I'm probably wrong here, I usually am, but it seems to my aged and glaumy eyes, the advertising industry trails virtually every other industry when it comes to creative expression.
For years, I've kept a list of great websites that take complicated information and present it in arresting and interesting ways. Here's just one from the week before last. It starts with a piece of journalism--a photo by Art Kane from 1957--and is improved thanks to good creativity and a great use of today's design and tech. Here's the site I'm talking about.
Why agencies can't do work like this, or brands is beyond me. Except for five major reasons. 1) Why bother. 2) It takes time. 3) It costs money. 4) It might not win at Cannes. 5) No one's already seen it in a previous awards annual.
If one of the main questions an ad must address is "why would anyone care?" I question if ad agencies have that in mind anymore when they work. It seems like the goal of most advertising is to get something done. Not to do something worth doing.
But doing and achieving are light years apart. Doing is not achieving. Doing something meritorious is achieving. Somehow, we've swept that under the carpet tiles. It might upset people who, after all, are trying as hard as they can and besides, they have back-to-back meetings.
The Art Kane photo from 1957 and the New York Times update from two weeks ago are achievements. Show me advertising as engaging and I'll buy you a sugar-water diabetes infusion offering.
In any event, Print Magazine just published a list of 100 of 2024's best book covers. You might think of a book cover like you think of a banner ad on a crowded site or a print ad in September's Vogue. Your book cover is vying for attention--like your ad is vying for attention, like your tweet, ppt, your every move is vying for attention--and the only way to win amid that attention competition is to do something great.
Great.
Not merely louder, or shinier, or celebrityier, but better.
I think the ad industry is spending a lot of time thinking about things that are the equivalent of pissing up a rope. Even if you can do it, your face is going to get wet. We've focused on margins, data, AI, merging, awards and pomposity. We focus on all manner of nonsense.
Anything but doing something breathtaking.
(By the way, my favorite cover is for Salman Rushdie's "Knife," by Arsh Raziuddin.) Here's Arsh's website. Like her book cover way below, It cuts through.
