Bairdyblog

Punishment

And so the RiFivers come under some debate (again) for awarding this month's award to an effort  consisting of a pun which, at least the judges had the grace to concede, outdates even the chesspiece as an industry institution.

It's not this MPU is bad. In fact, it's almost a guilty pleasure, being badness done in a reasonably good, proficient way. But will we ever recognise that puns are not - that's not - the epitome of creativity?

I suspect the problem is that our HR clients, who aren't trained in marketing, let alone advertising, fall foul of the common misconception that puns make good ads. And why should we attempt to dissuade them, when they're paying our mortgages?

Generally speaking, the purpose of a headline is to draw the attention of a reader (or viewer) likely to be interested in that ad's proposition or the advertising organisation's values. Sometimes it's possible to do this with a pun. Clearly, most of the time it isn't.

Worst puns #1: A director of an agency I worked for wrote an ad recruiting software engineers into UAE. The visual was a cartoon camel with a microphone. The headline was 'Dubai-dubai-doo.' Looking back, that was probably the day I should have shot myself.

Anyway, Oliver Scott from Blackbridge send me a link to the video above yesterday after a discussion which involved fish puns. After this, there's nothing more to be said on the subject. Perhaps we should play it to all new entrants to rec ad creative departments, just to knock the filthy habit once and for all out of the punorama of employer marketing creativity.

See what I did there?

Submariners site makes me feel subnormal

 
I really wanted to like this site. Really.

In many ways, it's fantastic. In terms of what it does, it may well be the best ever. Certainly, it beat off tough competition to win its FEMA category in the recent Aussie rec ad awards.

Plus, it confirms all of my theories regarding this type of advertising. (Namely, that the more the western world becomes blighted by actual war and terrorism, the more forces recruitment filches escapist tropes from Hollywood and the games industry.) But I can't like it as much as I want, because I don't quite get it.

Admittedly mine is not the profile that would have topped the list of user journeys at testing stage. But all the same, it's a devil to get your head around. Everywhere you go is a page telling you to wait for something. When you do, the technology takes ages to load. The pages briefing the main game go by so quickly I feel like a moron for not being able to scan them quickly enough.

As for accessing the game itself, it would be easier to get a round at Gleneagles.

Then there's the detail. Even the detail has detail. Want to know how fit you need to be to apply? Here's a pages on that very topic. In fact there's even a video of a bloke telling you about fitness. And here are some illustrations of the exercises you'll need to be able to do. Not sure how to do them? Then watch one of a range of other videos. By which time of course I'm not just out of breath, but my narrative thread has completely gone out of the window.

 

Admittedly, it's immersive. And hats off to anyone trying a sell a career which involves living in a tin can, under the sea, knowing that practically any moment someone might fire a torpedo at you and blast your insides all over the barrier reef. But when I get to copy like this, I don't know whether to give a military or a two-fingered salute:

"Unseen we seek the enemy in Silent Service. We are at the forefront of national defence, we are the vanguard. With skill and resolve we conduct our training and our mission. Courage and tenacity are our greatest weapons. Against all odds, fearless and ferocious we will fight on in our charge to defend the weak."

Blimey. Just like they to used to write in Warlord.

Of course, the best proposition for the armed services is that recruits benefit from the cultural construct that all fighters are noble and desperately sexually alluring to the opposite sex. If you doubt that, see what Oz naval commander Tom Phillips had to say about girls in bikinis helping recruitment. Terrible sexism of course, but perhaps a bit of that on the web site might have helped to keep my interest.

You're only a client, so shut the f*&# up

Here's a funny film brought to my attention by some antipodean rec ad types. There's probably something ingenious about how it's made I should be sharing with you, but frankly I can't be bothered to follow the link. Enjoy it for what it is.

It reminds me of when I worked at Hallam FM in Sheffield in a department of (pretty cynical) commercial producers. Next to our office was a room in which the station did most of its client presentations. It was decorated with the kind of motivational signs that make intelligent adults bring up their breakfast - whales, mountains, tape-breasters, and so on.

Worst of all was a sign which said:'S*CCESS - we can't spell it without U!' One day someone wrote beneath it, 'Nor, for that matter, c*nt!', which we all thought rather splendid.

There hasn't been much posting here lately - I've been finishing the dissertation for my MA and even working in the real world, mostly for Blackbridge. But there'll be more action over the coming weeks. Incidentally, I've also been posting on another site which some of you might be interested in: it's called www.thefirmidentity.com and it's dedicated to branding-related issues in the legal market.

Mourning a lost King

We remember it from years back as a healthy, rounded performer which charmed us with sheer talent and exuberance.  But despite all the hits, we soon began to fear for its health. ‘How terribly pale it looks,’ we said. ‘Nothing like the colour and energy it used to have.'

‘Look!’ it said to us one day. ‘Forget our paleness. We’ve developed a new move, called the MyOysterWalk. We appear to be going forwards, but actually we’re going backwards.’

Later, our concerns heightened when it got into bed with partners who were much smaller and younger. ‘Are you sure that’s right?’ we asked. ‘Oh, definitely,’ it replied. ‘Nothing suspicious. Just, um, replenishing our energy.’ Settlements from these questionable relationships were soon measured in millions.

Towards the end, stories leaked from the inner sanctum were even more disturbing. ‘Just a few injections,’ it told us. ‘Perfectly legal and above board. Nothing to worry about.’

By this time, the old management was long gone and replaced by a faceless cabal who appeared not to have its best interests at heart. ‘Come on,’ the wily new management told it. ‘One last push. Then you’ll make back all the money you lost on fripperies.’

And it tried hard, it really did – only to find itself heartless, flat on its back and with dependents left penniless and wondering what to blame for the departure of the good times.

                                          *  *  *

The demise of Barkers is problematic for many people, not least those recently (Thursday, in fact) made redundant who face uncertainty about whether or not they’ll get the money they're owed.

But my main question is this. I’m not entirely sure that Penna are buying the Barkers group for its recruitment advertising so much as for its Recruitment Process Outsourcing business, which I assume is included in the pre-pack. The deal, however, gives them two rec ad brands and seven or so offices which will need managing (assuming that Penna recognises the deficiencies in the current Barkers management set-up). So, who’s going to do that?

Anne Riley may be one of the most admired people in the business, but isn’t she happier running Penna Creative Communications - which by all accounts is a decent size, well-resourced but small enough to ensure good people work on clients rather than agency infrastructure? Could this acquisition – still some 250 people or so – actually prove detrimental to Penna and the reputation they’ve worked hard to build over the last five years or so?

Incidentally, what now happens to Barkers Social Marketing? Reports were that the recently-exited Barkers Chair Robert Bain and social marketing supremo Andy McArthur were going to buy it. Does Penna own this now also?

Anyway, like everyone else who worked at TCS and Barkers, I wish them all the best. There's still exceptional talent there - which should prosper massively given judicious management and - even more critically - a return in economic fortunes.

It may be corn, but it's working for Kellogg's

Yikes! Just look at that scary guy. War criminal? Satanic dentist? Dodgy children's entertainer waiting to dip his fingers into the young 'uns fun bags? No. It is, of course, William Keith Kellogg, freaky cereal magnate, Arabian horse breeder, vegetable-botherer and one of the original proponents of the Employer Value Proposition.

It's all there in Wikipedia, so it must be true. W.K. Kellogg famously declared, 'I will invest my money in my people,' and went on to demonstrate how altruistic leadership in manufacturing can lead to commercial success. He even operated extra shifts during the Great Depression, just so as many people as possible had the opportunity to put fried squirrel on the table (or whatever it was they ate back then in Battle Creek, Michigan).

Now, Kellogg's is continuing his work in what looks like a good way. This last week they've had all manner of good PR about their summer hours policy, which the media has latched onto as evidence of responsible management in depressed times. Basically, Kellogg's is saying to its employees that, providing you've fulfilled your weekly hours requirement by then, then you can bugger off home at lunchtime every Friday.

It's not an original idea. Barkers, for one, used to do it a couple of years back. But it's managed to get Kellogg's excellent exposure in news channels and, I imagine, around the water coolers of every company in Manchester which doesn't offer a similar benefit.

Lesson, then: dream up something similar for your organisation. Think about the employer value proposition you want to communicate, then invent a policy that 'proves' you mean it. Want to be seen as age diverse? Then give free subs to the People's Friend for all. Want to foster a better work-life balance? Have the CEO walk around the office with an effing big dog at five every night chucking people out. You get the idea.

It needn't be original. And it'd probably better be cheap. But done properly it'll get you better and further-reaching PR than that latest microsite or bloody Twitter feed.

Worthwhile work and the Botton line

Baldy brainbox Alain de Botton has written a new book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, and in it (apparently - haven't read it yet) he rehearses a number of ideas that those of us in employment marketing have been fiddling around with for years. Here's a clip of him speaking what sounds like a well-oiled bunch in Brisbane:

Lots here is familiar: in particular, I'm liking his line that the best employment proposition is worthwhile work. Which, of course, is the idea of recognising that your output always has a significant, and ultimately helpful, purpose.

The cliche illustration of this, beloved by everyone in HR, is that story of the President touring NASA and asking the guy pushing the broom what his job is. (Don't know the story? You'll find it here.)

But it's also quite brilliantly put in the unintentionally camp and silly management textbook Gung Ho!. No job is entirely crap, it argues - follow the chain far enough and you'll see the good in everything. This from an online digest:

The first Gung Ho! secret is the Spirit of the Squirrel. Peggy Sinclair, our heroine, is asked by Andy Longclaw, her mentor, to watch a group of squirrels gathering nuts outside his grandfather's cabin in the woods. When Andy asks her what she thinks about squirrels, she mentions how hard they work. In fact, she says that if everybody at their plant worked as hard as the squirrels, they could turn the situation around quickly.

Why do squirrels work so hard? Peggy learns that squirrels perform worthwhile work. They gather food not only for themselves but also for others for the winter.

This first secret contains three main elements. First, it's important that people know they are making the world a better place. Seldom do we help our people analyze their jobs and look at the end results -- how they improve others' quality of life. People want to make a difference; they want to know they perform important work. The key to making this happen is sharing information with people so they understand why things are done a certain way and what part their work plays in the overall scheme.

Gung Ho! is required reading even though in many ways it's an startlingly poo-ey bit of poo. The basic premise is that a dying native American (Longclaw) teaches a factory boss (Peggy) how to manage via references to the natural environment, making it laugh-out-loud in all the wrong places. For some inexplicable reason it's available on YouTube in Spanish, so you can see what I mean.

Oz construction firm calls spade a spade

Sometimes you have to hand it to the Australians - why bother poncing around with overly fancy headlines when something as straightforward as this tells the story perfectly?

I like to think that the two blokes in the picture are debating whether or not the headline adequately reflects the key principles of the VDM employer brand paradigm.

This is my second favourite 'Ronseal' job ad. At TCS, we once ran a client-written ad for BSI with the heading 'Looking for a job?' It ran in the recruitment classifieds, of course.

Thanks to Mel Hirst at ReAgent for sending this over.

Anyone out there speak Dutch?

Sometimes it seems that with all the excitement about brand identities that stretch across organisations, we forget the good old-fashioned, reliable way of doing things. 'Why should anyone want to do this job?' is still one of the best questions in the book.

Take a look at this video. Seems to me there isn't a proposition anywhere. This clearly is an organisation with nothing to recommend it:

In all seriousness, the voice-over suggests a level of irony I might be missing. However, the automatic translation thingy on Google took one look at it and ran away. Can someone explain, please?

Putting ooogh-arrgh into HR

Here's a delightful radio sketch of old, which explores what happens when the crew of a pirate ship decide their working practices aren't quite up to scratch.

It's from The Million Pound Radio Show, and was first broadcast in 1991. Astute listeners may recognise the tones of Andy Hamilton, an habitue of panel shows and one of the fellows behind bubbling-under sitcom Outnumbered.

Last night an AD spoilt my ad

On the subject of ubiquitous advertising, how about that one that's all over the tube, encouraging people to join the Metropolitan Police as volunteers?

It has the headline 'Last night a DJ saved my life' in different shades of neon. It's a good piece of work, despite the fact that there are more numbers in the response para than Russell Brand has in his address book. And its massive exposure begs the question of whether are not any more campaigns executions were, or should have been, considered. Me, I'd like to see 'Last night a plasterer pushed me down the stairs', or possibly 'Last night a mechanic was justifiably accused of institutional racism'.

Anyway, the thing that always gets me on these posters is the bit right at the bottom:

Which is a lovely bit of weird. I can only imagine it went in against the designer's will, with the Account Director demanding it be inserted because it was the client's idea. It certainly seems inconsistent in terms of copy tonality and typography.

Maybe the Account Director even put it in him or herself, breaking into the studio early one morning after a night on the sauce, and selecting a nice script typeface because that's how they used to do it back in the seventies.