The Age of Random.

I realized something today.

It’s Sunday.

And no one really gives a crap on Sunday.

Sure there maybe some of you that are reading this Monday, or even Tuesday (but honestly, get with the times. You should be refreshing this page all day Sunday waiting for my update.) remembering the weekend that was.

But it is the job of Sunday to be lazy.

To be the day that everyone kind of forgets what it is they did.

It’s the day of the hangover.

The day where you walk to the dairy for a can of coke.

The day you go out and get eggs bene.

It’s not the day for relevance.

If Sunday were an ad it would be one of those shitty random ones that no one really likes.

So it is my duty to embody that.

For me.

For you.

For us.

Or maybe just for me.

But seriously folks! (After that opening gambit I have something interesting to say. Yus!) What is with those random ads? The likes of the moro gold ads (not the funny old ones with the squirrels oh no, not the crazy Bollywood ones. The one with the talking giant chocolate bar), the ads that try to come so far out of left field that they don’t even make sense. Some are clever and funny and have logical lateral leaps to the product and others die a tragic, tragic death.

It was in an agency that Hugh and I were helping out in that we first really had a face-to-face encounter with these sorts of ads.

No idea was good enough, and we had some fucking good ideas.

“But the kids like random.” The creative director kept telling us.

Yes your right kids like random they find it fun. The flashing lights and colors make their pre-pubescent head spin.

But they aren’t memorable (well most of them aren’t).

You can’t set out to create something random. You can have randomness in mind but I don’t feel as though it can be your mission statement. It doesn’t work because, as we see in so many ads these days, it comes of looking a little retarded.

So what did we do? We toiled and toiled. Thinking up random idea after random idea. They were all dumb and we had hardly anything we liked but we needed to pitch so we kept on keeping on.

And when we asked to see what the real creative’s had come up with wasn’t much better but the problem was the CD loved what they had done. Even if to us it looked even worse than what we had thrown up

So what am I trying to say? Random = fun, exciting sometimes awesome ads. But if you’re focusing on being random you’re going to create something random. If you’re really good it will look okay. But if your not, and I don’t really think many people in the world are successfully random on cue, it’s going to look constructed and be a waste of your time and effort.