Before I start:
A big thanks for your questions last week. Rather than address them altogether, I’ll tackle the best intermittently, during the spring and summer. If you’re new to ‘Brands & Humour’, and haven’t the first idea what I’m talking about, don’t fret, here’s last week’s issue. What’s more, if you didn’t get to submit a question and would like to this week, go ahead and do so: just hit reply to this email.
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For today, let’s kick off with one from Milo Corbett, from London. “Who are the top five people, or books, you personally learnt the most from?” I tried to make it five, but couldn’t decide which to cut, and I’m so-so at maths, so six it is. Here are the books/publications that shaped me and how I think about advertising, humour and communications.
1. The Copy Book (Taschen & D&AD, 2011 & 2022)
Big, bulky, a right door-stopper of a book. It’s a compendium of great ad writers, comments on what they do and how they do it and, above all, some superb executions:
(WebBaby.co.uk / Malcolm Duffy)
(Nike / Tim Riley)
(Volvo / David Abbott)
It’s not flawless: it’s all print ads, it feels too male-dominated, and some of the comments are a bit look-at-me-aren’t-I-one-clever-geezer (this might have changed in the 2022 edition; I have the 2011 one). But it’s good to use as a source of inspiration and, hey, if you’re ever in need of a door-stopper.
2. Wendy Cope: Serious Concerns (Faber, 1992)
One of the keys to writing great copy is clarity. Be clear, be accurate and, above all, don’t overstay your welcome. These lessons can be learnt from poetry.
The mention of poetry can bring groans, sure, with memories of having to struggle through Shakespeare in school. But it’s a great medium. Personally, I like Wendy Cope (below), a British poet with a knack for the informal and the amusing. But there are dozens of great poets out there. It floats my boat, it might float yours.
3. Beryl McAlhone & David Stuart: A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design (Phaidon, 1996)
This came out while I was at university and, being a student, I could barely afford a single espresso, let alone a double. I remember poring over it in Waterstone’s on Gower Street, London, while Waterstone’s assistants gave me dark and evil looks. Later, when I got my first job, I bought my own copy — to Waterstone’s relief.
It does what it says on the tin: an overview of witty thinking in graphic design. As such as it’s more graphics than ads, but it’s still a damn good primer.
(Poster for a Dracula Party at the London Hospital, CS&S, UK, 1983)
Misgivings? Its analysis of humour isn’t scientific and exact enough for my liking. But a great read. If The Copy Book reflected my interest in ads, this book sparked my interest in humour1.
4. A Tabloid Newspaper
Tabloid journalism in Britain is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse because of its vindictiveness, its instinct to lower itself to populist prejudice and, not least, its law-breaking in the horrific case of Milly Dowler and the phone-hacking scandal2.
And yet.
For all those sins, some of the funniest, most creative headlines you’ll ever read you’ll find in a tabloid newspaper. Bill Bernbach famously said, “If no one notices your advertising, everything else is academic.” Tabloid sub-editors — who write the headlines — know this applies to journalism, so they do everything they can in their headlines to be funny, rude, or crazy:
Not convinced? Let’s put this another way:
Let’s suppose you’re working in an ad agency and you’re advertising Aldi, a budget supermarket chain. You can spend your lunchtimes reading Campaign or Adweek, the ad industry bibles. Alternatively, you can read something that the customers in Aldi might well read — it might be tabloids, it might be something else entirely. I know which I’d opt for.
5. Paul Feldwick: Why does the Pedlar Sing? (2021)
Paul Feldwick was a strategist for many years. Now retired, he’s written two very good books with two very odd titles: The Anatomy of Humbug and Why does the Pedlar Sing? They’re both very good but the second just pips it for me.
Why so good? Well, there’s a ying and a yang to advertising. An ad can look beautiful but, in the wise words of Nick Ellis of Halo, “The truth is if you create something and it does not move the needle then it has not been successful no matter how beautiful it was”. Feldwick looks at how to move that needle, talking about brand fame, how it’s created and then makes a superb case for saying how and why brands should pursue it. He also takes apart ads that win big brand fame and, on the back of it, create a very healthy business. This is an example he recently posted on LinkedIn:
6. Linds Redding: A Short Lesson in Perspective (2012)
For all the rewards that a career in advertising can bring, one downside is that it’s an industry too quick to preen its feathers. There’s too much self-regard in the business, one reflected in the cult of awards and even the slogans of industry heavyweights who, frankly, should know better (The Drum’s ludicrous slogan Marketing Can Change the World is a great example of this).
Here’s a good antidote. Linds Redding (above) was an acclaimed art director who discovered, in middle age, he was dying of cancer. Shortly before his death at age 52, in 2012, he wrote a blogpost called A Short Lesson in Perspective. It’s not bitter, and it’s a memoir of a man who worked hard, enjoyed his work, but gained a rare and deep perspective. It’s here. If you’re looking for truths that are both heart-felt and hard-won, well worth a read.
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Thank you for your question Milo — and many thanks for reading,
Paddy
Book a meeting with me here / www.studiogilmore.com / pg@studiogilmore.com / +44 7866 538 233 / Twitter: @mrpaddygilmore
You might wonder why this is the only book on this list that deals specifically with humour. I’d respond that many here do touch on the subject, plus a ‘best of’ for humour theory and science would a) be too geeky and b) be too self-interested c) require a subscription to the European Journal of Humour Studies which, alas, not everyone has. Yet.
For non-British readers: the phone-hacking affair was a scandal in which it was proved that News International tabloids hacked into the mobiles of celebrities, victims of terrorist atrocities and Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002. In 2011, it emerged in court that the News of the World — a tabloid newspaper — had hacked into Dowler’s voicemail, so giving her parents false hope that she was still alive. To this day, the phone-hacking scandal remains a damning, and criminal, example of tabloid activities.