Five things on Friday #379
Advertising, werewolves, and Star Wars. Of course...
Things of note for the week ending Friday July 5th, 2024.
#379
INTRO
Well hello there.
Nothing typifies the Great British Summer™️ than being caught in the rain, wearing shorts, and without an umbrella. But that’s what happened to me earlier this week.
Absolute amateur hour.
How have you been?
Here in the UK, today July 5th, we are waking up to a new dawn. A new government. A new Prime Minister. What that means, we shall wait and see.
But for those of us who suffered alone or who had family members who had to - while politicians partied - during covid, it feels like a moment of pointed jubilation (to land the significance of this result, Carol Vorderman has put it best so far - with Mehdi Hassan a close second).
On a related note, and tying back to a POLITICAL THING from the other week (Thing 4, FToF #377), my dear friend Robbie Dale has expanded his thoughts a bit more and landed on three isms worth reflecting on: tribalism, simplism and enthusiasm.
Probably my favourite read of the week and it’s not even a THING.
How lucky are you?
In boring newsletter admin news, I’ve been dicking about with domains and subdomains so sorry if you tried to read FToF on the web this week - there might still be some DNS problems still being flushed out (and I’m still not completely happy with where we are) but we will see where we get to. Buttondown’s customer service team are being enormously helpful (and patient).
In exciting newsletter news, YOU ARE ALL BRILLIANT. I think about fifty of you responded to the Add Me On Linkedin CTA last week and about 99.99% of you fulfilled the ‘Don’t be a douche and add a note’ part of the brief too. Congratulations, pats on the back all round. It’s so nice to be connected with you all - and in some cases reconnected, especially from the ever-spreading Twitter diaspora.
Still waiting for your moment in the sun? Add me on Linkedin.
Right. I think that’s enough dilly dallying.
Shall we crack on with the things?
LET’S.
TO THE THINGS!
THING 1. LET’S KICK THINGS OFF WITH SOME GOOD ADS I’VE SEEN RECENTLY, SHALL WE?
The mrs caught this RSPCA one at the cinema this week and insisted I watched it. So now you’re watching it too.
‘It makes a change to make it about LOVE and RESPECT vs FEAR and SORROW’ - and she’s right y’know.
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Moving on, and if the cognitive dissonance whiplash isn’t too hard, let’s move onto what VOXI is doing with CHICKEN SHOP(s).
AMV BBDO and [youth-oriented mobile brand] VOXI have made 50,000 ‘Voxi Boxis’ and shipped them out to 50+ chicken shops across the country. Meaning you can carry on watching your social media while you enjoy your greasy wings.
I like this for its simplicity. Yeah, we’ve seen tons of these before but there’s something about this variant that just works?
And if it really works, then chicken boxes might be redesigned forever.
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As a quick aside, and speaking of ‘Seeing ideas before’, I thought Ben Essen’s piece in Campaign this week about how every Cannes winner is a remix was great. “saying “It has been done before” is the quickest way to kill an idea in any creative review.” - and he proves this isn’t always healthy.
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HEY JUDE for ADIDAS.
Getting this made before Jude Bellingham saved England from embarrassment at our most recent game is an incredible stroke of luck for Neew York ad agency, Johannes Leonardo.
And now it just hits harder.
Congratulations to everyone involved.
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Speaking of our most recent game: all credit to EE for not only doubling down on their HATE, NOT MY OUR SHIRT campaign for EE but also buying the media during half-term of England’s most recent game (when we were playing abysmally) to make sure every angry England fan saw it.
I bow to your commitment.
What ads have you seen recently?
TELL ME.
THING 2. IS A DEPICTION OF FEMALE WEREWOLF’S NIPPLE A WOMAN'S NIPPLE OR AN ANIMAL'S NIPPLE?
Because the former would be allowed in a comic book and the latter wouldn’t… right?
Actually, I don’t even think this is about nipples. That was just a random thought that came into my head while reading this story about the Comics Code of America.
Specifically, the Comics Code of America telling Marvel writer, Dan Slott, his comic book was not approved after they’d gone to print…
Dan writes:
“For a brief period of time in the 90's, I was an Assistant Editor at Marvel on a number of books, including Doctor Strange.
Back then, we had to send black & white copies of books to the Comics Code Authority for approval. They so rarely flagged anything that sometimes, to cut corners on late books, we'd send that copy while we were sending the book to the printer.
One of those times, I found myself totally screwed, because the Code wanted changes on a book that'd left.
They had flagged ONE panel.
It was in a back up story about the history of werewolves in the Marvel Universe.
The panel depicted a werewolf woman who had just killed a man.
She was straddling his corpse, with her shirt ripped wide open, and she was baying to the moon.
The Code had circled her crotch and each werewolf boob in red. This was unacceptable. The panel had to be art corrected.
That would mean having the book shipped back from Chicago to New York. And the comic would miss shipping.
This would've cost Marvel a ton of money. It was all happening under my watch. My editor was out that day. I was alone in the office, and I'd have to make the call.
This was bad.
I called up the Code and was put in touch with the person who flagged this.
I tried to argue him out of it.
I said the way she was straddling the corpse wasn't sexual because the werewolf woman was wearing jean shorts.
He conceded to that, but he wouldn't budge on her exposed werewolf boobs.
That had to be fixed.
I gave in. I said, "Fine. We'll bring the book back and fix that. What do we need to do?
He said we needed to have a bra drawn over the werewolf woman's breasts.
I said "Fine. We can do that. But I just want to check if this would be okay... What if we shaved off all of her fur and put her in a full head-to-toe lycra bodysuit? Would that be okay?"
He said that would be acceptable.
Then I said, "Okay. Now imagine we dipped her in glue and then rolled her around in the fur. Would that be okay?"
He said, "Yes."
Then I said, "Just imagine that we DID that."
There was a long pause. And then he said, "Okay."
And we didn't need to have the book sent back.
The End.”
Aaaand here’s the panel in question.
Honestly, I sometimes question my own sanity sharing this stuff.
FWIW, I found this story via Threads. I'm reproducing it here in its entirety in case you're not on Threads.
But if you are on Threads, go tell Dan you liked his story.
THING 3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING
Quite a few of you told me this week that you skip this bit. That’s OK, I don’t mind. You’re probably missing out on A LOT. But it’s fine. DEPRIVE YOURSELF.
I. don’t. mind.
(Quite a few of you also told me that you LOVE it when ‘this week in…’ is gaming so it can stay (until I say otherwise)).
ANYWAY.
This week we’ve got some reframes, some studio deep-dives, some educational games for kids, and one really handy guide for indie devs that don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing.
FIRST UP: An amazing reframe from friend of Five things on Friday and extremely smart person, Holly Brockwell.
In last week’s edition I asked something like ‘How big is your pile of shame?’ For the uninitiated, the ‘pile of shame’ is gaming vernacular for the every-growing stack of video games that players buy but perhaps haven’t got around to finishing (and in many cases, playing at all (you know who you are)).
WELL. Holly writes:
I think we need to reframe the "pile of shame." These are games you've paid for but not played, right? So, in my head, that means money you've generously donated to keep the games industry running and paying people and making amazing creative stuff.
That you never played the games is immaterial -- you might, you might not, but you pledged your support to the industry that makes great interactive stuff happen. It's like buying a copy of The Big Issue and not reading it -- you helped the homeless person, you made sure the writers still get their commissions, you got to feel good about not just nicking someone else's discarded copy on the tube.
With how easy it is to pirate games, I think if anything we should be proud that we choose to buy them even if we're not entirely sure we'll get round to playing them. It's an endorsement of the talent that made the thing happen, in the only way that realistically counts: funding.
I bloody love a good reframe. And this one is excellent. I denounce my pile of shame. And instead from henceforth it shall be known as my Tower of Appreciation.
How big is yours?
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The New York Times did a great deep dive on one of my favourite publishers, Devolver Digital. Whenever the conversation comes up ‘Why are trailers / directs / reveals’ so boring. I always point at Devolver. They know what they love and they give zero fire trucks about how they approach it. I enjoyed this read. As I enjoy much of what Devolver get up to. Also, a great guest appearance from George.
Related, Plucky Squire is looking great.
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Speaking of common conversations, ‘Hey James, what are come good educational games for kids?’
Well here’s a decent answer.
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This week I discovered I'd quite like a little Jin Sakai for my desk
Find out more over on PlayStation’s blog - Jin Sakai is the one for me. Maybe Aloy. Probably not Kratos, mind - he is not good.
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This guide on how to put yourself front and centre of your indie game’s marketing, from an indie game dev and marketer - is really, really nice.
Super detailed and super clear.
Perfect for the shy dev who just wants to make a good game. Pitch perfect.
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What is James playing?
Well, let’s get this out of the way. The ELDEN RING DLC, SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE, is absolutely superb and, according to some, the greatest DLC of all time. That has taken up most of my time. It took me a week or so to re-find my vibe but when it finally clicked, it really clicked.
And I’m loving it.
Also on the boil I’ve got: APEX LEGENDS, A smattering of DESTINY 2, I’ve still got STILL WAKES THE DEEP to finish.
What are you playing?
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Finally, if your venn diagram of ‘people in the creative industries’ and ‘people that write about advertising and their love of video games’ is as tight as mine, then may I recommend to you Katie Dawkins’ new newsletter ‘Waffling Words’. It’s only two issues young and I’m already hooked. You might be too.
THING 4. WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEXT WEEK? WHY NOT ATTEND THE UK CREATIVE FESTIVAL?
Kicking off down in Margate, the UK Creative Festival is running from July 10th to July 11th at Dreamland and the agenda is packed.
Split across three themes of Culture & Community, Purpose for the Future, and Action & policy, there are tons of talks, workshops and panels from creative leaders across brands, agencies, platforms and publishers. There’s also an entirely free careers fair for the young and unemployed creatives among you (14-25s). If that isn’t you, I would still recommend seeing if you could get a ticket expensed because it looks banging (they’re selling coach tickets from London on the website too).
PS. As it turns out the organisers are thoroughly decent people as well. Even better!
THING 5. OK FINE, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE ACOLYTE
Are you watching it? Why aren’t you watching it? Ignore the haters*. It is very good. And it suddenly got VERY good very recently.
I think we’re about two episodes out from the end and, as is the norm, the creator behind the show (and also creator of one of my other favourite shows, RUSSIAN DOLL), Leslye Headland, is doing the rounds and answering questions.
If you’re up to speed (and ONLY if you’re up to speed) on the recent episodes, then I can absolutely recommend these two interviews - from COLLIDER and INVERSE.
INVERSE has got you covered for Episode Five.
COLLIDER has got you covered for Episode Six.
Both great reads.
As it stands, in spite of the initial hate-bombing by ‘fans’ in the reviews section, THE ACOLYTE is turning out to be one of the most popular Star Wars shows to date.
So.. maybe watch it?
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*If you are a hater, let me know. I’m fascinated by the obsession with fans gatekeeping themselves out of good content (when, if anything, Headland’s work has revisited more Star Wars extended universe stuff than literally anyone ever before).
BONUS SECTION
THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.
ENJOY.
If you’re not going to UK Creative Fest (above), you might be going to Develop Brighton instead. Not heard of it? Details here.
I am late to THE BEAR. Literally started it Tuesday night, finished S1 on Wednesday night. The 'one-er' that is the entirety of Episode 7 is incredible. Here's how they did it (with a mild spoiler for episode 8).
IKEA on Roblox. Yay or nay? (I think nay).
While I am more than happy to bang on about the GREAT JOB that Leo Burnett UK does with McDonald’s advertising, it should also be worth mentioning that whoever is in charge of things in Singapore HAS NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
BTW, do you want literally every single winner from Cannes all in one handy Google Drive? Of course you do.
Apparently the excellent Devs is on Disney+ / Hulu now.
If you've not seen it, change that.
Eddie Redmayne is the Emcee on Broadway at the moment. Some critics don’t seem to like it - they are wrong.
TRAVIS and Brandon Flowers covering Aztec Camera? Oh go on then.
YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.
Finishing this week with a couple of notes.
I met Rob Campbell for the first time ever on Monday. We had a phenomenal call and he is just a bloody lovely human.
Thank you, again, for all the excellent feedback you've sent over the past week or so relating to this newsletter of mine. It's been pretty bloody ace to hear how much you all get from it and at some point I'll start using the testimonials in a way to bring in more subs.
If I remember.
This weekend we're taking some time out. Got a couple of birthday parties to attend to and the Mrs has a birthday too. The more I think about it the more I think FToF will take a summer break of some sort (I've got some travel coming up next month and it makes the most sense to do it then). But I'll let you know when I know for sure.
In the meantime, I hope you’re doing OK and I hope you have a restful weekend.
Until next time,
Whatley out x
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