Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I meant to put this in powerpoint.


Will somebody please tell me differently?

Is there an agency anywhere--anywhere--that spends as much time creating work as it spends creating decks?

SFX: ONE HAND CLAPPING.

I didn't think so.

That being said, for now on creative girls and boys, I propose just running the deck. No, I'm serious. A 30-second spot should accommodate about four slides, so a campaign of six spots will get you through about 24-pages. OK, I know that ain't ideal--24 pages is only about 1/4 the length of most decks, but that, friends, is why we supplement out broadcast efforts with a robust print campaign. Imagine an eight-page insert which contains the entire deck, plus a "call to action" that sends you to our website where you can download the entire presentation--in color!

Now you're saying Ad Aged is being stupid. "Decks aren't 'customer facing.'" Well, if that's the case and we're in the customer communications business, why does decksturbation dominate our days and nights?

So maybe it all comes down to this--some Seth Godin/Malcolm Gladwell-esque pronouncement. Advertising is dead. Deckvertising has replaced it.

5 comments:

Tore Claesson said...

AC/DC send there new video out in powerpoint.

BOB HOFFMAN said...

The ad business is no longer about creating ads. It's about creating rationales.

So we spend 98% of our time on decks, presentations, meetings, strategies, briefs, etc.

Every now and then, as a byproduct of all this running in place, an ad appears somewhere.

george tannenbaum said...

Bob, I think I need to work for you someday.

Ken Spencer said...

Could you explain what a "Deck" is for those of us not in the biz, please?

Just stumbled across your blog today after I googled "The Inside of a Brick." GREAT blog - it will now be on my daily read! Thanks for the wonderful random thoughts, carefully thought out, of course.

george tannenbaum said...

A deck in advertising talk is a powerpoint presentation. Prior to a meeting everyone runs around 'getting the deck' ready. The deck is usually meaningless.