So Long, and Thanks for All the Retweets

Photo by Bill HornsteinOn Monday, May 11, 2009, the statement "I've yet to hire a writer who uses ellipses in an ad" echoed out across the Twitterverse and into the feeds of 15 followers*. And so began the long, steady, often donut-powered accumulation of once-a-day crumbs of (alleged) ad wisdom that is @leeclowsbeard.

And today it ends. Kind of.

A few moments ago, I tweeted Crumb O' (Again, Alleged) Wisdom No. 1,000. That seems as good a milestone as any to give it a rest before I grow even more repetitive. Maybe for a few weeks or months. Maybe forever. Who knows. But unless a hue and cry rises from the Beardist Collective (or an outpouring of PayPal donations to jfox-at-jasonfox.net), I need a break. But, I suspect as long as I'm in this business I'll have something to say about it. Just not every day. Spewing is easy. Spewing with purpose and meaning, less so.

If you've followed LCB for a while, you know what strange trip it has been. You can read much about that journey here, but to summarize: LCB started in May 2009 while I was freelancing. Three months later, I took a job back at an agency that had laid me off nearly three years prior. LCB gained followers, including then CCO of the Los Angeles TBWA/Chiat/Day office, Rob Schwartz. Eventually, I asked Rob if Lee knew what I was up to. "Yes! Who are you? Let's have lunch," replied Rob. So, in July 2010 I flew to L.A. for lunch with Lee and Rob, and the idea for the book was spawned. More tweeting, more followers, more value ensued. The day I signed the book production agreement with Chiat, I got fired. A year passed. The book, beautifully designed by Bill Hornstein, was released in June 2012. I became the ECD at a design firm (don't forget, I'm a writer) in Omaha. The one in Nebraska. Strange indeed.

The @leeclowsbeard book is still available in hardcover, iBook and Kindle versions, along with the free iOS app. I do not know how many hardcover copies remain. Also, as an aside, the book was never intended to be a moneymaker. Although if you buy through these links, I may get to take my wife out to dinner again.

As of this writing, LCB has just over 34,100 followers. I thank you all, even the bots I didn't manage to weed out. I hope that, more often that not, what I said helped get you through another day in adland. Or at least provided ammo for an overlong meeting. Yes, I know the "overlong" was unnecessary. 

And so, until time and brainpower permit a return to my hirsute ways, I bid you all adieu.

Grow long and prosper, 

Fox

Lee Clow Unravels the Mystery of @leeclowsbeard

Just in case you missed it, I’m the “dude from Texas.”

Later,

Fox

Deep-Fried Authentic Authenticity

Last week, I spent my time shuttling about the Ozarks with my wife, our kids and my wife’s family. Specifically, we all convened in Branson, Missouri, for a communal vacation. Why Branson? Because some of us could not afford to fly a family of five to further flung locales and Branson was in driving distance of most attendees.

I grew up about four hours north of Branson in Independence – a suburb of Kansas City (Missouri) best known as the home of President Harry Truman and a righteous cruising strip called Noland Road. I went, not of my own volition, to Branson a couple of times as a youth. Once with my parents and once with a high school group that was doing something educational like tagging and releasing Bald Knobbers.

My last visit to Branson was some 17 years ago when, at my first job, my agency employed Boxcar Willie to sing a version of “Folsom Prison Blues” that I had written for a Jiffy Lube corporate video. (Please, control your jealousy.) The town had long since become a tourist attraction of surprising proportions, with theaters filled with redneck tenors and violinists and non-Elvis Presleys and Russian comics. Also, go-karts. But, not surprisingly, the place had little allure for me as a twenty-something ad writer with the standard-issue jaded streak boosted with a hypercynicism pack.

Branson was not cool.

I am not going to tell you that Branson is now cool. It is not. And, frankly, that is what I found so refreshing about it. Because the town, its people and its attractions were all the one thing that every brand now strives to be and every marketing wonk prattles about while hawking their books – authentic.

Sure, many of the expected stereotypes of the town and region presented themselves without inquiry. A few People of Walmart moments at, naturally, Walmart. Chainsaw art. Lots of words purposefully spelled with apostrophes and backwards letters. And a traffic system that consisted of no urban planning, two lanes and a low speed limit populated by people who naturally drive ten miles under the posted limit anyway. (There was, however, a surprising lack of Ozark Waterfalls as inverted bobs have supplanted femullets as the ladies’ hairstyle of choice.)

So while you can find your fill of kitsch, fried food, SUVs, sleeveless shirts, frozen custard and four story-high go-kart tracks (which I dominated, thank you), there’s one thing you won’t find much of in Branson – cynicism. No, Branson was full of two things sorely missing in many places and many lives:

Honesty and joy.

I saw it at Danna’s Bar-B-Que & Burger Shop whose claims to having the best burgers in Branson turned out not to be the usual flirtation with marketing hyperbole, but actual truth in advertising.

I saw it in the eyes of the Chinese acrobats – who spend nine months of the year in the middle of the Ozark Mountains – as they thanked people after their show.

I saw it at the “Six” show when veterans were honored en masse to rousing applause. A moment that was, of course, planned, but far from calculated.

I saw it, yes, at the go-kart track where people bumped, passed and spun around without resorting to a torrent of curse words or payback. Unless the payback was in the form of a James Brownie Funky Jackhammer.

I saw it when we rode the Duck, an amphibious vehicle piloted by one Captain Hoot. The good captain could give many copywriters a run for their money.

While money flows through Branson like white lightning through a hillbilly (sorry, had to get in one reference), I always got the feeling that the money was the result of a job well done, and not the motivation that forced people to approximate a good effort. People put on shows because they love to entertain. They sell pies because they love to bake pies. They give you free parking at Silver Dollar City because, well, they don’t charge you to park at the mall, do they?

From a vacation standpoint, Branson certainly isn’t for everyone. It is not a beachside resort. It does not offer gambling unless you consider riding zip lines as such. It is not technically a foreign country. It is unabashedly family centric (we were there for a week and the worst thing I had to worry about my kids seeing was when they swiped the remote and stumbled upon the Oxygen channel). And the people wear their patriotism and faith proudly on their sleeves. Which I appreciated, though your mileage may vary.

But if you’re in marketing or advertising and are wondering just what, in reality, embodies that nebulous substance we like to call authenticity, do yourself a favor. Visit Branson, Missouri, ride a go-kart, catch a show or three, ride a Duck and eat a funnel cake.

You may emerge a bit sunburnt and bloated, but with a greater understanding of what genuine authenticity really is.

Later,

Fox

Have Beard, Will Travel

When, about six weeks ago, a few nice bits were written about @leeclowsbeard, its impending (and now released) book and my role as the ’fro behind the Beard, I was commonly referred to as “a freelance copywriter from Dallas.” Technically, that description was correct. However, I wish they could have added, “who no longer wishes to remain either freelance or (probably) from Dallas.”

Yes, after seven years in Big D – roughly four of those on my own – the time has come to seek new adventures. The folks here are quite nice, but we are pasty people who don't tolerate the heat well. (Of course, the right gig could pay for a lot of a/c.)

So, I need a job. Perhaps you need a Beard. Read on:

Location: My wife and I are Midwesterners, and it'd be nice to stay in fly-over country. But we find many other parts of the country quite charming, as well. Some even have decent barbecue. So assume nothing. Email is virtually free, after all.

Agency: I don’t care about size. Honest. I've been at places large and tiny, and understand that culture trumps numbers. I don’t care if I’m one of a thousand people trying to help build upon a 100-year-old legacy, or one of ten trying to build one from scratch. As long as you’re constructing something tangible and not just holding meetings about it. I don't even care if you're an ad agency. I do care if you’re actually producing good work. I care if you have a plan. I care if you treat people as people and not as so much grist for the mill. Frankly, I just want to work with smart people doing smart things that either make our (hopefully smart) clients look even smarter, or creating smart stuff for end users to marvel over. In a nutshell, I want to work at a place that embodies the spirit of Buddy Lee. Only now Buddy has a Twitter feed rivaling The Biebs and makes his own overalls on a 3D printer.

Jargon: As little as possible.

Meetings: As few as necessary. Preferably held while standing up. With pastry as needed.

Politics: I prefer bluntness to mind games, if you hadn’t noticed.

Me: I'm not a traditional guy or a digital guy or the already-clichéd hybrid guy. I'm an idea guy. Ideas are my playground and words my preferred (but not exclusive) dodgeball weapons of choice. If you’re unfamiliar with my work, take a look around this site. Or this one. Or even this one. If you want to know my approach to advertising, well, there are over 800 @leeclowsbeard tweets that spell it out pretty well. It may be named after Mr. Clow's facial hair, but it’s 100% my voice. (It just happened to sound an awful lot like Lee's. Lucky me.)

So, if you're interested in someone to join your fight against the proliferation of mediocrity, give Lee's Buy Now button a click (or email jfox-at-jasonfox.net). I’ll keep the spam filter set to mild.

Later,

Fox

800 Legs

When pitching a campaign to a client, a creative team will typically show a series of three print ads. And, unless the concept is built on a purely visual execution, those three ads will have three different headlines. Somehow, three headlines are supposed to assure the client that the idea has legs – the ability to be extended over multiple ads in multiple mediums. 

I don’t know where the concept of three ads being the holy grail of presentation fodder came from, although it is true that if you can’t come up with at least three ads your campaign is no campaign at all. But let’s face it, three lines does equal having legs. At least not until our collective attention span shrinks another 200% or so.

When it comes to print campaigns with real legs, the first that springs to mind is the Absolut Vodka series created by TBWA\ in 1981. Featuring the iconic Absolut bottle and a simple two-word headline of “Absolut [fill in the blank],” the campaign racked up over 1,500 executions over the years. And probably just as many awards. Some would argue that it was more of an art director’s campaign, but I would disagree. Thinking up 1,500 different scenarios for that bottle would require more than one person or even one team. It’s one of those campaigns that is amazingly simple to understand, yet complex to execute. Just like most great advertising.

Today, I am posting my 800^th tweet as @leeclowsbeard. (That’s 800 “crumbs of wisdom” as I don’t count tweets from the account’s early existence when I actually interacted with followers.) As Twitter goes, that is a rather small number of tweets. But, as I’ve mentioned before, this is no ordinary account. One tweet a day. Hopefully intelligent, interesting and worth sharing. Or at least not prone to making folks unfollow. 

No, @leeclowsbeard is more like a long-running (or is that long-winded) print campaign. With 800 different headlines. On her “Hog Blog,” former ad wunderkind and current fascination expert Sally Hogshead relates how, as a junior writer given the task of crafting eight print ads for BMW Motorcycles, she wrote 800 headlines. Why? Because copywriting demigod Luke Sullivan had once told her to write 100 lines for every one she needed.

That’s a lot of headlines. And pretty good advice, really. But not a tack I could use for @leeclowsbeard. I couldn’t spend hours every day cranking out 100 lines just for the one tweet I would post. And can you imagine having tossed aside 79,200 lines? That’s crazy talk. So, after three years of inflicting my advertising theology upon the internet, how do I go about it? How do I keep this thing, to extend the metaphor, running? 

Once again, the answer is simple to understand, yet complex to execute.

First, I attempt to settle on a topic. Copywriting, strategy, art direction, client relations, account management, general agency insanity, fear, risk, etc. 

Second, I check my previous tweets to see what I’ve already written about the chosen topic. Subjects can, and should, be repeated. The actual wording should not.

Third, I write some lines. Not 100. Maybe five, maybe ten. I suppose having 15 more years of experience than Sally did back in her BWM days helps in keeping that number manageable.

Fourth, I hone. Play with word order. Explore different metaphors or idioms to play off of.

Fifth, I do a Google search to make sure I’m not copying something someone has already said in a highly similar fashion.

Sixth, I leave it alone. As most writers know, you have to leave your words to themselves for a while and then come back and see if they’re as good or bad and you had hoped or feared. 

Seventh, I tweak as necessary. And then go back to what I originally had.

Eighth, I post.

Granted, the above steps rarely play out exactly as described. Usually, I’ll start down one path and veer off onto another. Or into a ditch. It happens. Often. And, as you might imagine, I have built up a rather long list of thoughts that have yet to be tweeted. Most never will as they are too close to something I’ve already done, or just not that interesting. But they do serve as good jumping-off points for new ideas. Yes, I’m a line and idea hoarder, but hard drive space is cheap.

People ask how long I plan on doing @leeclowsbeard. Honestly, I don’t know. I suppose when it feels like I’m straining too much or repeating myself. So probably any day now. Or maybe I’ll manage to hit a thousand sometime in February 2013. My original goal was 300 to 400, which seemed nigh impossible at the time. Especially when my longest-running print campaign before this had a dozen executions. But I suppose that just goes to show that when something has real legs, it can go further – and do much, much more – than you ever thought possible.

This bit of follicular whimsy certainly has.

Later,

Fox