I ain’t got a choice, but to work on Maggie’s Farm no more
What do you do? I work in ‘content’.
And does that make you feel good? Of course not.
No one ever aspired to be a content writer. Or a content producer. Or a content anything.
But in today’s world - content is the grist for the mill of corporate communication.
That it’s barely disguised advertorial is besides the point.
Everyone knows this anyway.
So the question becomes - is your content valuable.
Does it put the customer at the centre of the story? Does it solve their problems?
Does it speak to them in ‘their language’. Does it highlight ‘pain points’ and offer tangible ‘solutions’.
Does it engage?
Do you have a good hook?
Once you create - do you have a distribution plan?
Are you ready to say the thing over and over again in different ways until it finally hits?
Does your content convert?
Is there attribution we can track on it? Can we see the ROI?
Have we got a video strategy?
Does this fit in the right stage of the buying funnel?
Can’t we just get AI to do this? (Yes - nearly - ‘content’ is the most eminently replicable form of creative going.)
Are we having fun yet?
We’ve gone from ‘content is king’ to ‘content is what many creatives need to make a living if they expect to get paid anything like a living wage’.
Most people who work in content are well meaning.
They want to educate, entertain and inform. Do a good job.
They know that putting the customer at the centre of the story is what matters.
And they have views on what makes good, good.
But if you ask them really - did you ever want to work in content?
Surely it’s only the demoralised and the lost who would truly say yes.
Maggie's Farm for the modern creative?
It's the content farm baby.
What drives you?
When I left university, armed with a degree in Politics, I had no idea what I wanted to do – apart from come to London and play in a band.
I was, by my early 20s, a pretty good guitar player, which was a shame, because the world was suddenly going keyboard.
I applied for dozens of dull-sounding jobs and eventually got one that I had no memory of applying for. I didn’t care how dull it was – it got this country boy to London.
Two years later, my Britpop career had, predictably, not taken off and I was still stuck in the same job – now hating every dull moment of it.
“Why don’t try copywriting?” Suggested a friend who worked as a planner at JWT, “I’m told it’s the next best thing to rock and roll.”
Never heard of it. Never considered it. Never it even thought that someone actually got paid for writing the ads that, I suddenly realised, were everywhere.
I got names and addresses and started applying. And got nowhere.
“Have you considered the civil service?” Asked my mother. Oh my god!
“Maybe you’re just not really creative enough.” Offered another friend, seeing my disappointment at yet another rejection.
Ouch! That hurt. That really hurt. I was surprised how furious I was that he could doubt me. I would show him. I would show all of them. I am creative - goddamit!
Spurred on by fury and the need for revenge, I redoubled my efforts and got a job as a trainee copywriter at Ogilvy.
“See!?” I said to my doubting friend, years later, when I had just become a creative director.
“See what?” He asked, slightly mystified.
“You thought I couldn’t do this!”
He claimed he had no memory of ever saying such a thing.
Is it possible that my entire career as a copywriter and later as a screenwriter has been fuelled by revenge? Well, embarrassingly, yes.
But I also think you need a strong emotion to power you the through the daunting levels of rejection and self-doubt that a creative career entails.
It’s not enough that I should succeed, others must eat their words!
Is your communication strategy good, or f*****g great?
Weeks of research, debate and running down blind allies, the fog has started to clear.
Most strategy development is like that.
Most case histories are tidy fictions told much later.
But how can you tell if you are getting anywhere?
The skeleton of a good strategy addresses a number of broad questions.
Who is our customer and what do they really want?
Who are we and what can we credibly promise?
What is the context in which we will be operating and what opportunities does this present?
A good strategy presents a coherent case that addresses these areas:
Our idea/promise is X
It is highly motivating for our customers because of Y
it is different or distinctive because of Z.
It’s hard to come up with something which is brief, coherent and simple.
Simplicity involves making decisions, cutting things out, saying it is about this and not about that. Most big businesses (and government departments) duck this challenge and end up writing a wish list.
“Brutal simplicity of thought” (to quote Saatchi) stands a chance of cutting through, but it is not that common
As first step write down your conclusions on the three broad areas above. You have the bones of your argument. You're in good shape. Often people don’t even get this far.
Those are tests of a good strategy.
But you want great.
What makes it great?
Frustratingly, there isn’t really one answer. But here are some things to think about.
Often when you are working on a project there is an “aha” moment about, for example, human psychology, the way culture is changing, who we really are.
There is a key that unlocks a line of thought. What was that “aha” moment (what storytellers call an “inciting incident”)?
Can you tell the story of how you had this aha moment?
Can you take your audience on a journey to this discovery?
And what about how you are going to be different?
Do you have a different promise/offer?
Or is it more about how you will do business?
It may be a good idea bring this to life in a way that is experienced (rather than merely appearing as some images and words on a PowerPoint presentation.).
How can you be the change you want to see?
Nothing wrong with PowerPoints – we all have to document our thinking after all- but if everyone is doing a PowerPoint it’s going to be tough to stand out.
Think about the PowerPoint as the leave behind.
Think about the presentation as an experience.
What people remember are well told stories, memorable moments, simplicity.
What people remember is not just what you said but how you make them feel.
Above all what cuts through is personal commitment and conviction.
Good is rational. Great is something else. It makes the hair on your arms stand on end.
Or, as one Dutch art director I knew used to say: “It gives you chicken skin!”
This piece was written by our good friend: Julian Saunders
Automation Nation
Ethan Mollick, Associate Professor at the Wharton School, and author of Co-Intelligence, recently published a post on the advances of AI in the last 21 months.
Mollick is good on the creative possibilities of AI - and writes about it with a sense of realism in the ‘this is here, how are you going to make the most of it’ kind of way.
Mollick on experts: ‘a big change happens when they stop feeling relieved or smug when AI can’t do something and instead try to figure out how to make the AI succeed.’
It’s a reasonable position, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, but there is something that remains awkward about the formulation ‘how to make the AI succeed’.
Success - whether monetary or artistic - remains subjective.
In the field of sales, I noticed another ‘thought leader’ decrying that AI would be the ‘death of outbound’.
Sales leaders are looking at ways to literally turn AI into never-off sales or business development reps - the first rung of the sales chain, those who try and get the meetings to kick up to the ‘account execs’ (the bastards).
Enter Clay - a program that is gaining traction amongst LinkedIn nerds - Clay promises to do the personalisation bit for you in outreach, by pulling data from an endless set of fields, LinkedIn profiles, podcasts, and crafting ‘highly personalised’ outreach messages that sales reps might once have sweated over.
Which seems to point to a fork in the road.
On one side, there’s a drive to automate, slash costs, and increase existing activity to levels never seen before.
On the other hand, there’s a sense of using AI to do the thoughtful work that humans once did - and people can become the ‘orchestrators’ of said automation - augmentation not imitation.
The first activity seems to be the kind of activity that experts might despair at, the second an instance of stopping the despair, and figuring out how to make the AI succeed.
Both have maximalist tendencies - neither seem to question the potential costs of their reach (like bitcoin mining before - AI leaves a large Carbon footprint). It seems reasonable to post, that whichever side of the coin you land on, the automation of either action or thought will come at some cost.
Perhaps we’ll be able to automate environmental regulation at some point in the not too distant future however?
After all - it looks like we’re going to need to make these machines succeed for us somehow.
I literally HATE ads for A.I.
They make me loathe A.I.
They sound like they’re written by snake-oil salesmen.
They seem to be fronted by the smuggest of smug bastards.
They try to persuade me that, with A.I. , I can write a book worth reading in half an hour. That I can become a best-selling author on Amazon, with virtually no effort.
They tell me I can become a film director without knowing a thing about directing or scripting or story or character.
They tell me I can become rich beyond my dreams with an A.I. based side hustle.
Seriously. You’ve got to wonder, if A.I is so wonderful (and actually I believe it can be) why are the ads so awful?
And why are the claims so ludicrous?
And where is the advertising standards authority in all this?
And why do people who I know, know nothing about tech, keep wanting to sit me down and tell me about the forthcoming generational A.I revolution?
Have they heard of a pen?
Do they know what you can do with that?
Change the world – suckers!
Visit sunny Wales
Destination advertising was regarded as something of a jackpot in the creative department. It was a shoot that opened on a sun-drenched beach and only got better from there onwards – open air restaurants, clubs, booze music.
Then a brief came in from the Welsh Tourist Board to advertise Wales as a holiday destination...a hospital pass if ever there was one.
What we knew about Wales: it was small, hard to reach, with unpronounceable place names like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and dead poets like Dylan Thomas, dead industries like coal mining, a lot of rain, shit food and piss bear. Yes, we were that ignorant; but, if we were, so were most people.
Over a pint or three in the pub we tried to find a way to make this place sound remotely attractive. And, as sometimes happens, an idea sneaked up on us. What if we positioned this remote, tiny, cloud covered, coal heap as the opposite to everything we thought?
Some joker said: “Wales. The Big Country.”
And when we looked into it, actually looked, we surprised ourselves. Wales has some of the longest, most beautiful golden beaches in the world. It has the most breath-taking mountain ranges. There are vast unspoiled areas of natural beauty. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of fabulous places to eat. It is a country with a big heart.
We used the music from the 1958 movie The Big Country starring Charlton Heston and Gregory Peck – if only we were doing it today, we would have got AI to recreate them for our ads.
What started out as a joke, was in fact a big idea and it did what big ideas do: it worked. There was a discernible jump in the numbers of visitors to Wales.
Did we have fun on the shoots? What happens in Wales stays in Wales!
Police armed with cliches battle rioters
Following a weekend of riots and general unrest...
“The police say they are working tirelessly to identify people who took part in disorder...”
Are they? Really? How can anyone work without getting tired – especially if, as I think they probably mean, they are working without rest to get their hands on the people who have been smashing the place up. Bodies like the police force have been making themselves sound dumb for as long as I can remember through the lazy use of cliches. It gives the impression that they can work as tirelessly as they like, but the results will be what you would expect of a group cliché wielding dummies: unimpressive.
It’s a shame because I think the police are better than this.
It’s not only police arming themselves with cliches. According to pretty much every politician with a comment to make, the trouble in the country at large is down to the “far right” – who are embodied by one individual: Tommy Robinson. He has left the country – presumably before the police started working tirelessly – but nevertheless, it’s him what done it. Oh and social media.
Someone called Adam Kelwick offered a more likely explanation: “I don’t think they knew what they were protesting about – I think they’re just angry, fed up.” Mr Kelwick’s observation is compelling because it doesn’t reach for an easy explanation – he tells it how he sees it. How we all feel it.
Yes, there probably are some “far right” thugs. But this isn’t about politics, it’s about emotions. There was a movie called Network that came out in 1976 which contained a famous speech from newscaster Howard Beale:
“You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'
It summed things up back then, and it’s on the money now.
Do you knowyou chose the right profession?
“Nobody knows anything.”
Said William Goldman, one of the great screenwriters, when talking about the movie business.
He was talking about “knowing” whether a movie would be a hit or not.
At best, you could have an educated guess. It’s not a logical business. No-one in their right mind would do it.
But plenty of apparently sane people still try.
Here’s a sobering statistic. Only 2% of actors make a living from the profession. And 90% are out of work at any one time.
The other 8% are presumably hanging in there on below subsistence earnings.
Why would anyone do this? It’s not as if these numbers are a secret.
The average UK writer (we’re talking novels here) only clears about £7,000 a year.
The author will only earn about 10-12% of the retail price of a book.
The rest of the money goes to publisher and book seller.
Self-published authors can make between 40-60% of the cover price, but they do so under the scorn of the establishment.
What about music? It gets worse.
Only about 0.4% of musicians could make a living from streaming.
As a singer, your chances of breaking through are about the same as they were in the 1950s...1 in a million.
Only 11% of musicians can make a living from music.
I can’t find reliable statistics for painters who make a living through art. That in itself suggests that the odds are slim.
One thing everybody knows: if you want to be a writer, actor, musician or painter...prepare to be poor.
Yet, confusingly, the UK has one of the most vibrant creative sectors in the entire world.
Let me leave you with one more statistic:
In 2022, the government estimated that the creative industries generated £126 billion in GVA, which includes around £27 billion from music, visual and performing arts, publishing, design, fashion, museums, and galleries.
Something doesn’t add up.
Human Tears and Robot Fears
Today I came across a post on LinkedIn in which someone had actually been brought to tears by the ‘promise’ of Generative AI.
Kathryn Taccone, who runs Open Pixel Studios, an independent women-owned animation studio in Arizona, outlined her fear at the loss of said promise for studios like hers.
In the classic form, denial, anger, depression, acceptance (not reached) she touches on an underlying sentiment that I think of as the necessary inversion of those who can’t stop talking about the shiny promise of this new technology.
The core innovation (at least from a business standpoint) seems to be the ability to produce content faster and cheaper than ever before - or as Taccone puts it, a ‘race to the bottom’.
Never mind the old adage about only ever being able to pick two of three when it comes to ‘fast, cheap or good’ - with the velocity of production we’re now facing a veritable wall of sound of output - with all of the maximalist qualities that endeavours.
As someone with a foot in the tech world, I can understand and commiserate with the position that something drastic, powerful and not-entirely understood is going on right now.
When your key metric is profit, your key operating model, the ability to optimise productivity to within an inch of its life and your ability to critically assess quality of output, is shall we say, limited at best - it makes sense that you’d go all in on something like GenAI.
My only kick back is that in lamenting a very real issue that we’re only just seeing the start of - there can at times be a tendency to over-romanticise the ‘the way things were’.
Has human creativity and originality ever truly been valued by big commercial operations?
For independent studios, artists, and in many more cases, employees who are suddenly being discovered to be not quite as valuable as they once were now the majority of their tasks can be outsourced to an AI - the issue is clearly existential.
But to say that industry itself is changing (if anything we’re seeing a catalyst of an attitude already entrenched) feels more tenuous - at least from this seat.
As I see writers, grapple with, lament, and increasingly, figure out how to adapt to and ‘learn’ the skills that GenAI apparently is now blessing us all with (over-seeing writing as managerial function, writer as factory boss and somehow also production line worker) - I wonder if we’ll look back on the time just before GenAI as not quite the garden of Eden it might seem now - but rather a perfect breeding ground for the optimised mindset that’s quite frankly flourishing at an alarming rate as I type this right now.
What do you want to do when you’re 90?
These days anyone over 50 is at risk of being considered over the hill. It’s a youth obsessed world, and in the acting business even more so – especially for women.
If you haven’t had a lead role by your thirties, you can pretty much forget it.
Not so June Squibb. She’s just got her a first lead at the age of 94, and what a role she’s created.
The movie is called “Thelma” and if she doesn’t get the Oscar nomination this year, there is no justice.
Thelma is the story of a feisty old woman who gets cheated out of a large sum of money in a phone scam and, despite her family’s attempt to write her off as senile and stick her in a home, decides that this will not stand.
As John Patterson observed in the Guardian “June Squibb may top out at 5ft 2in. But in the middle of her ninth decade, we're finally clocking her as an acting colossus.”
It’s in cinemas now – I urge to go and see it. June Squibb is a marvel. And after seeing her, don’t you dare write off age and experience as irrelevant!
Have a peep inside this time capsule…
I found a little gem the other day. A brief had come in for an ad to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the cinema. The budget was decidedly Indie.
Myself and art director partner, John Trainor, had about a week to write something and not much longer to shoot it.
Sometimes restrictions work in your favour. There wasn’t time for endless navel gazing – we had to make our decisions fast. Thankfully, so did our client.
We needed big screen presence and we needed to make a miniscule budget look like a million dollars. We needed stars. And we needed them for free.
I enlisted the help of producer friend, Mark Stothert, and DP, Larry Smith (who’d worked with Stanley Kubrick amongst others). The idea was to ask some of the most famous faces we could find what they loved about going to the cinema.
Hopefully we’d discover that we were all united by similar feelings.
Oh and some bright spark came up with the idea of finding someone 100 years old to top and tail the film – the lovely lady we found was 102.
Mark and Larry put together a roving camera crew, ready to head out pretty much anywhere at a moment’s notice.
We then set out to see whether the 6 degrees of separation theory (the idea that any two people in the world are six or fewer social connections away from each other) was actually true.
It was astonishing who we got to and how quickly.
If you’re wondering how we achieved that lovely grainy look? It was all shot on film; you could hardly celebrate 100 years of cinema on video...
Years later, as I look at the footage, I’m stunned by the calibre of people we found. Have a look. See if you can name them all?
Time to Rebrand Immigration?
I am making these bleary-eyed notes the morning after the election. The Conservatives have been hollowed out by Reform, who fan fears of immigration.
Across Europe the right is on the move for similar reasons.
If you are a rational sort this is strange because demography is destiny. Without large scale immigration most of Europe will not have enough workers to maintain healthy economies.
Immigrants are not “taking our jobs”. Quite the opposite, employment levels are high.
Immigrants are doing the jobs that the native population can’t or won’t do.
The stats are startling. They tell you that European populations are not replacing themselves quickly enough, much less the required 2.1 children per woman.
Populations are aging fast.
Japan and China will have lost 40% of their populations by the end of the century at current rates. As attempts to incentivise fertility have been largely unsuccessful, it looks like the only cure for this is mass immigration.
Very few politicians tell this truth for fear of being rejected by the voters.
But perhaps branding and communications experts can help by changing the cultural weather and the language we use. Let’s substitute the word “Talent” for “Immigrant” not as some kind of trick but as a way of revealing a truth.
When I was at Google it was like working at the United Nations.
Talent from around the world was attracted to UK and fuelled a dynamic industry of digital innovation through 1000s of start-ups.
Talented and expert carers and medical staff from around the world made my mother’s final years as good as they could be. I could go on.
Britain can be good at this. It was a moment of pride that Rishi Sunak’s elevation to PM as the son of Asians passed without much comment. At a personal level we are friendly and tolerant of diversity.
The great economist John Maynard Keynes once said “Never Underestimate the power of demographic change to alter the culture of a society”.
As the population ages we have no choice but to attract more talent to the UK. People really want to come. And that we should celebrate and be grateful for.
The language we use is a tool we can use in changing our culture.
___
Thanks to Julian Saunders for writing this piece.
Feel the Width
Which is the better writer? AI or a human?
Which is the better writer? AI or a human?
ChatGPT gave the following answer:
Human writers bring a depth of experience, emotion, and creativity to their work that is often difficult for AI to replicate. Human writers can draw upon personal experiences, cultural nuances, and complex emotions to create compelling narratives and thought-provoking prose. They also have the ability to inject humour, irony, and subtlety into their writing, which can be challenging for AI to mimic convincingly.
On the other hand, AI can excel in certain aspects of writing, particularly in generating large volumes of content quickly and efficiently, or in mimicking specific styles or voices. AI can also analyse vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends, which can be useful for tasks like content generation, summarization, and data-driven journalism. Additionally, AI can be programmed to avoid common grammatical errors and produce coherent, well-structured writing.
So do you want quality or quantity?
Never mind the quality, feel the width" is a phrase that emphasizes the importance of quantity over quality. It suggests that in certain situations, such as business or production, the sheer quantity or size of something is more important than its quality or depth.
In the context of writing, this phrase might suggest prioritizing the quantity of content produced over its quality. It implies a focus on churning out a large volume of material rather than taking the time to ensure each piece is well-crafted and meaningful. While quantity can be important in some contexts, such as content marketing or meeting deadlines, it's also essential to strive for quality to create engaging and valuable writing that resonates with the audience.
There you have it.
For quality and “width”, it seems that the answer is to hire yourself a good writer who knows how to use AI.
Is Happiness Bad for Business?
According to Matt Haig, “happiness isn’t very good for the economy."
According to Matt Haig, “happiness isn’t very good for the economy."
"If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more?
How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser?
You make someone worry about ageing.
How do you get people to vote for a political party?
You make them worry about immigration.
How do you get them to buy insurance?
By making them worry about everything.
How do you get them to have plastic surgery?
By highlighting their physical flaws.
How do you get them to watch a TV show?
By making them worry about missing out.
How do you get them to buy a new smartphone?
By making them feel like they are being left behind.
To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act.
To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence.
To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business”.
Advertisers, therefore, must be purveyors of misery?
Well, no; at least, not the clever ones.
Ads that do what Mr Haig is talking about are, for the most part, dull-witted and lack a creative spark.
In other words, they are forgettable.
But the real cut-through work does the opposite.
It puts its finger on a human truth and the recognition makes you feel joyful, inspired and alive.
Cadbury’s Gorilla sat behind a drum kit comes to mind.
Budweiser’s endlessly repeated “Whassup!” campaign.
Most John Lewis Christmas ads.
Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign.
Oh, and have you seen Coca Cola’s “Masterpiece” commercial?
The world’s biggest brands haven’t become that by investing in misery.
Miserable, anxious people don’t buy much.
They tend to sit on their money.
Happy people on the other hand, spend like there’s no tomorrow.
Why is this idiot asking me to do that?
On my first day as a trainee copywriter at Ogilvy, more years ago then it's wise to mention, I was asked to attend a briefing meeting for Horlicks.
On my first day as a trainee copywriter at Ogilvy, more years ago then it's wise to mention, I was asked to attend a briefing meeting for Horlicks.
In my mind's eye, I saw 48 sheet posters, a TV ad, long copy press ads about the importance of sleep... at worst a clever little radio spot.
"We need someone to write the instructions on the back of this..." said the junior account guy passing me a jar of Horlicks.
I looked at the existing instructions:
Put three teaspoonfuls into a mug.
Add hot milk.
Stir
"What's wrong with these?"
Client feels they could be better.
"Better?"
Yes.
I went away mystified. The brief sat on my desk unanswered for a week. Then another week. I really hadn't a clue what they wanted. Eventually the account guy took the brief away and wrote it himself.
How ridiculous I thought. What kind of idiot is this client?
My first brief. My first failure.
I woke up in the middle of the night recently - still troubled by Horlicks and that brief - and I realised that perhaps the client hadn't been the idiot I took him for.
Perhaps he realised there was an opportunity, even with the instructions, to connect with his target consumer - an individual exhausted by the demands of modern life - in some small way that would build the brand.
Here's what I should have written.
Put three teaspoonfuls into a mug.
Add hot milk.
Stir.
Relax... you've earned it.
Sorry it took so long.
Would you risk it?
This is our first post.
This is our first post.
Congratulations - that means you're one of our first readers.
So far as I can tell, we are the first company to be called 170,000 Words.
Why the name?
Well, we're writers and there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language.
Neat huh? We like it. You'll get used to it.
According to Google it takes 66 days before new behaviour (i.e. briefing this new company with a weird name to write clever stuff for you) becomes automatic.
If you're in any doubt, bear in mind we all say Google now without a second thought.
On the subject of firsts, I was thinking about my first ad job.
I was taken on as a trainee copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather in a time now spoken of in hushed tones as the glory days of advertising.
I had no idea what I'd got myself into. I fancied the job, mainly, because someone told me it was the next best thing to rock and roll.
It turned out that I was part of an experiment - another first.
Don Arlett, the then executive creative director, took on four writers and four art directors, who he was sure knew nothing about advertising.
He wanted to let us loose in the creative department to see what would happen.
He fully expected to fire most, if not all of us, within six months.
It wasn't the next best thing to rock and roll. It was better.
I met poets, musicians, artists, novelists, playwrights, screenwriters - all of whom were supporting themselves (pretty well) by writing ads.
Salman Rushdie had left the creative department not long before I joined.
Fay Weldon had done time there too.
We learned our craft by osmosis. We soaked up their talent and made it our own.
We knew how lucky we were and we loved it.
As it turned out, none of us were fired.
We thrived. And so did Ogilvy.
They took a risk. They backed us.
One of our in-take won the Guinness account.
Another transformed Lucozade from a drink you had when you got the flu, to the massively popular energy brand that it is today.
The value we added to their bottom line was counted in tens of million.
Martin Sorrell was so impressed he bought the company.
Perhaps I can encourage you to take a small risk today and be one of the first clients to give us a writing brief?
You never know...