Or, We’re Not an Ad Agency, Part 2.
Brian Collins, the ex-ECD of Ogilvy’s Brand Integration Group (BIG), who has just launched his own agency, Collins, nailed the difference between design and advertising in a talk he gave during the the One Show week in New York last Spring. He showed images of Philadelphia’s beautiful and historic 30th Street Station. And then he showed giant vinyl ads that ran down the walls and out onto the floor of the station’s historic architecture. A wretched, loud, visual assault against its targets. And against its venue.
His message: design would never do this. This is advertising.
And he is right. Design is, and always will be, about problem solving. Problem
solving at the highest aesthetic levels. Like architecture, great design becomes part of our collective human heritage. Does advertising ever do that?
Yes, I think so, in certain circumstances. But those circumstances are rare. Advertising is more often than not the off-color jokes of the drunk uncle at the wedding, not the meaningful speech given by the parent saying goodbye to a child.
And here’s why. Because advertising’s origins lie in selling, and design’s origins lie in problem solving. Look at the services of the first advertising agencies. They brokered ad space in newspapers, until NW Ayers offered to actually create the content being placed. Ads were generally bought by merchants in newspapers announcing the availability and price of goods for sale.
Since the first Creative Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, advertising has been trying to shake off its selling legacy like a man with a bee hive stuck on his head.
In fact, advertising has tried very hard over several decades to solve problems rather than sell stuff. Bill Bernbach and crew started it with Volkswagen ads that spoke to you like a smart and witty friend. David Ogilvy put an eye patch on the Man in the Hathaway Shirt to provoke mystery and hint at a deeper story. Howard Gossage wrote copy that made him almost a literary figure, with friends like William Faulkner stopping to see him whenever they were in San Francisco.
That was Creative Revolution No. 1. Creative Revolution No. 2 came in the eighties with two seminal TV
spots. The first was perhaps the most impactful and famous single ad of all time, the 1984 spot that launched Apple’s Mackintosh to the world on the Superbowl, courtesy of Chiat/Day. It was created by Steve Hayden and Lee Clow and directed by Ridley Scott. It only ran once – for money. But it ran countless times on news broadcasts for free. The world had never seen advertising like this.
The second spot came from Susan Hoffman and her partner
(name, anyone?) at Wieden + Kennedy who created the Revolution spot to launch Nike Air. Client Peter Moore had the vision to go along with it, but insisted that the ad show the actual shoe. (It did, after all, have a visible air pocket, which was revolutionary). Goodby Berlin Silverstein, Kirshenbaum & Bond, Leagas Delaney, Gold Greenlees Trott, and a handful of others were doing similar things at the same time. They were creating a presence in the world – a brand image – which attracted people, not just a product and a price message.
They were trying to solve a gargantuan problem: namely, that people don’t like to be sold. None of us do. Yet advertising’s crass roots in hawking soap show up continuously, no matter how many revolutions we go through. Ring around the collar. Buy this tire or your baby dies. The three, four, or is it now a five-bladed razor? HeadOn. Sometimes it seems like we (and yes, I include myself as part of this industry) have no shame.
There are those who will shout, Hey, this stuff works. Yeah, but would the design field ever urinate into our collective water supply, watch people drink it, and then loudly proclaim it works? I don’t think so. They serve a higher ethos than that. And they have more respect for their audience.
And so do some ad agencies. Just not enough of them. Sadly, many clients will always look at an ad agency as tasked with selling, not with connecting to humans and giving them what they hope for. In a way, it’s a bad habit of thought on the client’s part that holds agencies back. Yet so many agencies are willing to be type cast that way. Why is that, I wonder? Could it be…greed?
Happily, there’s been Creative Revolution No. 3. In fact, we’re smack in the middle of it. And, with all due respect to the great agencies of today, and despite the fact that some clients can be the shackles against change, this revolution is really being driven by clients. The enlightened client-side marketers of our time, like Kerri Martin, are looking around for something different. How many years ago did Kerri pick a small creative shop in Miami, of all places, to launch a weird little car in America called the Mini? Crispin Porter Bogusky were given a chance to become the most important innovators in our field today thanks to that partnership.
And how many years ago did Jim Lentz and team (names, anyone?) sit down with
ATTIK and plot out an entirely new car company (hey, didn’t Saturn once own that?) with a new name, a new way of pricing, a different kind of sales force, a new approach to personalization, and a funky young style that oddly ended up appealing not only to the young target but it’s older mental counterparts across the country? Yes, Scion was co-invented by the design firm and the client. ATTIK wasn’t just given a creative brief and an ad schedule to fill. And that’s revolutionary.
Crispin and ATTIK were both tapped to be problem solvers, not sellers of things. And they launched Creative Revolution No. 3. Interesting, isn’t it, that both clients were car companies, and neither were American? They both, even if they didn’t have the terminology in mind, ended up creating brand cultures – cultures people wanted to belong to, and were willing to make part of their personal identity.
When you look at how Crispin is evolving, it’s hard to call them an advertising agency. Their teams often include cognitive anthropologists, public relations experts, interactive specialists, and industrial designers. And ATTIK, well, their origins lie in design. Yet they, too, have shape-shifted in such a way that it’s hard to pick them as a design firm in a line-up. They certainly don’t call themselves a design firm today.
So, let the revolution continue. There are a handful of clients out there demanding something new, and a handful of problem solvers answering the call. I can’t imagine a better time to be in this business. Unless, of course, you’re an ad agency.
– Doug
Brilliant post, Doug, if we do say so ourselves. :^)
Sincerely — ATTIK
Why thank you, ATTIK. Please do continue to be awesome.
– Doug
the other two creatives credited on the original Revolution commercial were Janet Champ and Kristi Roberts.
Hey, thanks for that, Rider. Janet Champ later went on to create, with her partner Charlotte Moore, the groundbreaking Nike Women’s campaign. (You are not a goddess…). And Kristi, I believe, was the K in AKA Advertising and Sass – Austin, Kristi, and Aaron. She wasn’t there when I joined Austin’s crew, but I did meet her once and thought she was wonderful.
– Doug
[…] the other way around. And I certainly don’t see things staying the way they are. (See my post below on Creative Revolution no. […]