Do Ideas Have Different 'Shapes'?

This is one of my favourite ads of all time. It was created by Ben Nott and Adam Hunt at Saatchi & Saatchi London.

(Incidentally, Adam now runs an Asian tapas restaurant in Bondi called Mamasan; it's great and you should totally go there if you're in the neighbourhood. But I digress).

One of the interesting features of the ad is that it has a very distinct 'shape'.

The first three-quarters of the message, while somewhat visually engaging, and somewhat semantically intriguing, are basically pretty straight. The payoff - and what a payoff it is - comes at the end.

So you might say that the 'shape' of the ad is something like this:

(I haven't marked them, but I'm hoping it's clear that the x axis represents Time, and the y axis Reward for the Viewer).

It's very hard to imagine this idea being structured any differently. The first three-quarters has to be quite dry and scientific, and the payoff (as with many jokes) has to come at the end.

So does that mean the idea is intrinsically that shape?

Let's look at another one. The famous Sony 'Balls' ad is kinda entertaining all the way through. There's not really a boring intro part, or a boring 'product bit' at the end, and there's no particular climax at any point either. Something like this?  



Then there's a type of ad I like to call the 'Stepper'. This year's Snickers Super Bowl ad works like that. There's entertainment from the beginning, and it just keeps ramping up, with each gag topping the last.

Sometimes there is information that you just have to get across. The 'Climate Name Change' social idea by agency Barton F. Graf 9000 starts out with a lot of serious factology, before unleashing the humour of its central conceit. And once again, I'd argue that this is the only way this idea can work. Giving a shape something like this:

Finally, there's a type of idea that works almost the opposite to that. Entertainment first, and then product message. Example: Little Caesars 'Arm Cast'.

Personally, I reckon that no one shape of idea is actually better than any other. Success comes from recognising what shape your idea is, and executing it in that style.

But what do you think? Any validity to my shape theory? And do you have a favourite shape, or is there one that you hate?

Death, Destruction, and Negativity: Why This Year's Super Bowl Ads Are So Good

It seems like what was once a daring media strategy - to release your Super Bowl ad before the Super Bowl actually airs - has become the new normal.

So I've seen most of this year's ads already.

It's a good crop - big spectacle, big emotion.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the best ones show death, destruction and negativity. 

For example, in this great ad - I won't reveal the brand name, because spoilers - catastrophe strikes the entire planet.

This year's Budweiser 'dog and horse' epic - albeit not as good as last year's - contains a scene in which the pup is menaced by a drooling wolf.

In the GrubHub ad, a flying burrito smacks people in the face. Fairly comical, but also undeniably violent.

Even in the Bud Light ad - which basically consists of a guy whooping and hollering like he's just won a car in a game show - there is a moment where he (metaphorically) dies.

I've written before about the power of negative thinking, so I don't want to repeat myself.

Suffice to say that judicious use of negativity helps give a brand depth and relatability, as well as providing a great springboard for engaging creative.

In other words, it's the difference between this...

...and this.

 

Dear Introverts: You're Shit-Out-Of-Luck, Aren't You?

I love that quote; it's flattering to us ad types, isn't it?

But recently I've been wondering whether it has an unwanted flip-side.

I know a ton of advertising creatives, and I agree with Banksy that the vast majority of us are bright, creative and ambitious. And that's good.

But are we too much of a type? Are we failing to attract the "slow and self-obsessed" who could make a valuable contribution, but are put off by... something?

There's quite a lot going on in Banksy's quote, but I guess part of it is about people who think quick and shallow versus people who think deep and slow.

We mostly get the former. An advertising agency is a tyranny of quick-wittedness. Nearly all the people at the top are the quick-witted type. But do they sometimes get there at the expense of others who might be better than them, but just have a different personality? 

I suspect Banksy is also making an observation about a personality difference that is horribly over-simplified, but which at least has the advantage of being well-known and easily understandable: introverts and extroverts.

You'd have to agree that the vast majority of people in advertising are extroverts.

Our industry prizes those who are energetic, articulate, confident, and sociable. And I'm not just talking about Account Handlers, but Creatives too. Especially if you're to reach CD level, you nowadays simply have to be energetic, articulate, confident etc.

I worry this is a problem. We might be discarding, or at least failing to properly promote, some fantastically talented Creatives just because they don't slap people on the back, or crack jokes.

There's a best-selling book by Susan Cain called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which makes the point that most modern institutions are geared toward extroversion, which means introverts are underrated, under-used and even demonised.

And nowhere is the issue more acute - I'd guess - than in ad agencies.

So come on, introverts, let's hear from you. Anonymously, obviously. Do you find it difficult, being an introvert in advertising? Do you think extroverts have an unfair advantage? And do you ever take your headphones off?

A Book About Poison Gas

 
I have a book out and it would be remiss of me - as an ad guy - not to plug my own product.

So I will.

100 Ideas That Changed Advertising is really a history book, charting the development of advertising from the earliest posters (perfectly preserved advertising messages have been found on the walls of Pompeii) to today's online media behemoths like Facebook and YouTube.

I took history A-Level at school, I enjoy history, and I believe we can learn a lot from it.

So what can we learn from the history of advertising?

The main thing I learned, in writing it, is that the history of advertising is a history of innovation - not only that, but of remarkably rapid innovation.

For example, the first cinema in the United States - Vitascope Hall, in New Orleans - opened in 1896. Filmed ads were being produced as early as 1897.

The first commercially licensed radio station in America went on air in 1920. In 1922, the first radio advertising was broadcast.

Twitter launched in 2006, and by 2010 was running advertising.

There are a couple of useful take-aways, I'd suggest, from this trend.

First, don't be afraid to innovate.

In 1921, a group of investors declined to put money into radio, notoriously predicting that “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” Right.

When the first TV ad aired, on July 1st 1941, there were only 7,500 TV sets in New York City. The ad was for Bulova watches and showed a watch-face superimposed over a map of the U.S., while a voiceover claimed that “America runs on Bulova time.” The whole medium must have seemed incredibly shonky, compared to the sophistication of print advertising at that time. People must have wondered if it would ever take off. Well, it did.

 

Similarly, people questioned whether YouTube would ever make money from advertising, since few believed there would ever be a wide audience for videos of other people's cats. I know.

So what's today's frontier? Mobile? Probably. Don't be afraid to go there. 

As I worked through the chronology of our industry to write the book, I started to feel that advertising is like a gas; it seeps in everywhere. Whatever new medium is invented that captures a modicum of human attention, someone will find a way to put an ad there.

And that led to my second take-away. In contrast to the ever-evolving media and technology landscape, there is one thing that hasn't changed, and will never change - the nature of our responsibilities, as advocates for the brands who buy this space.

Another gas metaphor captures it with pungent brilliance. It was American ad-man George Lois who said of successful advertising: "I think advertising should be like poison gas. It should grip you by the throat, it should bowl you over, it should knock you on your ass.” 

Is Advertising Really A Business, Or Is It Actually Just A Giant Game?

This is the time of year when the predictions for the future of advertising are published.

Words like integration, big data, and real-time marketing are bandied about, and it all sounds horribly serious.

Yes, advertising is a business - a serious and important one, with high stakes.

But to do it well, we may actually be better off treating it as a game.

As evidence, I'm citing a sci-fi novel called Time Out Of Joint by Philip K. Dick.

The protagonist of this tale is highly skilled at an extremely serious activity - predicting where Lunar rebels will target missile attacks.

But the authorities use drugs and a stage-set to convince him that he is living in suburban America in 1959, a cosy existence where his only job is to enter a local newspaper competition called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?"... which in reality, is predicting the missile strikes.

The key point for our purposes is that the protagonist is more effective at a serious job when he treats it as a game.

I firmly believe it's the same for ad Creatives.

My heart always sinks when the suits come in and explain that this is a really important project, and we mustn't screw it up. Or if the Client gives a speech about "how much is riding on this."

That kind of talk stifles creative people.

Because ironically, serious business success (in a creative business) is best achieved by treating it as a game.

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct," said Carl Jung.

I love that.
 
Oh, by the way, I have a book out.

It's called 100 Ideas That Changed Advertising. Available in Australia, the UK, USA, and no doubt other countries that have internet or bookshops. Call to action: buy it now!

How To Win Every Argument You Will Have In 2015

Ad folk are a passionate bunch of people, working in an industry that is rife with subjectivity.
 
Result: lots of arguments.
 
So, here's how you can win them. Or at least more of them.

First of all, you need to stop thinking like a Creative.
 
Unfortunately, Creatives aren't particularly trusted in our industry. (We've partly brought this on ourselves: a story for another time).
 
Contrast that with the respect accorded to creative people in the world's most successful creative companies, such as HBO. David Chase, executive producer of 'The Sopranos', says "the secret to HBO's success is really very simple. They trust the people they have doing their shows.'
 
I also love this quote about Dino Patti, the CEO of games company Playdead, who made the successful and award-winning Limbo. "Playdead chose to ignore outside advice from investors and critics during development. According to Patti, Playdead felt these changes would break the integrity of game director Arnt Jensen's original vision."

We don't have that.



No Client is going to be persuaded to drop a requested change because 'it would break the integrity of the creative team's vision'. In fact if you said those words, the Client would probably laugh out loud.



So what can you say? 
 
I'm going to pass on something I learned from Nigel Bogle. (I worked with Nigel a bit at BBH - awesome guy).
 
I was once in a meeting where a Client was questioning some aspect of a TV ad we were doing for them. I don't even remember what the debate concerned now - perhaps a piece of casting, or a location.
 
I patiently explained why, creatively, I preferred the direction we were proposing over the Client's suggestion. The Client harrumphed. I had failed to persuade him.
 
Then Nigel stepped in. "It's actually not a creative issue, it's a strategic issue," he stated. And he then went on to detail why the direction we were proposing was more 'on-strategy'. And it worked.
 
Well, maybe it partially worked because it was Nigel Bogle saying it.
 
But also I think there's some truth to my theory that Clients (and indeed almost everyone in the industry) are simply more persuaded by strategic rationale than by creative rationale.
 
In fact we can expand this theory. I reckon that the secret to winning the inevitable arguments that occur during the cut-and-thrust of advertising is to ELEVATE.
 
If you're in an argument about execution, elevate it to why your point of view is right for the idea.
 
If you're in an argument about ideas, elevate it to why your point of view is right strategically.
 
If you're in an argument about strategy, elevate it to why your point of view is right for the business problem.
 
In short, elevate.
 
Have a great year, everyone! (And if you have any tips for winning arguments, please do leave them in the comments. Share the knowledge, share the love).
 

"But It's Not Ownable"

One of the most common criticisms we Creatives get thrown is that an idea we've had is "not ownable."

And that's a very hard bomb to defuse.

Obviously an idea should be ownable, shouldn't it? So, oh dear, it looks like we've failed, and we'll have to start again. Bad creative.

Unless... could it be that this criticism is completely bullshit?

First off, let's do a quick evidential survey. Here are 30 good ideas - as expressed via taglines, from the US, UK and Australia - that I collected for a presentation not long ago.

Have a look, and see how many you think are truly 'ownable'. 

Finger lickin' good (KFC)

The appliance of science (Zanussi)

Beanz meanz Heinz

A diamond is forever (De Beers)

Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet

Have a break, have a Kit Kat

The burgers are better at Hungry Jack’s

The future’s bright, the future’s Orange

Does exactly what it says on the tin (Ronseal)

You can be sure of Shell

A newspaper not a snoozepaper (Mail on Sunday)

It takes a licking and keeps on ticking (Timex)

The car in front is a Toyota

Fly the friendly skies (United Airlines)

Let your fingers do the walking (Yellow Pages)

I’m lovin’ it (McDonalds)

It could be you (National Lottery)

Oh what a feeling! (Toyota)

Can (CommBank)

Start something (St. George) 

I reckon that only THREE of these are truly ownable, in the sense that no one else could say it.

Beanz Meanz Heinz (no other baked bean brand could claim to be the definitive baked beans), A Diamond Is Forever (no other product can claim to last as long as diamonds do, and De Beers has no branded competitor), and Have A Break Have A Kit-Kat (no other chocolate snack 'breaks' in the way that a Kit Kat does).

Some of the other lines are phrased in a way that makes them appear ownable, but they're not really. For example, You Can Be Sure Of Shell sounds pretty ownable, because of the alliteration. But there is nothing unique to Shell in that positioning. There would be nothing to stop Total coming along and saying Total = Total Reliability.

Once we discount brands that are attempting to make their positionings ownable via snazzy language, and allow only brands with properly unique ownable positionings, by my calculations fully 90% of these ideas are not 'ownable'.

And yet many of them have created or contributed to brands that are worth many, many billions of dollars to their owners.

Smarter bloggers than me have pointed out that consumers don't see most brands as being particularly unique or distinct in reality, and indeed don't mind that, focusing instead on their differing personalities. (See this great post from Richard Huntington on brand personality, or this one by Martin Weigel about how it's far more important for a brand to be interesting than different).

What the ideas in the list above have in spades - what made them successful - is not ownability but personality.

Ideas like Finger Lickin' Good and The Future's Bright The Future's Orange are not ownable. Any chicken shop could claim you'll lick your fingers, and any telco could say they're forward-thinking. But the way these non-ownable thoughts are expressed help create a distinct (and attractive) personality.

And that's what consumers are drawn to.