Ordinary Advertising

It sometimes seems like people in this business have terrible memories. And not the kind that can get sorted out with therapy. No, the kind of faulty memory I’m talking about is the kind that allows a brand to recycle the same ordinary idea in its advertising over and over again.

About 15 years ago Reebok had a mercifully short-lived campaign that featured the immortal line: “Reeboks Let UBU.” It wasn’t too successful, so they abandoned it, only to return now with a new campaign bearing the line: “I am what I am.” (hey, it worked for Popeye), which is basically the same old idea.

So what, doesn’t anybody at Reebok remember the UBU campaign?

Quite possibly not. And I think “memory lapses” of this sort are symptomatic of a larger ailment in the industry. Sure, Paul Fireman is still running Reebok, but how many of the marketing people from the UBU era are still there? And how many agencies has Reebok run through since?

The fact is, with the duration of agency/client relationships at an all-time low and corporate America’s annoying tendency to rotate brand managers through assignments every 18 months or so, there’s a very good chance no one around now does remember. They don’t know what worked a few years ago. Or what didn’t. And precious few harken to Santayana’s warning that “those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So the danger of recycling an ordinary advertising idea is all around us.

Happily, there are a few noteworthy exceptions. For many years, the advertising done by American Express was largely guided by one man, Aldo Pappone. And for the last decade, it’s been steered by John Hayes, who I recently read has the distinction of being the longest tenured CMO of any Fortune 100 company. Not surprisingly, American Express’ advertising has been more consistently extraordinary than any of its peers in the financial industry and most advertisers period.

Institutional memory has been cited as a key contributor to the strongest corporate cultures. I’d argue the same goes for strong advertising because, while recycling may be good for the environment, it’s nothing but an eyesore on the advertising landscape.