So we got another brief the other day. Apparently the powers-that-be here at our big fat ad agency have been inspired, and have shouted from the rooftops that this year they want the agency to be... wait for it... more rock n roll. It's the theme for the year. Our ideas should be more rock n roll and our executions more rock n roll and we're going to be more rock n roll with our clients and more rock n roll with each other.
I'm not sure if I'm getting the entire message here, because the message is always given in German and then translated into broken, jaded English by my frequently bitter co-workers. But it seems to boil down to the following key items: we're going to let our work be a little more kuh-RAZY!, we're not going to pitch clients who won't let us rock out with our cock out, and every other tuesday there'll be cocaine-fueled orgies with underage groupies*.
It's hard not to roll the old eyes with a cynical smile when two guys with a combined age of 104 think it's perfectly reasonable to tell us to be rock n roll. I'm not sure I can think of something that is less rock n roll than sending out a memo to be more rock n roll. I'm pretty sure there weren't any PowerPoint presentations at Led Zeppelin band meetings, and I doubt Kurt Cobain ever took the budget into consideration.
The point here, of course, is that you can't just tell someone (including yourself) to be more rock n roll. It has to come from within; it has to be a genuine feeling of FUCK YOU for almost everything around you; it has to be a rebel streak that takes no prisoners and gives convention and nay-sayers a big fat middle finger. And I think it helps to get drunk and throw up a lot.
And now we have this brief to think of ways to make the agency more rock n roll. It's great - we can hang out and think of ideas that'll make this place more crazy (and newsworthy! we were specifically instructed to come up with ideas that would get us into the paper... just like how Ozzy would get the gang together and said "Lads, let's get ourselves some press coverage!") so we can present them and get them killed for being too expensive or too crazy or too offensive or all three. "No," I can hear them saying, "more rock n roll!"
* yeah, I made up that third one.
3 comments:
You're already rock and roll.
AH... I know that song. Ours is "The FIRE." How can we bring "The FIRE" to this? Where's "The FIRE?" Until you just plain want to kill yourself (obviously by self-immolation, so that I can show you where the damn FIRE is). Good times.
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