The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

We spend very large part of our life working. Yet very often (and more emphatically when it sucks) we ask: What's the point of it? In truth, maybe it's not work that we cannot make sense of, but life.

When one works in advertising, the question comes more imminent and paramount with the package offers of long hours, overtime, underpay, the enmity of clients and the stress of deadlines. As the moan and groan are getting heavier and more frequent around, I find myself drawing my thought to the last page of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton. The perplexity of our question may not be answered, but at least it offers a perspective in which we could find a sense of consolation, albeit tinted with irony.

To see ourselves as the centre of the the universe and the present time as the summit of history, to view our upcoming meetings as being overwhelming significance, to neglect the lessons of cemeteries, to read only sparingly, to feel the pressure of deadlines, to snap at colleagues, to make our way through conference agendas marked '11:00 a.m. to 11:15.: coffee break', to behave heedlessly and greedily and then to combust in battle, to work frantically through the night for a million-billing account pitch (or worse just a thousand one) [My addition] – maybe all of this, in the end, is working wisdom. It is paying death too much respect to prepare for it with sage prescriptions. Let it surprise us while we are shipping wood pulp across the Baltic Sea, removing the heads of tuna, developing a nauseating variety of biscuit, advising a client on a change of career, firing a satellite with which to beguile a generation of Japanese schoolgirls, painting an oak tree in a field, laying an electricity line, doing the accounts, inventing a deodorant dispenser or making an extended-strength coil tube for an airline or brainstorming an advertising campaign for a skincare brand [My addition]. Let death find us we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.

If we could witness the eventful fate of every one of our projects, we would have no choice but to succumb to the immediate paralysis. Would anyone who watched the departure of Xerxes' army on its way to conquer the Greeks, or Tai Chan Ahk giving orders for the construction of the golden temples of Cancuén, or the British colonial administrators inaugurating the Indian postal system, or David Ogilvy briefing his account executives on how to make Dove the best selling soap in the U.S. [My addition], had it in their hearts to fill their passionate actors in on the eventual fate of their efforts?

Our work will at least distracted us, it will have provided a perfect bubble in which to invest our hopes for perfection, it will have focused our immeasurable anxieties on a few relatively small-scale and achievable goals, it will have given us a sense of mastery, it will have made us respectably tired, it will have put food on the table, It will have misled us to complain about our unreasonable malicious manipulative over-demanding ungrateful clients (or/and bosses) as our worse nightmare [My addition]. It will have kept us out of greater trouble.  

Pringle of Scotland Animation by David Shrigley

Speaking about Scottish, here's a truly hilarious stuff made in Scotland.

BMW Unstoppable

The music, the voice-over, the ride. Orchestrated to the right frequency that gets my blood rushing and lifts me from the ground for a few second. That's the power of advertising, in a good way.

I love doing ad when you're not just talking about the product, but something more universal, some human spirits that connect us. But how many clients today see that, and think it helps selling their brand?

BTW, I really love Scottish accent.

A new phone called Pomegranate

Normally I don't talk much about latest innovative gadget. But today I've got a link introducing a phone industry breakthrough which appears to be one on par, if not above, iPhone for the time being. It's called the Pomegranate NS08. A phone claimed to be able to do all the usual mobile phone stuffs plus whole new added abilities like: gps system, movie projector, global voice translator, razor, harmonica and even brewing coffee!


Too good to be true? I leave you to find out.
www.pomegranatephone.com

Silly Hoarding

Talking about hoarding, just round the corner another shop is under construction.
A watch shop, and they too try to do something with their hoarding.
You can see they are trying very hard to be smart.
But fell flat. Very flat.
This kind of pretentious crap really annoys me.
Who is responsible for this, the client or the creatives? I'm not sure.
The message I've got here is that either they thought the passersby are really stupid or they are.
"We don't know exactly when we will open. But it will be on time."
In advertising, making a paradoxical statement can win you some attentions, but it has to be conveying a sensible truth.
Nonsense remains nonsense, whatever rhetoric you throw in.
"Before opening we have to work 24 hrs a day. Like IWC watches."
Oh really? I don't see you working this morning when I'm on my way to work, not to mention at night.
Just what sort of thinking is this?
Silly. Liar.

Bubbly Bubbly Happy

It's like colour bubbles floating in liquid air. Happy!

Not getting enough?



OK, got addicted?



It could be one of those Sony Bravia TVCs (Balls, Paints and Play Doh). There's just something in common. If you haven't seen one, here's more stop-motion, colours, joyfulness, and bunnies – lots and lots of them.

Stop-motion

At the moment, stop-motion seems to be the in thing, here're 2 pieces which caught my eyes.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Enormous dedication.

Enormous production.

That's cute!

"That's cute!" – the compliments I've got wearing this tee lately. All from females.

This struck me that females, even in their thirties, adore cute things. I know a few friends who still keep stuffed animal by their side. They talk to them, sleep with them, and even goto gym with them. Once my friend was taken aback when someone introduced her little buddy to her.

Advertisers can use more cutie stuffs when talking to our ladies. Why not? It's immature, too playful and not "corporate" enough? Who cares? Apparently except the marketing people. And ironically they are largely female (Just ask how many cute merchandises on their office desk).

We may not be as Kawaii-laden as the Japanese, but surely we are not as grown-up as we think we are.

Loosen up a bit, stay a little younger. What's wrong with that?

The Omnipresence of Pun

Strolling around Central, found these 2 pieces of sign. If you know Cantonese, you'll see how the puns work.

"FORM PRINT" => "CONVENIENT" (in Cantonese)

"WRONG design" => "KING" of design

We call it "食字" (literally means "eating word") in Hong Kong. Arguably, THE most overused ad copy trick in the past decade and there seems no stopping.

howies

I fell in love instantly with this brand.

I haven't owned any of their product yet, but I've downloaded all their wallpapers.

They give life back to copywriting. You inevitably felt happier, fresher and more positive towards your environment after sipping through some of their writings. It's optimism full of wits. You know how hard it is to do creative for the good cause. Either they are using shock tactics or just self-indulgently boring.

When today, most ads are very visual-driven, this is a breath of fresh air. Too many brands are hollow and stand for nothing anyway, they (at least it seems to me by brief observation) hold onto some values and beliefs above just making profits.