I've often noticed in looking at portfolios and looking at work and looking at TV commercials and print in magazines that something rotten is happening in the state of advertising.
Ads (a word I'm using as a catchall for marketing communications) seem to be no longer about creativity--in the sense of doing something unique, original and unexpected. Ads, in order to survive the onslaught of billability people, account people, production managers, small-minded bosses, clients and clients' wives, must look and feel like something we've already seen. Ads must look like ads or they don't get produced.
Today we are less creativity.
More about imitativity.
2 comments:
Years ago when I was an editor, I was cutting together a rough cut for a spot. The agency creatives were late and I wanted to get a cut together as quickly as possible. I buttoned the thing up in short order and when they arrived I showed them the cut.
There was an awkward silence and then one of the creatives spoke up. "it looks too much like a commercial."
That floored me at the time. After a bit I understood what they were after, and it was something a bit more raw than the cut I put together. I backed off of the cut aways and left the thing to play out with just a few cuts.
In the end the spot was alright. I don't think it's on anyones reel. But I remember how absurd it sounded at first to try to make a commercial that didn't look like a commercial.
Anonymous, you have a point. I was protesting against, really, the sameness of casting, of joke-telling and of the actually commercials we do see. Nothing breaks any molds.
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