Omair’s List: Entry #6

Bleating of the lambs

There’s always this one person you know who just doesn’t know when to shut the hell up. That one person who has an ill-informed opinion on everything. That one person who’s jaw you’d love to ‘accidentally’ break with a steel pipe.

They’ll usually be someone you meet often. Someone you’ve known for a very long time. And they just seem to get louder as their heads become emptier.
Listen up you loud-mouthed, ignorant, arrogant, stupid little f***. I’ve had enough your sanctimonious speeches and moronic clichés. Spare me your ‘opinions’ that you borrowed from whatever retarded TV show you watch at home in your underwear. Maybe if you had the guts to have an opinion of your own, I would hate you less. Actually no, I’d hate you just as much, but at least I would have some smidgen of respect for you.

We both know you’re about as intelligent as a brain damaged lamb except you’re much louder and far more irritating. All you can do when confronted with a perfectly normal question is bounce around, salivate and bleat stupidly.

I’m done tolerating your loud mouth and tiny brain. If you so much as beep within twenty feet of me again, I swear I will ram the aforementioned steel pipe down your throat and shout obscenities down the opening while I watch you bleed to death.

Watch out, you whiny pathetic waste of oxygen.
You’re on my list.

“Sin here, please.”

We all know life these days is extraordinarily demanding. And oddly enough, the younger you are, the more pressure you face. You are always expected to be smarter, wittier, sexier, do more, achieve more. Be more, more, more. Being content with yourself, even for a moment, is now officially a sin. Well, you know what? Bugger off.

I’m busy sinning today.

Advertising like an engineer

Having a technical background, I sometimes look at advertising through the eyes of an engineer. It occurs to me that advertising is not really all that different from product development.

The client comes to an agency with a business problem they want to solve. After doing all the research, the creatives brainstorm to create a solution. This ‘solution’ is basically what the agency deals in. Like any product, it is prototyped, refined, tested and then refined some more in the creative department. When it’s ready, the agency presents it to the client. In effect, we have created a ‘product’ to solve the client’s business problem.

Now, when engineers build a machine, no one questions their methods, their skills or their product. Especially not any non-technical people.

No MBA would dare pull out a screw out of a machine and tell the engineer: “Hey, can we use a bigger screw? And can we put it here instead of there?”

No accountant would dare ask: “Can we use a cheaper belt? Does it even need that belt?”

No sales person would dare demand: “It’s not noisy. Make it noisier!”

So why do non-marketing people get to question creative work?

Clients, listen. If you interfere with a well-designed product you do not understand, you will not only waste your money, you will also ruin your business solution.

You hired an agency for their expertise. Expertise you do not have, or else you wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.

Let the agency do its job. They want to help you solve your business problem. Let them.

Omair’s List: Entry #5

Plastic arrogance

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the world is getting more surreal everyday. Maybe the fabric of society is starting to unravel. Maybe corporations are ruling the world. Maybe I have heatstroke. It doesn’t matter.

How to be a wannabe

Wannabes are a greatly misunderstood group in society. Like any tribe, they have their own set of rituals that they must conform to in order to bolster their sense of identity and belonging. However, often their rituals and beliefs are sadly misguided and make them the laughing stock of society at large.