ANDY SHORTT IS MY FUCKING HERO

disguised.as.responsible.adults@gmail.com

10 damn good reasons why we should be on the ground floor of HQvB

WE'RE RISK TAKERS. No one ever wants to look back on their list of accomplishments, modest or otherwise, and say "At least I never pissed anyone off." Everyone wants to be a contender. 'Cept us. We want to be the heavyweight champions of the world.

WE FAIL. We fail all the time. We've been dealt off-the cuff dismissals and crushing defeat, usually in tandem, often before breakfast. And we keep coming back for more. We love failures. If we'd succeeded at every little thing we'd done, we'd likely be rich, powerful, and incredibly boring by now. And the many successes we HAVE enjoyed would be that much less sweet.

"A LOW VOTER TURNOUT IS AN INDICATION OF FEWER PEOPLE GOING TO THE POLLS" is one of Ryan's fave Dan Quayle quotes EVER.

THIS BUSINESS OF ART. We've been doing this long enough to know that there's the corporate side and there's the creative side and never the twain shall meet...except at the Christmas party...behind the photocopier. We love doing what we do, and rather than fight with the suits to get them to buy it, we discuss it with them and find a happy medium. Sometimes, we take their suggestions, write them down on a nice clean sheet of paper, and then hang that paper on the dartboard where Paris Hilton's head usually resides. So it's an imperfect system. The point is we won't stop until we know what the client wants, and give it to them.

AWARDS. Awards are alright. Ryan has a couple. He's using one of them under the short leg on his desk. That award, plus $1.50, will get us a coffee in a couple of years. We've never started a project based on its potential for bringing home some hardware, and we likely never will. The purpose of advertising is to raise awareness, recognition, presence and revenue for a brand or service. If an ad does that AND is good enough for you to drop $3000 on each of us to go to Cannes for a week, well then so be it. Twist our arms.

WE KICK ASS at Fooseball. Jordan especially. And if you like Simpsons quotes, eehhhh, fugheddaboudit.

WE THINK LIKE YOU THINK. Maybe not creatively, but then again, if you had a whole building full of obsequious yes-men who thought like you thought creatively, what would be the point? "WE should do this." "I agree." "Well, on second thought, maybe not." "I was just gonna say that." Ooooo, productive. What we mean though, is that we agree on some fundamental principles, primarily the thought of "connection" or "Engagement" or whatever the fuck the buzz word of the week is for what is essentially the idea of talking with consumers and not at them.

WE'RE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT ALL THE TIME. We're totally willing to accept that someone else in the room has a better idea than we do. Hopefully those same people give us enough credit to consider that we might have a better idea than they do. We are SO SICK of the mass-produced fecal matter that passes for "creative" these days...we could list some examples, but who's got that kinda time...and the sad part is, we know it's not because the person doing it is necessarily a hack or just flat-out untalented; it's often because there's no committee, save the committee of client to advertiser, which is usually "I LOVE IT, but change it to this because I thought of it in the car on the way over." There's keeping creative control, and then there's just being a dick about it. We're not dicks. Well, Jordan's not.

WE'RE ADAPTIVE. The industry changes on a dime. I know...new info. Hold on, there's more. Ready? Here comes: We change with it. BOOYA!! Nothing's carved in stone, and any organization that has a manifesto that doesn't take that into account is doomed.

WE BRING COFFEE TO INTERVIEWS. Or beer. Or tequila. Or snake blood. Whatever you want.

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ANDY SHORTT IS MY FUCKING HERO

OUR BID TO GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR AT HQvB.

Who the hell are Ryan Fox & Jordan Lane?

Monday, November 26, 2007

Advertising, man...we hate to love it.

10 damn good reasons why we should be on the ground floor of HQvB