Ordinary Advertising

Midway through some rant about the parlous state of the advertising business in general and the near extinction of extraordinary communications, I’m sure. Then, like the guy in the old story I stepped out for a pack of cigarettes and didn’t come home for 20 years, (or in this case 13 months).

Well, to borrow a line from Jack Nicholson in The Shining, “I’m back…” Reasons being a) popular demand (hey, I said ‘popular’, not ‘populous’). And b) my growing conviction that sooner or later (and my hunch is sooner) this industry and the people who truck with it are going to have to come to grips with the fact that if it doesn’t resume creating compelling, extraordinary communications, it’s going to die. And any business that depends on this communication is going to die right with it. That where communications appear (alternate media) such as the risible suggestions I read about such as the back of airplane tray tables ain’t gonna do it. Nor is how often these ads appear (clout) or how to whom (targeting). Nothing, and I do mean nothing, will ever take the place of what is said (content) and how well it’s said (charm).

Some might accuse me of unjustified optimism, but I do see a few glimmers of hope. To start with, nothing else seems to be working too well and CMO tenures are rapidly approaching the duration of the average orgasm (while remaining nowhere near as pleasant). Then there’s this sudden resurgence of interest in smaller agencies. Very, very large clients seem to be abandoning their behemoth partners and turning substantial pieces of business over to peanut-sized purveyors of persuasion. Of course, it’s a shame about the work Jeep is currently getting from its agency, Cutwater. But, a) that could be Jeep’s fault, and b) I’m not sure you can call an agency totally underwritten by a monster holding company like Omnicom “small.” Unless you consider a “friend with benefits” to be indistinguishable from a bona fide fiancee.

Then there’s the recognition by smart operators like YouTube that certain forms of advertising–pre-rolls before the video clip, for example–are never going to cut it. Which has led them to introduce a less intrusive, semi-transparent banner across the bottom of the screen that is going to be highly dependent on extraordinary communication to work. (More on this subject soon.)

Standing in stark opposition to this line of thinking is the behavior of the big agency holding companies that continue to manifest in their practices, public posturing and acquisition strategies a belief that the actual quality of the creative product–how truly extraordinary it is–is of tertiary importance, if that.

But students of business history know how quickly the mighty can fall. One need only consider the American automobile, computer, home electronics and manufactured goods industries to validate that. Much as hedge funds have been addicted to leverage (and are now nursing massive hangovers as a result) ad agencies and marketers have been on a “scale” binge for over a decade. However, all good things (and happily some bad ones) must come to an end. You’d have a hard time topping Wal*Mart when it comes to “scale”, but that company is in serious trouble. So perhaps we should all take heart in the fact that Doyle Dane Bernbach spent ten years as a little nothing of an agency, toiling in obscurity, until VW and the extraordinary work it did for that brand catapulted it to fame and fortune. Much like the one-eyed man who’s king in the land of the blind: In the barren wasteland of ordinary advertising, the one effort that’s extraordinary can tower like Mt. Everest.