An Application.

The recent months in work I had a sort-of...serendipity. 

It all begins here, again. 

It is two years since I joined Clemenger as a fresh graduate, and it is too long since I had a new goal. 

I want to work for great people.
I want to work with great people. 

And above all, I want to do great work for wonderful people. 

Rory Sutherland, Lauren Connolly and George Lois,

this is my application*.

*application applies to any job opening you see fit for a NZ ad kid on the search for a wonderful age of advertising.

Woman, kicks ass.

Strolling through the oh-so-Christmas themed shops this year, I found myself rolling my eyes at the childrens gifts that were quite blatantly saying...

look like me and you'll be happy...rely on a man named Ken and you'll live in luxury...buy me, play with me, and you're on the path to success.

This woman, this kick-ass woman is the kind of Mother I want to one day be.

Photographer and mother Jaime Moore searched high and low for creative inspiration to take photos of her 5-year-old daughter Emma but found most of the ideas were how to dress your little girl like a Disney princess. It got her thinking about some real women for her daughter to look up to, whether that be a pilot, a doctor, or even an astronaut.

Then she did what I can only describe as kick-ass. Below are the five inspirational women she dressed her daughter as. Then scroll down to see the bonus sixth photo because it made me smile so much.

To make Merry.

noun

1. 1. 25th December, dedicated especially to family reunions and merry making.

There's those times... those times when advertising get's it wonderfully right.
Probably even more morally right than Banksy himself could ever fight it.

Christmas: a time to make merry. 

Thank you AMV/BBDO London.

Invent Right.

When do you make the right decision. 

With the fact of possibility in every moment you are a part of, how is it at all simple to take the right path. 

It is too easy to look around you; assume and want. 

It is also easy to look around you and feel and grieve. 

So how then, with all the human abilities to see the world, do we then get faced with possibility. 

I'm twenty three and I am confused. 

*insert real problem here

I just wonder how many people go through confusion before they find right. 
I refuse to give up on taking complete advantage of living by enjoying every moment of it. 

So, if you are 33 and wonderfully happy based on the evolvement from a confused ten years ago you, please let me know- as all I keep saying to myself these days is 

"the only way to predict the future is to invent it"

Intoxicating Craft.

I simply love it when good work walks in unannounced.

It's refreshing to see design that took a step outside of the too often claimed "fresh and sleek", but instead moved their artwork in to a balance and blend of the aesthetically provoking and the crafted intoxication that when put in the hands of BBDO , was and is a beautiful execution

- with a bit of wit on top.

According to the 2013 Best Design Awards judges, this piece of work from Clemenger BDDO and  an array of crafty designers, 

"transcends self promotion and carries a local and cultural relevance"

4-in-1.

Fucking, Work vs Fucking Work.

Ad/Vice.

The most important advice I could give you is to make every minute count. Work harder than anyone else, make yourself a valuable (albeit lowly paid!) member of the team and never miss an opportunity to learn.

Peter Cullinane.

Advice or A single red chair.

I'm pretty sure you only live once. And that means you have to live awesomely.

I've always lived awesomely. Legit. I always have.

I'm pretty sure I'm naturally gifted to see the awesome in the shit (or maybe I'm just a Gen Y yuppie-whatever). 

Since moving to hipster cities, dating the odd indie boy and watching crafted artists at work, I have come to realise that these things I see the awesome in really are in actual fact genuinely shit a lot of the time.

 And when I realised that this shit can make me happy, I realised that I was unstoppable in life.

I was destined to enjoy every part of it.

I'm 23, and lately, as may or may not be obvious through my recent posts, I've been confused why new found shit isn't leading me to aweseomeness. 

For an answer to this you can either:

 Read this advice

http://www.waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

or for an equally fulfilling but morally opposite answer

...buy a single red chair. 

A Letter from Fred.

This winter was one of the most unfamiliar times I think I have ever had. 

I love the unexpected, the excitement of change and the adrenalin of exploring. But even though it has been quite that, none of it seems to be bringing out that familiar output of incandescent happiness in me.

 The welcomed new has come with a course of routine norm. It has created quite the rock in my stomach and not in a good way.

It's the most uncomfortable feeling when what you're experiencing, you keep comparing it to what could be worse to make you feel better. 

I'm still figuring out what that means exactly, but for the now, it's videos like this that bring me back to my normal self, the familiar one, which gets me excited about life yet to come.

Introverted fun & it's all mine.

Do you ever have those times when you feel like you are sick of talking?

Things keep happening around you at a whirlwind pace and it's not necessarily that you don't wish to tell those concerned about the creations of said whirlwinds, or respond to the creators themselves with words of enthusiasm and excitement, but it's just that...you're just overwhelmed with words.

Over the past week...month...I have found myself in unexpected conversations left, right, backwards and centre.

Each have had me hold such intention and forced me to pause frequently only to ensure the most intelligently provocative words would come from my lips.

But I just wish there could be more space for the socially abnormal.

For example, imagine if you could go through life with a few artistic flash cards to communicate...

Laura Gee

But darling, it's art.

Let's get this straight, my monthly wage, minus my rent, my insurance, and my student loan brings me down to $1,118. That's $279 a week.

 From that, let's minus cash for the flat jar, bills, and lest we forget food, bringing  us down to around about $100 a week- of which finds its own non-descriptive way of disappearing... 

Now, this is all fine given I chose advertising. I knew the wage to begin on is...well, what it is (however legally bordering it is). 

I also know it can only and only will get better (she says...). 

However, as I sat in my cafe at 7am this morning beginning the first hour of the day, I flick through the one and only Elle.

 I found myself being mentally sucked in to the headlines 'Bags for Boardrooms' and images that only say 'I'm so busy getting to my meeting I'm holding on to this Dior clutch bag so'.

All I could think was, I want to be her. 

But of course, naturally, have her be me.

I want to be that woman with the bluntly cut black silk bangs and the cape running along behind trying to keep up with it's owner's oh-so-busy-and-important career led life.

Yes, I know, it really is ironic that I'm in advertising given I am so easily sucked in to it.

But no matter how many Banksy portraits are made describing advertising as the devil, it is to me and I intend it to forever be, one of escapism. 

Great advertising is great art.

Publishing art. 

Printing an ad.

What's the difference ma chérie?

And until I rise to the top of said industry, I will go on painting my lips red and wearing my non expensive-expensive looking bling, until the day comes that my monetary funds keep up with my Givenchy cape flying behind me as I race through the double doors of my oh-so-important-meeting only to nonchalantly tell my client, "But darling, it's art". 

Lest this be the Last of Us.

I love that gaming is getting more ad time. 

The individuals involved in gaming are simply the most impressive creative delights that deserve the artistic right to be leading a great TVC. 

This 1 minute Sony moment was an Amsterdam creation and a well deserved Best Ad of the week.

That, I will drink to.

Please tell me that 1) you are not a pretentious intellectual that doesn't understand why people watch t.v; 2) you are not a condescending elder who can't find the time to watch t.v and 3) you indulge in the absolute pleasure of watching TV One on Tuesday nights at 8:30.

Kevin and Jamie. New Zealand. First Crossings.

Do you ever come across those moments where you realise your surroundings aren't living up to your inspirations. 

I know we can't expect every moment of the day to be that of Jaime and Kevin's surrounding, but I refuse to stick around in routine moments of dullness. There is too much brilliance in the world to get accustomed to being content with the null.

What frustrates me is when you realise the people who can make things happen, aren't making things happen. 

People say, if you want things to happen, make them happen. 

But it just seems, in my day-to-day, my attempt in making things happen parallel too well to something like this...

I've decided not to rely on those who say they can make things happen. 

I'm going to forever and foremost make things happen myself. And one day I will make things happen for other people. 

That, I will drink to.

One in One.

I'm completely in-complacent with most things at the moment. I'm listening to Lorde's Tennis Court on repeat in a some what nonchalant hypnotic way. I'm craving Summer where everything and everyone in it have priorities and topics that are only ones that dwell on how lucky they are in the lives they are in. Right now little is ringing the usual bells and it's starting to frustrate me on a new level. And because of this I'm completely and utterly determined to go back to being inspired and content in my own doing. 

BECAUSE WE LOVE THIS CITY, WE WANT IT TO

BE BETTER. BECAUSE THE BEST SCHOOLS AREN’T

GOOD ENOUGH AND THE WORST ONES NEED

A REVOLUTION. BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS

GET IT WRONG AND SO DO THE ACADEMICS

AND THE LAWYERS AND THE COPS AND THE

ARTISTS AND THE BANKS. NOT ALWAYS, BUT

TOO OFTEN, SO THINGS NEED TO BE SAID.

EXPOSED. ARGUED. LAUGHED AT. BECAUSE

THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD THINGS TO EAT,

AND WEAR, AND SEE AND HEARAND BE A PART

OF (AND SOMETIMES THEY’RE NOT AS GOOD

AS THEY SHOULD BE EITHER, WHICH ALSO

NEEDS TO BE SAID). BECAUSE WE CHERISH

SO MANY OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS CITY, AND

WE WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THEM AND SHOW

THEM TO YOU. 

Finally, CAANZ.

Thank you CAANZ. Couldn't have put it better myself.

A theory for Want.

This weekend I had a well overdue catch up with a friend who, whilst telling me about her regretful drunken antics (of which I continuously tell her to claim) also told me about a new revelation she has had in terms of life goals. 

Whilst neither her or I are ones to sit down and write a life plan with coordinated colored sharpies, we are however, ones to discuss (pointless or not) life and particularly our career dreams.

She has a theory. One that theorizes the success of wants. 

A want cannot be achieved if you do not state you want this want. Both of us have got to where we are by wanting things, doing what we have to do get that want, and then getting there. But what if you were to never state that want. If you say, put it into a category of unrealistic or not likely, then naturally of course that want would never eventuate to anything. 

But what if you wanted everything you wanted to want. The likelihood of achieving at least half of those wants is high. Merely because you put it out there and said you want it. 

Ergo, write a list. A list of wants. Of anything, however realistic or likely. Surely wanting so much can only eventuate to success. Even if it's for only one of those wants. Better than none. And better than only achieving those obvious goals like a promotion at work. There are so many better wants out there. 

1. Have a blog go viral
2. Feature in a film on the big screen
3. Read a new book every month
4. Go to a new country every year.
5. Create my own magazine
6. Become the youngest Managing Director in New Zealand
7. Paint my front door red
8. Live by myself
9. Own a VW
10. Have a coffee with Claudia Batten
11. Work on a Bruton Stroube Studio set
12. Get my full license
13. Go to Bali with my best friends
14. Meet George Lois
15. Walk through Vietnam
16. Publish a book
17. Be awarded in the Companion of the Order of New Zealand (CNZM) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Arts Governance and Philanthropy (just to be sepcific...) 
18. Make a childrens clothing line
19. Make a childrens book
20. Win over $20 from a scratchie
21. Open my own cafe
22. Use a briefcase
23. Have an interview with Rory Sutherland
24. See every film from the 2013 NZ International Film Festival
25. To be continued...

Easter Does Vietnam

Upon the first few days of my Taupo Easter getaway, em gái tôi (that is 'my sister' in Vietnamese)

 who is visiting from abroad, brings out from her suitcase a dvd for our evening entertainment.

Whilst my love for vietnamese history began when I first watched Robyn Malcom in Intrepid Journey during my  2006 high school history class, this man Ahn Do inspired a different part of me through his comedic doco of Vietnam. 

Ahn Do &  his family fled Vietnam during the Vietnamese war to Australia on one small ship which they were attacked twice by pirates on and went without food & water for days.

However, they made it to Australia and the fugitive became the happiest man alive, I'm convinced. Just watch this dvd and you'll see. 

Ahn Do is an Australia comedian and it is only natural that with his past, he also has the most wide heart and the most beating smile.

It is with his story that he made me excited about life. Life, which there is so much more to see. I have these feelings all the time. Feelings that encourage positively generic dreaming, aspirational youthful career plans and all the stuff that non intentionally creates award winning TVCs. 

That's what led me to the Ad world. An absolutely genuine convincing of what someone can do to something to make it extraordinary, and some.

 But somehow, and I can't pinpoint the exact reason- or even whether it is worth being pensive over, somehow it seems like these times of extreme dreams and winning plans are becoming more sporadic. 

That's not to say that the dreams and plans are any less awesome, if anything they're more realistic which is wonderfully exciting. But it does bother me that the occurrence of such animated mind explosions are less often. No matter how big the emotional orgasm, I wonder if I should be mourning the feeling-or more accurately the lack of it. 

Or should I merely be taking this as the perfect time to be using these now seemingly sporadic dreams to actually create said dreams...

Succeed On with Afghans, Long Blacks & Pyrotechniques.

Every weekend I cross the road from my sweet wee rental only to sit at one of the most lovely cafes I am glad to have become accustomed to. 

However, as of late my routine weekend visits have diminished due to a certain other who I have been getting to know. Sorry to inject some personal sopiness in, but as per my last post I feel it is only natural to speak of real romance when it offers itself-it's what Austen would do.  

But alas, that other has given his time to the working world this weekend. Which has left me in a place only to return to my usual one. And it is, I have now realised, a much overdue return. I have been neglecting a side project which had me so excited about ever since the thought turned aspiration turned destined reality became itself. But the said other has stolen the place of excitement, leaving the project neglected and sitting in the back of my mind-but never out of the mind I assure you!

So with this familiar time given to me, I picked up my laptop, whatever issue of Frankie I could find in my lounge and walked across the road and through the doors of my dear Foxtrot Parlour cafe. 

And because I'm sure you would like to know, I ordered a long black and an afghan. Both of which were damn lovely- even though when trying to brake the afghan in half, one of the halves decided to make an escape...to the floor. Sigh. 

Finally, after dipping the afghan in the dark silk that was a long black, and flicking through my own, and Foxtrot's own Frankies, I wrote... And wrote... And wrote. And I feel like I finally hit what I have been trying to hit for months. It seems the return to routine only awoke a searched for hit this wee project needed. And now, once again, I am excited and feel as if I belong next to Brian Blessed typing away on my laptop as part of an ASB Succeed On TVC. 

I just love this damn feeling. And I can't wait to share more about my project. 

Also, just as an added loveliness to this day of wonderful, when leaving Foxtrot, the lovely Foxtrot man himself passes me a small brown bag and as I say to him in a rather perplexed manner "sorry, what is it?", he casually replied "another afghan, to make up for the half that ran away".

And lest we forget, there is no size or criteria for success, it's all success! And we must give praise with pyrotechniques!

What would your Bitch do.

If there was but one question to ask at all times, some completely sane people would say...

What would Britney do.

In my world, I think it shall be; 

What would Austen do.

There are far too many occasions when we can stay completely absorbed in our own heads, naturally. But to what gain does it do. Whilst I will be first to admit and in fact promote (again, naturally) that I am one in a generation who are self promoting, ambitious, nieve, confident and ridiculously over-eager, I adamantly believe there is no other way I would want to be.

It amuses and confuses me as to why people should choose to cater to anything other than the awesome. Working in an industry which is so passionately driven, I sometimes get lost in the founding that there is higher values dictating this said passions placement. 

When there is a passion, an idea, a direction and a team, how is that we as the team can stray so far away to a point of competete absurd disconnect. 

I shall now, forever and foremost (at least until there becomes a day-if ever, when I leave the ad world) question myself in such circumstances with the question...

What would Austen do.

For she would merely react and reply with the utmost wit whilst casually promoting 
self-righteousness, intelligence and guidance.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single agency in possession of passion must be in want of great people. (p. 1, Ch. 1, Vol. 1).

Cosmetic Brand Surgery.

 

Is it not the most wonderful thing when something that brings such cheap thrills as is, is given a dose of aesthetic brilliance.

 

Just 'cause.

 

Well in this case it's not actually just 'cause.

 

It's because New Zealand Lotteries is sane. Sane in the sense that they, perhaps with the delicious guidance of Wendy Rayner or craft of designer Brogen Averill, see the safety in a facelift and a rebrand.

 

NZ Lotteries and Running with Scissors have just launched a new range of Instant Kiwi tickets. And marketing manager Robert Saunders says it's the biggest facelift for the tickets since it started selling them back in 1989.

 

It is becoming far too dull a conversation and I would go as far as to say even daft, when people speak of risk in a tone that suggests in avoidance of the new, they stay successfully adrift in their industry.

This is so obviously not the case.

 

It is now a time more than ever, to not get lost.

And anwyay , what is advertising if not to be seen. There is only so long you can now be noticed, no matter how brilliant the creative. Saturation of media is only too common. So cosmetically rebrand* away, bitches!

 

*with utter and utmost planning of course

 

In saying all of this, I have found some merit in my own venturesome thought of having an advertising museum.

 

 If Da Vinci can be remembered, adorned and have his work placed in gold frames, surely work of George Lois and the like deserve such recognition.

Advertising doesn't deserve to be forgotten.