A creative person who works in the advertising industry is no stranger to client feedback, no matter how unreasonable. But imagine artists like Vincent Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo having to go through focus groups and client feedback. Now, you might wonder why someone would draw such a parallel? The Association of Independent Commercial Producers, or AICP, has released a new ad film to call all creatives who can create "museum-worthy ads," urging them to participate in the contest. The winning work would join the film archive of MoMA or the Museum of Modern Art.
The ad film is hilarious and relatable. It reminds the hopeful entrants, "It's hard to make museum-worthy art. It's harder to make museum-worthy ads." It was directed by O Positive’s Brian Billow, with creative concepts and consultation by BBDO, led by Chris Beresford-Hill, chief creative officer of the Americas. The film aims to attract the best of the industry along with giving creatives a much-needed push to put their best foot forward. The ad film also highlights the grueling process of getting creative approved, which sometimes leads to a watered-down final product.
The film starts with Van Gogh's agents telling him they had a great meeting with the clients. He asks if the clients bought the painting, to which the agents answer that they will. However, the clients want the concept of "Starry Night," Vincent Van Gogh's popular landscape painting, to be a little less dark." They want him to paint "A Sunny Day" instead. The artist is confused as to why he would paint a sunny picture for a painting titled "Starry Night." The agent further explained that he doesn't need to change the title as the clients love it. Funnily enough, they add that they want him to change the painting.
In the next frame, we see the artist Frida Kahlo. Her agents tell her that they have shown her "Self-portrait with monkey" to the clients. But, the clients find the forehead area "unrelatable." Her agents promised that they would push back on it.
Moving back, Van Gogh's agents tell him his painting has failed. The painter is surprised and asks, "How can a painting fail?" They also rope in the idea of an "influencer" to help Van Gogh's painting resonate with the younger audiences. The influencer, a priest called Father Anton, is also a creator himself, drawing a similarity with how influencers are roped in just for their popularity.
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 9: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh at Moma on March 9, 2016 in New York, New York. (Photo by Santi Visalli/Getty Images)
Frida Kahlo's agents meet her to tell her that the clients "Totally get what a self-portrait is." However, they wanted some little tweaks among which one sticking point was the monkey. They further advise her to replace the monkey with puppies as, "people trust puppies and it's proven."
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY - FEBRUARY 12: A view in the exhibition with artwork of Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, seen at the press preview of the exhibition "Fantastische Frauen" at Kunsthalle Schirn on February 12, 2020 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. (Photo by Hans-Georg Roth/Corbis via Getty Images)
In the next frame, we see Van Gogh's agents telling him how they managed to get the painting approved but in a "vertical format." Van Gogh swears that if they released that painting, he would "cut off his goddamn ear," referring to the real-life incident. Thank God focus groups didn't exist in those days!
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.