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The Partisan Advertising blog has advertising agency-related posts dating back to 2010 covering a vast array of topics.
Three cheers for the Axis Awards.
Does the world really need advertising agency awards? Throwing out awards for the sake of creativity in advertising is pointless. The only thing that matters in advertising is measurement and results. Creativity is merely a by-product.
The Axis Awards are on tonight. In case you don’t know, the Axis Awards “recognise creative excellence” in advertising.
I can’t seem to find any information anywhere on the Axis website as to how they actually judge the awards, what the parameters are for winning and who you have to know/screw on the judge’s panel to win. Anyway, I digress.
Acknowledging creativity for its own sake is fine (that's why we have art galleries) but we all know that one man’s Jackson Pollock is another man’s pile of crap. Throwing out awards left, right and centre for the sake of creativity in advertising is pointless, further evidenced by the number of categories in which awards are dished out at the Axis Awards. Advertising awards that focus purely on creativity are as self-serving and idiotic as the “Bent Spoon Awards”.
I’ve said it so many times before that I feel like a parrot, but the only point of advertising is to generate a result. Whether it’s increased sales for the client or a decrease in the number of whales slaughtered, there has to be something tangible at the end of the campaign. Everything must be measured in advertising or advertisers will continue living in a world where they don't know which half of their advertising budget is working.
This brings me to the 2015 winner of the Grand Axis Award.
I’ll give this ad credit, it pulls the emotions, shows us how stupid we are and it tells a nice story for the NZ Transport Agency. But what did it achieve? Did Clemenger BBDO win the Grand Axis Award because it reduced road accidents by 7% and speeding-related incidents by 10%? No, they won because they were creative. But what effect did this ad have? I visited the NZ Transport Agency’s website in the hope of getting more info in terms of results but there was nothing that showed either success or failure. All I could find out in relation to this ad was that “in 2013, 83 people were killed and 408 were seriously injured in speed-related crashes.” I guess the point of the ad (and all the others that the NZTA have done) was to lower these numbers somehow… But with no evidence to support this, I can only conclude that the ad was a failure. At least it was creative so to hell with social responsibility and lowering the death toll on New Zealand’s roads.
Now I can hear the haters asking “When was the last time you won an advertising award?”. To which I proudly reply “Never!”. What the haters should really be asking is “Why can’t they measure the impact this advert had?” Surely the NZTA must put a measure in place, after all, we taxpayers had to fit the bill, so shouldn’t we know whether it's working or not? Here we have a huge, vitally important part of our government, trying to reduce deaths and tragedy on our roads through advertising, yet they have no idea what effect this purely creative and award-winning ad has on that?
We’re all 100% sure they know what effect alcohol and speed have on accidents, so why can’t their advertising have a measure for success (or failure)? Maybe John Key took part of the NZTA’s budget for the flag referendum and they don’t have the cash to spare? It seems like winning an advertising award where you’ve actually created no visible or positive change to the status quo, especially in road safety, seems like a bit of a wank.
Advertising in comic books
Ever wondered how many kids sent money to Charles Atlas after seeing one of his "Atlas Man" adverts in a comic book?
Or how many bought a pet monkey or an inflatable doll? It was all mostly lies but who didn't want to believe that you could really grow a family of Sea Monkeys (whatever they were) for $1.25 plus postage?
As a kid, I thought those ads were as cool as the stories I was reading. Unfortunately, I was living in South Africa at the time and I couldn't place an order for anything that I saw. I was really keen to get X-Ray glasses. They were the ultimate superpower that you could buy for a dollar. Imagine reading about Superman and at the same time seeing an ad for these X-Ray specs. It was the epitome of perfect media buying and product placement.
I now have close to 10,000 comics lying in boxes and standing on dusty shelves throughout my house and I can honestly say that the adverts in modern comics are just terrible. And worst of all, there are so many of them. The relevance is lost to me on why I’m reading how Batman’s trashing the Joker for the 100th time and then seeing an ad for a Honda Civic. Is that where Honda believes their market to be or am I only interested in pretty pictures?
Advertising and politics
Advertising for political parties sucks, doesn’t it? Sure, we have to have it in our lives because short of running around with assault rifles and Molotov cocktails, or giving some muppet with bad hair total control, it’s the only way to run society.
Advertising for political parties sucks, doesn’t it?
Sure, we have to have it in our lives because short of running around with assault rifles and Molotov cocktails, or giving some muppet with bad hair total control, it’s the only way to run society.
But damn, why does it always have to be so hard?
For example, who’d want to be an American at the moment? It’s an election year and their political system has descended well beyond the level of farce into, oh I don’t know… debacle maybe?
Never mind the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and endless Congressional deadlocks that could shut everything down, the poor buggers also have to deal with a Republican primary field that looks like it’s made up of rejects from a C-Grade horror movie, while the “obvious” Democratic candidate is nothing more than the same old, same old wearing a dress. At least they’ve got Bernie to make it interesting instead of just being utter laughing stocks on a global scale.
Then there’s little old New Zealand. Frankly we shouldn’t be too smug. A quick look through the archives of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show makes it plain that we’ve got our own share of cringe-worthy politicians, hell bent on lifting their game to world-class levels of buffoonery. If I said what I thought about our Prime Minister, I’d probably get locked up, but he’s there because middle New Zealand loves a “winner” (choke), and because there’s no other bloody choice!
If I was a Yank with conservative leanings, I’d have to choose between creatures like Trump and Cruz. In New Zealand, I get to choose between a flag changing, ponytail tugger and… hang on, who’s running Labor again? And as much of a hippie as I am, the Greens would just muck it up given enough rope. But if I want a PM and a party who seem to be more aligned with my values, and less inclined to change the flag just “because”, then I might actually have to give one of the other parties my vote, even if they’ve got zero chance of winning or even of having an impact. Talk about a lousy choice.
Politics is all about choosing the lesser of two evils, which are basically two pieces of the same pie with marginally different fillings when it comes down to it. If the whole mess wasn’t fired up by ideology, no one would ever vote. And if anyone could find a credible alternative, we’d probably roll it out in a flash.
Which brings us to advertising. In most cases, we have more than one choice of any particular product or service, but usually, they’re all much of a muchness, no matter how stridently the various brands proclaim their uniqueness.
I’ve written before about grudge purchases. Some products and services (like insurance or shock absorbers for example) are total grudge purchases, but others, well, they’re stuff we need or want, but these purchases are either driven by ideology aka belief, or price. We buy a certain beer because we like the taste, or we identify with the brand’s values and advertising messages i.e. we believe. Or we buy whatever’s reasonably tasty at a big discount at the supermarket on a Friday afternoon because price matters more.
But truth be told, we could buy any of the brands. Heineken is Steinlager is Stella. Don’t kid yourself they’re not. And Lexus is BMW is Audi as much as State is IAG is Southern Cross. You only think they’re different because you’ve been told they are often enough.
What would happen if a brand became a grudge purchase based purely on ideology? If your favourite beer became the name sponsor of the Australian rugby team, who went on to handily and repeatedly trounce your beloved All Blacks? It’s unlikely, I know, but bear with me.
Would you change your beer? Are you buying based on a thin veneer of belief and nothing more? Are the things that make up who you are (fashion, phone, accessories, car etc.) nothing more than constructs in your head?
More to the point, if you run a business, or are involved in the marketing one, then what are you and your company doing to truly stand out and to offer products or services that are more than just the sum of their price and the messages you feed out into the world?
Think about how you’d market a true grudge purchase, and then apply that same thinking to your own marketing. Why would you want to sell stuff that’s merely the lesser of two or more evils, when you could stand out and be remarkable? What happens when you slip down the ladder and are seen, for whatever reason, to be more “evil” in some small way than the opposition?
Here’s my usual hint – you won’t be different (or “not evil”) by doing the same thing you always did. And embracing whatever the latest trend is doesn’t count either because your competitors are already doing just that. You need to look at the big picture and find ways to be excellent, and if you can do that, along with everyone at your organisation, then the consumer will always find ways to support that.
Otherwise you’re just another part of the filling of a big, but exceedingly bland pie.
Getting a job in an advertising agency.
Partisan Advertising recently ran another advert on SEEK looking for someone to join our advertising agency.
I like to be creative when writing recruitment ads as it makes the process a bit more fun for me. And I like to think it will be fun for those who read it and hopefully it will attract a better kind of applicant. In our ads, I like to include what some people refer to as “crazy pitches”. I start by telling applicants that I do not want to see their resumes. That’s only half the crazy bit. What I ask these punters to do instead is to send me (together with their portfolio) something that shows their uniqueness. This can take the form of a letter, a song, a dirty limerick, a dirty video (so far I’ve only gotten one), a poem, a photo; basically anything that shows the real you. That’s all I ask for.
I do this because I abhor resumes.
There’s nothing worse than putting your future employment possibilities in the hands of an indistinguishable Word document set in 10 points Arial with double line spacing detailing when and where and what has led you to this point in your life. Especially if you’re responding to an ad for a spot in an advertising agency, and even more so if you’re responding to an advert written by a crazy person asking applicants to send in dirty videos* instead of resumes.
Why? Because you never do the same job twice in advertising.
Sure you might be unfortunate enough to do 12 TV commercials a year but the only thing that’s similar between them is the media in which they are shown. The same goes for social media campaigns, logo design, web design, brochures, billboards, packaging and on and on and on. The requirements are different for each because the message, and the execution of that message, is different every single time, without fail.
So when it comes to applying for a job, why do people choose the same method for every application, which also happens to be the exact same method everyone else chooses? It’s kinda like trying to sell a TV commercial for tampons to a company that manufactures bricks. It just can’t be done.
Hence the “crazy pitches” I include in our recruitment ads.
The advertising industry is meant to be full of the crazy ones. The ones that somehow find a way to compare drug use to the frying of an egg; who transform ordinary men wearing ordinary shirts into legends merely by adding an eye patch to their attire. These are the people that manipulate and persuade consumers like sirens calling sailors to the rocks. I’m smart enough to know that I’m not one of these people but I’m also smart enough to know that I want to work with people like that. And you don’t find these people in a two page Word document set in 10 points Arial with double line spacing. Unfortunately, you don’t find them in dirty videos either.
*P.S. The dirty video I received was from a cool art director who loved motor-cross and who was covered in mud when he made the video. Sadly he lived in Belgium.