Advertising Creativity- A rant
In the last couple months I realized one fundamental truth about advertising. If it’s not funny or useful in some way, don’t make it.
Seriously. Don’t make it. Don’t spend the money. Nothing good will every come from bad advertising. No sales, no followers, no nothing. Even if your product is a revelation from the big man himself, you wont get anywhere making ads that say nothing and do even less.
Let us consider for a moment how I know this. I am a young adult, 3 years past the perfect demographic age, I’m female, I have a college education and I like to shop. I read yelp, urban spoon, amazon reviews and my biggest connection to brands is via Twitter. Klout calls me an influencer, which I find totally flattering and wrong. But, with that said, I am an marketers wet dream of a target market.
Not convinced I know what I’m talking about yet? Fair enough, let’s try another tacit. I studied Advertising at SCAD and now I’m an Art Director. Beyond being the audience for advertising, I also actively contribute to the making of it. You can hate me, slander me and even blame me, but I like what I do and when I do it right, so do you.
Back to the point. Funny, Useful or Bust. Let’s consider a funny Ad, one of my favorite campaigns, “You Know You Love It: Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese.” Kraft spent years with the Cheesasaurus, only to completely shift gears in early 2010. Why leave such a cute little dino behind? Because he was crap. True, he sold Mac and Cheese to kids, but who buys Mac and Cheese? Parents. Nailed it. Why didn’t they go with a more useful campaign? Because there isn’t anything new or useful about Mac and Cheese. It’s an emotional purchase, not a logical one. I don’t run out to buy the newest Kraft Mac and Cheese because I have to have it before all my friends, I run out and buy it because it makes me feel good. What else makes me feel good? Humor.
Switching gears to useful. This encompassed everything that helps me accomplish a goal. This advertising is rational, it’s measurable, it doesn’t beat around the bush. The main problem with this type of advertising is in the birth. If the product isn’t useful, you don’t have much of a shot at making the advertisement useful. Chase Bank is doing a fantastic job with their advertising right now… but then again, Chase Bank is doing a fantastic job with their banking right now. Let’s try something hard, something that isn’t tangible. Let’s talk about the internet. Google, unsurprisingly, has been hitting this one consistently on the head. Take the most recent commercial “Make it Happen.” It opens with the Chrome logo and then takes us through various tasks you can accomplish in its various applications, complied together with cheerful new year video clips and metaphors. It’s a totally useful commercial, it tells me exactly Chrome can do and it shows me how. So here’s the biggest question: If it’s that straight forward, how is it good?
Everyone surfs the web. Everyone has a new years resolution. It’s relatable.
In all things, you have to relate to entertain. If you don’t, no one will ever listen, not even if your ad has all the right funny cat clips or rational based facts. The key to entertainment is human truth. When a client says to you… we want to sell this product/idea/notion, what they’re really saying is: We need you to make people understand us. Unfortunately, the problem usually then becomes getting the client to understand what their brand really is… and isn’t.
Allow me to backtrack to the word “Entertain.” There’s this crazy notion that entertainment has to mean MORE. More special effects, more money, more facts, more copy, more intrigue, more drama, more more more. Stop it. Cut all the shit. Think of it this way: Apple didn’t create the ipad, they uncreated it. They took all the things that were in a computer and boiled it down to exactly what it needed. They cut the shit and they made millions doing it.
The key in all things is entertainment. What’s the best way to entertain? Make me relate to it, make me laugh, or help me learn. Do this things, or don’t do anything at all.
I’ll do my best living up to it.
