Gary Neville played his entire career for one club, Manchester United.
He also played for England more than any other right back.
Neville said his greatest source of motivation was indignation.
It provided fuel for him to go beyond what was reasonable.
To have a cause to get angry about.
For Neville it was Liverpool fans, Manchester City, or the FA.
For people in advertising, the cause depends on what we’re working on.
Shirley Polykoff was a young copywriter working on Clairol in the 1950s.
In those days, dying your hair blonde was a thing nice girls didn’t do.
In fact there were many things nice girls weren’t supposed to do.
For Polykoff it was stifling.
She decided to turn it on its head.
She wrote the line “Is it true, blondes have more fun?”
Everyone knew exactly what that was about.
It was about do they have more sex?
Polykoff worked herself up into a state of anger about all the dull stuffy old people who wanted everyone to live like them.
She didn’t see why she should live according to their rules.
They never really lived, they just gossiped.
Well, while they were gossiping, blondes were living.
Doing what those other women wished they had the nerve to do.
The campaign was such a success, she took it further.
Her next campaign had the line “If I only have one life to live, let me live it as a blonde.”
Making the point that it was no good waiting until it was too late.
Too late to wish you’d done all the things that blondes are actually doing.
It’s hard to imagine now, the impact that had on the young women of the 1950s.
Dying your hair blonde became a statement of rebellion.
A sign of independence.
One young woman who was moved by that campaign to dye her hair was Betty Friedan.
Several years later she would write ‘The Feminine Mystique’.
The book that kick-started the feminist revolution of the 1960s.
That advertising captured the anger that she felt.
It tapped into the frustration of a generation of young women.
Years later, another young copywriter used anger as her motivation.
Ilon Specht was working on the L’Oreal account in the early 1970s.
She was sick of women being treated as mere objects by men.
Men who thought a woman’s sole function was to be cute and giggly.
Men who would cross out the word ‘woman’ in her copy and substitute the word ‘girl’.
Who thought the limit of her ambition should be to make some man happy.
All of that made Ilon Specht angry.
She didn’t buy hair colour just to please men.
She bought hair colour to please herself.
And so what, if L’Oreal cost more than other hair colours.
Why shouldn’t she spend her money how she wanted?
She thought the answer to “Why would you pay more?” was exactly the same as the answer to every question in a woman’s life.
The line she wrote was “Because I’m worth it.”
Inside that line is the reason for any woman to do anything.
Not because she needs permission, not because she needs to justify it.
It’s her money she’s spending.
She earned it.
She deserves it.
She’s damn well worth it.
Which is the reason every female celebrity was happy to appear in those ads.
They all knew exactly what that felt like.
And they knew every other woman did, too.
Properly directed, there’s a lot of positive energy in anger.
How often do you find that, after your perfectly reasonable, brief-answering work has been mauled, clawed, hacked, mutilated and eviscerated by everybody from the junior suit to the top client, a blind raw-red rage overtakes you, and you produce something really good?
It’s not other opinions that make me angry, it’s stupidity. As Frank Zappa said, ‘People think the most common element in the universe is hydrogen. It’s not. It’s stupidity.’
Tom - 18 April 2012 9:32 am
That righteous feminist revolution was, of course, eventually subverted by ad men, to praise the advances women had made in order to sell them cancer: ‘You’ve come a long way, baby’ for Virginia Slims. Patronising AND poisonous.
Tom - 18 April 2012 9:40 am
Tom: The difference between genius and stupidity is, there’s no limit to stupidity.
Robin. - 18 April 2012 9:45 am
Tom,
Even at the time the Virginia Slims line felt patronising.
I think it was the ‘baby’ on the end.
Dave Trott - 18 April 2012 10:04 am
Don’t call me baby. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-qE-h7s84&feature=artist
Seems whatever is done somebody somewhere can always use it.
john p woods - 18 April 2012 10:25 am
‘Baby’ is even worse than ‘girl’.
Tom - 18 April 2012 10:27 am
@IIon
Because, unless you wish to anger your former English teacher, one should never begin a sentence with the word ‘Because’.
‘But’ the voices in my dyed blonde head made me do it, as an excuse, will only anger them further.
Grilla Login - 18 April 2012 12:20 pm
Grilla,
Here’s what an English teacher on Twitter thinks:
@jamesmdoman
I really can’t stand the way Dave Trott writes. Awful. Someone give the man a lesson in English Language.
Dave Trott - 18 April 2012 2:19 pm
Grilla,
Here’s what another angry English teacher has to say:
sach...@gmail.com
And why can’t people in or associated with advertising write except in single line paragraphs. Do they not read normal books??
Dave Trott - 18 April 2012 2:32 pm
Copywriting is about communicating. Not about grammar. Which is why I bite my tongue every time you post, Grilla.
LNNS - 18 April 2012 2:40 pm
Do u speak like Jamie Oliver @ a result, LNNS?
Grilla Login - 18 April 2012 4:55 pm
http://styled-comments.blogspot.com/2012/04/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-313-319.html
Anca - 18 April 2012 5:07 pm
I love a ‘normal’ book don’t you.
Jim - 18 April 2012 5:20 pm
Dave
The ‘Because I’m worth it’ thought seems to be a concept that could be applied to any other similar product. Surprising that a copywriter came up with it as it seems quite right brain thinking to me. Alright in my book but whatever happened to the left brain thinking on this one.
Also it’s origins are in a perception not a truth or is a slight, real or otherwise, as valid as each other?
john p woods - 18 April 2012 7:35 pm
John,
The start point is justifying a premium – it costs more.
If you were talking to men you’d go left brain – reasons why it costs more.
But the market here is women.
Who are more right brain (emotional).
So they didn’t justify a premium by saying the product was worth it.
They justified it by saying the woman was worth it.
Much bigger idea.
Dave Trott - 19 April 2012 9:23 am
Dave – I’ll be doing another pre-match rain dance @ the Camp Nou.
[The second-half 'Wedding Tackle' on Drogba had both he + me worried 4 a moment.]
Grilla Login - 19 April 2012 9:35 am
Dave,
I must have taken leave of my senses.
I overlooked the campaign was primarily ‘emotional’ for good reason.
Thanks for clarifying.
john p woods - 19 April 2012 10:21 am
Dave: ‘Angry English teachers’ – men among boys, boys among men… (except the good one who taught me, of course)
Tom - 19 April 2012 12:08 pm
Dave, I am angry at those angry English teachers.
Grilla, no other ape writes better than you.
rachel carroll - 19 April 2012 3:16 pm
There are so many different types of anger
Residual Anger (Anger after the event)
Delayed Anger (Anger that seems unexplainable)
Transference (Anger diverted possibly to an unsuspecting other)
Vengance (Repressed Anger)
Depression (Anger turned inwards)
Aggression (Anger turned outwards)
Memory-Triggered Anger (A learnt reaction to a repeat type of event)
Resentment (Burning Anger)
Seething Anger
Fury
Madness
and yet they all start the same way
with a conflict of emotions
causing a chain reaction of chaos in the brain,
each half struggling to attain homeostasis
and successively failing on their own terms.
The overdose of chemicals to the brain
results in an incalculable disruption
swiftly sifted via the amygdala
(a part joining the two halves of the brain about 1 Cubic Centimetre in size).
It releases all sorts of chemicals
that send us into a psychotropic fight or flight
state of readiness.
Anger is innate.
It can also become a learnt behaviour.
The question is knowing:
When to be angry?
Who and what to be angry at or about?
What to do with the anger?
How to turn it into a positive attribute?
Why, what reason caused the anger in the first place?
And, most importantly
Which is the best way to channel it?
Preferrably… in a peaceful manner
as you have demonstrated.
Now here’s a funny thing…
“Don’t get angry get even” is the process the brain goes through
to attain it’s own homeostasis or Karma.
So the whole blonde campaign
the ‘because I’m worth it’
I guess, is simply one woman telling all other women
it’s okay to be you.
Kev - 19 April 2012 4:26 pm
Rachel – Thanks 4 warming me with your kind words on a chill Spring day.
Who knows.
It may even encourage other people 2 be more charitable 2wards those 4 whom any form of communication beyond grunting, snorting or whooping is a major challenge.
No Other Ape’s writing style is far 2 prosaic 4 my taste btw.
x
Grilla Login - 19 April 2012 4:57 pm
I guess my English teacher was pretty special. She told me “it doesn’t matter about the there, their and they’re as long as you hit the point home and make it stick” but then again she did work for Saatchi before becoming a teacher…
Lucas - 20 April 2012 1:15 am
Dave, Haven’t you learnt by now that you should sound just like everyone else. That’s the way to stand out. Maybe your next post should be ‘Why English teachers could never make it in advertising’.
Cal - 20 April 2012 3:59 pm
Hi Cal and Lucas,
It’s a good point.
Everything we do that works is pretty much the opposite of what we were taught in school.
Dave Trott - 21 April 2012 12:15 pm
Lucas: does it matter about their, they’re and there? Well, it’s as easy to get it right as it is to get it wrong. And we’re about communicating clearly,without ambiguity, aren’t we? Lynne Truss’ book ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves’ was a best-seller, so it obviously touched a chord somewhere.
Tom - 22 April 2012 8:42 am
Fair point Tom.
You can’t make wordplay unless you understand how to spell the words.
I’m all in favour of breaking rules whenever and wherever necessary.
But, like any game, you have to learn the rules in order to break the rules effectively.
Dave Trott - 22 April 2012 2:21 pm
Although, interviewing him for an article, John Gorham did point out that he quite frequently (he was told) broke the rules, when the fact was he had never learned them in the first place.
Ciaran McCabe - 22 April 2012 3:01 pm
Ciaran,
Same with Orson Welles.
He says he didn’t know the rules for cinema when he went to Hollywood.
So he just used the rules he’d learned on NY stage.
Nobody stopped him, and everyone thought he must be a genius.
So the rule is, there are no rules.
Including that one.
Dave Trott - 22 April 2012 3:15 pm
And it all comes back to Bob Gill.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Forget-Rules-Learned-Graphic-Design/dp/0823018636/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335105960&sr=8-1
john p woods - 22 April 2012 3:46 pm