22.8.06

Fluffy Advertising

There is nothing wrong with loving your job and injecting a sense of pride in what you do. I mean you have to. To justify your choice of career and why you are advertising a cigarette brand for example. Recently I noticed a strange phenomenon. Some of the best people I worked with and know in advertising with a history of making revolutionary ads had one thing in common, they actually hate advertising. Or at least hate to make ads that look like ads. Some even actively try not to make ads anymore because they feel that they are making the equivalent of a fizzy can of Coke instead of a LAB cocktail. If I was to segment the people who work in ad land I would say the majority want to make ads and nothing else that, sadly this is the height of their ambition while there is a small niche minority who are in advertising because they are interested in communicating with and influencing culture with ideas. The ones who think they are in advertising will never learn that this is exactly what they will ever do for the foreseeable future - just that - advertising. While those who are in the business of communicating to people and influencing culture the method is genuinely as important as the idea and hence gets equal amounts of innovation. The thing that annoys the hell out of me these days are ad lads pretending to be doing all sorts of ideas (e.g. digital) when they don't mean it want to or believe that they can. If advertising is what you are good at then why don't you just become the best at that don't bloody pretend you can do something else when you don't actually give a toss.

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