An International Smoothie

To the Top of Africa

I leave for Kilimanjaro in like an hour. Yes I'm crapping myself. But that's living right. Or whatever. See y'all in 10 days. Boom

Operation Punk Kiva

This is how we roll

Update: Google Checkout is giving me major issues, I'm going to fix that shiznit tonight and a button will magically appear soon. Thanks for ALL your support!

Update II: After Google Fail and Paypal registration fail I've stolen a family Paypal account (not literally) and set up a ChipIn thing for Charlie, let's get going!

So by now you should ALL have read about Big C's shocking experience in Hong Kong. So I was thinking about what we, the people can do to help Charlie out, aside from spreading the word.

So I have a suggestion, I'm going to send Charlie some money via one of his friends who is based out in Hong Kong to help him out and keep him ticking until someone pulls their damn finger out and helps him out. If anyone else wants to help out, they are most welcome to (the sentiment that has come through his blog is that people do want to help).

Let's not get it twisted, this is damn serious: a British national that the British authorities in Hong Kong are refusing to provide help to. Isn't that their job? Maybe I'm just being naive.

So this is how we're going to roll:

1. If you would like to help Charlie out donate using the ChipIn widget or if you prefer to do a bank transfer (within the UK of course) send me an email at samismail [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll get the payment stuff sorted.

2. I'll record how much you've given so that when this storm clears we can get you your money back.

3. I'll wire the money to Charlie's friend out in Hong Kong and he'll get helped out. I will keep this thing open until Monday 29 June 1700 (London time).

4. We help a homeboy in need.

So once again, if you want to help Charlie get back on his feet while things are still simmering with the Hong Kong CID, email me at samismail [at] yahoo [dot] com  if you have any questions and I will hook up the admin.

On a final point, Charlie knows this is going down (so it ain't no "I'm your long lost cousin scam" so let's get this thing started so Charlie can get enough bread to get a replacement passport!

Do the right thing. Donate using the widget or go to the ChipIn page

The Ubiquitous Persuaders - A Pimpin' Read

A shemagh, a messy desk and a pimpin' book

Generally, I prefer to steer well clear of marketing and advertising books. Mostly because I think the majority of them reference each other and teach you nothing noteworthy, but also because I believe looking outside of the advertising / communications bubble is infinitely better for the business than peering inside the increasingly stale and samey pool.

There are of course exceptions to every rule. And George Parker's The Ubiquitous Persuaders is one of them.

If you don't know George, let's just say he's one of the few true rock and roll legends of advertising. Aside from having worked on a boatload of award-winning work, he's an awesome dude who's always totally gracious with the time and advice that he bestows on others. Basically a man carved out of grade-A Awesome. Oh and he's my homeboy as well, which rocks.

If you read AdScam you know that George often comments on the totally screwed state of the advertising industry, how it's essentially a failed model that is still ticking on life support and all the rest of it.

What The Ubiquitous Persuaders does is systematically peel off every contrived layer of bullshit that the majority of ad agencies preach to their clients (and each other, and well anyone that will listen) and really gets to heart of the problems that face advertising agncies today; namely that ad agencies are content to draw money from clients without really trying to push them and the bean counters' obsession over share dividends essentially cripple any creative spirit in lieu of the pursuit of greater profit.

Each chapter busts conventional advertising wisdom and gives insight into what actually constitutes effective work.

You may not agree with his style (I personally love it) but George talks the truth, it cuts deep, provokes people and perhaps these are indicators that he's right about a lot of things.

Buy the book if you haven't already, it's definitely one of the few must-read advertising books out there.

To Climb a Mountain

Picture courtesy of Tambako via Flickr

In 4 weeks, I'm going to be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Partly inspired by Kedar (who did it last year) and partly just because I wanted to something a bit mental, I'm quite looking forward to it - in the way you look forward to a crazy rollercoaster that may make you soil your proverbial undergarments. I leave July 2nd.

I'll be raising money for the children of Gaza, a situation that President Obama called "A continuing humanitarian crisis" yesterday in Cairo. I won't insult your intelligence by reeling off statistics about how many people were killed or injured during the course of the Israeli invasion earlier this year, just as I would hope that people reading will understand that this isn't me picking sides in this massively polarized situation. This is me doing something that I feel is important, for a community that is need of assistance to get on with their lives.

Anyone who knows me will know that the issue of Israel and Palestine is something that is very close to who I am (quite literally) as well as something I consider to be shrouded in grays, there is very little black and white in the situation. But I believe that helping the people, and in particular the children of Gaza to rebuild their lives is one of things that is quite obviously needed.

After much thought, I've decided not to pimp the cause massively to you, the benevolent blogosphere because I feel that there's been a lot of people asking for charitable help recently and I'd probably just be adding to the noise.

I think this over-pimpage dilutes from the cause somewhat. It's not a lemonade stand and the seriousness of these issues that people raise money for should in many ways, speak for themselves.

So given that, if you'd like to know a little bit more about the charities I'm raising for drop me an email at samismail [at] yahoo [dot] com.

And if not, as Marcus once said, spare a thought for those who are not as fortunate as us, and have a great weekend.

You can't turn Chicken Shit into Chicken Salad

 Picture courtesy of swanksalot

"We're of the opinion that it's best to not get involved in any kind of online conversation because that way if someone misuses our product, we can't be held responsible"

These wise words were uttered yesterday by a marketing employee of a worldwide company (with annual profits in the billions that is listed on both the London and New York stock exchanges) as justification for not having any presence or stimulating any conversation (beyond brochureware) on the web. This is what happens when chicken-shit lawyers rule the roost.

This is aside from the fact that if you MAKE something that is misused you're often held responsible.

Kind of proves the point that has been made countless times that companies that get shit work for their advertising agencies usually deserve it.

Pitchin' Ain't Bitchin'

Pitchin can (and should) be fun. Image courtesy of MerelyMel

I've only really worked in advertising for a year and have only been on the planet for a quarter century or so, so basically I'm wrong. A lot. Having said that, I'm 94.565215% sure that the way ad agencies/idea factories/new wrapper for same old candy approach new business is amazingly archaic.

Apart from the obvious fact that the vast amounts of money spent on pitching for what is usually at least a 2 round process have to be written off using the profit gained from existing clients, there is the inevitable (manufactured) drama and intrigue  ("Who else is ptiching? Oooh do we know anyone at that agency? Do you think we can find out what they're thinking about?") along with the (very real) head in hands type of stress that pitching for new business brings with it. The drawn-out process also often sucks any kind of bold thinking out of an idea as you look at it again and again and again and again and slowly turn it into a Powerpoint/Keynote bohemoth that bores everyone to tears.

Then there are these pitch brokers that have sprung up out of nowhere, who clients and agencies hire to find the best agency for them / to polish an agency's image. How in the name of anything that you hold sacrosanct can you expect a company to believe that you as an agency will be able to transfer their products/services into effective communication when you hire SOMEONE ELSE to do the same for you? It's beyond insanity. But it happens all the time.

In every corner of the process there's smoke and mirrors, it's something Eaon and I have talked about for a little while now, mainly out of the frustration we've had in convincing clients who have seen Geronimo as a DM agency (which it was originally) and said "Yeah we love it" to a fistful of ideas we've presented and then promptly turned to another shop to execute. Which they've done badly.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when we pitched to a potential client who took our idea and then appointed another agency, who mangled it beyond belief (I know because as a customer of said consumer electronics company, I received the communication). I considered naming and shaming the douchebrand, but their 90% plus fall in profits made me think I don't think I could really do any more damage. Karma baby, gots to love it.

So it made me super-happy to read Mike Arauz's post about a (new) new business model for digital agencies, which had a lot of stuff we had thought about and nice incorporated some of Iain Tait's 10 Reasons.. post from 2 years ago. Both have some really compelling reasons why and how every agency should really figure out a new way to get new business, particularly pertinent given that we live in this increasingly joined up world with everyone knowing someone who knows that someone. And all that.

So rather than putting my version of what I think an agency should do. I think I'll just do it. And if works then awesome, and if doesn't then it's just another thing I'll have been wrong about.

I just bought This Pitchin' Is Bitchin' and have a couple of ideas that I'll be putting into action next week. Any pitches that Geronimo is involved in will be detailed there (because the faux secrecy that surrounds pitches pisses me off) and all the proactive pimp pitching tactics that I come up will be there also.

Let's get this sucka started. Boom.

Introducing the Art of Boogie

The kind folk at NABS asked me to speak at the IAB a little while back to a roomful of creatives about getting down with digital. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to unleash some Boogie (Boogie is something Eaon and I have been talking bout for a while, inspired by inimitable Marcus Brown).

I think/hope it went quite well, or maybe people were just being nice. Regardless, the Slideshare deck of what I said is below. Thoughts/cyber tomatoes thrown at me are welcome. Boom.

There will be more Boogie to come very soon.

Burying the Banner Ad

View more PDF documents from Sam Ismail.

Break The Silence

 

Image from Youtube

While searching for cool stuff on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, I came across a little promo for YouTube's Cannes Young Lions contest and thought that I'd enter. I mentioned the idea to Gabor at Rancho Geronimo and G was down to try and create something awesome for the then mystery brief. All I knew at that point was that it was for a charity. 

So after a total hash-up of time identification on my part, I figured out rather than on Friday, the brief would go live on Saturday and that put an end to any chance of some crazy pimped out editing from my Hungarian homeboy. Then to compound the situation, some family stuff came up that required my urgent attention so Sunday rolled along with nothing done. The deadline was midnight Sunday and I sat down at about 1800 and had a look through what peeps were submitting and had a think about the general charity vibe from a communications point of view.

The brief was to create something that would encourage people to put their names on a petition over at Oxfam that would pressure world leaders into doing something about the white elephant in the room with the words "Climate Change" written on a post-it attached to the forehead region. Oxfam gave a bunch of facts about what not doing anything will do and had some bits about who they wanted people to try and target (18-35 year olds) along with the dreaded rules and regulations.

After reading the brief a couple of times and watching a bunch of video, I got thinking about how, with the clock counting down to midnight I could do something that would be a little category busting. Most ads for non-profits feature the victims of the cause and talk about how little effort from a lot of people will make the situation better, usually peppered with some numbers. Here's the thing though, I don't think we can really process numbers like 100 million and it's disgraceful, but images of disease and disaster are virtually omnipresent in our society so we're quite desensitized to it all. So I decided not to do anything like that (partly because of time but hey, I'm going to call it principles).

If the goal was to communicate the magnitude of the effect of climate change, I could either talk about how bad it would be if nothing was done, talk of the amazing feat that dealing with the problem would be or do something a little obtuse. So I (big surprise) went with the left-field angle. 

I thought about some of the inspiring or news-worthy things that have happened in the past 50 years or so that had inspired me personally, but also seemed to energise young people, then I thought of how some of us because of geography weren't able to participate or experience first-hand these events and how with this particular event, the powah of the internet would let everybody get involved. And in the same way people ask 'where were you' when a seminal event occurs, I thought it'd be cool to do a where were you type of angle, because it brings a feeling of importance and draws on inspiring stuff that's already happened. 

So with the general direction of what I wanted sorted I was like "How should the damn thing look?". Again I saw people shooting video, jazzing it up with filters and effects galore and thought, I'll do the exact opposite. No pictures, no video, just the words on a black background. Let them do the talking so to speak. 

Then the soundtrack, I was ready to get my Logic on when once again I thought that if you were sitting watching TV and an ad started rolling with no sound whatsoever, that would probably draw your attention simply because it stands out, maybe it's flawed logic (probably) but I like the idea so much I decided no sound either. 

Just as I was putting it all together, I thought of the line "Break the Silence" (I was going to go with Remember the Future before that) and thought it tied everything quite nicely, given that the issue of climate change is something a lot of people may have an opinion about but don't talk about, as well as the fact that clip was totally silent. So I called it that. 

Here's the thing fresh and in the flesh, so to speak. Let me know what y'all think. If you like it vote for me baby ;)

This Ain't a Job...

I've got a LOT of blogging to catch up on. But in the meantime I thought I'd put up a quick and dirty presentation I did for my homeboy Brett Thornton and some of his compadres about how I think students could go about standing out in the big bag world of graduate recruitment. As always comments and abuse are welcome.

This Ain't a Job, It's an Adventure

View more presentations from Sam Ismail.

The Only Choice

Fork in the road, image courtesy of i_yudai

I think it's safe to say that recent events such as JWT shutting its Chicago office and the very quiet breakup of Enfantico (in stark contrast to the pomp that greeted the birth of the agency of the future) should only serve as further warning to advertising agencies and indeed marketeers that those who continue to put their fingers in their proverbial ears about the changes in our business do so at their peril.

Gareth has very neatly drawn a spot-on comparison between the changes taking place in the music industry and how we in the communications business are faced with quite a simple choice - perhaps one that some of us have already taken, but still a choice that needs to be revisited with every piece of work that we put our name to.

What do you want to do?

In my mind there are really only two answers to the question, and the answer you take will essentially decide how you and your company, your clients and co-workers will fare in today's world. 

Do you want to make money and beat the dying horse or do you want to make a difference in peoples' lives? 

One will lead to other but one will lead to bland, boring communications that will continue the cycle of pitch, relax, ignore, lose business and re-pitch that so many agencies are stuck in. 

Now we all know this isn't 300, The Last Samurai or Braveheart - we're not doctors, we're the scum of the earth, perhaps part of the most distrusted business in the world. But I still mean make a difference, be a positive force of change. And it doesn't have to be a huge difference, but something that makes the experience truly differentiating and tangible.

Frankly I'm tired of looking at proposals that have USPs galore that would look just as valid if they were produced by companies x, y or z. To steal a line from Hugh Macleod and repurpose it, it doesn't matter what your product does, or more importantly what you say it does - what matters is what people do with it. And what they do with it is where we, as marketers in an amazingly interesting time can channel and play a part in.

There are countless examples of products which were meticulously researched by bored focus groups eager to grab their money and run, painstakingly targeted to a perfectly segmented consumer and in the end the people who most eagerly partook in the purchasing of said product were completely different, if not diametrically opposite to the unholy target group. TGI or no TGI, products like the INQ phone, the entire SUV segment and some would argue even Viagra didn't end up as the companies that make them planned. They were embraced by people with specific interests. And I think that to disregard these communities of purpose and solely turn to often outdated and flawed data is a classic recipe for failure. Our focus should be on finding people who give a shit about something that we can tie to our product and then give them something that makes their day to day life more entertaining, more useful, more meaningful. And then telling them about it.

Some might say it's simple, or common sense. And it is. But it's not being done. And that's fact. Work is getting worse, we cling to our gems of effectiveness (whatever that really means) amidst increasing piles of work that is churned out and logo-swappable (take the logo away and put a competitor's logo on, can you really tell the difference?). Or we blame clients, as if years of being yes men and women has nothing to do with it. One of the most liberating things for me coming into this business was being told that it was my job to do what was best for my clients, not necessarily what they wanted - mediocrity has crept its way into the grand majority of our organizations, mine is no different. And really the only way out of it is to drag our organizations out of this cycle by doing it ourselves. I've given myself until the end of this year to prove to myself that I can do it - otherwise it's just noise. 

Ways of working may be too ingrained in many people to change immediately, what do you then? I'm pretty sure that this isn't the right way, but this is how I'm trying it now:

1) Take cookie cutter work and throw it out: If any client briefs come in that contains words such as 'generic' or 'based on' - throw them out. And give them an alternative that works. Make sure it works :)

2) Do something small for a client, maybe something they're scared of doing - something they said they wouldn't do. Do it without asking, don't tell anyone and if it works tell them, if it doesn't, no-one will know anything.

3) Have no ego. Please, please, please, forget the importance of job titles, of how much you make, of and awards. Industry-wide circle jerking may have its place, but is now the place for it? If you do truly great, truly paradigm shifting work then they will come. Oh and if your agency is in the habit of doing scam work, punch whoever is responsible in the mouth (Take note Y&R India and FP7 Doha). 

4) You have to understand how your company makes money. There is a school of thought that silos every department, allowing them to work supposedly more efficiently - I don't think that you can claim to address anyone's business problems if you don't know how your business makes money and the problems it faces in doing so. For example if your agency has a yearly lease of £4,000,000 there are some serious decisions you need to make about how feasible it is that you can ever be more than just a "doing it for the money" outfit. 

5) Never disregard the experience you have at your disposal. I love the phrase "The old cannot kill the young forever", but it doesn't apply here. To say that I, with 2 years of marketing experience (barely) can solve my clients' communication dilemmas flying solo is ludicrous and hugely debased, you take the good from everyone. Don't burn the building because you don't like one room. 

6) It's in everyone's interests for everyone to do great work. This one is obvious, but I'm still astounded at the insecurity-driven crap from some people pointing out the failings of agency x or y. It's a little callous to rejoice in the demise of any agency. I would love to see a so-called traditional agency really grab the bull by the horns and create paradigm shifting work, because it will start convincing the masses of "me-toos" in adland to try the same. Just as the abstract and pointless dribble of bad work is bad for us, work that makes lives more meaningful is good for all of us.

7) Change the way you acquire new business. This is a separate post in itself (one I probably won't get round to) but there are so many holes in the proverbial vessel of new business that it's unreal we still pursue this as the only method for getting new clients. Find a new way. And tell us all!

8) Remember the power of 1%, do something small, but do it everytime and it will become a beast.

9) Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Maybe as someone quite new to the comms business this is easier for me, but any opportunity to showcase your thinking and to add some flava to work should be embraced wholeheartedly. This does a few things: it shows you're not all bluff and no stuff (you have to back the talk up with the goods) and it will win you the respect of your peers, something that is vital in fighting mediocrity. 

10) Ask yourself if you want to make money or to make a difference in peoples' lives. As Paul says, the future of marketing is doing something for people. If you're not prepared to embrace that, not only are you making the wrong choice, but it would probably be better if you find another way to make a living - chances are you may not have a job in advertising for a lot longer. 

And why would you be in advertising for the money anyway? The pay sucks!