SMART-ARSE BLOG | John Mescall on the creative world of advertising

Funny is hard. But it can be insanely profitable. Evidence of this came to light the other day, via the news that the YouTube guys are trying to create some kind of algorithm to determine what makes some videos funny, and others not.

They’re doing this, of course, because a funny clip generates about 28,000,000 views. And an unfunny clip gets about 27,996,000 fewer. So they’d obviously like more of their contributors to know exactly what makes funny, and what doesn’t.

Easier said than done. Many a PhD has been wasted trying to determine the analytics of funny, and (I personally find this extremely heartening) the general conclusion seems to be that funny isn’t something you can coldly manufacture.

Dan Brown may have studied formulas for successful airport novels and subsequently churned out one of his own, but making people laugh is altogether a more human endeavour.

This is good. It means the robots won’t be taking over anytime soon. But this is also bad, because everyone wants to make a funny ad or funny content (humour sells) but funny rarely survives the meat grinder that is the advertising process.

Funny needs humanity. It needs a certain rawness, an edge. A degree of maniacal energy and free-spiritedness. It needs irreverence, it needs to come seemingly out of nowhere. It needs bravery, it needs to be under (not over) thought. It needs to come from a very real place.

In short, it needs to come from a place that is difficult to define or quantify; a place that is hard to control or corral. This is not something that decision-makers and budget-controllers seem all that comfortable with.

Of course, this is why Hollywood churns out so many sequels. They think they’re getting some kind of guarantee by repeating the formula, and it’s hard to argue against the idea that if it worked once it’ll work again. Except for the fact that most sequels are shit.

A brief interlude, to thank whatever Gods are responsible for not defiling good movies, that there has never been a Zoolander 2. And while I’m in interlude mode, did you know that it’s impossible to write about funny while listening to Johnny Cash? He just shuffled on, and ‘I hung my head’ is a serious buzzkill. Great song, but there’s a time and a place. Ah, Safety Dance. That’s better.

Right, where were we? Funny: it’s hard, it needs you to trust more in humanity and less in process. It needs pretty scary leaps of faith.

But all is not lost. Not everything should be funny. Obviously it couldn’t be, or nothing would be funny. Relativity and all that. So you don’t have to shoot for funny to win people’s hearts. There are other levers you can pull.

Joyous. Charming. Irreverent. Witty. None of these are, strictly speaking, funny. But they’re all likeable qualities in a person. And in a piece of communication. Who doesn’t like something joyous? Joyous may not be cool, but it’s a great state of mind. If your brand could be joyous (like Ferris Bueller when he hijacked the parade) wouldn’t that be a great thing?

How about charming? Hard to pull off, but well worth aspiring to. George Clooney is so fucking charming he makes me sick. Yes I’m jealous. But by God it’s working for Nespresso. Out at Chadstone the other day, only two stores had any kind of crowd in them: the apple store, and the Nespresso store. Hmmm.

Funny. Charming. Witty. Irreverent. It all really comes down to likeability, doesn’t it. And as Mitt Romney is proving right now in the States, all the money in the world can’t buy you likeability. Not if you’re incapable of presenting like a real, live human being.

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Just when you start to question the future of humanity on this planet, a couple of 17 year old Canadian kids send a Lego man into space, and suddenly it seems like maybe we’re not doomed to dumb ourselves into extinction after all.

You heard about these guys I’m sure. Just two regular kids, who took a Styrofoam box, a Lego man, a few second-hand digital cameras, a mobile phone and a weather balloon they bought off ebay, and used it to go where no (tiny plastic) man has gone before. If you haven’t, youtube is your friend.

Anyway, when a couple of guileless kids manage to create a global conversation, you really should pay attention because it’s clear they’ve got something to teach us.

So, Things We Can Learn From The Lego Space Kids Lesson One: humanise your story.

NASA figured this out ages ago. When you send a probe into space, only geeks care. But when you send a person into space, or put one on the moon, everyone cares.

If those kids just sent up the weather balloon, I doubt it’d be huge news. But the little Lego Man humanised the experience, and made it something we could all relate to.

This is why celebrity endorsements still work: people love to put a face to a brand or a story.

Lesson Two: There are always good reasons not to attempt the audacious, and those good reasons are usually best ignored.

Tell a sensible adult that you’re thinking of releasing a weather balloon up into the stratosphere, and that sensible adult will immediately point out that you’re probably breaking all kinds of aviation laws, and if your weather balloon gets sucked into a jet engine you’ll kill a hundred people and go to prison for a hundred years.

Valid points. Sensible advice. But, as the Diesel campaign so eloquently puts it: SMART CRITIQUES, STUPID CREATES. The ideas with the power to transform are generally the ideas that cause the most initial trepidation. Try not to give in to that trepidation.

Lesson Three: Lego is awesome and possesses huge cultural capital.

Lesson Four: You have to put the hours in. It took these guys two years to become an overnight sensation. They had to experiment with different home-made parachutes, learn about wind direction, painstakingly save up money to buy cameras. So if you want your work to be famous, don’t expect to be going home for dinner all the time.

Lesson Five: No matter how cool and clever your video is, the comments it attracts on YouTube will still be shit.

Lesson Six: You don’t need a lot of money, if you’re prepared to back a dangerous idea.

Lesson Seven: You can only succeed if you’re prepared to fail. Let’s face it, there’s a hundred different ways this thing could have fallen on its face. But it didn’t, did it.

Lesson Eight: Technology should be a slave to the idea, not the idea in itself. They used a GPS app on a smartphone inside the box to track the Lego Man once he parachuted to Earth. The GPS app isn’t interesting, but what it allowed them to do most certainly is.

Lesson Nine: Don’t overcomplicate things. The kids pulled this off the simplest way they could.

Lesson Ten: There are still boundaries to be pushed, and limits to be explored. And that’s a pretty heartening thing to remember.

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By some accounts, there are now over 400 trillion words on the internet. And each day, most of us are exposed to well over 3000 different advertising messages. I’m thinking that perhaps in 2012 we could all say a whole lot more, by saying a whole lot less.

This is where I wanted to end this post (walking the walk and all that), but I couldn’t help myself. Most of my stuff is of a certain length, and it just feels wrong to create a 30 word entry.

But that’s ok, because it’s actually a really good example of what I’m talking about. Newspapers and magazines (either in print or online) generally stipulate a minimum and maximum length for their columns, opinion pieces and stories. Mandated word lengths are a pretty weird concept really. But the theory is that people feel cheated if a column isn’t column-length. Perhaps it’s true, and more on that later.

Maybe we thought that technology would spell the end of the written word. How wrong could we be? Tweeting, texting, blogging… everyone’s got something to say. But as the ancient philosopher Lennon once said, “Everybody’s talking, but no-one says a word”.

Words are everywhere, lots of words, saying lots of things. But how the hell can you take it all in?

Web pages are the real killer, because there’s really no incentive to stop. You can write forever, blah blah blah. Another ancient, Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “I wrote you a long letter because I lacked the time to write a short one”.

Anyone who’s ever written anything for a living will attest to the truth in that statement: it’s fucking hard to say everything you need to say, in just a few words. Visual expression is the same; it’s why Picasso was such a genius. Anyone else tries to sell a painting consisting of a single brushstroke, they’re taking the piss. He was making great art. Freak.

So, more words or less? Long copy or headlines? Get to the point and get the hell out, or hang around for a long chat? There are examples to support whichever way you go.

‘I love you’ and ‘I have cancer’. What the hell else do you need to say either side of those three words that would add any extra import or emotion or meaning? They’re perfect as they are and need nothing else.

But Muhammad Ali once delivered a graduation speech at Harvard, which consisted of two words: ‘Me, We’. Years later, debate rages about whether it was profound or whether he was merely having a lend. Personally, I think you’d feel a bit cheated if you came along expecting to hear Ali at his verbose best, and all you got was the world’s shortest poem.

I guess the trick is to only say just enough, and then stop. Not too much, nor too little. Which is never easy, but you’d have to wonder what the world would be like if there was a punitive tax on words. Would be become masters of brevity, or would the chaos of a badly played game of charades descend?

I suspect we’d all think a little more carefully before committing thoughts to words, which wouldn’t be a bad thing really,

You may think it strange that someone who enjoys writing (that’d be me) would advocate some kind of limit on words. But like anything, the more there is of it, the less you value it. And 400 trillion words is a scary-big number.

Ok, I think I’ve said enough. More than enough really.

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Sometimes, unstructured thought processes lead you to interesting places. I’m hoping this is one of those times because I’m starting with something I read the other day and just taking it from there.

What I read was an article on precious metals. Specifically, it opened with the question: Picture a map, and imagine where on that map you’d find the largest reserves of gold in the world?

Now you just KNOW a question like that is a trick question, so you discount the obvious answers like ‘South Africa’. But still, the answer came as a complete surprise:

Japan. Yep, the one nation on Earth with probably the least amounts of natural resources apparently has more gold to mine than any other.

How? Courtesy of a new concept called ‘Urban Mining’. You see, precious metals are used in the manufacture of electronic devices. And in all the current and disposed-of electronic devices Japan possesses (which is a hell of a lot, obviously), it has more gold than is known to exist underground in any nation on the planet.

More silver too. Plus a heap of other weird hard-to-find minerals. So, via the simple act (aren’t the most breathtaking ideas always so obvious in hindsight) of turning the very definition of ‘reserves’ upside down, the world suddenly looks like a different place.

A couple of things spring from this. Firstly, doesn’t the phrase ‘Urban Mining’ sound way cooler than ‘Recycling’? Recycling is pretty much the category, necessary but boring, something you do with old milk containers and magazines.

But ‘Urban Mining’… just by redefining the same old thing, you’re investing it with a whole new energy. I WANT TO BE AN URBAN MINER!! Do I get a hard-hat (maybe in dark grey and shaped like the helmets the kids on freestyle trick bikes wear).

Climate change used to be known as ‘global warming’ until certain special-interest groups decided that sounded a bit scary, so they employed a guy called Jeff Luntz to come up with something that sounded more benign. Hence Climate Change. The same guy has also turned oil drilling into ‘energy exploration’ and popularised the phrase ‘death tax’ which is way less palatable than ‘estate tax’. Brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.

So terminology matters, and it some cases it can matter a whole lot. I’ve long thought that the environmental movement has portrayed the need to live in harmony with the planet as some kind of pony-rainbow-unicorn-fairy dream. Which makes it hard to get buy-in from those who don’t self-identify as touchy-feely.

But Urban Mining. Now THERE’S a concept that even Bob Brown’s most avowed enemy could buy into. Maybe linguistic manipulation can be used for good too?

Another interesting thought comes from this: the fact that we’ve just discovered something. We’ve found a hidden resource; something that was there all along, only we didn’t really know it.

It’s a nice reminder of many things really. It reminds us that not everything has yet to be discovered, or invented. There are still new ways, new things, new ideas. Unlimited amounts of them really.

It also reminds us not to pigeon-hole people (and institutions and processes) so easily. Think of what a single perceptive person in Japan just discovered, and ask yourself whether the people around you don’t have hidden gifts and talents. Whether the organisations you work with aren’t actually capable of so much more?

Perhaps it pays, every now and again, to look at your surroundings through fresh eyes and wonder: ‘What’s really underneath? What hidden opportunities am I missing’?

Who knows, maybe you’ll find some gold.

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Driving to work the other day, I found myself behind a Skoda. Not knowing a whole lot about the new Skodas, I checked out the badging to see what model it was. It was called the Superb.

Now THAT is one hell of a name for a car (or for anything really). Normally when you name a car the thought process goes something like: “We want people to think our new luxury sedan really is quite superb, so we should name it something that has connotations of quality, performance and refinement. Now, what says ‘superb’ in people’s minds…”

But the Skoda guys skipped most of that and went straight to: “We want people to think our new luxury sedan is really quite superb, so let’s name it Superb”! You have to admire such a no-bullshit attitude.

It got me thinking (it’s only a 5 minute drive to work, so don’t expect Steven Hawking levels of brilliance here) about product names. And how weird it all sometimes gets.

Right now, we’re in the middle of the put-the-letter-i-in-everything phase. It started with iPod, but now there’s iSelect, iinet and about a jillion others. Sure it sounds all modern and hip now, but consider this:

Flick through any collection of logos from ye-good-olde-days (the 1950’s) and nearly every second brand name had to have ‘EZ’ in front of it. EZ-Glide, EZ-Wash, that kind of thing. And before that, ‘O’ was the popular choice: Wham-O, Jell-O and so on.

The point is, that this ‘i’ thing is going to get pretty old, pretty quick. If you’re lucky, it’ll attain retro-chic status. Freaky to think that the iPod is going to be in an antique store one day, but there you go.

If you’ve ever had to create a brand name, you know how gut-wrenchingly hard it can be. But to be honest, there’s ample evidence to suggest that it doesn’t really matter what your brand is called, just so long as you do a good job at giving it meaning.

OMO Google Uncle Tobys adidas apple Maggi Vegemite Starbucks. Say each of those names ten times to yourself, and you quickly realise how weird they really are. But they’re all very powerful brands, because of what they’ve come to represent. The name isn’t anywhere near as important as how they behave, what they say, and how they say it.

You could argue that the actual name of a brand or product is by far the least important part of its DNA. As names, apple and Google and OMO don’t really mean anything much at all. And if Google decided to launch as, I don’t know, Smash, it probably would have succeeded just as wildly.

But I suspect that cars are a whole different ballgame. I think you can really get it wrong with a car. This Skoda ‘Superb’ thing… I dunno, it’s just a bit odd. While other categories can get away with coming up with weird nonsensical names, cars are probably too much of an extension of your ego to get away with that.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that next time you have to name a product (unless it’s a car) maybe you should just let a 5 year old do it. It’ll doubtless be catchy, monosyllabic, memorable, completely illogical and probably way off-category.

Perfect.

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As some of you may know, our agency SMART recently took the plunge and walked down the aisle with McCann. A week into swapping the life of a cavalier independent agency for a piece of the world’s largest agency network and things aren’t as different as you may imagine. At its core, advertising is advertising after all.

But it’s the fringe stuff that takes some getting used to; like moving from Richmond to St Kilda Road. Melbourne’s advertising boulevard is lined with office towers, and at the bottom of every tower is one of those dodgy café’s that always exist at the bottom of office towers, specifically designed to feed office workers.

You know the ones: they all have faux Italian names, scary bain-marie treats, identical muffins and focaccia, and furniture seemingly purchased on the same day from the same warehouse.

Consequently, everyone seems to flock to the same 6 (good) places to eat. Which has an upside, because you get to catch up with loads of people you know from other agencies.

One thing that cavalier independent agencies tend to avoid is rigorous adherence to things like timesheets. As an independent, you’re free to figure out crazy organic systems that look chaotic but actually work brilliantly well. In the real world, you play by the rules. A week in and I’m already 3 days behind in my timesheets, so I think we both know how this one’s going to pan out.

Whoah, that’s a sound I’d completely forgotten even existed: PWOOOAAAR!!! PWOOOOAAAR!!! PWOOOAAAR!!! ATTENTION: TESTING OF EMERGENCY WARNING SYSTEM!!! PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND!!! THIS IS A TEST ONLY!!! (you have to imagine this being read in a stridently dull monotone, as is currently the case)

Yes, I just got my first, welcome-back-to-proper-buildings emergency intercom shouty thing. I suppose the fire drill can’t be too far away. Fire drills are odd events. Everyone walks down the stairs calmly and good-naturedly: ‘After you’.. ‘No my esteemed colleague, after YOU’.

But you just know that if there was a real emergency, those same polite colleagues would be hurdling the slow and trampling the weak, like crazed cattle escaping a bushfire.

I now have a view, which is nice. Well, strictly speaking I’ve always had a view: a brick wall, a carpark and a Crazy John’s Mobile Phone Megastore supersite may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but technically it was still a view. But my new outlook onto the bay is much nicer. Although I do sit with my back to it; I think I’m like one of those crazy hermits who’s spent 12 years living in the woods: just can’t bear the thought of a soft mattress anymore.

It’s fun having new colleagues all over the world. I just googled ‘McCann Erickson Iceland’ to figure out where the nearest office to Iceland was. Turns out we’ve actually got an office in freaking Iceland. That officially means that we must have an office in every part of the world you’d ever want to go, which makes me very happy indeed.

If you’re a seasoned campaigner, feel free to send me hints on how I actually get to places like Iceland, Patagonia and the Shetland Islands on official agency business. I’m interested in the Shetlands because they have cute Ponies AND a Viking Heritage, and proclaim themselves to be ‘more Scandanavian than Scottish’. Either way, it doesn’t promise a lot in the culinary stakes.

That’s it for now. See you on St Kilda Road sometime.

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Is the culture of consumerism officially dead, or is it just taking a well-earned nap? In the red corner you have your, well let’s just call them Social Consciences, who’ve argued all along that consumerism is ultimately unsustainable, debasing and hollow.

And in the blue corner, your have your Purveyors of Stuff You Probably Don’t Really Need (does that include us? Some of the time, yes) who’d argue that consumer culture is borne out of deep human needs and desires, and is a natural progression of our endless quest to better ourselves.

Eat Pray Love vs the Apple Store. So, who’s going to end up winning?

It’s clear right now that in most developed economies, sentiment has shifted. How could it not, when three-quarters of Europe is stuffed, the United States is effectively broke, and the only thing holding it all together is the expanding middle-classes of China and India.

Seeing Greece teetering on default is one thing. Witnessing the once-mighty USA, torch-bearer for the consumerist movement, being forced to go cap-in-hand to its own citizens… humiliatingly admitting that it can’t actually afford to live the lifestyle it has long seen as its birthright. Well, that’s a shift of seismic proportions.

If the States can’t actually afford to live like this any more, how can the rest of us? Of course, by most rational measures Australia continues to do remarkably well, and consumer sentiment in our market shouldn’t be anywhere near as shaky as elsewhere.

But the first thing I learned studying economics at Uni (to be honest, it was also probably the only thing… I wasn’t the most committed of students) was that economics was an attempt to rationalise the irrational. Purchasing behaviour, like all human behaviour, is almost entirely emotional.

So it doesn’t matter how the numbers stack up. If people feel like they should cut back, they will. And right now, people undoubtedly feel like they should cut back. Simplify. Make do. Save. Think about tomorrow rather than just buying for today. This attitude represents the new consumer.

And boy, hasn’t it taken a while for some people to catch on? It might just be me, but in this new climate of ‘buy only what you can afford to buy’ doesn’t Harvey Norman’s continued use of the “36 Months Interest Free!!! Get It Now, Pay Later!!!” seem incredibly out of place?

It’s like a time-machine back to those long forgotten days when debt didn’t seem to worry people. Now, debt (in all its forms) is informing much of our attitude towards our purchasing behaviour.

Of course, challenging times usually serve a purpose: they smoke out businesses that haven’t evolved. Everyone does well in good times, but only the best operators thrive when the economy is flatlining or worse.

And I think that’s, more so than simple price levers, why Australian consumers are gravitating towards overseas online retailers. Sure, the prices are great. But what internet shopping has really done is allow consumers to cherry-pick from the best retailers on the planet, wherever they happen to be. We’ve never had that luxury before. But now we have a choice: buy from the store down the road, or go online and find the best store in the world in that category.

The current climate of uncertainty and restraint doesn’t mean we stop spending, or even spend that much less. It simply means that we desperately feel the need to be in control of our expenditure.

And when you shop online, YOU feel in control. You’re driving the bus. And that, more than anything, is why traditional retail is doing it hard and needs to catch up. In a hurry.

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It’s probably because I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I’ve finally figured out something that’s been bugging me for years.

The thing is, I know people are hugely contradictory creatures but I could never quite put my finger on why they allow the marketing industry to lie to them so often.

We all know that no-one likes to be deceived, and people always SAY things like ‘cut the marketing bullshit, just give it to me straight’ yet day after day, year after year consumers reward us for presenting them with such warped versions of reality (ie, lies) that it makes a mockery of the whole ‘don’t bullshit me’ thing.

I’m thinking it comes down to a simple equation. Deception on its own will almost always be rejected. But Deception + Flattery is a guaranteed winner.

Take the classic compliment delivered by a man to a woman. He knows it’s bullshit, she certainly knows it’s bullshit. But like yeast magically turns a bunch of grape juice into wine, a little flattery will turn even the most outrageous deception into a persuasive sales pitch.

L’Oreal may have come right out and said it best (because you’re worth it) but every brand that seeks to convince you of its magical, life-enhancing properties will try and seek to do so by also reminding you of the specialness of you.

Real Estate agents do this exceedingly well; a correctly marketed property will have you imagining yourself there, enjoying the fruits of your labours. It feels like you’re not so much buying a house as finally claiming that which you so richly deserve.

The right kind of bottled water/car/apparel can (and will) make us appear sportier, sexier, healthier and far more dynamic to others. Not (and this is the important bit) not because of the water/car/apparel per se, but because the water/car/apparel will finally allow the real you to shine through.

And that’s the key. Everyone believes that underneath all the foibles and imperfections and ordinariness that we all carry with us from cradle to grave, there’s someone truly amazing. Someone good enough to truly earn their place in the world.

So I choose to believe that Apple products will make me look as productive and creative as I really am. That Nike products will make me look as athletic as I really am. That Audi makes me look like the person of taste and means that I really am. And so on and so on.

Ultimately the discussions we’re having, these brands and I, aren’t about the brands at all. It’s about me: always about me. And when it comes to me, no flattering deception can be too outrageous. Really, it can’t.

I honestly believe that a vintage Aston would make me sort of James Bondish (early Connery or Craig, certainly not Moore). I believe this, despite the fact that I’m the least suave person in the world and that two Martinis would have me falling asleep and waking up in parts unknown in a pool of my own vomit.

Why? Because Aston Martin, like so many other successful brands, flatters to deceive. Of course, it’s not just the expensive stuff: energy drinks, supermarket-aisle cosmetics and countless others trade off this kind of thinking all the time.

Sure they’re lies. But they’re lies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are lies: deep down we know we’re being played, but we’re having so much fun with it, we don’t dare dig too deeply lest the grand deception ends. So no-one in this wonderful business of deceptive flattery should feel bad about what they do, because every adult consumer is complicit and everyone knows the rules.

And besides, it’s way more fun being the devil than being God.

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The committed trawler of industry websites and the marketing pages of our daily newspapers usually isn’t hugely rewarded for their efforts. Until recently, that is.

Because the proposed plain packaging legislation for cigarettes has caused all manner of people to add their voices to the debate. And surprisingly, there are actually industry people who sympathise with Big Tobacco on this one.

I say ‘surprisingly’ because, well, let’s be honest: flogging cigarettes is the devil’s work. You can argue all you want regarding whatever spurious ‘freedoms’ you care to invoke, but when it comes time to look yourself in the mirror you’ll know you’ve been helping to get kids and teens hooked on a drug that’ll most likely shorten their lives.

And that’s a shit thing to do, no matter why you choose to do it.

But what I find most illuminating about the debate is the sense of outrage that some people have… outrage that the Government could dare remove the right of companies like British American Tobacco to advertise their offerings via alluring packaging.

Let’s be clear here: there is no distinction between advertising and packaging. When it comes to pulling emotional levers, they are one and the same. You know it, makers of luxury goods and food products know it, and the tobacco companies and their various agents certainly know it.

So, thoughtfully-designed packaging of cigarettes IS advertising of cigarettes. It’s just taken the Government 31 years to cotton onto this fact.

Anyway, this outrage from certain people in our industry. In part, it undoubtedly stems from the fact that some of them earn their living from tobacco clients. I feel sorry for these people: as we all know, a principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you money. Easy for me to talk… I’ve never been faced with the choice of quitting my job or continuing to sell cigarettes.

But mostly, I think those in our industry who oppose the introduction of plain packaging of cigarettes do so because they have a warped view of advertising’s role in society.

They seem to believe that the ability for a brand (or a category) to advertise itself is a right. I take the opposite viewpoint: I see it as a privilege.

Despite our best efforts at consumer engagement and two-way marketing, advertising is still an imposition on people. They don’t ask for it, but they certainly get it. There’s advertising in all forms of media. On every building. On buses. On bus stops. On toilet doors. On urinals. On the back of receipts. In the sky. On our sporting fields. On footballs.

There’s popups and page takeovers, cold-calling, letterbox drops. Every stadium is named after a brand, and supermarkets can’t sell anything unless it’s got a ‘proper’ marketing plan behind it.

So, we should never forget that we’re already a huge pain in the arse. We should never forget that, because our very undesirability is the very reason why it’s so important that we care about the quality of what we do.

We should never forget that, every day, people grant us access into their lives. And we should respect that. Because once you take that for granted, you run the risk of people being a little more hesitant to invite you back.

I know, I know. The counterpoint to this is to acknowledge that this particular battle was long ago won/lost. That advertising is such an important part of the landscape, there’ll never be any retreat.

Maybe so. But if you always remember that you’re an uninvited guest, you’ll work hard to make your efforts likeable. Which will make your work infinitely more effective. And there’s no debating that.

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Salt, pigs, oil, land, gold, fame. All have been used, at one time or other, to measure a person’s status. And although I enjoy a nice piece of salted pork loin as much as the next man, it’s fame I’m thinking about right now.

Fame (or at least fame in its current incarnation) is a fascinating phenomenon. Because it used to be that having plenty of salt or pigs or oil or land or gold made you famous. Now it’s arse-about: first comes the fame, then comes the gold.

So fame itself is a currency, a commodity, something that can be created or discovered… nurtured and stockpiled for future use. And seeing as most of us are in the business of making brands famous, you probably can’t think too much about the whole fame thing.

What is fame? How do you create it? Did Andy Warhol actually foresee the day when every nobody on the planet had their own blog and/or tweet account, trying desperately to chase their own 15 minutes? And how much better was the original movie Fame compared to the crappy remake?

Last things first: the original Fame was way better. Where the remake was like watching animated Bratz dolls in a behind-the-scenes version of Idol, the original had at least a measure of pathos and genuine drama.

Right, back to fame with a lower-case f. I think for something or someone to be genuinely famous, they have to exist in the realms outside their own particular sphere of influence.

The physicist Stephen Hawking is a classic example. No-one cares about quantum physics, but everyone is interested in Stephen Hawking. Everyone bought his book, but no-one really read it. You just kind of had to own it.

I wonder if it’s any coincidence that the two best-known scientists of the 20th Century, Einstein and Hawking, are the two guys with really strong visual brand cues: Einstein’s crazy hair and Hawking’s tortured body and robotic voice.

Hey, I know you’re thinking “geez, what a cynic” but just remember: Paris Hilton is famous. Snooki and The Situation are famous. Simon Cowell now earns more money than Mick Jagger. And Anna Kournikova became the most famous tennis player of her time without ever winning a single tournament on the WTA tour.

I don’t make the rules. I just try and play by them, most of the time. So fame: it’s not just that everyone wants it, it’s that having seen talentless nobodies like Snooki make it huge, we all now expect it.

Of course, being the opportunistic souls that we are, we try to cater to/exploit this longing for all it’s worth. Countless promotions now invite the humble consumer to be the hero of his/her own world. “Look at me, I’m on a poster! I’m being played by Steven Seagal!”

We invite people to ‘become part of the discussion’. Not because we want their opinion, but because we know they need to feel like they have something worth listening to. Call it the tweet mentality, where a thought internalised is seemingly a thought wasted.

So there’s big fame (like Nike is famous for its unique attitude to sports performance) and there’s little fame (googling yourself and showing up before page 11). And everything in between.

Speaking of Google, remember when the height of fame was scoring a cameo on The Simpsons? I reckon now it’s scoring yourself a gig as Google’s daily logo. You’ll know you’ve made it big when your birthday is commemorated by a special Google.

(Everyone has their favourite: the Pac-Man logo was mine)

So how to get famous, as a person or as a brand? Stand for something definite. Have a unique tonality. Have a unique visual signature. Be consistent. Be unrelenting. Don’t be afraid to alienate. And above all, be very, very good at one particular thing. And as Paris Hilton and Stephen Hawking both prove, what that thing is doesn’t really matter.

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