You know it's been a frustrating day when the most satisfying thing you've done is undo the top button of your jeans when you arrive home (and no, I won't be posting any selfies of that anytime soon).
The frustrating thing about working in advertising is that for many, many months you're busily spinning on the Merry-Go-Round of Make-Believe: pitching creative idea after creative idea, massaging endless Powerpoint presentations, refining them, presenting them again to senior management, polishing them, presenting to upper management, starting all over again to reflect new and often contradictory feedback, or, just because someone's new & wants to throw their weight around, they are all killed. All the once-loved ideas. A genocide of genius ideas, horribly and cruelly put to death after months of nurturing.
Young ad creatives bounce back from this kind of thing because of the so-called 'fire in their bellies'. We older types name it for what it really is: indigestion. The kind of heartburn you get from constantly swallowing the words "Fuck you" instead of blurting them at your captors...er, clients.
Some days it's hard to look yourself in the eyes. What have I done today/week/year except update yet another fucking Powerpoint deck? Powerpoint: so named for the very element that's pointedly robbed from your self-esteem every time it's opened.
But then (largely because the final of the UEFA Champions League is only a matter of weeks away) we're again rushing around shaping a campaign that should take months of preparation in a matter of mere days.
And, in the end, something has come out of it. And, most surprisingly, it doesn't make me cringe with self despair.
Last week we launched the first film of Nissan's Take Me To Milan campaign. Everybody (ok, those that do give a damn about European football) wants to be at the UEFA Champions League final in Milan. So we thought we'd offer people the chance of not only going to the big game, but to actually play a part IN it.
And all you have to do to enter is post a selfie.
Now I know what the world doesn't need right now is another fucking selfie. But hey, if there's an overly used meme or trend out there it's bound to pop up in an ad somewhere.
In fact, marketeers are way ahead of the game: now your selfie can pop up freshly branded on toast every morning, in the hope that those vain enough to actually buy one will choke on their bacon & egos.
But I digress. Our idea was to turn football fan's behaviours on their head.
So we asked FC Barcelona superstar Andres Iniesta to roam the streets of Barcelona asking ordinary folk for a selfie. Everywhere he went he was soon surrounded like a french fry at a non-catered seagull convention.
We'd have just enough time to film people's stunned reactions before the crush of the crowd would force us to put him back into the van & drive to another location, leaving women & small children weeping (I kid you not) for their missed opportunity to validate their impoverished existence by posting a pic with a man who kicks balls for a living.
Then two weeks later we launched the follow up film: this one featuring Paris Saint Germain's star defender Thiago Silva.
He wants your name on the flag waved at the Champions League final in Milan.
But the funny thing is Paris is so not Barcelona. We were faced with cold, grey & miserable conditions. And that was just the attitude of the Parisians.
Parisians are sooooooo fucking cool & arrogant...er, self assured no mere football legend is going to get their attention. At the first three locations where we filmed, poor Silva went either unrecognised, ignored or (worst of all) left facing classic Gallic indifference.
One construction worker (who clearly knew who Thiago Silva was when he approached asking for an autograph) disdainfully looked him up & down and then spat out "Porquoi?"
Apparently Egalite (if not Fraternite) is alive & kicking in Paris.
But, once we found a school yard full of teenagers their excited screams soon put the movie-star smile back on Thiago's face.
A smile that he wore for the rest of the day - even when confronted with some old, clearly self-delusional ad guy asking him for yet another fucking selfie.
