Archive for February, 2004
February 23, 2004
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For the last few months, I’ve been advertising this site on Adrants, the ad industry blog.
The result is, every few days a couple of hundred advertising folk discover this site. A couple of hundred folk is the size of a good-size agency. Not bad, not bad at all.
You can buy blogads for Adrants and other groovy sites here, at Henry Copeland’s Blogads.com.
A week’s worth of advertising on the site costs about the same as one decent cocktail in an upscale New York bar. Yeah, I think it’s worth it– insanely so. Especially when you think about how hard these people are to meet in real life (any recent grad looking for her first job will know what I’m talking about).
So far the investment has paid off. I’ve been contacted by a few people who saw the ad. I’t ll be interesting to see where all this leads. Watch this space.
One more thing: Steve Hall, the guy who runs it, has recently been laid of from his agency media job. Based in Boston, he’s looking for work. If anybody can provide him with any leads, that would be great.
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February 22, 2004
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Megan asked me in an earlier comment if I had a favorite cartoon.
I don’t think I have an all-time favorite. But if you look to the links section on the homepage sidebar you’ll see a link for my “personal faves” section, which has a dozen or so of my sentimental faves.
That work?
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Abigail from St. Louis wrote me yesterday. In her e-mail she asked:
“And then there’s the question of integrity. There’s all sorts of criticism of product placement in print media. If a magazine starts talking about how wonderful a product is, and they’re being paid for it– suddenly the mag is one big infomercial. Would your site have the same sort of problem?“
Abigail, I think that’s a definite issue. Especially when you think the main engine driving the blogosphere is goodwill. To abuse that is not only wrong, it’s economically stupid.
I think the trick is (a) making sure the main content far outweighs the pimping content (b) being upfront about the pimping © making sure the product is one you honestly believe in.
“Tell the truth” is the best advice I can give anyone.
I have no qualms about pimping my friend’s movie. I want people to see it and I make no apology for it. I think it’s a damn fine movie and I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. Same is true with EVO.
When a basketball player or famous actor lands a multi-million dollar endorsement/pimping deal, he is praised to the skies by the media for it. But when a regular guy (blogger) does likewise on a vehicle that he owns himself (blog), suddenly the media is talking about “integrity”.
There’s a subtext here: “Pimping is OK for rock stars like us, but how dare the little people try to do it.” The usual big-media arrogance.
That arrogance to me is really nothing but kvetching by a lot of mediocre hacks in dead-end media and advertising jobs. All sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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February 21, 2004
4 Comments
For the last year or so I’ve been writing about “the future of advertising”.
Yak yak yak, yada yada yada.
Then a couple of weeks ago I decided to stop talking about it, and just start doing it.
And now tens of thousands of people know all about Young Adam, and I believe see it in an informed and postive light.
Had I put a wee bit of money into media-buying, that figure would have been millions.
No fancy ad agencies. No large herds of suits screwing around. No fancy commercial shoots. Just one guy, some cartoons, a computer and some strategically-placed media buys is enough. Millions of people.
The cartoons are essential. Gives people a reason to be here besides hearing me shamelessly plug a movie.
What is the future of advertising? You’re reading it.
Any ad folk out there who want to continue this conversation offline feel free to e-mail me: hugh at gapingvoid etc.
February 20, 2004
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This is a good photo of Alistaire MacKenzie (on the right), my pal Dave’s younger brother.
Alistaire is best known as “Archie MacDonald”, the former romantic lead in the TV show “Monarch Of The Glen”.
This pic is a still from the movie Dave shot just before Young Adam, “The Last Great Wilderness”. To save money Dave got his own flesh n’ blood to play the lead. Or something.
The Scottish film world is a small one. Alistaire’s great high school friend was Andrew MacDonald, the producer of both “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting”, both which Ewan McGregor starred in. And now Ewan’s in Alistaire’s brother’s film.
I knew Andrew MacDonald vaguely in Edinburgh when I was a teen, though I doubt he’d remember me. Hung out with him and a girl named Scarlet a few times, both who I thought were awfully nice.
There’s another, less-known connection between Trainspotting and Young Adam. The editor at Canongate Publishing who “rediscovered” Trocchi, and got him back in circulation after years of being out of print, was a guy called Kevin Williamson. Before he worked at Canongate Kevin had a wee underground literary magazine called ‘Rebel Inc.’ It was pretty central to the whole “Scottish Beats” literary scene that was doing the rounds in the quality papers a few years ago.
Rebel Inc was the first to discover and publish Irvine Welsh, the writer of Trainspotting.
Alistaire’s in LA at the moment, grabbing some acting work. Dave’s working on a new film called Asylum, based on the Pat McGrath novel. Sir Ian “Gandalf” McKellan’s in it. Kevin, who I’ve shared whisky with many times, is still in Edinburgh, seriously involved with his own brand of socialist politics. I have no idea what Andrew MacDonald’s up to. I saw him in London in the street a few years ago– he looked really busy with the person he was with, so I didn’t say “hi”.
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“The best Scottish movie ever. An utter masterpiece of seething, beat-novel-film-noir sexuality.” — Hugh MacLeod
Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer etc.
Opened in USA April 16th, 2004
Cities include: New York, LA, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Washington DC etc.
Buy the R-Rated DVD from Amazon.com
Buy the artisically superior, far racier but more expensive NC-17 version from Amazon.co.uk.
Moviefone Listings to find out where it’s playing near you etc.
Young Adam homepage.
Watch the Young Adam trailer here.
My gapingvoid interview with Tilda Swinton, the female lead.
’The Independant’ (big UK paper) loves Young Adam: “Indeed, the idea of a [British] homegrown movie that rates as a genuine artistic achievement, as opposed to a loudly fanfared event (such as Calendar Girls), seems almost outlandish, something so rare we might not even recognise it. Well, I’m happy to report that such a movie is now here. It’s called Young Adam, and it deserves your immediate attention…“
From The Guardian: “Alexander Trocchi was the smack-addled icon of beat literature, whose writings have been eclipsed by a lurid life of porn, pimping and dissolution in New York, Paris and London. But with a new film out adapted from his novel Young Adam, the Glasgow-born writer’s life and work are ripe for re-evaluation.” By Tim Cumming.
Dave MacKenzie, one of my best friends, is the director.
Sexually frank “Young Adam” interview of Tilda Swinton in Nerve.com.
The main Young Adam page on Hanway Films website. The film was produced by Jeremy Thomas, the same guy who produced “The Last Emperor”.
Edinburgh Film Festival 2003 write-up on the movie.
Edinburgh Film Fest’s write-up on Dave Mackenzie.
A nice pic of Dave on the movie set, plus a few links from about.com
Brief Synopsis from Britfilms.com
Read The Book (damn fine book, by Alexander Trocchi)
A wee profile of Trocchi from his former publisher.
A lovely review from the BBC.
Good interview of Ewan McGregor from Channel 4 (UK).
BBC interview with Ewan MacGregor.
BBC interview of Tilda Swinton, who plays opposite Ewan.
Great review of the movie from ‘Sight & Sound’, the very upscale British film magazine. WARNING: Skip the ‘synopsis’ bit if you don’t want to know the ending.
A very enthusistic review in The Independant, one of the big UK papers.
The soundtrack for Young Adam, by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame.
Sally.
A nice review of Young Adam in Latino Review.
Hollywood Reporter calls Young Adam “Classic Noire”.
Young Adam on Russian TV.
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People who have been coming to this site for a while will notice I’m posting a few old ones… There are two reasons.
1. The old “white on black” website is buggered. All the links were broken when I moved it across to the archives. It is no more trouble to repost them here than to fix the old archive, and since I much prefer this new format, I might as well post them here again. It also allows new visitors to see the old work without having to schlepp through the old archives, which are a pain to navigate, anyway.
2. I kinda like reposting them. It kinda shakes the dust of them a bit. I prefer thinking of it as “revisiting”, rather than “Hugh’s a lazy bastard who can’t be bothered posting new stuff.” Besides, I’m posting more new work than ever before, I just happen to be combining that with posting the old work.
What sayest thou?
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February 19, 2004
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1. The best way to support this site is either (a) buy a box of blogcards and/or (b) join my free weekly cartoon syndicate. 2. You can also syndicate the site via RSS.
Thanks to everybody who bought blogcards in the last week. Seems there were a lot of you 
Special mention to Lockhart Steele who ordered these ones. Thanks, Lock!
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The soundtrack for Young Adam was done by David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame.
David Byrne was actually born in Scotland, in Fife. Moved to the States with his parents when he was a kid.
It’s a good soundtrack. Sort of reminds me of the stuff he did with Brian Eno 15-odd years ago.
You can get it on iTunes as well.
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February 18, 2004
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In the old days, the three most important words in advertising were “Unique Selling Proposition”. To me, the three most important words are “By Interacting With…”
–By interacting with Gerber, she becomes a better-informed mom.
–By interacting with The Wall Street Journal, she becomes more tuned into the world of capitalism.
–By interacting with Apple, she brings her entrepreneurial dreams closer to reality.
–By interacting with McDonald’s, her busy schedule is made slightly easier by avoiding a lot of fuss over lunch.
–By interacting with Ralston Purina, she becomes more attached to her canine friend.
–By interacting with Evo…?
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And yes, ‘Young Adam’, the book is awfully good.
I’d say it’s the second-best Beat Novel ever written (‘Naked Lunch’ being the first). Imagine if Joseph Conrad had writen ‘L’Etranger’. But it’s a lot more sexual than any of them. Trocchi made a living writing porn for a while. It shows.
What I think it does very well is portray the deep, existential, predatory quality all males have when they’re trying to get laid. And you girls thought it was all about you. Heh.
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Evo is not a limo company. Evo is a car and clean-fuel technology company.
Yes, they build and hire out limos, but that’s only the first product of many.
When they started the company (only 2 years ago in a suburban garage) they asked, “What could we do to get the product out there, that could get a lot of people seeing and using the vehicles right away, day in, day out?“
Limos were an obvious choice, especially as they were based so near Hollywood. But there are other products on the drawing board, which I will talk about at a later date.
So my job is not about selling limos. It’s selling something much bigger.
I firmly maintain that Evo’s main competition is not Detroit. We’ve already moved on from worrying about dinosaurs.
Somebody in the comment section of a recent post thought citing Apple Computers as our competition was a bit of a stretch. I disagree– to me, it’s glaringly obvious. The kind of people we want working for Evo in the next 5 years are going to be the kind of bright sparks Apple would hire. I see us trying to steal people from them, or other comparable companies, and vice versa. We may not be competing for the same retail space, but we’re competing for what really makes the money for any organization– the people who work for us.
All companies begin and end with the collective knowledge of their people. It’s up to management to figure out a way to put that knowledge to best use. Products, be they molecules or services, are just extension of said knowledge. Not to mention extensions of passion, wit, ego, ambition, desire, love and sex drive.
90% of any company’s worth is intellectual capital. It isn’t 1960 any more.
Update: The thought “Intellectually Driven” is a nice little buzzword to bring up in a meeting, but I don’t think it’s a big enough nail to hang the entire company on. Keep digging etc.
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February 17, 2004
1 Comment
A good review of Young Adam in The Independant, one of the big UK papers.
“Perhaps it’s not entirely fair to say that the idea of art cinema is profoundly un-British. Un-English, perhaps. David Mackenzie’s Young Adam is a thoroughly Scottish film in subject and in mood; its steely poetry, and very European belief in letting images speak as much as words, can only be compared in recent British cinema with the work of another young Scottish director, Lynne Ramsay. Young Adam is based on a 1954 novel by Alexander Trocchi, the Glasgow-born writer affiliated to the Beats, whose life and work were very much a revolt against British insularity and staidness, and against Scotland itself. Suffice to say, Mackenzie’s dirty, damp, bone-chilling film is no tourist board advert for lochs and glens…“
Nice one. The film opens in America in April, and it’s nearly March. Not long to go. I’m getting a little nervous, as time marches on. I’m trying to tell everybody I can about the film, but I’m just one man with a wee blog. I’m not CBS, y’know?
Still, it’s a good movie, and with the internet being what it is, if folks like the film they’ll blog about it, and word-of-mouth will travel fast.
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(This cartoon sponsored by Evo bwa ha ha ha…)
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Truly great post on corporate blogging from Microsoft’s Robert Scoble (Thanks, Loic).
Also see: Scoble’s Corporate Blogging Manifesto.
What makes America exceptional. Powerful stuff from Jeff Jarvis.
Meatspace of the week: DEMO
Kerry still breathes.
Not everybody who markets to hipsters is a schmuck.
From Gawker: “Last week, Amazon’s Canadian site somehow got glitched to reveal the names of the writers of anonymous user reviews — which gave everyone a little peek into the world of friends pimping friends’ books and bitter unpublished writers trashing other writers. (It seems Amazon is sort of like, oh, any street corner in lower Manhattan.)“
How many bloggers can dance on the head of a non-issue? e.g. “Your ‘friends’ are an angry controlling abusive mob. This thread started with an incredible demo of that. Some people are in and others aren’t. The really creative people are always out. You kill them. And you just got told no, enough is enough. If friendship is just that, people being friendly and supportive, great. But if it’s really defining who it’s okay to attack, then it’s not friendship.“
Joi blogs another cartoon. Thanks 
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To me, the Evo story isn’t “clean-fuel limos”, it’s about the people running it. Clean fuel is just one attribute.
Usually, when you think of “limo service”, you think of characters out of ‘The Sopranos’. Think fat guy/cheap suit /clip-on tie and you get the picture.
Evo is different. Its roots are in the media business. Two media execs got sick of the entertainment industry, and decided to focus on something they perceived more useful to the people around them than just one more screenplay needing schlepped around Hollywood.
Ergo, I’m currently writing stuff that has nothing to do with “clean fuel” or whatever. The story is not about eco-warriors. The story is about providing the kind of service the people you party with would want to use. And it’s about building the kind of company the people you like and respect would want to work for.
Position Evo as a knowledge company first, and its services as extensions of that knowlege (limos, clean-fuel engines, parts etc), and then I think we’re in business.
I had this thought: “Evo. Intellectually Driven.” By that I mean, Evo shouldn’t see its competition as other limo companies. Its competition are companies like Apple or Sony. Using its resources to turn knowledge and passion into good things for people. Yeah, getting you from the hotel to the airport is pretty mundane, but then again most stuff done on computers is also pretty mundane. But that never stopped Steve Jobs.
It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
Afterthought: ‘Intellectual’ is perceived negatively when it’s applied to people, but not when it’s applied to ‘property’. The people who make movies (Evo’s current customer base) have no problem with the phrase ‘intellectual property’ to describe their product, as far as I can tell.
i.e. Evo is driven by the same kind of brains that drive movie studios and computer companies. The product is different, but the caliber is the same. That’s what Evo must reinforce again and again, it’s that simple.
That being said, ‘Intellectually Driven’ may not be the right tagline to slap on the back of a mass-media ad camapign for a limo. But it could work as good internal marketing, as part of a long-term corporate vision etc.
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February 16, 2004
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Since I moved the old website over, suddenly a lot of links are no longer working. If you hot-link to my site then a lot of the images will no longer load.
It’s easy enough to fix, just add “old site/” bewteen the “.com/” and whatever comes after it.
e.g. If the old old links was
http://www.gapingvoid.com/bank/synd17/synd02.jpg
the new link will be
http://www.gapingvoid.com/oldsite/bank/synd17/synd02.jpg
Sho shimple, Moneypenny!
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February 15, 2004
6 Comments
(inspired by a post by Joi Ito )
