I was having dinner in a very nice restaurant in the financial district of New York (as you do) with some colleagues a few weeks back and the subject drifted, as it sometimes does with those who lived through it, to the time of no-good-shenanigans that our beloved industry used to, while not exactly condone,... Continue Reading →
The valentines day pitch.
Two people go on a date and one of them thinks it went great, but the other one fails to return calls the next day and without any feedback the first one calls the radio show and asks them to make a call to find out what went wrong or just...why? Remind you of anything?
The Vanishing Art of Copywriting
These days it seems that the copywriter, at least those in the mould of the David Abbotts, Tony Brignulls and Tim Delaneys of yesteryear have almost, if not disappeared, been relegated to the bench. The glitterati of adland are no longer the wordsmiths but the tech developers, the experiential masterminds and the product developers. Copywriters... Continue Reading →
Feedback is fuel. Or Diesel. Or did you look at hydrogen?
One of the hardest things in our job is to accept client changes. We all have had to attend meetings, where we have to dutifully write down the client comments on how a concept could be improved, taking in all the feedback, and thanking them for their input. I have mixed feelings about this and... Continue Reading →
The ticket to promotion.
You can do all the training and fill in all the applications and conclude you 'deserve' a promotion at your next review, but the easiest way for a boss to tell if you are right for that step up is if you are already stepping up.
Has our Pharma Lion lost its pride?
This is the blag I started writing before I was asked to be on Cannes podcast from the Creative Floor. So some of this I already got off my chest. But anyway, as always, hope you enjoy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 2014 a bunch of the brightest, best, tallest and most-potty-mouthed pharma people from all over the... Continue Reading →
The pros and cons of a ‘key visual’ in pharma.
We pharma creatives often have a slightly different hill to climb when it comes to creating brand campaigns. The concept of a campaign with multiple executions all pivoting off one central thought, like consumer campaigns, is hard for many pharma clients to get their heads around. History has proven to them that one 'key visual'... Continue Reading →
The colour of your agency matters.
Diversity has many nuances, yes from the obvious ones in terms of colour and creed to neurodiversity and gender et al, but there is an underlying diversity issue some agencies need to manage that is less immediately visible.
Letting go is part of being let go.
Last year I wrote a blag about being made redundant and how it nearly always leads on to better things and new opportunities. https://ollycaporn.com/2022/06/08/the-redundant-blog Little did I know that I was about to test my own theory when the sword of Damocles finally fell last September and I left CDM London. Me and my big... Continue Reading →
The centenary blog. What we’ve learned so far. Part 3.
And so dear reader, I am compelled to only write three centenary blog reviews. Two seems too few, four is too many and much like the Holy hand grenade of Antioch, 'five is right out'.