Hasta La Creative!

By Terence. Terry is a dear friend and runs a creative hotshop somehere in the Himalayas!

HEY SEXY !

Dear Lech,

I’m not talking Polish and you don’t need your x-ray goggles to read this. Down boy. Sit. Play dead if you want but the truth is here to stay. In fact, by the time we’re done here you’ll be wearing it like the coarse leather collar you should have been born with.

Casting is anything but serious business as long as the industry is amply populated with simians. It doesn’t matter who you may be on the corporate stratosphere or how high or low in the echelons you dangle. If you harbour so much as half a non-professional attitude towards the ‘faces’ you work with, you’re just plain shrink-worthy. The couch, and let me introduce you to this one, is all yours. So what’s your Freudian alibi – infantile amnesia?

Somewhere down the dank corridors of your libidinous imagination, I may be just a face but here’s where the cookie crumbles. I am more than what I am. I am who I am. Think about it (oops I used the T word). Let the facts sink in. Way past the stupefaction. Way past the bottled testosterone. Despite what you may be given to think by the numbers you’ve scored so far, I am not an anatomical prospect itching for a lifetime of touchy-feely. I am an intrinsic part of the marketing and advertising process. I am just as much a part of your bottom line as your brand identity. I am more than just the speck of beauty on the periphery of your warped personal agenda. I bring brands to life. I speak for them. I emote for them. For certain slices in time, I actually become them. I am all your logo can’t do. I am what your graphics can’t touch. I am what your headlines and body copy can’t sum up. I am as memorable as your most hummable jingles and at times, far more meaningful. I am capable of doing more to brand personality than all your best laid brand plans can. Not affording me the respect I fundamentally deserve is why your profession is ranked one measly notch below the infamous other. Grope with that.

But as you do, look at the bright side of things too. You’re not a solo statistic in a limpid pool of wannabes. What’s the collective noun for MCP? Isn’t it absolutely thrilling to know you actually own it? And if you thought there’s safety in numbers, you’ve just met the piper.

Over and ouch.

Regards,
The Model.

ps. don’t blame it on the headline.

Terence D’Costa is a very dear friend and a top-notch creative in the Himalayas.

THE BIG COVER UP

Don’t judge a book by its cover. You were told that. I was told that. The world and his brother was told that. And we all nodded in agreement to get past third grade grammar but went back to doing just that. The problem with this old saying is not the book. It’s the cover. Let’s talk about that cover today. Let’s talk about how we weren’t encouraged to see past the obvious imagery of wisdom-filled books in melancholic covers versus the sham glam of penny press tabloids. Let’s talk about how we’ve unanimously settled for a superficial understanding (i.e. the cover) of the saying (i.e. the book). Let’s talk about us not talking about this before. Better still, let’s figure where this figures in an article on advertising.

The book is the agency head. The cover is his membership at your golf club. The book is the agency. The cover is the decor that swings from eclectic to hushed minimalist. The book is the account director. The cover is his limited edition blackberry resting on a mahogany bookshelf mandatorily populated with impeccably bound brand bibles. The book is the account manager. The cover is the android and the natty suit. The book is the creative director. The cover is his ipad with hypno-surrealist desktop art. The book is the art director. The cover is his mop of dreadlocks. The book is the visualizer. The cover is his tribal tattoo. The book is the copy intern. The cover is her battered copy of Atlas Shrugged. The book is the graphic designer. The cover is his daily ritual of downloading as many ads of the world artworks, free brushes and unprotected illustrations as the agency broadband can allow in one overtime shift.

The book is the pitch brief or more correctly, the RFP. The cover is its peripatetic loquacity, reminiscent of Dickensian payslips. The book is the agency presentation on brand strategy. The cover is a host of picturesque (albeit soul-less, brazenly plagiarized or brand-dissonant) print artworks batting their eyelashes oh so coquettishly at you. The book is the agency presentation on creative strategy. The cover is covertly identical to the other presentation. The book is pitch evaluation. The cover is only remembering how much media commission the agency was willing to share.

The book is your logo. The cover is an uncanny representation of another, more famous, one. The book is the colour proof. The cover is presenting the same in RGB. The book is the print advertisement. The cover is the size of your logo on it. The book is the commercial. The cover is the product close-up. The book is the production house. The cover is who their clients were (no one notices why this is in the past tense). The book is the shoot. The cover is the photographer’s unmatched equipment (his mind doesn’t count). The book is the commercial film director. The cover is his signature graphic overlay on anything he’s touched. The book is the footage. The cover is the camera no one else has used yet. The book is the radio jingle. The cover is humming the tune but not realizing you’ve actually heard it in a Bollywood flick. The book is the brand ambassador. The cover is someone’s soft spot for her. The book is the launch event. The cover is not knowing it’s been done by T-mobile, last summer. The book is five hundred words in the communication stratosphere. The cover is a phrase in an obsolete tongue.

The truth is life and the cover’s just been blown. Don’t tell anyone.