24.7.06

Simple But Rich

aresh in the Guardian liked this ad for its simple but rich execution. He argued that in advertising we've been obsessed with keeping things simple particularly when doing a global campaign - often impoverished of intimate insights. Keeping things simple often means keeping them stupid. As this new ad from W+K shows, instead of finding a real world 'generic global insight' you create your own world and make it exceptionally rich. Add another dimension to that hackneyed idea of simplicity - RICHNESS. It is interesting that Naresh's view echoes Russell's where he advocates that many small ideas are better, than just one big (and often meaningless) one. Interesting. Whenever I spoke to real artists about their work they always talk about the composition - 'the art is in the composition' - they say. I hardly ever heard any artist, filmmaker or musician talk about THE BIG IDEA. Maybe in advertising we are actually obsessed with Big Ideas because often it means Big Budgets - we should really be thinking of adding creative richness not bigness. If you make it simple AND rich success will follow and with that the big budgets stupid.