally I just ignored them. I didn't like him, and I didn't like the way he tried to intimidate me.
I did my job, but he didn't get an extra ounce of anything from me... which sucked for him because I've got plenty extra to give.
I've always thought that guys like this lose big, because they don't get anywhere near the best that their people can give. When people loathe and despise you, they don't particularly want to please you. How often do you hear someone say, "I hated that asshole, and I did some of my best work for him."
Love
The dog loves his master and will do whatever is asked because it makes his master happy... the praise and satisfaction mean more to his little doggie heart than anything else he could possibly imagine.
Sometimes you like and respect your boss so much that you want to do good work for him. For the agency and the client too, but also for your boss.
These are the guys who are not afraid to hire smart people, the smartest ones they can find. They don't fear that these hires will have newer and better ideas than they do, they bank on it. When someone trusts you and respects your opinion as a professional it is empowering, and extremely motivating.
I've worked for guys like this, and it doesn't suck.
So, love or fear... which works better? (Let's just forget about "reward" for now, agencies don't work like that)
In 1993's A Bronx Tale, Sonny, the local mafioso, waxes philosophical to his young protege...
Sonny: Is it better to be loved or feared? That's a good question. It's nice to be both, but it's difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared. Fear lasts longer than love.
Machiavelli posed this question in The Prince. In 1532 he came to the same conclusion that Sonny would come to 477 years later. It's nice to be both, but forced to pick one, he chose "feared".
Maybe this is the right answer if you're running a country, or the Mafia.
When you're running an agency, not so much.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
James Dean Lives
THANK GOD!
For a while I was beginning to worry that resurrecting dead celebrities for use in whoring goods and services was a dead art. Thank you Allan Gray for reminding us that this particular brand of creepiness still thrives in the ad game.
Actually, this is not so creepy. There are excellent production values, and it's easy to see the team has really tried to be true to the construct of "if James Dean had lived, what might he have accomplished?"
I know we love to romanticize James Dean, but I just find it hard to believe that had Dean lived to be an older man, he would have looked exactly the same as he looked as a 24 year old, except with white hair. A skinny dude with an unlined face and a big shock of white hair.
Who's to say that an aging James Dean wouldn't have been paunchy and balding? Maybe he would have taken a page from the Sean Connery book...
Sean's thickened a bit and the hair is gone, but I think the consensus is that he's still an attractive man. No reason Dean might not have aged the same way, right?
In Giant, Dean ages about 40 years or so, from a youthful ranch hand to an alcoholic playboy who's done his share of hard living
No Stan Winston or Rick Baker prosthetic miracles here. He looks like a kid made up for Halloween, but then so do Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in the same film. I guess back in the day you didn't want to make the star talent look too aged. The studios deified these stars, and the public came to worship at that altar. And who wants to worship a broken down old god?
But at least he looks somewhat older, there are some years on his face, some bags under the eyes. Then again that may simply be Dean, the actor, living the part.
Regardless, it's 2009, a different era. We're savvy enough to understand the commercial , even if they'd chosen to put some mileage on Mr. Dean. Perhaps given us a little more to think about.
By the way, if you're going to flat out steal a shot from a film, I guess you might as well steal it from a good film, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, right?
But, at the end of the day, the Allan Gray spot is still pretty good. I think that's because the team chose to cast an actor rather than create a digital Frankenstein of movie outtakes and bits of newsreel footage, held together by hours of digital manipulation.
And they resisted the urge to go for the big music. Instead, a lone piano picks out a melody, sweet and sad at the same time.
This, however, is frickin' creepy.
For a while I was beginning to worry that resurrecting dead celebrities for use in whoring goods and services was a dead art. Thank you Allan Gray for reminding us that this particular brand of creepiness still thrives in the ad game.
Actually, this is not so creepy. There are excellent production values, and it's easy to see the team has really tried to be true to the construct of "if James Dean had lived, what might he have accomplished?"
I know we love to romanticize James Dean, but I just find it hard to believe that had Dean lived to be an older man, he would have looked exactly the same as he looked as a 24 year old, except with white hair. A skinny dude with an unlined face and a big shock of white hair.
Who's to say that an aging James Dean wouldn't have been paunchy and balding? Maybe he would have taken a page from the Sean Connery book...
Sean's thickened a bit and the hair is gone, but I think the consensus is that he's still an attractive man. No reason Dean might not have aged the same way, right?
In Giant, Dean ages about 40 years or so, from a youthful ranch hand to an alcoholic playboy who's done his share of hard living
No Stan Winston or Rick Baker prosthetic miracles here. He looks like a kid made up for Halloween, but then so do Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in the same film. I guess back in the day you didn't want to make the star talent look too aged. The studios deified these stars, and the public came to worship at that altar. And who wants to worship a broken down old god?
But at least he looks somewhat older, there are some years on his face, some bags under the eyes. Then again that may simply be Dean, the actor, living the part.
Regardless, it's 2009, a different era. We're savvy enough to understand the commercial , even if they'd chosen to put some mileage on Mr. Dean. Perhaps given us a little more to think about.
By the way, if you're going to flat out steal a shot from a film, I guess you might as well steal it from a good film, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, right?
But, at the end of the day, the Allan Gray spot is still pretty good. I think that's because the team chose to cast an actor rather than create a digital Frankenstein of movie outtakes and bits of newsreel footage, held together by hours of digital manipulation.
And they resisted the urge to go for the big music. Instead, a lone piano picks out a melody, sweet and sad at the same time.
This, however, is frickin' creepy.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency... Anti-Semites in Very Nice Suits
What is up with the Sterling Cooper Agency?
They've been dissing Grey Advertising for three seasons now, and I just don't get it. Did Matt Weiner work at Grey at one time? That might explain it!
I worked at Grey for thirty-eight percent of my life. Not thirty-eight percent of my career. Thirty-eight percent of my life. Not counting sleeping, most weekends and some vacations, from the moment I exited the womb till just now, thirty-eight percent of those years were spent at Grey.
And most of those years were pretty good ones.
So when I started to hear the word "Grey" pop up on Mad Men, it got my attention. The first time was a quickie, one character mentions to one another that a colleague is "at Grey now." I shouted to my wife, "Isn't that cool... they just mentioned Grey on Mad Men!"
Don Draper runs into Rachel Menken while he's catting around with Bobbie Barrett. Remember Rachel Menken, the Jewish department store client who briefly sized up Sterling Cooper as an agency before Draper's dick got in the way?
Don says something like, "How's things at Grey? Those guys still taking credit for our work?"
Hmmm, Grey again. What does Draper mean by that? Is he implying that Grey stole the work from Sterling Cooper? Would he have said the same if the Menken account went to a Wasp shop like BBDO or JWT?
Grey used to be known as a Jewish agency. I know this to be true because of a story told by a family friend. She relates how, in the early 60's she sought a job at an agency. Since she is Jewish, someone suggested she apply at Grey because it was a "Jewish agency." Aghast at the thought that she would use her religion to gain a position, she declined to apply.
Which I found interesting, because if someone told me there was an "Italian agency," I'd have my reel over there quicker than you can say "Chef Boyardee."
Now Duck Phillips, newly at Grey, has invited Pete Campbell to lunch. Campbell, who perpetually looks as if he is aware of a ghastly odor that only he can smell, arrives to find Peggy Olson there as well. Which causes Pete's already pained visage to pinch up by such a degree that one would think Duck had presented him with a turd on a silver platter.
In an effort to calm him, Duck tells him to sit down and "...have a nosh."
To which Campbell replies, "Two months at Grey and you're already having a nosh?"
This retort, and the expression of utter disdain which accompanies it, leaves no question about how Pete Campbell feels about a nosh, people who nosh in general, and people who nosh at Grey specifically.
Make no mistake, it's a Jewish thing... imagine the scenario like this:
Duck: "...have some lunch"
Pete: "Two months at Grey and you're already having some lunch?
Not quite the same.
As I watched this, it occurred to me that Duck Phillips is now working with some of the same people at Grey that I would work with, albeit some years later. Which is a little trippy, like some Back To The Future parallax of reality and entertainment.
To be fair to Mad Men, I think the show is simply (and honestly) portraying the realities of the New York ad business in the early '60s. Like most big agencies of the day, Sterling Cooper is the Wasp-iest place on the planet. The only black person there is Hollis, and he's the elevator operator. Look around the creative department of any big agency today. Not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity, and the more senior you get, the more the color bleeds away.
The only other person at Sterling Cooper with even a trace of ethnicity is Sal Romano and poor Sal has bigger issues to deal with. (I loved the look on Kitty's face when Sal, in full flounce, acts out the Patio commercial and the light slowly goes on for her that, oh my god, my husband is a homosexual).
There's one other very funny thing which occurs in this episode. As Duck attempts to woo Pete and Peggy he says, "At Grey an account man is expected to have ideas, and creatives are expected to be geniuses. You'll be sitting on velvet pillows, showered with riches, rewards."
I believe this is the exact same recruiting verbiage used by Grey today.
They've been dissing Grey Advertising for three seasons now, and I just don't get it. Did Matt Weiner work at Grey at one time? That might explain it!
I worked at Grey for thirty-eight percent of my life. Not thirty-eight percent of my career. Thirty-eight percent of my life. Not counting sleeping, most weekends and some vacations, from the moment I exited the womb till just now, thirty-eight percent of those years were spent at Grey.
And most of those years were pretty good ones.
So when I started to hear the word "Grey" pop up on Mad Men, it got my attention. The first time was a quickie, one character mentions to one another that a colleague is "at Grey now." I shouted to my wife, "Isn't that cool... they just mentioned Grey on Mad Men!"
Don Draper runs into Rachel Menken while he's catting around with Bobbie Barrett. Remember Rachel Menken, the Jewish department store client who briefly sized up Sterling Cooper as an agency before Draper's dick got in the way?
Don says something like, "How's things at Grey? Those guys still taking credit for our work?"
Hmmm, Grey again. What does Draper mean by that? Is he implying that Grey stole the work from Sterling Cooper? Would he have said the same if the Menken account went to a Wasp shop like BBDO or JWT?
Grey used to be known as a Jewish agency. I know this to be true because of a story told by a family friend. She relates how, in the early 60's she sought a job at an agency. Since she is Jewish, someone suggested she apply at Grey because it was a "Jewish agency." Aghast at the thought that she would use her religion to gain a position, she declined to apply.
Which I found interesting, because if someone told me there was an "Italian agency," I'd have my reel over there quicker than you can say "Chef Boyardee."
Now Duck Phillips, newly at Grey, has invited Pete Campbell to lunch. Campbell, who perpetually looks as if he is aware of a ghastly odor that only he can smell, arrives to find Peggy Olson there as well. Which causes Pete's already pained visage to pinch up by such a degree that one would think Duck had presented him with a turd on a silver platter.
In an effort to calm him, Duck tells him to sit down and "...have a nosh."
To which Campbell replies, "Two months at Grey and you're already having a nosh?"
This retort, and the expression of utter disdain which accompanies it, leaves no question about how Pete Campbell feels about a nosh, people who nosh in general, and people who nosh at Grey specifically.
Make no mistake, it's a Jewish thing... imagine the scenario like this:
Duck: "...have some lunch"
Pete: "Two months at Grey and you're already having some lunch?
Not quite the same.
As I watched this, it occurred to me that Duck Phillips is now working with some of the same people at Grey that I would work with, albeit some years later. Which is a little trippy, like some Back To The Future parallax of reality and entertainment.
To be fair to Mad Men, I think the show is simply (and honestly) portraying the realities of the New York ad business in the early '60s. Like most big agencies of the day, Sterling Cooper is the Wasp-iest place on the planet. The only black person there is Hollis, and he's the elevator operator. Look around the creative department of any big agency today. Not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity, and the more senior you get, the more the color bleeds away.
The only other person at Sterling Cooper with even a trace of ethnicity is Sal Romano and poor Sal has bigger issues to deal with. (I loved the look on Kitty's face when Sal, in full flounce, acts out the Patio commercial and the light slowly goes on for her that, oh my god, my husband is a homosexual).
There's one other very funny thing which occurs in this episode. As Duck attempts to woo Pete and Peggy he says, "At Grey an account man is expected to have ideas, and creatives are expected to be geniuses. You'll be sitting on velvet pillows, showered with riches, rewards."
I believe this is the exact same recruiting verbiage used by Grey today.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Back to School
It's now mid September, and for the last 2 or 3 weeks American families have been going through the familiar, time honored traditions and rituals of going back to school.
I remember the feeling of summer drawing to a close... the 8 or 9 weeks that had stretched endlessly before me on the last day of school dwindling down to the last few weeks, then days, hours, and precious minutes till freedom was over and prison began again.
I remember the feeling of new school supplies... marbled composition books, fresh, clean binders, a ream of loose leaf paper, yellow unsharpened #2 Ticonderoga pencils, all laid out and ready to go, like ammunition before a battle that would last for the next 10 months.
I never quite understood the marbled composition book, though. If you tore out a page, a page somewhere in the back of the book fell out. For every action an equal and opposite reaction... the yin and yang of education, I suppose.
This year my daughter has started a new school. It was a big decision, taking her from the tiny, private school womb into the larger, more feral world of public education. But the local elementary school is a pretty good one, and lord knows we can save the monthly tuition for college, or something else.
But anyway, there we were in the schoolyard on the first day of 2nd grade, small knots of parents chatting each other up, kids milling about in the frenzy that is the first day of school, and my daughter.
A little girl with a big backpack.
I was prepared for tears from my daughter... maybe my wife. My little girl surprised me.
My wife, not so much.
I was so proud of my daughter... a huge building, hundreds of kids, new people and faces and routines. And scariest of all, no friends. No classmates from last year, no kids from the neighborhood in her class. I could see how nervous she was, but she sucked it up and marched in like a trouper.
And that was it.
Where was the drama? Where was the run up of tears and anxiety before the first day at a new school? Where was the acting out, the irrational and unexplainable behavior that we as parents were supposed to sagely interpret as the inner feelings of turmoil that she, as a 7 year old, would be unable to express in words?
Could it really be that easy?
No, of course it's not that fucking easy.
Only 4 days into the school year, some kid is picking on my daughter. Tugging at her backpack, talking shit to her on line each morning in the schoolyard. And this morning, finally, the tears came. They came in the schoolyard... probably the worst place of all, in front of her teacher, her class, everyone. My wife called to tell me about it.
I'm a rational dad, not prone to violence or flying off the handle. So naturally my first instinct was to go down to the school and smack this kid. I don't care that it happens to be a 7 year old girl. She made my daughter cry. Only I am allowed to make my daughter cry.
You don't think it's appropriate to talk about smacking the brat who's picking on your daughter? Then you don't have kids. Anyone who is reading this, who is a parent,
knows
exactly
what
I
am
talking
about.
According to my wife, smacking this kid is not an option. So she told the teacher, who promised to nip this in the bud. Great. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it makes the little shit try even harder because she is obviously achieving the desired effect.
I'm working from home tomorrow, so I'm gonna drop my daughter off at school, and pick her up at 3:00. I'd like to get a look at this kid and her parent(s) before I meet them in the Principal's office.
If she comes from the right kind of family, her parents will do the smacking for me.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Mow the Lawn
I was first made aware of this spot by a friend of mine. I'll call him Steve.
This is convenient, because his name is Steve.
Steve was asked to review this spot for a monthly trade publication; I won't spoil the surprise by saying which one. But I read the review and I thought it was witty and funny and spot on.
OK, so you've watched the spot, and you get it. It's for a special razor women can use to groom their most special of special places.
Each lady's grooming style is represented by a bit of shrubbery, and there are several different coifs portrayed... the Landing Strip, the Patch, the Trimmed Natural. There's one glaring omission, though (no, not Brazilian, although that is noticeably absent).
When at least one woman passes by one of these shrubs, shouldn't all the leaves just fall off?
I mean, that's not an uncommon 'do, and it certainly is achievable with this product. So what gives? We know that plenty of women will be baring it all with this razor. Why be bold enough to construct this innuendo but too timid to follow it all the way through?
Same product, different country. Here's the commercial that airs in the UK...
Wow. Different vibe for sure. But what did you expect from the country that gave us Benny Hill?
There are some great lyrics in this song. A couple of my favorites...
"...all that's left for me to see are tulips on the mound..."
and of course...
"never feel untidy, just spruce up your Aphrodite..."
I also love how the furry cat in her lap at the beginning (get it... the cat in her lap) is hairless by the end of the spot.
It would appear that in the UK, they are not afraid to let the leaves fall off the bush.
This is convenient, because his name is Steve.
Steve was asked to review this spot for a monthly trade publication; I won't spoil the surprise by saying which one. But I read the review and I thought it was witty and funny and spot on.
OK, so you've watched the spot, and you get it. It's for a special razor women can use to groom their most special of special places.
Each lady's grooming style is represented by a bit of shrubbery, and there are several different coifs portrayed... the Landing Strip, the Patch, the Trimmed Natural. There's one glaring omission, though (no, not Brazilian, although that is noticeably absent).
When at least one woman passes by one of these shrubs, shouldn't all the leaves just fall off?
I mean, that's not an uncommon 'do, and it certainly is achievable with this product. So what gives? We know that plenty of women will be baring it all with this razor. Why be bold enough to construct this innuendo but too timid to follow it all the way through?
Same product, different country. Here's the commercial that airs in the UK...
Wow. Different vibe for sure. But what did you expect from the country that gave us Benny Hill?
There are some great lyrics in this song. A couple of my favorites...
"...all that's left for me to see are tulips on the mound..."
and of course...
"never feel untidy, just spruce up your Aphrodite..."
I also love how the furry cat in her lap at the beginning (get it... the cat in her lap) is hairless by the end of the spot.
It would appear that in the UK, they are not afraid to let the leaves fall off the bush.
Same War, Different Sand.
In 1953, this was pretty hot.
Hell, 56 years later it's still pretty hot.
Love during wartime, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster, swelling violins, crashing waves. It's got to be one of the most dramatic scenes ever captured in the sand.
Until now.
Take 8 minutes and 33 seconds out of your life to watch a drama of an entirely different kind unfold in the sand.
I'd never heard of sand animation, and I'd never seen anything like this, at least not created live as a performance.
The artist, Kseniya Simonova, performs this piece on the finale of "Ukraine's Got Talent". Yes, there really is a "Ukraine's Got Talent", and Kseniya Simonova is 2009's winner. The piece depicts the loss and devastation of the Ukraine during World War II, where almost one out of every four Ukrainians lost their lives. It is clearly a deeply emotional topic for this nation, as many in the audience who would not be born until twenty, thirty or even forty years after this conflict are moved to tears by the love and loss depicted in Simonova's work.
Simonova herself proves a dramatic performer. Her "brushstrokes" are swift, sure, and precise. This 24 year old tosses handfuls of her medium with gusto and bravado, an Itshak Perlman of beach sand.
Oh yeah, it also doesn't hurt that she is smoking hot.
Here's another performance she gave during an earlier round of the show. I've since viewed other sand animators on You Tube and the Internet but to be honest, they seem like amateurs compared to Simonova.
This is unique. It is true performance art on every level... the performance itself is artistic, invoking an uncommon talent that creates and re-create a canvas every moment, one scene morphing to another before our eyes. The routine is painstakingly choreographed and rehearsed, images and actions timed precisely to the music. And of course the images themselves are art, the same but different every time.
The constraints of the choreography make this all the more artistic, to me anyway. Simonova is a soloist playing in a different medium. She's not making it up as she goes. She can no more change the pictures in her routine than Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma can change the notes in a Mendelssohn concerto. Lots of people can play a Mendelssohn concerto, very few can play it like Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma.
Lots of people can draw pictures in the sand. Very few can draw them like Kseniya Simonova.
Hell, 56 years later it's still pretty hot.
Love during wartime, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster, swelling violins, crashing waves. It's got to be one of the most dramatic scenes ever captured in the sand.
Until now.
Take 8 minutes and 33 seconds out of your life to watch a drama of an entirely different kind unfold in the sand.
I'd never heard of sand animation, and I'd never seen anything like this, at least not created live as a performance.
The artist, Kseniya Simonova, performs this piece on the finale of "Ukraine's Got Talent". Yes, there really is a "Ukraine's Got Talent", and Kseniya Simonova is 2009's winner. The piece depicts the loss and devastation of the Ukraine during World War II, where almost one out of every four Ukrainians lost their lives. It is clearly a deeply emotional topic for this nation, as many in the audience who would not be born until twenty, thirty or even forty years after this conflict are moved to tears by the love and loss depicted in Simonova's work.
Simonova herself proves a dramatic performer. Her "brushstrokes" are swift, sure, and precise. This 24 year old tosses handfuls of her medium with gusto and bravado, an Itshak Perlman of beach sand.
Oh yeah, it also doesn't hurt that she is smoking hot.
Here's another performance she gave during an earlier round of the show. I've since viewed other sand animators on You Tube and the Internet but to be honest, they seem like amateurs compared to Simonova.
This is unique. It is true performance art on every level... the performance itself is artistic, invoking an uncommon talent that creates and re-create a canvas every moment, one scene morphing to another before our eyes. The routine is painstakingly choreographed and rehearsed, images and actions timed precisely to the music. And of course the images themselves are art, the same but different every time.
The constraints of the choreography make this all the more artistic, to me anyway. Simonova is a soloist playing in a different medium. She's not making it up as she goes. She can no more change the pictures in her routine than Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma can change the notes in a Mendelssohn concerto. Lots of people can play a Mendelssohn concerto, very few can play it like Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma.
Lots of people can draw pictures in the sand. Very few can draw them like Kseniya Simonova.
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