Where's the bitching?
Submitted by bittertruth on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 20:48.
What is advertising?
Is it salesmanship in print? Brand building? Communication? A function of marketing? Art? Science?
While the gurus have been debating for years, those of us in the trenches know what advertising is all about.
It’s about bitching. And moaning. And whining. And jealousy. And big egos.
But the art of bitching is dying, my friends.
Trade journals are peppered with asinine press releases.
Mr Geek is promoted as CMO of FallopianTube . Ms Herrfurher is now Chief Creative Grand Dragon at Foot, Toe and Bleeding. Mr Martian Soreyell has gobbled another agency in Papua New Guinea. Ms Firebreathing client sacked McCanned Erectile Dysfunction because the agency’s account executive broke wind during a presentation.
Sure these insightful nuggets of information are interesting, but where is the glorious mud slinging?
Who cogged what ad from which show book? Which media guy has body odour that would make a skunk run for cover? Who entered ghost ads ? In what shows? Who is the anonymous junior designer whose layout was filched by her burnt out creative director?
The list is endless. But where is the will to whine?
I suggest we take a stand against this rampant political correctness and start a revolution. Take baby steps. You have technology on your side.
Set up a blog without disclosing your name. Send an anonymous mail. Post under a pseudonym in forums.
Rant, rave, revile. Slander, vilify, denigrate.
At first, you’ll be labeled as petty minded, a troublemaker, a tattletale. Soon you’ll find yourself banished to the outer edges of the lunatic fringe. Pay no heed. All great thinkers (bitching does require that your neurons fire rapidly in all directions) were seen as crazy.
And years from now, if your gossip blog about advertising wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, please do remember to mention my name in your acceptance speech.
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Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Ok, I will.;)
..........But I think the Nobel Prize is out of any advertising-related things reach. We’re the dirty creatives who sell our souls for food – this isn’t art or poetry or even journalism, which has much more respect and not nearly as many eyeballs looking at it. Odd that. We cover cities with our work, people engage in it, if we're lucky it becomes part of popular culture but it's nearly universally sneered at by the high-brows who "never fall for advertising". Right, you don't. Suuuuuure.
No, seriously what if we’ve already started a blog under a pseudonym (and jebus, it’s already eleven years ago!) to be able to bitch freely (and allow others to do the same on the same site so that we’d avoid fragmentation of le bitch-crop –ha!) It’s – ironically enough – not a new idea. ;) You’ve been sharing your bitching and gossip here since.. well, lets guess based on your low usernumber - 2001 maybe? And some nice ads too which is much more fun IMHO. Don’t we all get happy seeing some good ads? I wanna see good ads!
What if we think reading “Ms Firebreathing client sacked McCanned Erectile Dysfunction because the agency’s account executive broke wind during a presentation.” would be great fun. At least that would be honest, aye?
What if we’ve grown up and learned through experience that not all twin ads are knock-offs despite how it looks. The fantastically useful body-part the eye evolved three times independently – so why can’t ideas pop up in three unrelated heads that look the same but aren’t quite? Ideas work on their own agenda, and briefs that target the same group with the same proposition and define the same media will get similar ideas in response.
Though ideas do get copied, and the French Badland has built up an impressive collection of twins as have we – I find the reasons that encourage copies to happen to be much more interesting to discuss that the copies themselves which are more just kinda amusing to look at. And sometimes aggravating to look at when it’s clearly just a traced copy.
And really, what good would bitching do, really? Aren’t we all trying to pull in the same direction? Don’t we all want to see great ads instead of crap everywhere? Don’t we all want to get paid enough to feed ourselves for doing it? Don’t we all want a better climate for creating and producing more creative ideas? Don’t we all want the punters to buy our clients crap instead of threatening to burn down the factory because the ads are just so damn insulting? Don’t we all want creatives such as illustrators, photographers & ourselves to own what we create so that we may live off our creations? Bitching about some crap award is missing the big picture in these days of copyright and lefts, when royalty free and ‘user generated’ and countless competitions makes rights grabs from multinational corporations even more commonplace than they were ten years ago. Can't we all just get along? /King
If the only place great ideas ever live is on foam core then dammit, yes I want to see them win awards because I hope to god that clients dare to buy good ideas. Don’t we all want to discuss advertisings all aspects, from creep to buzz to classic, freely? Mud-slinging is for monkeys and politicians, can’t we just talk about the ideas, the execution, the media, the marketing without attacking the creator? When you read the comments on some of the trade press’ boards it doesn’t seem so – advertising isn’t about bitching so much as simply being jealous of a person. I get being envious of the briefs that they got, which lead to the great work they did, or dying inside for not coming up with that idea yourself – but what the feck is the point being jealous of the person? “Oh, HE gets to judge X award, I hate him and he smells funny, plus his ex girlfriend says he’s crap in the sack”. So what? He’s probably judging because something he did won previous years. Tough titties. That part I don’t like about the bitching, it gets personal and it’s simply childish. Also, seems whenever you criticize a campaign you don’t like, someone will jump out with the comment “Oh yeah, well YOU do better then!”. Oh sod off. People on the street are talking about your ads, so can I.
It’s only advertising after all, stick to the brief. Bitch about that. Bitch about the product. Bitch about the media choice. But leave Creative Director X’s mother out of it. And then get on with your work, because bitching will not replace crap ads with great ads, only doing great ads will. Damn straight you’d be considered petty-minded if you vilify – because honestly, what is the point?
Or perhaps I misunderstood yours.