The Best music videos of 2018...I think.

I miss MTV.
Not MTV of today - filled with reality shows. No. I miss the pure MTV music video channel of my youth.
I miss having the time to just sit and watch it too.

You can learn a lot from music videos - cultural trends, fashion, new art directional styles, editing techniques, scene transitions and pure wacky ways of seeing the world. They also have their fingers on the pulse far more than any TV show or newspaper. 

So, with Christmas providing a much needed lull I decided to see what was happening out there in 2018. 

And here are my picks. 

1. Janelle Monae - Make Me feel. 

This is so Prince isn't it? And the style is very iPod. I just love he fashion as well. I would wear those see through embroidered trousers if I had the guts. Apparently this video is about Janelle's bi-sexuality - running from man to woman unable to choose. 



2. John Mayer - New Light

This is so shit it's kinda genius. Apparently John Mayer asked some guy in LA who specialises in making bat mitzvah videos.

It also reminds me of my favourite show "Glow" - there is a great episode where they spent the whole episode showing the recorded TV show complete with tacky scene transitions and bad acting. That's what this is like. 



3. Travis Scott: “SICKO MODE” [ft. Drake]

Directed by Dave Meyers and Travis Scott.

There is so much going on in this video. Really interesting camera techniques and trickery, some neon paint, coloured smoke, singing murals, very jiggly butts (like how does that butt actually move like that?) and Drake sounding super cool. 



4. Drake - Nice for What.

Sorry for another Drake but this guy is on it with his video game. For "Nice for what" Drake gave the camera to 22-year-old director Karena Evans. She shot scenes of powerful women celebrating their worth and doing their thing. The result is a video that's joyful and strong - nice one Drake, nice one Evans. 



5. The Carters: “APESHIT”

Probably the most talked about video of the year. Beyonce and Jay Z in the Louvre and some amazing modern dance. New, pop and cool meets classic high brow art. The meeting is mesmerising and you need not delve into anything deeper than that. But if you do then the message is about blackness, its relationship to Western colonialism and about black capitalism as act of radical subversion. Deep man.



Oh and if you are not viewing this on a public screen you may wanna check out the video for Duck Duck Goose by Cupcakke. She is not shy. 

Blood is normal.

I always hated tampon and sanitary towel adverts. All those rollerskating women. Why was it strange to be able to roller-skate when you were bleeding? It never occurred to me that it would be a problem.

But the thing that annoyed me the most was why was period blood always blue? Who would we be offending if it was the colour it really was: pink, bright red,  dark red, sometimes rusty brown, but never blue. Surely we wouldn't be upsetting women. We see our own blood every month, we're made of stronger stuff.

So it must be for men. Adverts for women written with men in mind.

I longed to write a TV advert that featured red blood.

And now there is one.

And seeing it made me cry.

These are real periods. Ones that make you feel hormonal and cry easily for no good reason and knot your tummy in pain. Ones that come with the relief of knowing you're not pregnant. Ones where you have to stick your sanitary pad up your jumper to carry it surreptitiously to the loos. Period sex with the less squeamish of your boyfriends. Real stuff. It touched a chord.

After watching it I feel more proud to be a woman. I'm not sure why. But perhaps its like finding acceptance to something that you've hidden because the world suggested it was dirty. 

But it's not dirty. 

It's normal. 

Feminist talk around the advertising lunch table.

I am proud to say that the creative department I work in has many women. In fact I think it's a pretty even divide which is highly unusual in the Advertising world. Perhaps that's why our department is more collaborative than competitive. Perhaps the reason women stick around is because it's friendlier and less macho. As female Creatives we are on the front line of the fight for equality. We prove our worth in a male dominated world every day.

Recently a colleague of mine had a baby girl baby girl and returned to work. I feel that she has began our next big fight: for working conditions which allow us to be mothers as well as valued and sought after Creatives.

Sitting around our lunch table we discussed the ways in which a baby girl should be brought up in order to feel free from the limiting stereotypes that we had all faced in some degree. My colleague said that she was trying not to use the words "good girl" - words that enforced the gender in association with "worthiness". She was also trying not to dress her little girl in pink. Pink wasn't banned, but should be like any other colour.

I thought back to my Christmas shopping trip a couple of years ago in Hamleys where there was an entirely pink floor filled with dolls and a blue ones for boys full of dumper trucks and building blocks. I also thought of the way schools enforce gendered behaviour. Aged 8 I started a petition in my Primary school asking for girls to be allowed to play football. It resulted in a shouting at by the head dinner lady, a very scary lady. What hope did my friend have to keep her child free from the pressures of a labelling society? What hope was there when she would play with other children who's parents would kit them out in pink and blue and give their girls dolls and the boys trucks?

But apparently there are some children's brands who are thinking differently and seeking to challenge these stereotypes.

Princess Awesome make girls clothes in rainbow colours with patterns inspired by dinosaurs, maths and science. Their message is that you can be a Princess and a scientist when you're older. I mean, shouldn't a modern Princess have a job too? No Waity-Katie for these kick-arse girls!

Here are some of their inspirational and gender-rule-breaking pictures.

http://www.princess-awesome.com

There are actually a whole host or fashion brands doing the gender neutral thing for adults - check out this article if you're interested.

Let Toys be Toys is a brilliant initiative which seems to be making some important ground in making toy shops organise their toys by theme rather than gender. Below you can see great two examples of the changes they have helped enact.

JUST BOYS? JUST GIRLS? WHY? Thank GOD these signs are gone. 

This last one is particularly lovely - having a girl's picture over the construction toys. Result!

The UK has a long way to go. But steps are being made in the right direction. Together we can help change the behaviours of brands by voting with our feet and writing to point out inequalities to companies. You only have to look at last year's Cannes entries to see the advertising world is trying too. "This Girl Can" and "Throw like a girl" are two great examples of female empowerment.

Together we can help my colleague's child, and all children, be exactly the person they want to be. Not what society tells them they must be.

So go on. Buy your baby girl a dinosaur and buy your little boy a doll if they want them. I leave you with this amazing father and son:

Who wins my Cannes Lions?

Cannes is almost upon us and whilst some would argue the whole thing is an exercise in self-promotion and networking, it does provide us with the opportunity to stop and think about the last year of advertising. 

This year is an important one because it is the first time that Cannes will give a special award, the Glass Lion, to a memorable campaign around gender and women's empowerment. This is obviously a hot topic in the advertising world. You can't walk through the tube or watch an episode of X Factor without getting some kind of positive girl power endorsement. I'm not complaining of course. I work in an industry where you constantly see sexism. Many a time I've seen campaigns where all the men featured were doctors, business men and architects and the women featured were mothers, cooks and nurses. So honestly, when I see an ad where a women is boxing or running a board room I cheer. 

My bet for the winner of the Glass Lion is on the "#LikeAGirl" campaign for Always by Leo Burnett, Toronto, Chicago and London. It challenges people's use of the phrase "like a girl" turning the phrase into an expression of strength. Yeh let's fight like a girl and win like a girl! A mantra for us ladies still fighting the good fight in male led agencies. 


And it's not just attitudes towards women that's receiving the attention of advertising and brands. Other entries tackle Nazi's in Germany, poverty and hunger and racial prejudices. 

AMV BBDO, London's brilliant advert for Guinness, "Made Of Black" redefined the meaning of being black, claiming it isn't a skin colour but a strong, powerful and vibrant attitude. The use of Kanye West's "Black Skinhead" created a powerful music video type piece that I just love. 




Others tackle local issues by using their products in a helpful way, like Samsung's "The Safety Truck" by Leo Burnett, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Argentina has a large number of single lane roads and many fatalities are caused by people trying to overtake large vehicles whilst unable to see the road ahead. Samsung fitted their screens to the back of their lorries which gave drivers behind a live feed of the road ahead. Who knows how many lives this creative idea could save. This surely is creativity put to the best use. 

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  Perhaps another life saver is this fun and lateral thinking idea from BBDO, Berlin, Germany for Smart - "The Dancing Traf­fic Light". The idea is simple one. If the red light man was more engaging, maybe people would stop and watch him rather than walking out into traffic.  So they made him dance. Not only that, people could go into a dance booth and their movements would control the movements of the little red man. Fun, clever, interactive and life saving then. 
  
  
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    When I was a lowly student of advertising in Falmouth I once went to a party full of art students. One attractive dishevelled guy approached me and asked me what course I was on. When I said Advertising he launched into a 15 minute tirade against me and my nasty capitalist corporate sell out of the art world. He told me I'd rot in hell with all the other money grabbing pigs. Well here's a message for that guy and anyone else who thinks I'm destined for the flames. Adverts that make people smile, save lives and challenge stereotypes do more for the world than a painting ever will. 
    
    Pat on the back to all those who made these campaigns. Heaven awaits you
    
    ...unless you're also responsible for those protein world ads that is. 
    
    On the non-life saving side, other entries captured my imagination because they used technology in new ways. Nike's LED basketball court "House of Mamba" by AKQA, Shanghai and London, gave players a chance to train on a court that took them through motion tracked drills and provided a glimpse of what technology might do in the world of sport in the future. 
    
    
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      Whilst not ground breaking one of the adverts I've liked most this year was the use of pre-roll skippable adverts for Geico by The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. The "Unskippable" videos made comical use of what is normally a limitation for advertisers and rewarded viewers who watched on with hilarious little freeze-frame scenes. Clever stuff. 
      • In itself "Unity", the advert for Assassin's Creed: Unity by Sid Lee, Paris, might not seem very special. Yeh it's epic, filmic and dramatic but whatever. But it's when you hear about how it was made and see the interactive online elements of the campaign that you really understand why this is a Cannes winner. 
        Players of Assain's Creed were invited to design their own avatars for the game and the 1,400 highest ranking ones were used in the cast of the advert. Online players could then freeze frame the advert and find their own avatar, (and those of their friends) in the scenes. This generated a lot of comments and free publicity on social media too. Success! 
        
        
        Finally there's an old fashioned good old just great TV ad by Saatchi and Saatchi, Sao Paulo, Brazil for Leica called "100". To celebrate the fact that it's 100 years since Leica took the camera out of the studio and put it in people's hands where they could document the real world, the ad recreated 35 scenes from iconic photos. This is the type of ad you want to watch over and over to identify all the pictures. See how many you recognise. 

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  • • • • • • • Visit adweek.com/cannes next week to find out who were the actual winners. Good luck creative angels.
                
                

“It’s like, I’m Joan, and their vag is the ark.”

Tampon adverts have come a long way since rollerskating and riding ponies whilst enjoying a happy period. First we had the Bodyform advert taking the piss out of their own older advertising. Now we have this extremely funny advert for Hello Flo - a company who produce period packages.

In it we see a young teenage girl who is at summer camp when she gets her period. Since she is first she becomes Camp Gyno dealing tampons like they are drugs and bullying the other girls by controlling the supply chain.

This advert is not only surprising because it is really funny. But also because it's the first advert that features young girls who have just got their periods rather than beautiful model-like adults of about 25. It also has them using words like "vagina". Hooray! Why shouldn't girls talk about their bodies and tell it like it is? I am very impressed. What a step forward.

The advert was shot by marquis and Mccelland and produced at Hayden 5.



And here, if you still haven't seen it is the Bodyform advert.

Seen any other impressive modern tampon adverts? Send em my way. 

Amanda Palmer my new feminist hero.

I am a girl who has always picked feminist idols to look up to. Over the years I've collected a few. Here they are for mutual admiration.

1. Jane Austen, Author

Damn she was a clever woman our Jane. And she has just been recognised as one of our greatest national figures by the sexist Royal Mint. She will be the new face of £10 notes. Austen's writing poked fun at the establishment and the precarious role of women who's futures hung at the mercy of often very stupid or roguish men. Not only that, she actually turned down an offer of marriage, just like her heroine Elizabeth Bennet. Girl had balls.

2. Madonna, Singer

Madonna is a bitch and a diva isn't she? She's also pretty demanding and extreme. But fuck what people say about her, she knows how to do the showbiz thing. She's the master of reinvention and she's battled to stay at the top for three decades. She's strong. She does things her way and isn't scared of criticism. She never apologises and she loves sex and her body and has hot toy boys. Go Madge!

2. Lady Gaga, Singer

Lady Gaga says she is a feminist. She doesn't dress for men to gawp at like most female singers. She dresses for the theatre and spectacle, to show off her creativity and to push boundaries. She hasn't used her looks to get where she is, she has used her brain. She's also a champion for gay rights and someone who gives those who don't fit the mould someone to relate to.

3. Caitlin Moran, Journalist and Author

Moran's book "How to be a Woman" is extremely funny, self depreciating and charming. At the same time it is also a book which tells women to embrace who they are, to accept the fact they are natural women with faults and quirks. She argues that we shouldn't look like barbie dolls with no public hair, we are women not children! Plus she shares my instinctive love for Lady Gaga.

4. NEW ENTRY Amanda Palmer, Singer.
Amanda Palmer's songs are clever and funny and about true life. What US rapper, X factor contestant or Pussy cat doll can say that? She has also spoken out in response to the Daily Mail's coverage of her performance at Glastonbury which failed to mention the music or her performance and solely concentrated on the fact that one of her boobs escaped her bra on stage. In a performance at the Round House she mocks The Daily Mail in a song called "Dear Daily Mail" in which she criticises them for objectifying women and reducing them to body parts. And in order to show how little she cares whether "shock horror" her boob escapes she drops her robe half way through the song. Look she says, come fight me now. Respect.

A crimson landslide - that's more like it!

Bravo Bodyform! In a hilariously up to date response to a man called Richard's criticism of the lies of "happy" period adverts and his oft-heard lament that PMT made his girlfriend into a she-wolf, Bodyform have issued a announcement from their "faux-boss". Caroline Williams precedes to inform men everywhere that they had indeed lied - lied to protect men from a truth that they couldn't handle - that there is no happy period!!!!

The best line has to be "The blood coursing from our uterus like a crimson landslide". Thank god one sanitary towel provider has the balls to actually say what their business is all about. I also LOVE the blue liquid on the desk which she drinks - mocking the blue liquid often poured onto sanitary towels to suggest their absorbency in adverts. Because the truth of the whole thing is just so ghastly - yes we women also fart.




This was what the advert is a response to:

Richard Neill to Bodyform 8 October at 21:30 via Mobile 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------­-----
Hi , as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn't I get to enjoy this time of joy and 'blue water' and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn't wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen .....you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger

I seriously hope that this advert will usher in a new time of frankness in advertising for women's sanitary products. There is nothing to be ashamed of - its natural - every woman has them. So why shouldn't we call a spade a spade. Good for you Bodyform! From now on I will be choosing your pads to catch the crimson landslide from my uterus. 

Oh and here is an example of one of those skirting around the issue adverts of yore:

Proud of Britney?

Yes I am proud of Britney Spears for allowing unairbrushed pictures to appear alongside airbrushed ones. Brave and inspirational.






I am fed up of looking at the skin of celebrities - all glowing golden and flawless and then looking at my own skin complete with stretchmarks, mottled bits, veins, lines and pores and feeling depressed. But I am not the strange one. That's what women really look like. That is also why I have embraced the communal changing rooms of the gym. It is, as my friend recently pointed out to me, the only time women can really see other women's bodies - real ones. When I first joined the gym I was shocked to see women changing out of their clothes in front of me - right down to their birthday suits. I would shyly hide under a towel or turn away. I saw women with strange rashes, women with scars, women with dimpled fatty thighs and then I saw myself in the way that I really should have seen myself - as pretty ok. My body is actually pretty good. Now I shun the tiny changing room in the corner and change in my own time in front of everyone. And, when I have children, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna bring them to the gym so they too can see women's bodies as they really are, not as they are in magazines.

Go Harriet

I thought I'd post a link to this little article in the guardian about Harriet Harmon's comment that men are to blame for the economic crisis. It makes me smile to see this woman standing up and slapping those men down. Ha! Well done girl. Long may she remain in government (or until Brown gets kicked out).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/04/harriet-harman-women-power

What's going on in the world this week?

Having a read through Campaign there are a number of interesting stories:

1) Shortlist are bringing out a new free mag aimed at women called Stylist!!! Hooray! My creative partner and I are so fed up of being handed the Sport one on the street. I mean really. Do I look like I would read Sport? I wonder if this will have an impact on weekly mags like Grazia. It's hard to believe that anything could shake Grazia of it's pedestal right now but who knows?

2) Food ads lead to snacking. From a creative's point of view YESSS! Big up your advertising spend food brands. Now I'd like to know which ads worked the best. Was it the food porn shots? Or was it the mere reminder of the existence of food? Does alcohol advertising work in the same way?

3) "It's enormously difficult to get to original thinking through conventional research...the chances of getting an ad like 'gorilla' through conventional research are tiny" This quote came from Steve Henry. I totally agree. Whenever the client likes work they are too scared to trust their instincts. It seems you've got somewhere and then you hear the words "we're going to put this into research" and your heart sinks. Not only does your CD, your account managers, your planner and the client have to like the idea, so do a bunch of random people sitting in a room trying to sound clever and earn their £50. People are like sheep. One decides he's had a bad day and has a rant and the idea is dead. Saying that, what is the answer? Don't research?

4) Is it about time we dropped digital?

Should we be thinking about agencies as integrated ideas generators instead? If so then who wouldn't want to be one of them? I have never minded what medium an idea was to be done in. An idea is an idea as far as I'm concerned. It must work in the best media to do the job and to reach the right audiences. This thinking really needs to filter into some of the advertising colleges. Steven Henry recently said that he was disappointed to see some students at D&AD this year turning out books with pure press and poster campaigns. 

5)Women in adland

There are far too few female creatives. My partner and I are the only ones in our company. There is one female designer. She is freelance. When we were students we went on a London week and spoke to about 30 creatives. Non were women. Was this an oversight or were we in the wrong industry? Could we get hired as a all girl team? A guy at Leo Burnett's set me straight - there are hardly any female creatives because women just aren't funny. I think this is actually believed by a lot of companies. 

Funnily enough being a minority has helped me get into adland. After we won an award at D&AD we were contacted by Krow who wanted us to work on a chocolate bar aimed at women. A stereotype we were happy to accept. Then recently we were headhunted by an agency who wanted to up their female numbers. It also makes me feel proud that I have made it where only a handful of women do. I always was a feminist at heart and it feels like I am still fighting on the frontlines. 

The next battle will be when I have children. What happens then?