“PHILIP MORRIS READS THE RIOT ACT” (SHORT STORY)

Philip Morris stands before a class of aspiring art directors and copywriters.

They’re supremely confident and totally unaware. He’s outspoken and unimpressed.

“Philip Morris Reads the Riot Act” is a creative short story about the clash of generations.

What will Philip reveal about the true nature of their craft?

What will it take to bridge the gap between generations?

1,000 words / 4 minutes of didactic reading pleasure

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‘The more you know, the more there is to know.’ Lavinia Greenlaw 

STEFANO BOSCUTTI

PHILIP MORRIS READS THE RIOT ACT

Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti
All Rights Reserved

Philip Morris has to do this every year.

Schedule a night to give a talk to aspiring creatives and copywriters at the Ad School.

He isn’t paid. It’s not really a favour. It’s because as a creative director he believes the next generation of creatives should be armed with as much knowledge and skills as possible.

But when he glances over the work these students have created, he’s shocked and appalled. It’s just one stupid iteration after the other, dressed up with some snazzy typography and over-filtered photography. (If he sees another white headline reversed out of yellow, he’s going to stab someone in the eye with a blunt pencil. Lead poisoning be damned.)

Philip stands in front of a clean whiteboard at the head of the class. Picks up a red marker and then sits it back on the thin aluminium ledge. He turns to face the class. He smiles.

‘I’ve never seen so much shit work in my entire life.’ No one bats an eye. Philip shakes his head.

‘Seriously you should all be ashamed of yourself. You should go back to being baristas or social media influencers or whatever the fuck you were doing before you came here.’

No one looks shocked or worried. One student yawns. Another chimes in.

‘I don’t think you realise how the industry has changed. The kind of work you like is not really fashionable anymore.’

A few of the students snigger. One looks out the window, bored.

Philip looks over the students. How can they be so supremely confident when they don’t know anything? When they can’t tell a good ad from a bad ad? When they don’t even understand that design is not how an ad looks, but how ad works.

‘Any fuckwit can produce the work you’ve done. A child with a laptop and a Canva account can spit that shit out. A secretary can do it with her eyes closed. Even a mid-level manager can press a few buttons and generate the same artwork. Do you know what that means?’

‘That means our work appeals to more people,’ a student says.

‘No. It means anyone can do it. And when anyone can do it, then it has no value.’

Philip sees they don’t understand what he’s saying. (Are they clinically stupid or belligerent? Or both?)

‘It means you don’t have a job, you don’t have a career. Why would they pay you for something they can get for nothing?’

Some of the students start paying attention. One begins jotting notes on her phone.

‘You have the capacity to move minds, move markets. You can change the course of history. Why would you settle for anything less? Why would you create boring work that no one is going to see, no one is going to care about.’

‘But we’re answering the brief.’

‘Who the fuck cares? The brief is just the starting point.’

Philip knows that most briefs with their detailed target market and demographics, key product or service attributes, mandatory inclusions, reams of unnecessary research and page after page after stupid page of supposed (and often contradictory) insights from the planners are an utter waste of time.

One of the students leans back with his arms folded tight.

‘Did you read the brief before you started attacking our work?’

‘I don’t need to read the brief. Every brief for every ad and every ad campaign is the same - make the brand or product or service more famous. With an asterisk.’

‘What’s the asterisk for?’

‘To remind you that the client and the planner and the account executive want a little bit of that fame to rub off on them, to make them a little famous within their circles, to lift their status among their peers.’

The student folds his arms even tighter.

‘I’m not attacking your work.’

Philip smiles.

‘I’m attacking your complete lack of understanding of how advertising works.’

Philip turns, uncaps the red marker and scrawls one word in capital letters on the whiteboard - DOPAMINE!

‘Your job when you create an ad is to alter brain chemistry to create a memory. And then burn in that memory into people’s hearts and minds with subsequent ads.’

Philip turns to the students. Opens his arms wide, welcoming.

‘When they say copywriting and art directing is not brain surgery they’re completely and utterly wrong. All of you are brain surgeons. Instead of scalpels and forceps you use words and pictures, sounds and music, poetry and assonance to cut deep without spilling a drop of blood.’

One of the students starts smiling. Philip nods.

‘Your job is to produce work that releases dopamine in the brain of the recipient. That acts as a powerful stimulus for eliciting peak emotional responses that trigger and engage the primary reward circuitry.’

Philip points at the students.

‘Your job is to create the persistence of ...’

‘Memory?’

Philip snaps his fingers and grins.

‘Bingo!’

‘But isn’t the brief to sell more stuff?’

‘Are you being ironic? Sarcastic? Derisive?’

The student shakes his head. Philip continues.

‘Of course you have to sell more stuff. That’s capitalism. Everything a company or organisation or government does is to sell more stuff. Whether it’s more products or more policies or more whatever, if it doesn’t sell it doesn’t matter.’

The student rolls his eyes, frustrated. Philips’ eyes narrow.

‘But that doesn’t mean you’re a salesman. That’s not your job.’

Philip turns around and underlines the word DOPAMINE! on the whiteboard.

‘Your job is to make people sell themselves.’

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Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti

All Rights Reserved

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No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or copying and pasting, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing.

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This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters portrayed here have counterparts in the life and times of mainstream advertisers and others, the characterisations and incidents presented are totally the products of the author’s mediated imagination. This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It should not be resold or given away. Thank you for your support. (Couldn’t do it without you.)

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