A Period for Reflection, a Summer of Events.

As our summer begins to wane and the days seem clipped by the impending autumn, as the streets gleam wet with rain, flecked by the ever fading azure glow of the departing sun, we can look back on a season of grave significance.

First there were the tragedies in Norway, as a single man, a mind polluted, sought to solve a problem only he could see. His fears brought on by an anxiety that only the mad possess and the rational lament. His horrific acts were shocking and inexcusable, but not unique. The ceaseless violence was, unfortunately, well within the limits of human possibility. It is now that we must hope that humanity is, ostensibly, orderly and decent.

It is when this order is twice tested that we begin to lose faith; in government, in community, in man. The riots in London tarnished the capital, however it is reductive to characterise this awful event as simply a duel between forces of good and those of evil. Were the youths who took part the dispossessed, victims of a society who has left them behind? Or were they simply thugs, determined to destroy that which surrounded them?

Too often we resort to describing these people as singular entities, a homogenous mob driven by the same terrific motive. But these were individuals: Perhaps for some it was an emotional response to the controversial death of a man at the hands of those sworn to protect him. Or maybe it was pragmatism, the chance to take something from a society that has given them nothing, and promised nothing in the future.  Or maybe it was the feared extreme of human will; a desire to reject all that is orderly and decent.

But fuck that shit, this is media, we’re gonna exploit this in some well inexplicable manner. And I just got a new glass coffee table from DFS that I wanna cut some lines on. Didn’t even pay for the fucker. Ta.

Privacy? Do One.

Although it may be hard to believe, but when I first graduated from Luton Polytechnic with an Ordinary in Remedial Criminology, advertising was not my chosen career path. My degree had taught me many skills, such as starting grassroots nationalist organisations in the local area, casino money laundering and dusting for blood. So I was immediately headhunted for a position at the News of the World, who said my attributes were ideal for an editorial role.

The following years were like a beautiful dream; Paedo lynch-mobs, games of H-O-R-S-E with Rupert, veal and foie-gras tasting with Rebekah. That’s not even mentioning the first class journalism I presided over, churning out groundbreaking headlines on a daily basis: ‘KATE MCCANN YOU DIG IT?’ ‘ENGLAND 5 GERMANY-1: U-BOAT-ER BELIEVE IT FRITZ’ and the magnum opus that was my weekly editorial, ‘ISLAM? DO ONE.’

Although I was asked to leave following my indictment by the state of California for sending washing detergent in sealed envelopes to Jane Fonda’s house in the days after 9/11, the paper has always held a special place in my heart, and it saddens me that it has had to close due to the recent allegations. For are we not all guilty of innocent encroachments in to the private lives of others at some point in the past? Can you honestly say you’ve never called an ex-flame from a payphone, to silently listen to their perplexed tones, convinced that they’ll hear your racing heart beat through your chest as you begin to pass out from instinctively holding your breath, only to then stand outside their house and watch her new boyfriend play with your children whom you are forbidden from contacting, until you crumple to the ground in tears, staying there until passers by begin to throw change at you. I doubt it. Newspaper phone hacking is just as harmless, and probably results in less bloodshed.

I recently attended my bi-monthly Masonic interest social gathering, where we were treated to a performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Rebekah Brooks played the Queen of the Night while wearing a cut-out of Sally Dowler’s face. Unfortunately she can’t sing a note, and no one had the CD to play in the background, but I saved the day by putting on my ad for Haribo’s Tangfastics. A good time was had by all, especially Rupert, who showed up halfway through. I took the opportunity to probe him about the recent allegations, and as he’s been a colleague and friend of mine for an age, not to mention the godfather to my estranged children, I was going to pull no punches regarding the hacking scandal. What follows is a transcript of the revelatory interview:

DR: So Rupert, you’re one of the richest and most powerful men alive, do you ever get a chance to slow down?

RM: Never. Most days I’m up well before noon. Then it’s off with my trainer to walk for a bit along the Serpentine. I return home and immediately get straight in my Maybach and sit in it while it’s parked outside my front gate. This is so the paps can snap away as I pretend to read the Sun and the News of the World at the same time.

DR: You mentioned you train in Hyde Park. Do you ever worry that you’ll be accosted by the fawning proletariat, desperate to touch the hem of your garment, revering you as a sort of Christ-like figure?

RM: There’s no doubt that there is a security issue, and as you get near Marble-Arch there’s definitely heaps of Arabs all over the shop. I have a duo of highly trained security Alsatians for protection, Blondie II and Blondie III. They’re fluent in every language, which means they attack anything they hear that’s not speaking English.

DR: Lately, there’s been several shots of you pacing along as an attractive reporter asks you a question, to which you give a succinct, one word answer. Do you think you could do one for me now?

RM: A one word answer?

DR: Yes.

RM: Sure.

DR: Thanks. That was great.

DR: Some people, but not me, say that many of the companies you own manipulate the truth, and simply preach partisan rhetoric and inflammatory ideas. Although it even says that it is ‘fair and balanced news’ many people cite Fox News as a major problem.

RM: Look, at Fox News we give the people the facts they want, not necessarily the facts they need. They’re still facts though aren’t they?

DR: Lastly, did you ever send Milly Dowler’s parents any saucy texts?

RM: Let’s just say that’s inadmissible evidence! (laughs)

At this point I was escorted out of the building by Brooks’ ex, Ross Kemp, only to wake up on Clapham Common with passers by throwing change at me. 

The Advertising Standards Authority

Sorry to have been away for so long loyal followers, but over the past few weeks we have had to face many obstacles at DR. The world of Advertising is challenging and unpredictable at best. Just last night, my lawyers and I were up until the early morning trying to fight a police injunction barring us from shooting an advert for Ace Cider at a school for the deaf. We found a loophole that allowed us to have the students sign the benefits of excessive alcohol consumption among children, which is in no way prohibited by the Advertising Standards Authority’s rules and regulations. It was a real masterstroke on our part, and probation and my lawyer’s advice aside, I’ll stand by the decision until the day I die.

It was just another incident of the Advertising Standards Authority loosening our grip on a new consumer base, by prohibiting the lawful exploitation of the disabled. I can think back to several incidents where there ASA has shockingly stifled my team in Creative. For example, some of the greatest Ad campaigns of the last thirty years have relied on casual racism and stereotypes: Whether it’s a young Japanese couple convulsing to fit-inducing trance in honour of shower gel with a hook on the bottle, or a lecherous Frenchman waging a ten year war on his daughter’s sexual innocence while behind the wheel of a Renault, xenophobia is perhaps advertising’s oldest tradition. Yet when we claim that it is in the CID’s best interest to exhume the corpse of nationalist treasure Bernard Manning for a Branston Pickle advert, we get a slap on the wrist from the ASA. Not to mention having the doctor who agreed to reanimate him struck off the Burmese medical counsel.

Just recently, we lost a lucrative account with Cravendale, the milk company. They initially came to us wanting a campaign that was edgy and provocative, to make their product stand out in an over saturated market. After months of painstaking planning, upwards of five hundred re-drafts, several emotional breakdowns, and many careers lost due to crippling addictions to oxycodones, we came up with what we thought would be the most effective and memorable campaign of the 21^st Century:

We knew that the professional and emotional price we paid at DR was worth it, and were sure that the consumer would feel similarly. That was until the ASA stepped in, labelling the campaign as ‘grossly offensive,’ ‘overtly sexist,’ and ‘bearing little or no relation to the product in question.’ The account was taken over by Wieden + Kennedy, where Cravendale inevitably suffered. No one wants to see cats stealing our milk and threatening us with make-shift weapons. If the internet has taught us anything, which it has, it’s that people want cats riding turtles, fighting dogs, and sitting in awkward and hilarious positions. Cats don’t even have opposable thumbs, and to suggest that they could grow them goes against the strict creationist views of the milk consumer.

It’s not all bad however. Our finest work of recent memory was with Sensodyne whitening tooth paste. We paid a group of Albanian dentists a pittance to vouch for what was essentially a tube of surplus Warhammer figurine primer. Despite some initial complaints from the ASA following a spate of mouth-cancer related deaths in the Norfolk area, we eventually agreed to a compromise with the Agency’s head. In exchange for some first rate Albanian porcelain veneers for his wife, she wouldn’t go to the press about the results of a recent court-ordered paternity test he took in Manila. It all worked out for everyone, and let’s just say that those corpses in East Anglia had teeth brighter than the sun.

I’ll never forget the advice Maurice Saatchi gave me with regard to the ASA when I was a bright-eyed intern cutting my teeth in the industry: ‘I’m trying to pass a kidney stone the size of a subbuteo ball, and my wife is about to start proceedings for my third divorce, do you think I have time for advertising standards? Bollocks to them. Bollocks to everything.’ And trust me, he didn’t tell me this in a series of hand gestures. Maurice Saatchi’s grasp on sign language is tenuous at best.

TABS FOR SALE

Parliaments for sale, all exotic and american, much like our beloved Duchess. £5 per pack. Don't expect change.

Tri-Step-Success-Matrix

Step #1. The Name

Advertising is a competitive industry, so in order to stand out, it’s important to create a memorable name. Harnessing the power of inexplicable buzz-words is essential. By combining two powerful, quasi-related words, you double-up your advertising skill-set, while dominating everything with mass-hyphenation.

We chose the words ‘Dynamic’ and ‘Renegade’ because they evoke other words such as ‘proactive,’ ‘interpersonal,’ and ‘winningest.’ The key to industry success is to buy into the psychobabble, and then use it to completely fuck up everyone else’s shit.

Step #2. Fucking up everyone else’s shit.

Reasonable men would argue that advertising is based on lies and misconception. Fortunately, reasonable men do not work in advertising. So it’s important to create lies and misconceptions about your competitors. A company’s name can make or break the agency, and a bad one can be exploited by your competitors:

Let’s focus on the importance of a name’s initialised abbreviation, starting with Dynamic Renegade:

‘D.R.’ reminds people of Dave Reagan, 40^th President of the United States, Berlin Wall destroyer, and AIDS and Crack Cocaine advocater. Absolutely bulletproof. Now check out our pathetic competition

Wieden + Kennedy = WK.  – Wieden + Kennedy are one of the most established names in the industry. They hold some of the biggest accounts in advertising, including Nike, Honda and milk. But their initials leave them more vulnerable than the child labour they employ: ‘W.K.’ reminds people of sugary alcopops, and thus teenagers, being sick, daterape, and teen pregnancy. We imagine. Wieden + Kennedy can neither confirm nor disconfirm that they advocate these things.

Saatchi & Saatchi = SS. Indicative of their undoubted connections to Nazism.

StrawberryFrog: That’s just disgusting.

Step #3. Thought provoking print media

If we have one goal at this company, it's to steal other companies ideas, and exploit their apparent racial prejudices. Take that Hovis.

Hovis: Hill-cycling bread-making toon racists:

Before We Begin

Morals and advertising go hand in hand. After recent global events, there is only one thing we can morally advertise this week: FUNK