YOUR NEW GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR IS A BABOON.

Hi, everybody! I’d like to introduce Simon Jennings, our new Group Creative Director for our NY office! He joins us from McCann Johannesburg after 18 years of crafting award-winning campaigns for Sony, MasterCard, and Lucozade Energy Drinks.  He’s done tons of experiential work, helped land new business, launched countless campaigns and touched pretty much every sector under the sun from Packaged Goods to Pharma to Health & Beauty.

 

Simon, you may be interested to know, is a world-class cribbage player and also a Chacma Baboon.

 

I first met Simon in Cape Town many years ago when we were both judging the Loeries. Creatives from around the world could not stop talking about this dashing, creative tour de force who was the talk of Cape Town, seen at every party, spending his time swilling champagne and leading 15 other adult male baboons in trawling through the towns waste bins and rubbish dumps in search of food and bits of shiny metal.

 

Speaking of shiny metal—last year Simon was the most awarded creative at Cannes wracking up an impressive 23 Lions!

 

Ironic, when you consider that Simon’s species is endangered due to habitat loss and predation from actual lions.  Way to go, Simon!

 

He officially started last week and has already been sitting in on meetings so lots of folks have met him, but for those who haven’t, he’s the one sitting next to Stacy who is covered in dark brown to grayish fur with the distinctive feature of his species–a long downward sloping face accompanied by 3-inch long canine teeth.

 

He’s already a favorite of the creative department thanks to his commitment to excellence, his razor sharp wit and his wide variety of social behaviors including dominance hierarchy, collective foraging, adoption of young and friendship pairing.

 

Swing by and say hi when you get a chance.

 

Thanks much all,

Richard Matthews

Global Chief Executive Officer

 

The 11 Racist Atticus Finch Moments in Chapter One of Go Set A Watchman.

 

 

• Went to a KKK meeting. (Page 12)

 

• Brings donuts to KKK meeting. (Page 12)

 

• Turns off The Jefferson’s mid-theme song. (Page 14)

 

• Thinks it’s weird that “a Polack runs a Dim Sum Restaurant.” (Page 17)

 

• Recommends accountant Sydney Bloom to a friend with a knowing wink. (Page 18)

 

• Tells his African American nurse during a sponge bath that white privilege doesn’t exist during a sponge bath. (Page 23)

 

• Buys Aunt Jemima brand maple syrup. (Page 3)

 

• Refuses to admit he knows what NAACP stands for. (Page 34)

 

• Calls Boo Radley a “papist”. (Page 29)

 

• Admits he threw the Tom Robinson trial on purpose. (Page 9)

 

• Votes for Trump. (Page 41)

 

 

 

 

13 Questionable Things about the To Kill A Mockingbird Sequel.

 

 

There are 32 references to drones patrolling Maycomb County, Alabama.

 

Jem has become a drag queen, donning a pink wig and touring the country with his band The Holograms, which is dubious since holographic technology was in its infancy and not widely known.

 

Boo Radley takes the Bronze for shot put at the Special Olympics in 1962. A full six years before the organization existed.

 

Twenty years later the price to bust up a chiffarobe is still 5 cents.

 

Dill grows up and changes his name to Steven King and pioneers a new genre of gay-horror fiction.

 

There’s a passage where Scout reads Tales of The Black Freighter.

 

Atticus, now elderly, gets shot to death by a futuristic were-dog with rabies, completing an ironic circle.

 

Chapter 8 is a 14-page list of obscenities.

 

For some reason, the now-adult Scout still dresses up as a paper mache ham. No explanation is given.

 

The Hardcover Edition features a cover blurb from E.L. James that reads, “Full of intrigue, emotion, and explicit sexuality, no one tells you how to use design to build long lasting customer relationships than Harper Lee in Go Set A Watchman”

 

The knot-hole in the tree is revealed to be a wormhole which connects to a parallel universe which is identical to Scout’s save for two details: the people there hate gum and cats can ride horses.

 

Despite her haircut, Scout is not a lesbian; she is in a loving, committed relationship with a fitness instructor named Gary.

 

Not one reference to racism.

 

 

More badvertising!

Okay, it’s an utterly forgettable piece of communication-and I can forgive them for that (Lord knows I’m guilty of that myself). But here the fault lies with the horrible Photoshop job they did inserting the tablet into the guy’s back pocket. Notice how the edge of the tablet actually goes beyond the seam of the pocket. Couldn’t they just have cast a Shaq-esque sized guy and shoved the thing in his huge-ass back pocket and shot it for real?

If a myopic, no artistic ability whatsoever, copywriter can notice this stuff—ANYONE CAN.

Also: LOVE the disclaimer.

Wow. Apparently people don’t like ads.

Here’s a clever bit of ad stuff that lets you remove those awful, nasty ads from Times Square, to (irony alert!) advertise an up-coming movie by Morgan Spurlock–that’s about how much everyone hates ads!  (Meta!)  I actually get a stomach ache over this kind of stuff.  As much as I complain about the industry, I really do feel that on the whole MOST of us are decent hard-working people who want to put good, interesting, fun work out there.  We don’t really WANT to bitch up the air-ways with coupon deals and infomercials.  And we wouldn’t, if they didn’t work so damn good.  I should know.  I’m a mildly talented creative who knows good advertising when I see it and I own a Snuggie.

So, when I see people outside our industry, run it down and, by extention, the people in it (sorry, it’s true)– as intellectual-garbage-peddlers and eyesore-junkies and then USE advertising to promote their new “Isn’t advertising sleazy?” bit of cheekiness, I get a little miffed.

At the very least, if we do our jobs well–some products get sold and the factory gets to stay open for the people who work there.  Isn’t that worth something?  Not to mention stuff like the Pepsi Refresh campaign or the Unicef Tap Project.

So, Mr. Spurlock, (who, by the way, I actually like and admire) if you REALLY hate advertising, why don’t you release your movie without it?

Oh, yeah.

Awesomeness

 

The tagline ain't bad either.

 

 

THIS is how you redesign a logo!

Congratz to Mike Peck, good friend and Senior Design Manager for Starbucks.  He took their fancy schmancy old Siren and stripped her down and hosed her off and cleaned her up (stylistically speaking).  She’s sleek, she’s modern, and most importantly, she STILL screams STARBUCKS.  Mr. Schultz, in light of all the recent logo debacles, I think Mike did you a big solid.  Give him a raise.

I hereby delcare this the winner of the first weekly “OH SNAP!” headline award

More BADvertising

This is a classic bad ad, that has actually been REMADE.  Why, I have no idea because no big changes were made to it other than replacing the bad actors with different bad actors.

Here are the things about this ad that warm my heart.

1)  The woman makes a call from a REPAIR SHOP.  We know this because she says, “Enterprise?  I’m at the REPAIR SHOP.”  Then, in case you didn’t get it, she’s under the worlds most uninteresting sign that screams REPAIR SHOP.  Apparently, the shop owners have no creativity whatsoever when it came to naming their business.

2) The creepy expression for the Enterprise Rep/Serial Rapist.

This is the face I make when I wear my 'skin-suit'

3)  The unexplained unwrapping of the car from brown paper.  Obviously, a hold-over from an older campaign that senior management wants to keep.

4) The awesome tagline:  “We’ll pick you up!”

See the awesomemess in it’s entirety!

 

And yes, I have made commercials like this.

Challenge. What’s the best ad in your portfolio?

UPDATE:  To the nice people who sent in some work as part of the challenge…my emailed crashed and I lost your submissions–sorry!  Please re-send? Ugh.

Part of being a creative is having the guts to present something that you’ve created and say, “Here, World!  I made this.  What do you think?”  It’s one of the hardest things to do and we have to constantly struggle against petty criticisms.

In that spirit, this is an open call for a civilized advertising community version of “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine”

Send the best ad in your portfolio (or just a favorite) to this address robrooney@sbcglobal.net.  I’ll post it for all the world dozens to see and to give respectful feedback.  Just to be fair, I’ll go first.   Here’s one of my favorites. (Click on number 3).