After a spate of diatribes on Daimler’s recent work, wristwatch shenanigans and all else awry in this business, it’s refreshing to recall that just a week ago I was with some people who truly care about the quality of advertising. (And no, I was not on some psych ward somewhere.) I was in Portland, OR talking with the students of wk12 and happily, I came away with the distinct impression that at least in this case The Who had it right, not Offspring.
We talked about a bunch of stuff, starting with my quest to get clients to better appreciate and therefore, cultivate extraordinary advertising. Interestingly, the kids glommed onto this immediately. Probably because unlike a lot of the portfolio mills out there, the wk12 program has these guys working with live ammunition right from the get-go. Real advertising campaigns for real clients under the supervision of some really, really good people. So the kids in wk12 have already seen how quickly good ideas can exsanguinate in a conference room populated by well-meaning, but utterly unschooled (in the constructive appraisal of advertising, that is) clients.
One student, it turned out, actually had in his possession an MBA awarded by one of the country’s most prestigious schools and he confirmed its program was sadly lacking in the exact area I’ve been lamenting for some time now: Over the course of two years, the sum total of instruction he received in the identification, care & feeding of extraordinary advertising amounted to damn near zero.
To quote Kurt Vonnegut: So it goes.
Another thing that seemed to arouse the group–not easy on a Friday afternoon and after a substantial lunch–was the notion of sui generis as it pertains to this craft. But it will cost you more than the cover price of this rag to get more out of me on that subject. Or better yet, just wait another six months and hire one of these kids.
Net-net, it was a heartening experience. These kids are as enthusiastic about the ad business as we were when we were their age. (Of course, it can’t hurt that they get to work in one of the few agency spaces I’ve seen lately that couldn’t be sublet and occupied tomorrow by an insurance company without any architectural adjustments needed.) And they’re getting an exceptional introduction into how its done. So when all of us have departed for that great Victoria’s Secret casting session in the sky (or focus group back room at the alternative destination), we can be sure the industry will carry on just fine–and maybe even exceed the current 10:1 ratio of ordinary to extraordinary ads we’ve come to take for granted.
“Exsanguinate.” Great word, Mark. Completely descriptive, once one has gone to a dictionary to find out what it means, of the perils good/great advertising often encounters in a room full of people poised to stomp the living shit out of it.
Sometimes, as you say, those people are clients. But don’t forget those in agency management (executive suites but also creative departments) who do their fair share in perpetuating the blood letting: the myopic who fail to see good/great when its presented to them and the weak, gutless, sniveling types who fold as fast as tables in a church basement after Sunday coffee when they hear major, even minor client objections.
Sadly enough, these people lurk in every nook and cranny of agencies today – they always have and they always will – and the graduates of wk12 or any other advertising school will no doubt run into them, unless they’re lucky enough to land in one of the agency world’s creative hothouses.
Student of advertising that I am, a couple of quotes come to mind, both of them presented as encouragement to wk12ers bound for the real world or for all others who find themselves in oppressive circumstances.
Said David Ogilvy: “It is suicide to settle for mediocre advertising.” Said Jock Elliott, David Ogilvy’s partner and successor: “Big ideas are so hard to recognize, so fragile, so easy to kill. Don’t forget that, all of you who don’t have them.”
Bottom line: hang in there.