Recently, a student wrote me an email.

They said they were going to send a comment to this blog with their website url on.

But they refrained from doing so as it would be a plug.

Pardon.

We’re in advertising and you don’t want to do a plug?

Plugging is another name for advertising.

That’s what do: we plug things.

If we’re not ashamed of plugging our client’s goods or services, why would we be ashamed of plugging ourselves?

This is another instance of everybody taking what we do too seriously.

And sucking all the fun out of it.

Alan Parker told me that he and his art director, Paul Windsor, wanted to set up a freelance creative consultancy in London.

But, in those days, New York was the centre of creativity.

And all the New York creatives had exotic names: Italian or Jewish.

And they didn’t think “Parker and Windsor” sounded very exciting by comparison.

In fact it sounded old and stuffy, like Dunn & Co.

So the bought a Jewish cookbook.

And they went through it until they found two names that they thought sounded really creative.

Then they called their creative consultancy “Kreplach & Kneidlach”.

They got lots of work.

They didn’t spend ages worrying, and finding reasons not to do it.

It was fun.

When World War Two was drawing to a close, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt all met to decide the fate of the post-war world

After Stalin had gone to bed, Churchill was drinking with Roosevelt.

Roosevelt pondered, “I wonder how history will treat us.”

Churchill said, “History will treat us kindly, because I will write it.”

And Churchill’s “History Of The English Speaking Peoples” has become the definitive work on that period.

He didn’t worry about whether it was just a plug.

Of course it was a plug.

That was the point.

Churchill was a journalist long before he was a politician.

That’s why he has all the best lines.

David Bailey once told me a story about when he was a teenager.

He said he was coming down the stairs in his parent’s house and caught sight of himself in the mirror.

Frowning, he looked himself up and down and considered his reflection.

Eventually he said, “Well son, looks like it’s all down to dialogue.”

And he was right, it was.

Blag.

That’s what we do.

This isn’t religion, or the legal profession, or the civil service.

This is ads.

If we have fun what we do will be fun.

If what we do is fun the punters will notice it and remember it.

If the punters do that, it’s got more chance of working.

This is advertising.

It’s not a place for shy people.