Dan Brown took Bill Bernbach’s advice
I follow a Twitter account called Advice To Writers. You’ll be stunned to discover it provides snippets and links of advice to writers.
One such snippet slips into my conscious thought almost every day: the writer’s only responsibility is to make the reader turn the page.
I find that interesting because something else I’ve thought of many times is the refrain, ‘The Da Vinci Code was such a piece of shit, but I couldn’t stop turning the page’. Many people read that enormous bestseller and felt somewhat ashamed of themselves for finding it addictive. Dan Brown fulfilled his sole responsibility with incredible skill but what he got in return was a whole load of dissatisfied customers who thought he had another responsibility to write with elegance, verve and originality.
I see both sides: you can’t get millions to rattle through your novel without being very good at writing, but managing simultaneously to disappoint so many readers is a bit of a shame (see also: 50 Shades of Grey etc, which I have yet to read). I suppose the Catch 22 is that you can’t have millions of people think you’re shit at writing unless you’re very good at it.
This comes up often in advertising through the advice of Bill Bernbach: ‘If no one notices your advertising everything else is academic’, capitalism’s equivalent of ‘If a tree falls in the wood‘. It’s impossible to argue with that, yet the people responsible for so much of today’s advertising obviously don’t really believe it, or aren’t prepared to do what it takes to create ads that really stand out.
The statistics of how many commercial messages bombard us each day versus the number we notice are stunning, and yet clients, CDs, account handlers and yes: even creatives, are prepared to add to the gallons of beige paint that cover our planet disguised as adverts.
I wonder if there’s a correlation between those who read and deride Dan Brown and those who happily create advertising that is unseen and not heard.
Doing exactly that right now x4
Also doing exactly that. And believe you me, I’m having nightmares coupled with insomnia because of that. Can’t help it though, catering to the client is priority #1. Doing a good ad isn’t even on the list.
One of the few things that keeps me going is that one day soon, clients will understand that they are wasting their money. But then I thought that the economic imperative of making your brand survive a recession might have forced them to realise that. I was wrong.
I was talking to a publisher the other night and he works on the ebook side. He was discussing the data that they can get showing what % of the book is finished and when people give up and stop reading. He was saying so many of the Booker books never get finished, and Sci-Fi ones too. Thriller and Crime novels have a much higher % who read the book to the end.
That correlates nicely with my own experience. What you really want is someone sitting in the Venn diagram intersection of the two circles. Ian McEwan, maybe?
That’s the holy grail though isn’t it, with advertising and books and football.
Books that are interesting but well written, ads that are creative and engaging but also sells product, football that is beautiful and flowing but also wins us a fucking trophy.
Actually that goes for so many things doesn’t it:
A job that pays well that doesn’t kill your soul
A girlfriend who is intersting but not a psycho
I saw this thing a while back and Ken Robinson said you should find your element, which in a ven diagram would be the overlap between your talent and your passion
I’d be satisfied if the main requirement for my work wouldn’t be “make it funny” all the bloody time. When will agencies realise that you don’t need to be liked/funny to get your message across?
Try to persuade a client that wants beige ads not to have beige ads. Impossible.
I once had a prospective client–a group of doctors with a specialized outpatient clinic– who every year would come to our agency and tell us they wanted to advertise on TV, but they didn’t want anyone to notice. So we would tell them “then don’t advertise.” On their next annual foray into our offices they went on and on about how they needed more recognition and awareness, but advertising was such a scummy profession. It dawned on me that they were judging the profession based on really crappy ads being produced locally. When I explained that we would produce a very beautiful, national quality spot that would elevate their image and give them credibility, they agreed. The resulting spot was powerful and compassionate and propelled their business into one of the largest regional treatment centers in the country. It also raised the bar for all advertising in our market. One. Damn. Spot. I think we should give the client the beige ad they think they want, but have the balls to show them the good ad we know will work.
Rob, I’d love to hear your explanation to the client.
@steakandcheese: Luckily, I already had a reputation for producing top quality work for a local hospital. So I just told them it would be high production quality because “a cheap sign is a sure sign of a cheap man,” and that instead of making the doctor the hero(which is the main mistake made by most medical-related advertising) I would make the patient the hero. Then I banged out a script that blew them away. They ran the spot for 10 years and it stayed relevant. If you’d like to see it go here: http://www.walker360.com/portfolioTVMedical.html and click on “Advanced Technology”
Thanks for that Rob.