Aspiring creatives dreaming about an advertising career in London (realizing they don’t have the required experience and qualifications) now have the opportunity to give their career a kick-start via eBay. It’s Craig Kind, a recent graduate from The Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, who’s auctioning a starter kit for lazy careerists with their hearts set on Adland.
Included in the kit are:
- A portfolio of eight integrated campaigns
- Eight awards
- Phone numbers to London’s twelve most influential creative directors
- Tickets for RSA’s party in Cannes
The opening bid is GBP 50 and the proceeds will go to NSPCC, a British charity against child abuse.
Clearly, Mr. Kind is of the opinion that the end justifies the means.
When good, old-fashioned TV storytelling is done well, it’s an incredibly powerful means for brands to forge bonds with their audiences. And as spirit brands, much like most categories, seem to be cutting down on their advertising at the moment, it makes a powerful leadership statement to raise one’s voice when everyone else is quiet. Johnnie Walker – case in point.
In this thought-provoking story about a somewhat esoteric bit of life-critical decision-making, our friend Johnnie appears to be less steadfast than usual in his stride. In fact, he has reached a crossroads in his journey. That seems a bit odd you may think, but there’s a reason: this film is the story about how it all began … the first stride on Johnnie’s journey.
From this fresh perspective on the core brand idea “Keep Walking”, in which progress – advancement towards fulfillment – is achieved by relentlessly pursuing the dream one’s heart is set on, Johnnie calls out to the adventure-seeking, risk-taking side of the male mind. And he reminds us that our fate is something we choose.
The bold execution exudes loads of confidence by not shying away from the sometimes rough and crude reality of life. The tone is raw, gritty and very real. And there isn’t a pouring shot, a product shot or smiling model to be found. Instead, we see what appears to be a laden, unshaven dipsomniac in a ripped suit, standing outside a tin shack on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
Here, he stands and observes villains and other deceptive characters driving by in distinctively “unpremium” rides. Hat off to the JW/Diageo marketers for buying interesting, evocative creative work based on audience empathy and insight – advertising for humans, not consumers. And the same goes for BBH for making it happen.
All of us harbour a theory about how advertising works because when asked, everyone has an opinion on what works and what doesn’t. But we’re not always aware what that theory really is and how it found its way into our heads. More often than not it is predicated on the assumption that people’s behaviour is rational and largely driven by reason – a rather self-comforting thought. Hence, we spend most of our strategic/creative agency conversations discussing ‘message’ – what’s easy to reason around.
Now, I’m not saying we should stop doing that or that this conversation is obsolete. Not at all. But I firmly believe it attracts a disproportionate amount of attention from both brand owners and agencies. Or rather, it draws attention away from the strategic question about what the audience outtake ought to be in a much wider sense than a verbal message. Most of planning processes and tools in the agency world today are constructed with the underlying assumption that their job is to help brands implant messages into the conscious minds of people. And in a majority of cases, this turns out to be verbal messages. A few personality attributes may also be injected as “wrapping paper” for the “core message”, often as an afterthought. This, I believe, is stifling Viagra-potent lateral ideas that can literally transform businesses.
This Audi film was developed from the insight that compact SUV-inspired cars are often perceived to be boxy, which isn’t the case at all with the streamlined Q5. While this barrier is being addressed head on in the creative with the message “unboxing the box”, you decide whether the effectiveness of this spot hinges on the rational, conscious understanding of this message or should rather be attributed to the emotion this ad makes you associate with the Q5.
Think about it.
In their article “50 years using the wrong model of TV advertising” Robert Heath and Paul Feldwick say the following: “Clients and agencies must take on board that advertising can be effective without “message”, “proposition”, or “benefits”, and recognize that attempts to impose these may reduce not increase effectiveness.” Does this scare you? Good. Find out more about why they say what they say
here:
If you haven’t drowned in panic-ridden articles, gloomy reports and presentations on what to do in the current economic downturn quite yet, you’ll find what Hyundai have done in the US a truly pragmatic and equally brilliant idea. It’s not an ad idea, but a marketing idea with the potential to truly disrupt the US car market.
This idea pragmatically addresses a major issue consequential to the slowdown: people are holding off on car purchases because of fear that they may lose their jobs. Based on this understanding, Hyundai asked themselves: “what can we do to get around this issue?” They had realised consumers were “financially constrained” by their future expectations – factoring in a possible job loss – not by their current purchasing power.
Hyundai’s answer is the most concrete and pragmatic ‘downturn idea’ I’ve seen so far and one that will help Hyundai avoid the often irreversible promotions trap (read: offering brand rebate).
But here’s the best bit for me. They didn’t just stop at making an ad simply announcing the mechanics of their new scheme. No. They put a positive brand spin on it to signal the faith they have in their customers – exactly the kind of encouragement and assurance that resonate with people in tough times of great uncertainty. Simple. Pragmatic. Brilliant.
(Thanks to Pete for bringing this to my attention)
“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer.
Being a learner is an attitude. A wonderful one at that. The attitude of being learned on the other hand is possibly the most powerful creativity-killer in the ad industry and elsewhere. It’s an attitude that results in a kind of retrospective tunnel vision, utterly detrimental to creativity and innovation.
In my experience, truly creative people all have a learner’s attitude. They are hungry learners, have boundless curiosity, endless motivation to discover, to explore and to tinker. They’re today’s crusaders of trial and error, never afraid of being ‘wrong’.
This fearlessness and courage are fundamental differences between the learner and the learned and a decisive factor as regards an individual’s ability to originate. The learner isn’t afraid of making mistakes, while in the mind of the learned, mistakes are the worst things that can happen.
This insight has been growing on me for a while. It points to a massive problem in the world at large, and one that’s endemic to a majority of companies and executive behaviour out there. And it’s precisely what’s holding the big ‘creative’ network agencies back: they’re full of people in leading roles who have the attitude of the learned. The consequence is management, not creation.
Problem is that it’s an attitude, a mindset that’s really hard if not impossible to change on an individual basis. The learned simply can’t see the problem let alone accept they’re it. They don’t understand how their inability to do so gets in the way of change and creativity…what ironically is what their companies are supposed to generate.
As I hinted earlier, I think it boils down to a powerful human emotion. Fear. Sir Ken Robinson would probably argue that these people, as products of a flawed education system, have actually been educated out of their creative capacity they once possessed as curious children. And I think he’s right.
The learned are simply too scared – effectively psychologically prevented – to see the problem and to understand that they need a complete attitudinal overhaul: to unlearn in order to learn anew. Moving from learned to learner requires the courage to let go of certainty. It means venturing out of the familiar and into the unknown. It’s a humbling process of accepting that you don’t have all the answers while befriending the uncertainty this creates.
The learned instinctively cling to familiar structure: ‘proven’ theories, models, logic and reason which in times of rapid change more often than not belong to a world gone by. They find refuge in repetition, what’s worked in the past and what they wrongly believe is something that will work in the future as well, not realizing it doesn’t help creativity but rather preserves the status quo. As a consequence, these people spend their ‘creative pursuits’, as futile as they are, merely reorganizing and repackaging existing thinking and ideas rather than originating.
For agencies to survive in tough times of rapid change, they need to understand the implications of this reality and make sure they fill their offices with learners, not the learned.
So how do you tell the learners from the learned in your agency? I think a decent indicator is to look at the time spent listening (wanting to learn) versus the time spent talking (lecturing others on how the world works).
Here’s a little piece of advice that may help. Convince (in my case ‘remind’) yourself everyday that you don’t know anything and chances are you’ll be blown away by what you’ll discover.
On 30th January 2009, PSFK will host a day long Good Ideas Salon in London in association with The Guardian newspaper. For the event, PSFK will curate a collection of their favourite forward-focused innovators and thought leaders to discuss ideas in the fields of arts & culture, collaboration, design, digital, marketing, mobile and youth.
Check out the details here. The line-up of speakers looks great.
This post has very little to do with communication, creativity, brands, planning and advertising. Nothing to be precise. But it does involve emotion. Lots of it.
I’ve been very busy with work lately, which is the reason I haven’t updated this site more frequently. And I won’t write about any of the above until Jan 2009.
It’s not that I’ve run out of steam, not at all, it’s just that I’m currently trying to collect my thoughts on what needs to be done in 2009: what I want to achieve. In the face of the current economic gloom, I’m actually really excited about 2009. Oddly enough, I have a really good feeling about it. Call me delusional.
This post, however, has nothing to do with work and doesn’t require an explanation or a lengthy oration so I’ll cut straight to the chase.
I stumbled across this clip just now and realised that I, unlike Cat Stevens, have already found her – my hard-headed woman. How lucky I am. My search is over. If there’s one woman on the face of this earth who’s earned the epithet, hard-headed, it’s her. My wife. Annie. She’s a woman you don’t mess with.
I love my hard-headed woman, particularly her hard-headedness. I look up to her, admire her, adore her. She completes me. That’s why I’m posting this. Felt compelled to.
“hard-headed woman…one who will take me for myself…one who will make me do my best…and if I find her, I will need nobody else…the rest of my life will be blessed”
I can’t work out whether this is a genuine statement from Hakuhodo or someone taking the piss. I found it in the latest issue of www.media.com.hk and fear it’s the former.
Who in their right mind would celebrate the creation of something named “THE BIG COLON” by taking out an ad in a magazine? Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m quite happy someone did because it made me smile.
This is a typical example of how a combination of agency hubris, myopia and talking vappous, indulgent nonsense invariably leads to a point where the agency starts to believe its own crap.
Judging by the rubric, you may think you’re in for a healthy dose of planner babble. I’ll let you be the judge of that. What’s certain is that it highlights a fundamental shift the advertising industry needs to mobilise in order to ensure effectiveness of what it delivers. That is if agencies are going to be able to be able to help its clients secure an unfair share of the future, as opposed to merely ensuring incremental growth at the pace of category growth. Mediocrity will achieve the latter, quite frankly, but it’s unlikely that any client in their right mind would want to pay for it. I wouldn’t.
Advancements in psychology and neurology research, coupled with good old fashioned gut-feeling in many of us have pointed to the impeding flaws in the theory behind what has come to dominate our view of what makes effective advertising, let alone how we ‘test’ advertising. Even in today’s illuminated day and age, most of ad agencies’ tools and planning processes rigidly follow this yesterday’s school of thought.
A deafening wake-up alarm, triggered by advancements in our understanding of the human mind, has been ringing for quite some time across Adland. And I would urge everybody to stop hitting the snooze button. Of course, it’s easier to keep ignoring it, especially since waking up demands the need to re-think the fundamental principles of how we do things.
Today’s predominant theory of how advertising works is rooted in our love for control and our delusion about the rational behaviour of man. Evidence of this failing theory is ubiquitous in Adland. Some agency briefing forms, for example, reflect this comfortable ‘theory of reason’. Essentially, it is predicated on the idea that effective advertising is about getting the target audience to ‘understand’ an ad’s message in order to become the preferred choice. So for an ad to have the desired effect on its audience, it needs to bring about a conscious ‘understanding’ about what it is saying.
Bollocks.
“What is the single most important message we want to convey?”
This theory-revealing question often found on creative briefs can be perfectly valid in certain situations, I’m not denying that at all. My point is that when it comes to creative strategy in the broadest sense, an obsession about ‘message’ can be incredibly limiting. Stifling.
‘Message’, the way the word is used in most agency contexts, more often than not refers a piece of verbal information, which can be logically and consciously understood. Subsequently, the assumed role of a creative ad is to place this ‘message’ in the mind of the audience in a way they can logically understand. ‘Creativity’, so to speak, is used as an executional amplification tool in this transfer process.
And if we listen to market research companies, well most of them, it is subsequently valid to ask an audience if they understood the message and whether they have been persuaded to buy. This will conclude whether the ad works or not. It seems logical doesn’t it? And that’s precisely the problem.
“I don’t know what this is trying to tell me. I don’t get it. What is the message?”
This is a typical research response predicated on a ‘theory of reason’. Yes, it’s not just marketers who prescribe to this theory; consumers, albeit subconsciously, also assume their behaviour is rationally motivated and presuppose that the point of an ad is to make them come to a ‘conclusion’.
A raft of research has proven that neurology professor at the University of British Columbia, Donald B. Calne’s words are a fact. And I believe no one in the industry can afford to ignore this any longer:
“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusion.”
Don’t get me wrong, changing the creative brief format to something along the lines of “What do we want the audience to ‘feel’ about the brand?” isn’t going to open up creative heaven either, but what this means is that the industry has to accept and learn to deal with a communication theory that’s vastly broader than ‘message and proposition’ and most probably also more complex. Now, I don’t like the latter part of that any more than you do, but I do believe that agencies and brands that realise and decide to act on the truth of how our minds really work are going to get more than their fair share of the future.
So how do we capitalise on this knowledge? What do we need to change? I believe we have to place greater importance to the totality of our communication and realise that execution is in fact strategy. Fundamentally, we need to adopt a new conception in which the strategy is creative and the creative is strategic. Literally.
Advertising agencies have to start approaching human beings for what we are – human beings. That means we have to start adapting our planning processes and creative development to a reality where communication is much, much bigger than message/proposition – a reality where everything is communication, whether you can put words to it or not. And let’s remember we’re not rational creatures.
Think of a model, or working process if you will, in which the creative brief would be replaced by conversations only: conversations between planners, creatives and suits – people working closely together as one. Now, I realise this may be highly ill-suited to the linear operating process in today’s agency where the creative brief serves as a link between departments and indeed responsibilities. But then again, I don’t believe today’s linear agency process is what generates great work. Because it’s not a model that liberates creativity.
‘Communication without a message? Is this guy smoking pot?’ Yes and no respectively.
Communication without the traditional proposition is thriving and does wonders Think of ads like Cadbury’s Gorilla, Ariston’s Deeply Different and Schweppes’ Schweppervessence. None of these TV spots will affect your behaviour on a conscious level. Sure, we can all post-rationalise a link to a rational proposition, but these ads work because they make us associate a specific mood/feeling with each of these brands.
And take the Haka by the Allblacks. It gets its point across, I would say pretty clearly and yet it doesn’t need a verbal message / proposition…one that the target audience can ‘understand’. Not that you wouldn’t, but it doesn’t require rational processing to be effective. The whole point of the Haka is not to make the Allblack’s adversaries come to a ‘conclusion’; it’s to affect their behaviour on the pitch by playing on their emotions. Brilliant.
Tonality communicates. Often more powerfully than a rational message. Tonality affects us. It influences our behaviour. So let’s all wake up and do something about it. Rugby boys in New Zealand get it, why is it that the ad industry doesn’t?
Watching Madmen’s Don Draper pitch his slide projector idea to Kodak: the way he tells his story, articulates his insight into the audience, understands the emotions involved and takes the client into an entirely new space got me thinking about the style and way of client engagement most agencies have adopted today. And I think it leaves a lot to wish for.
The key to effective commercial creativity – original ideas that drive business growth – is to understand people in a profound way. Not just what people do, but why they do it. Trend reports, for example, are basically pointless if they only explain what’s happening with a gimmicky catchphrase (an observation) without giving you an idea of the underlying human motivation.
While there are some agencies that truly understand what their role is…motivating human behaviour through perception, many are drifting dangerously close to the land of management consultants. This is a world in which you can put a number on everything, a world in which everything is linear and sequential and a world in which everything is scientifically predictable.
Not only is this making agencies lose sight of human emotions, which is affecting their ability to connect with people through their work, it’s also influencing the way the entire industry is pitching its services to brands. And for the most part, this is process-centered and not particularly creative, human or interesting.
Agencies are also becoming too similar to the clients they serve. They’re emulating them rather than maintaining their point of difference (if there was one to begin with). By doing so, they’re effectively sending the signal: “We’re not really that different from you”, which means that clients don’t perceive the value of the agency and start wondering why they’re paying them.
Of course we need structure, process, methodologies and ability to demonstrate that we understand our clients’ businesses. I’m not suggesting otherwise, as long as it doesn’t happen at the expense of our ability to emotionally connect both with our clients and their audiences. I think Draper manages both.
