Publishing legend James Brown has written a great piece in Sabotage Times about the new Southern Comfort campaign by our compadres at W+K New York. He cites the ad as the cultural spark for a new men's movement celebrating comfort in girth. I'll drink to that!

Not only is the new Southern Comfort commercial the best on television right now it also applies an aspect of feminism for barrel chested beer bellied sex gods.

So have you seen it yet? The advert some are the calling the best ever made? Certainly the funniest around right now. It was made by Weiden + Kennedy New York  for Southern Comfort and stars Mike from The Cuban Brothers but all of that is all by the by, it’s the resulting work we are focusing on right now.

A fat guy in the tight brown trunks, shoes, and shades trudging purposely down the beach. His bare naked bulk glistening in the sun. A man undisturbed by the beach life around him, ploughs through the sand, stylish, confident, sexy and packing hard fat beer belly and barrel chest. “I gotta be me” is the line sung by Odetta over and over again.

This is a man at ease with himself, bathing in the power of his own self confidence, he veers off camera and reappears immediately with a drink in his hand, and then continues on and out away from the camera, dropping his shoulder nonchalantly as some tanned beach babe slides by.

If you haven’t seen the ad then it’s here below, but if you want to track feedback just click Southern Comfort on Twitter and you’ll see a week’s worth of discovery and delight. “This must have been made by the Coen Brothers” reads one, “Pity it’s for Southern Comfort says another” and then there are endless superlatives “brilliant”, “hilarious” and repeatedly “genius”.

On Tuesday this week I was enthusing about it with three Sabotage types @deadbloke, @davelee1968, @profanityswan, and many other gentleman of Twitter who are unlikely  to ever trouble a size 30″ waistband again and it struck me that the reason we love it isn’t just because of star Mike Cuban’s majestic stroll but also because it’s not only how many of us are but also how we can be. It’s feminism for fat blokes, defying the preferred male body politic to show a man at ease with himself.

To this end I’ll claim The Comfort Man is probably the first ever Masculinist commercial. If Reebok’s superbly terrifying play on the big balloon in The Prisoner, ‘Belly’s Gonna Get Ya’ played on the fears of lardy guts with rolls of doughy stomach flesh The Comfort Man’s feminist play on a male physique, is positively Maculinist. This is about acceptance indeed pride in how you look.

For all the Men’s Health covers, the Beckham physiques, the Gosling shirt removal scenes there’s an army of men who just go ‘as if’ and know that for those guys it’s a job. There’s certainly constant commercial pressure to look a certain way, maybe not as much as women experience but it’s there all the same. Compare posh young metrosexual Hugo on I’m A Celebrity to the The Comfort Man and despite Hugo’s good looks and ambition The Comfort Man has more, he oozes experience. He’s saying if you’ve experienced life, you’ll probably be like this.

He’s driving a big Masculinist truck through the Gym To Stay Slim outlook. Staying classy doesn’t require gym work, you’ve either got that archetypal Gillette physique or you have to work at it, but Comfort man says ‘Fuck that. I’m big bad and proud and you love me as I am.”

The Comfort Man positions Fat Man as flash man, Romanesque in stature not profile, like a battleship crashing through the sea, a Chess castle controlling the flanks, it’s Jan Molby, Mel Sterland, Tony Soprano, Barry White. Who’s going to argue withe men who could tip a car over with one hump.

Why is he a heavyweight? Because he can afford to be? Size equals power. These are the messages. Why go twig when you can be the trunk?

This is not only a funny advert, an effective ad… but it strikes a new pose for men. This is the birth of Masculinism.

In the week in which Innocent announced they were reviewing their advertising
account, reportedly for the sixth time in five years, Campaign magazine ran an
article entitled ‘Are some client pitches best avoided?’

 The answer to this, like the answer to the
question, ‘Should some sexual overtures be rebuffed?’ is obviously, ‘Yes.’

 In Innocent's defence, at both their last two
agencies (Fallon and RKCR) the pitch teams deserted them to start breakaway
agencies not long after their appointment. But some clients do seem to have a
problem with commitment and some agencies allow them to continue with their
promiscuous behavior.

 As Tina Fegent says in the Campaign article,
“(This is) an oversupplied marketplace. There is too much choice out there and
most agencies say yes to opportunities.”

 James Whitehead of JWT is quoted as saying, “I take the
optimistic view that there’s always the potential for the next relationship to
be the pairing that lasts – that delivers the right work, the right chemistry
and the right results.”

Of course, we respect that kind of positive attitude
here at Welcome to Optimism, but the combination of agencies hoping for the
best, an oversupplied and highly competitive market, and pressure on agencies to win business at almost any cost can lead
to a desperate scramble to get onto any pitch list.

What is a new business win actually worth?
Certainly not the headline figures quoted in trade press articles; these
usually refer to a claimed media billings figure.

Let's imagine that Client X is reviewing their
“£3 million UK account”. Experience and rough rule of thumb suggests that the
winning creative agency, after a long, hard-fought and expensive unpaid pitch process,
can expect an annual fee of, say, £300,000. (Might be a bit more, could be
less.) For that, these days, they may be expected not just to do the ads, but
also digital, design, POS, and various other bits and bobs too.

That £300K needs to cover not just the cost of
pitching and the new account’s direct salary costs but also overheads, rent,
equipment, travel and so on, before the agency makes any profit. £300k won’t
buy you much time across the year, by the time you factor in a creative team, a
creative director, a planner, an account handler or two, a producer, a
technologist, a designer, etc. Either the agency is going to lose money on it,
or the client is going to get poor service. Or a bit of both. Agencies tend to
charge similar rates; the big variable is the amount of time they put into the
work.

So why would an agency pitch for an account that
they probably won't win (usually a 1 in 4 chance, sometimes 1 in 6 or worse)
and will probably lose money on if they do win?

Some suggested reasons:

– New business has value beyond money: positive PR, and the appearance
of momentum and success (which breeds more success.

– Winning pitches is fun and boosts morale.

– Agency managers pressured by their bosses can point to wins to show that
they’re making progress

– Every agency believes that they can beat their competitors

– Agencies and clients can be loath to discuss money at pitch stage. Few
clients will volunteer the information, “This is how much money we can afford
to spend on fees.” Many agencies won’t directly ask the client, “What will this
account be worth in fees if we win it?”

– Some agencies will take on additional work without hiring additional
people, so their revenue goes up but costs stay flat. By working people at more
than 100% capacity they can generate profit from ‘unprofitable’ business.

This situation is unlikely to change unless
agencies alter their behaviour. But in the current market, I don't
see that happening any time soon.