adVENT: a Christmas wishlist from Mark Goodwin, creative director at M&C Saatchi
It's Christmas, in case you hadn't noticed, and while cheer, joy and goodwill to all men is being spread far and wide, everyone has a little grumble at this time of year as well. The Drum has invited some of those heading up some of the UK's finest media and marketing communications companies to share their pet hates that annoy them in their jobs at this time of year, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek.
Mark Goodwin, creative director at M&C Saatchi offers his wish list from Santa this year.
Dear Santa,
I know you’re pretty busy at the moment (and don’t really exist - sorry kids, but you had to know sometime), but this year I’d really love….
1. Peace. I don’t mean anything really big like World Peace (although that would be great if you could swing it), but an end to the seasonal blood fest between retail ads would be a good start. You know the sort of thing – will a bear and a hare beat the shit out of Ant and Dec? Will real Christmas families trample victoriously over fake ones? Who will be the newborn king and who will be the turkey? Maybe I’m squeamish, but I have to say I find this seasonal gladiatorial combat a bit, well, unseemly.
2. Snow. According to the Met Office, we’ve only had 4 proper white Christmases in 51 years. To put this into some context, it’s rained fish at least as many times. Yet come December it seems that every ad looks like it’s been shot in St Moritz. Now I’ve never been to St Moritz but I’m pretty certain they haven’t got an Asda there. So could you arrange for either a good snowfall this year or get Clearcast to ban the use of this misleading meteorological event? Failing that, a shower of herrings would liven up most Christmas spots.
3. Anonymity. Not from everyone obviously, just online retailers. I really don’t like being stalked around the net by Mr Porter, as he randomly confronts me with a ‘here’s that thing you liked but didn’t buy’ banner. It creeps me out.
4. Please can I have my data back too? I promise to take better care of it this time. It’s just that I’ve had enough of brands doing the digital equivalent of rummaging through my bins and then popping around to say ‘Hiya! We know all about you – let’s be friends.’ I may be weird but just because I like someone’s biscuits or their drink or their shop, it doesn’t mean that I want to take that relationship any further than eating their biscuits, drinking their drink etc. I’m also not blind to the fact that they only like me in the same way a Great White Shark likes seals.
5. A Content Filter. Something that can weed out the tidal wave of digital effluent that threatens to engulf the Internet. Apparently we now generate as much information every two days as we did from the dawn of man through to 2003. In effect, we’ve swapped the plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Homer and the paintings of Picasso for #i’mhavingacupcake. It seems to come to a head around this time of year when everyone wants to produce more and more content: the behind the scenes film of the making of a film documenting the production of a fairly mediocre 30’ TVC for supermarket ham, anyone? Not forgetting the website dedicated to it, the friendless Facebook page and the sadly needy, ubiquitous hash tag that only those involved with the whole sorry campaign will ever use.
6. Finally, I’d love a few more brilliant middleweight teams, with amazing books, who are adept in all media and produce really good, useful, entertaining content that people actually want to engage with.
Thanks Santa. Happy Christmas.