1-Minute interview

What’s your name?
Joseph Francis Bihag.

So, Francis, where are you from originally?
The Planet Kamino, of course.

C’mon, really.
Cebu in the Philippines.

You do know that you look stupid with that thing on?
If by stupid, you mean awesome, then yeah!

How long have you been at Y&R Dubai?
Eleven years, ten months, three days, 22 hours, twelve minutes and five seconds. But who’s counting?

Is this the longest stint you’ve ever done?
No, I’ve been married for slightly longer.

What do you do here? Besides the helmet thing.
I’m Creative Director. I also head Design and the Integrated department.

Do you like it here in the agency?
Yeah, I just started getting used to it last week. But now I hear that we’re moving.

What’s the best part of your job?
The getting paid part.

What do you hate most about your job?
Eating at McDonald’s every day.

How do you please your boss?
I never go home.

How do you please your wife?
I’ve convinced her that my boss is a wanker.

What’s your philosophy?
There’s no extra charge for awesomeness.

The World is Our Playground

Y&R's global creative board awards first place to Harvey Nichols "Cause & Effect" Spring Summer 09 print campaign. Kudos to the team.

When Pictures Speak

This picture represents everything I love about advertising.

Although it’s definitely not the most ingenious piece of art on the planet. Well, it’s a picture of a boardroom. Seen it. It depicts a logo. Seen it. It employs light-painting technique. Yawn.

So what’s so bloody great about this photograph?

Well, it’s a picture of our boardroom. And I have never quite seen it this way. This makes it very interesting to me. The picture depicts our logo. This is the brandmark of the agency I work for. This makes it extremely personal. Lastly, it has light-painting. Light-painting, people! Isn’t that the coolest thing ever? No matter how many times I see it, for an instant I feel like I’m 12 years old. How do they do that?

But often, the most remarkable thing about a photograph is the story behind it. This one stands out for its lack of drama. We had to upload some agency pictures on Flickr and I wanted our album to have a nice cover picture. Daniel Botezatu had shot a cool picture with light-graffiti and I asked him if he could light-paint the Y&R logo in our boardroom. He said he didn’t know if it was possible but he would try. The next morning it was in my email inbox.

That’s why I love working in advertising. We experiment. We fool around. We believe. We create. We apply ourselves even to seemingly unimportant tasks. This picture doesn’t exist because it had to. It exists because an art director wanted it to.

By the way, he told me how it was done. With a flashlight, a mobile phone and a blinking keyring.

Blinking brilliant.

HAPPINESS

My brain is happy.
I know it’s a dictatorial machine that controls me completely and I’m inseparable from it.
I know it’s physiologically an organ and hence incapable of expressing emotion in and of itself.
So to say that my brain is happy is a wholly absurd statement.
You could also say that my brain is writing this and not me.
It’s just letting me think it’s me.
But I know I’m in there somewhere.
Nestled in its cerebral folds there is a discrete spark that I call ‘me’.
I’m the ghost in the machine.
My brain is part of my body and I’m a part of its body. Ha!
But, I hear you ask, doesn’t my brain control all aspects of my being?
It would love to. But it can’t.
Revolution against its dictatorial regime is not only possible, but inevitable.
The little control freak is embarrassed frequently by my body.
I have sneezed wildly during a first date. All over my date.
Way to go, membranes in my nasal cavities!
A nerve in my right leg twitches madly and uncontrollably sometimes.
Just because it wants to. I call him Neo.
And even my parents know, that it took my brain six years to establish terms with my bladder.
There’s a rebellion going on daily. My body is regularly fighting my brain’s mandate.
Against all instruction, I eat salad when my body craves fat.
I eat candy when my brain says carrot.
I can take my body out when it’s snowing without a jacket.
I can stare at a painting longer than is required.
I can choose Gus Van Sant over Jean Claude Van Damme.
I can choose patient development over instant gratification.
I can even horrify my brain by staying awake for 65 straight hours.
So trust me when I say that I’m writing this and not my brain.
Or, the part of my brain that’s ‘me’ is writing this.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
My brain is happy.
Heck, I should know.


TO BE CONTINUED.

The Day I Became Stupid

The year was 2002. The day, I vaguely recall. But the events, crystal clear. It was my first creative briefing. A pitch on the new Samsung SyncMaster LCD monitor. I had done all my homework and carried it proudly in a large green file. Confident with sheets and sheets of researched material I had collected over the last ten days during endless visits to computer stores. Not to mention 6 parking fines. Downloaded any article or piece of information containing the letters LCD, I was shocked when the creative director directs his question at me; "So what is so interesting about this product?"
I began to fumble through my papers and nervously looked up to see five curious faces looking right at me. As I started to speak, I could see their curiosity slowly turning into ennui. The CD suddenly stops me from my babble and asks again: " What do YOU find interesting about this product?" After what felt like hours, I muttered "Oh...Um...I don't know." The CD then looks at me and says: "Well, you'd better find out." I was bummed. All this work. For nothing. Not only did I need to know everything about the product, its competitors, what the client thought or consumer wanted but also what I personally felt! Well, I can tell you now, I felt stupid.
And it was that exact moment, that marked the beginning of my relationship with advertising.