‘Putting lipstick on a Pig’ meant your idea was shit – and no matter how big the budget, how dope your soundtrack, or how pretentious your director – it’s still gonna be utter shite!

OK boomer, but applying MAC lipstick to swine is kinda how it’s done now.

Lo-fi is the new go2, and it’s no wonder with the briefs we’re dealing with.

CLIENT BRAND RECOGNITION – ZERO BUDGET – ZERO TIMING – ZERO ATTENTION SPANS OF TARGET AUDIENCE- ZERO TRADITIONAL MEDIA BOOKING – ZERO

FFS – That’s 5 zeros! And right now, its the rare creatives who can actually make it happen are the ones bringing home the bacon literally – getting those 5 zeros back at the end of their annual salary, and every agency in the world wants ’em bad.

Sure, Jesus turned water into wine, and that’s a great asset for any agency on a Friday night, but the real miracle is finding the rare teams that practice alchemy, turning shit into gold with a 48 hour turn around with ideas that hit hard, hit fast and hit different.

*And I don’t mean leaning on a fucking ‘influencer’ to do it. That would actually be like putting lipstick on a pig in 2022.

How is there extra money to be made if there’s zero budget? Unless the ‘creative’ part of the job is exploiting suppliers.

Wow! Impressive lesson for a Boomer there. Thankyou so much. Here’s how it actually works: No budget = not a client. Not a client = no revenue. No revenue = no job. No job. It’s just rolling down hill thinking your second rate award show bling actually matters. There’s the lipstick on the pig.

So according to this your brief asks for zero brand recognition?

We all have the occasional meltdown over a crap client, but not sure why you felt the need to publish it.

Back in my day, we walked through 15 feet of snow to make something pretty forgettable. We then took home huge salaries and thought it could only get better.

Having worked direct with clients for a while, there are budgets. There are timings. F*** me, they want to make good work that gives them brand recognition. The zero is the agency. They burn weeks and months in planning and over-thinking while overcharging the client for the privilege. There’s your budget gone! Then flick a poorly thought through, convoluted strategy to a junior team and give them 4 hours to unscramble the brief into something that barely makes sense. There’s any ambition for a good idea gone! It’s all backwards. Unless your planner is delivering killer props that the cleaner could write an ad to, put your money into senior creatives who can listen to clients. Give them a week to crack your brief vs 3 months with non-contributing data scientists, and you’ll be amazed how much money you have left over to cover that sexy boar of an idea in whatever shade of lipstick you like.

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