Dear 1st Year Students--but by this how could I mean anything less than everyone--for what are any of us but inquirers into what the heck is going on?
This is a sticker I made up that I've handed out in class for a few years.
I've run out of them before the need for the message has removed itself.
A student wanted to argue the grade I'd given him/her.
Me: What grade do you think you deserve?
Him/Her: I deserve an A.
Me: Why do you deserve an A?
Him/Her: Because I tried hard. I really worked in this class.
Me: I believe you.
But your work was never in the top half on any of the 15 weeks we had class.
Him/Her: But what you said really got to me.
Me: It didn't get into your work, though, did it?
The talk didn't end there, but you get the point.
Hard work makes a difference in digging ditches, not in creating advertising.
Not by itself.
The writer of an ad is after magic.
He can't be after anything else.
Magic is the warm, ripe peach.
An ad without magic is the pit inside.
An ad must call its audience to it at the same time that it delivers its message.
Magic.
Hard work applied to any creative attempt in which magic is missing is like rubbing your boy/girl-friend's arm over and over and over in the same place with the same motion.
It's a nuisance, not a turn on.
I've run out of them before the need for the message has removed itself.
A student wanted to argue the grade I'd given him/her.
Me: What grade do you think you deserve?
Him/Her: I deserve an A.
Me: Why do you deserve an A?
Him/Her: Because I tried hard. I really worked in this class.
Me: I believe you.
But your work was never in the top half on any of the 15 weeks we had class.
Him/Her: But what you said really got to me.
Me: It didn't get into your work, though, did it?
The talk didn't end there, but you get the point.
Hard work makes a difference in digging ditches, not in creating advertising.
Not by itself.
The writer of an ad is after magic.
He can't be after anything else.
Magic is the warm, ripe peach.
An ad without magic is the pit inside.
An ad must call its audience to it at the same time that it delivers its message.
Magic.
Hard work applied to any creative attempt in which magic is missing is like rubbing your boy/girl-friend's arm over and over and over in the same place with the same motion.
It's a nuisance, not a turn on.
13 Comments:
You can't coach speed.
Someone touched the screen. It's fucked.
I couldn't agree with you more.
The arm rubbing thing? I HATE that.
"Just watching him (Hester), you [knew he had] talent you can't coach and that not too many people have," Grossman said
It may be true that you can't coach speed and you can't put talent into a person God didn't give it to. However, we've all seen races where the fastest didn't win. And it hasn't been the amount of talent, it seems to me, that has been the deciding factor in the careers of creatives I admire. It's possible to do a lot with a little.
For example, learning not to touch the screen is important.
So there's no more stickers?!! Dang it! I want one.
Most of us want to practice the things we're already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.
Is there a way Mark, to communicate this to a team that is in survival mode? By that I mean; experiencing a turn of business where trying to keep people from loosing their jobs means saying yes to (just about) any project?
In other words is there a time and place for this? And if I'm asking, does that mean I'm not aggressive enough to deserve the success that comes from such idealogy?
Some people loose their jobs for a reason.
Dear Vibranium: Check in Ecclesiastes for info on time & place for everything. As for deserve, my only hope in life is there's a chance we don't get what we deserve. In advertising, luck, I think, plays a greater part in how much attention one receives than anything else. I know what you mean about survival mode. Everyone in advertising is in that mode. There may be some who are better at not appearing to be but everyone is in it these days. Nobody knows what's coming next. I'd be wrong if I added anything else to that thought.
to everything turn, turn, turn...
the chartreuse goose made a truce with the old moose named bruce so he'd fit a noose that would be just a bit too LOSE.
spellling erroors arre painfful too reead inn anny faccet off liffe.
they are especially painful to read in a blog about copywriting, and they become downright excruciating when, in that very blog, they are duplicated by different people.
i wholeheartedly agree with mark, but would add that hard work can also be a waste of time if your spelling sucks, genius ideas aside.
but maybe i'm just a picky bastard.
the "excruciating" "duplicated" "spelling error" made me laugh out loud.
"some people loose their jobs for a reason"
simply. funny.
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