If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Thinking about Sunday’s post, I’ve come to a few conclusions that seem to have thrown up more questions than I would like.

1. As commenter ‘Paul’ pointed out, there were holes in my assertion through which a Sherman Tank could be driven. There are plenty of ads now that are as good, in their own way, as Lemon.

2. But plenty are far worse, so if advertising doesn’t improve uniformly, that just makes it like many other art forms. Unlike science, where you build on each piece of knowledge until it becomes obsolete, the development of art creates ‘new’ and ‘different’, but whether either of those two words denote ‘better’, is a matter of opinion. I believe ads like ‘Lemon’ would be considered brilliant today, but much of what was produced 50 years ago would not, and that’s just like movies (Renoir, Kurosawa, Hawks=great; thousands of other films from their era-shite), books, art etc.

3. Perhaps the improvement of ads is more like evolution, where the obsolete is discarded as the form seeks to fit its current time. Sure, we still have press ads, but the starburst has long since disappeared (pretty much).

4. But then there’s the relentless search for the new. Does that lead to viable styles and techniques being cast aside before their time? Or is this neophilia a result and perpetuation of the need for originality?

Hmmm…

(Thansk, G.)

The first one to say that these videos do a great job of distracting from their music gets a small cuddly toy.

In one way or another, they’re all getting out.

(Thanks, V.)

By the way, that V is Vinnie of The Escape Pod (how apposite is that name?). His post on this is much better than mine (how could it be worse?) because it points to where this event might lead us.

As I said in a comment on his blog, could this be the tipping point that leads advertising back to being the fun industry that most of us wanted to get into?

Of course, the big networks will still survive, and with the money they have behind them they will be able to attract a certain degree of talent, but it’ll be interesting to see how this affects things.

But it’s a thing of massive beauty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRlWLDWhGI

(Thanks, A.)

I’ve seen a fantastic ad that cuts through the usual shit with a remarkably incisive, confident, friendly way of pointing out a product benefit and getting you to like the brand and the product behind it.

It treats you with respect and manages to engage you in a ‘conversation’ that is somehow invisible.

Crazy, I know, but it is written so skillfully, it presents only one side of the dialogue, yet manages to elicit a response from the reader all the way through it. That response is like being gently led somewhere you had no intention of going to, but with your willingness to make the journey increasing with every word.

And how clever is that? It’s going beyond all the ‘would you like to join a bunch of people who are happy to admit publicly that they like Vimto?’ digital bullshit and instead engaging by using nothing but a piece of paper and 100 or so words.

The other great thing is that instead of relying on ridiculous over-dramatisation of a slight or non-existent product benefit, it simply lays out the truth with intelligent self-deprecation.

It’s just a shame that even with all the tools of 2010 at our disposal, nobody comes anywhere near to producing work of this quality.

It’s as if we’ve been given the chance to stand on the shoulders of giants and instead, squatted down over the oversized scapulae and curled out something moist, brown and smelly.

(Thanks, W.)

Internet time machine.

This isn’t going to be one of those pisstakey posts where I mock the wankarama use of the word ‘conversations’ in advertising agencies.

I think it’s a fine word for describing something that is a back-and-forth dialogue, as opposed to a one-way monologue.

But I’m wondering how much we really prefer a conversation over being the recipient of a single communication.

It seems to me that we have almost taken for granted the idea that the two-way is best, as it gives us the chance to have some power and some say in the relationship. But the problem with that is that we already had all the power we needed, because we’re the ones who have always been able to choose whether to buy or ignore.

Isn’t a conventional advertising message just like a beggar on the street? An entity that wants something from you and has to approach you cold (you might say that the advertiser gives you something but the beggar does not, however, I think the beggar gives you the opportunity to feel good about yourself for just 20p – darn cheap if you ask me)? So we then choose whether or not to give a shit, so the power is all ours.

Every ad we experience is like that: ‘please do/buy/be interested in this thing’.

Now, with conversations, we actually lose some of that power by engaging with companies and products a little more closely so that they can draw us in a bit further in order to get us to buy what they are selling.

So why would anyone want that to happen? Of course, plenty of people do for the (very few) right brands – you only have to look on the fan pages of Facebook to see that – but the idea that we would automatically prefer a two-way chat with the companies that advertise to us seems to make no sense whatsoever.

When Nike offers you an online game or a chance to take part in a fun run, it’s just like letting the traveling salesman into your home and allowing him have a firmer opportunity to sell you something. You are on the back foot in the relationship, feeling somewhat beholden to him because of all the effort he’s made in persuading you. Fine, if that’s what you want, but most of the time it isn’t.

Most of the time you want to do what the hell you like, and very rarely is that having a conversation with a teabag manufacturer.

I appreciate that this flies in the face of current bullshit, and therefore might need a little help embedding itself into the current debate, that’s why I have condensed the above into a handy rhyming couplet:

We have no time or inclination

For advertising ‘conversation’.

Monday’s post was about avoiding showing your work to idiots, but for some reason the commenters seemed keener to discuss brainstorms and exactly how fucking shit they are.

Well, you can give us your own take on this subject in the comments section, but in time honoured tradition, I’ll chuck in my two cents first:

I can only recall being in two brainstorms, about eight years apart. I think this was because the first one seemed so darn crap and annoying that it put me off doing another one for literally thousands of days.

I was a young, naive creative, so when a senior account bod asked if I’d come to a brainstorm, I agreed. After all, what would be the worst that could happen?

Well, most of the time was spent watching junior account handlers trying to come up with creative ideas. And what was that like? Well, it most closely resembled being in a monkey house, watching primates trying to make doilies with a chainsaw. It was then that I realised that good creative ideas were better when they came from people trained to do it, but that doesn’t stop people wholly unable to do it from having a go, and that’s because it’s fun. But for those of us who do it for a living, it’s also kind of depressing, like watching quadriplegics trying to tap dance.

I also felt them looking towards me, as if I, as a creative, might come up with better ideas, cutting through this festival of shit flinging with a sword swipe of genius. Unfortunately, I felt the urge to leave early and throw up in the lav.

Then, years later, some people at my agency suggested we all try to come up with some ideas together (they may not have used the ‘B’ word, but I knew where this shit was heading). Against my better judgement, I agreed. This time was slightly different because it was senior creatives and senior management. However, on this occasion it was just as depressing, but in a different way: the creatives came up with all, literally all, the ideas, while the a/c bods wrote them down and said, ‘anything else?’ in a somewhat infuriating way considering they had come up with nothing useful themselves. It was basically like having a suit in your office while you tried to work.

After a while of this, I got up and suggested that all the creatives would just get together without the a/c dudes and let them know what happened. This really annoyed said a/c dudes, but they just had to suck it up because they were a bunch of cunts and if they weren’t going to contribute, they would just have to add the word ‘shit’ to the word ‘cunts’.

No brainstorms since, however, as a freelancer, I’ll do them if asked. I just might not enjoy them.

Oh, almost forgot: it’s the damn flipchart that really gets up my fucking hooter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxqlw3cKZHA&feature=player_embedded