Words.
They can be powerful and profound.
String them together with expert precision and an impact that is powerful and profound can be made by them because of how they've been strung together so expertly and precisely, with expert precision.
I rest my case.
And so, without further ado, here is a collection of random words and I do mean random. Some date back to my fledgling days. Some are included simply because they were a pain in the ass to scan. And recent history is underrepresented because I have long outgrown the compulsion to preserve every precious headline. But there's more than enough here to get the general idea. For your added convenience, the whole sordid affair has been squished into a slow-to-load, but easy-to-digest video. Skim a few headlines, read a paragraph or two and be done with it.
A little goes a long way.
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Amazon.com was just some two-bit start-up being run out of a dingy little garage in Washington State. A few years later, this print ad runs and —presto— the lowly bookmonger is suddenly the most powerful entity on the planet. Coincidence?
What you can't see because the type is too small is every final score of every Monday Night Football game ever aired on ABC before the broadcast shifted to ESPN. In case you're wondering, the Jets went 0-51.
Okay, you may have noticed a trend emerging by this point. Page after page crammed to the margins with a sea of tiny, hard-to-read words. Self-indulgent? Perhaps. A non-starter for the attention-challenged consumer of today? Sure, I'll cop to that. No contest. The thing is, when attempting to demonstrate one's writing, it is kind of helpful to include pieces that have lots and lots of sentences, one right after the other. Hence, the interminable copy. Sorry. Let's just move on and cleanse the palate with some less ponderous fare. Onward.
Are there some puns here? Yes, a few. I was young and impressionable, but I shan't apologize. Shakespeare used puns, so get over yourself already.
This campaign launched Nike's inaugural Run T.O. 10K marathon in Toronto. The goal was to encourage novice runners to become more engaged with the sport. The first thing we did was cast an actor in less-than-stellar shape as our athletic Everyman — a.k.a. Running Guy. We gave him a month to will himself into shape for his very first marathon. Every weekday morning, we had him run through the downtown core with a pack of Run T..O.-branded runners, all while doing remote segments with a popular morning drive radio show. Meanwhile, the city was blanketed with close to 100 different executions in outdoor, transit, print and internet. Ultimately, Running Guy crushed his marathon, the event exceeded all expectations and Toronto became just a little healthier in the process.
Let’s get real. Do you really need more samples of my work in a terminally ill medium? No, probably not. But are you going to get more? You bet. You can thank my pathological need to keep proving myself ad nauseam. It’s a compulsion, really. As far as I’m concerned, there’s always one more headline, one more concept or one more script just begging to be written and presented. Some might call it overkill; I call it doing my job. Because if you always leave them wanting more, eventually you have to ask yourself why you're being such a slacker.
The above manifesto goes way back. It was a one-off for a meeting with someone who, in his day, was arguably one of the most famous people on the planet. In hindsight, I’d ax the Ricky/Timmy exchange, lose the facetious exclamation points and dial down the silliness quotient by a solid 15%. Because I’m, like, super-mature now. Overall, though, I still stand behind it. Mostly.
Look how sincere that one was. The ability is there, if I could only learn to apply myself.
Oh, good catch. It would appear that I’ve blatantly ignored the last decade-plus of advertising. My bad. Given that the majority of work I’ve posted here dates back to my on-staff days, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve been cryogenically frozen since 2009.
Not so.
For my entire freelance career, I’ve been seeing pretty much the exact same briefs you have. Rest assured, I’ve done my share of Instagram Stories. I’ve generated more branded tweets, Facebook posts and website content than anyone would ever care to read. I’ve worked on YouTube-only videos. Projections. Pop-ups. And an indecent number of activations that propose taking over Times Square, Grand Central or Piccadilly Circus like it was no big deal. Hell, I’ve even got a One Show Interactive Gold Pencil languishing in a box somewhere for my efforts.
My point? Don’t mistake my past for my present.
Now, will I be your first call for that spiffy new social media campaign? Probably not. My area of expertise stubbornly remains 360° brand campaigns and crowd-pleasing TV spots. But if your brief spills over into decidedly digital realms, don’t rule me out entirely. Why? Just browse the internet. If you squint your eyes and stare down that unruly beast long enough you’ll see the worldwide web for what it really is.
A bunch of words.
A bunch of uplifting, impassioned, empathetic, snarky, enlightening, awe-inspiring, frivolous, life-affirming, conspiratorial, educational, heartbreaking, galvanizing, visionary, self-promoting, celebrity-obsessed, revolutionary, profane, profound and powerful words.
I can handle that.
But I still prefer TV.
I don't envy your decision.
Hey, I’ve seen what’s on those freelancer websites. All those profiles. All those portfolios. Thousands upon thousands of smiling faces, and each and every one of them purports to have spearheaded the greatest ad campaign in human history. Forget paying your dues — just scrape together a half-dozen TV spots and suddenly every random junior comes across like a titan of the industry. Seriously. After scrolling through the first few hundred freelancers, they all start to feel interchangeable.
Until they’re not.
Until they have to deliver.
Until they actually have to live up to all that puffery they slipped into their profile.
Oops. Smoke and mirrors win again. Better luck next time.
So what, pray tell, is the answer? Hire me, right?
Stop skipping ahead.
The fact is, there has always been an oversaturation of creatives in the industry. It’s understandable since the only real precondition for entry is wanting to be a creative. Hell, that’s how I got into it way back when. But now with the digital platforms in ascendancy, what used to be a local conundrum has gone global. Every wannabe in the world is all up in your grill and there aren’t nearly enough filters to rein in the free-for-all.
So what’s the solution? Is it to hire me?
Not yet.
Now, more than ever, experience actually matters. Just look around. More and more clients are eschewing having an Agency of Record. More and more agencies are merging within holding companies. And let’s not forget A.I. —let’s never forget A.I.— nudging us ever closer to mass obsolescence. Producing top flight creative work is no longer a mere luxury — your agency’s longterm viability may very well depend on it . Stand out or get swallowed up.
Deliver. Or else.
Wow, pretty ominous stuff. That’s some first-rate fearmongering, that is. But, as luck would have it, there is a fairly predictable path out of the hellscape I’ve conveniently conjured up. Care to wager any guesses? Yup, you nailed it.
Hire me.
Not forever, mind you. Just for a few days, a few weeks, a few months or however long it takes to solve whatever needs solving. As far as staffing decisions go, this one barely registers.
For the record, though, I’m a fairly solid choice. I'm no creative genius, but I do have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. What can I say? I learned from the best. I’ve been mentored by some living legends and worked alongside many of today’s industry leaders. Slowly but surely, I’ve absorbed the lessons of what goes into creating standout work and do my best to honor that standard every time out. It takes discipline, humility and a work ethic that’s decidedly out-of-fashion. To that end, I would never dream of presenting a single, solitary concept and then holding for applause. No, I believe in options. And I believe in no less than 14 other things, too.
I believe in exploring every possible angle until time runs out.
I believe in stress-testing a campaign to see if it can hold up over multiple executions.
I believe in troubleshooting my work before your client ever has a crack at it.
I believe in swinging for the fences, unless what you really need me to do is bunt.
I believe in work that provokes a reaction.
And I believe in all-nighters and power naps to help achieve it.
I believe even the most challenging clients will respond to good work if you meet them halfway.
I believe the worst ads presume that consumers are dying to hear what we have to say.
I believe overthinking is the number one cause of under-entertaining.
I believe awards are vastly overrated and that winning them isn’t a license to be a sociopath.
I believe writers ought to be able to write.
I believe long, meandering lists of beliefs are pretentious and should be wrapped up sooner than later.
I believe every new assignment has the potential to be the best thing I ever do.
And I believe in overdelivering.
Every single time.
I never let myself forget that you have roughly 43,479 other freelancers waiting in the wings behind me. The pressure is always on, keeping me sharp and keeping me motivated.
After all, I’m only as good as my next creation.
And I can’t wait to get started.
brant@mauwork.com
Brant Mau - Copywriter & CD