If this is the future of advertising, I’m underwhelmed

 

This new commercial for Vodafone describes itself as “groundbreaking”. 

Was the YouTube description written by AI? Highly likely, as the film itself was completely produced by AI - text to picture, picture to video, video to video - with a little bit of human help sprinkled here and there by the director, client and creative teams involved.

As a film, it’s OK. AI is definitely capable of better quality film than it was a few months ago. There’s nothing too alarming or creepy about this ad - or, indeed, the Coca Cola Christmas ad this year.

But while there’s nothing too much wrong with it, there’s nothing too much right with it either, in my view. It’s yet another one of those diversity vignette films. The soundtrack, The Rhythm of the Night, is a dance hit from 1993.

And that’s what this ad feels like to me - 1993. Back then, in the agency, we’d often cobble together (well, that’s unfair, as it took a lot of time and skill in those days) “mood films”, sometimes in the form of a “manifesto.” The purpose was to bring the core of what the brand was about to life. It was more entertaining than a brand onion, and more likely to win you a place on a pitch shortlist.

What these things weren’t, however, is creative ideas. They were usually briefed in by a planner and their audience wasn’t Joe and Jane Public - it was the client, to flatter them a little about their wonderful brand.

And meanwhile, in the spirit of “Everybody’s Doing It”, the ghastly stock photos of people joining hands, staring excitedly at their laptops, putting pieces of fruit in front of their eyes or cradling a tender young shoot in the palm of their hands have been replaced with AI-generated monstrosities.

I’m working with a client in the energy sector at the moment, where the visions seem particularly nightmarish:

I do hope I see a little more originality next year!

Comfort and Joy

 

A Christmas Story by Charles Rebel Stanton

Comfort and joy may have been in short supply this year, despite many of us forced back into our own comfort zones for rather too long. It's been clear that for brands, too, communications have been created with something of a "walking on eggshells" mentality, with concern over tone-deafness and misreading the mood of the nation. 

This somewhat restrictive approach, worrying about getting it wrong rather than determination to get it right, has led to a lot of bland, joyless and strangely soulless advertising and other communications.

Maybe it's time to stop thinking about advertising's role to reflect the world as it is, and start thinking about its role to entertain and present the world as it could be. Or another world completely.

Joy is a good start, but joy always feels a little bit sanitised and homogenised, like a choir of over-zealous evangelists. Especially when it pops up in a marketing plan which eulogises over making each touchpoint a "joyful connection".

I hope next year, advertising can dust down its entertainer's glad rags. Not merely joyful, but bringing us belly-laughs, mischief and mirth. Witty repartee, farce, a subversive smile. Whimsy, euphoria, glee and giggles. 

That's how to sell stuff, in the end.

Days of Hope

I've noticed that my blog has become slightly serious and grumpy round the edges of late. And that it's been ages since I've done what I used to love doing - finding an ad that's got a really good idea behind it, and singing its praises.

Well, here we go - two campaigns via the agency Quiet Storm as part of the Create not Hate initiative. This has the aim of bringing more young people from ethnic minority backgrounds into the creative industries.

The "Racist Dinosaur" campaign was created by Jet Harris and Le'vaughan Smith, who are both 16, and I think from Merton, which is my old stamping ground in South London.

Then there's another great idea - "Racism is ridiculous" based on a "What If ...?" question - in this case, what if dogs were racist?

Barks & Spencer is inspired! This campaign was created by 22-year-olds Finton Hurst and Mariana Gonzalez. 

What do I like? Well, where do I start? Both campaigns are packed with insight, cleverness and mischievous humour. And they are both based on a simple idea, the "What If?" question in one case, and the idea that racism is a dying relic from the past, summed up by the clever endline "Make Racism Extinct" in the other. A recipe for effectiveness.

My hope is that the ad agencies will encourage more of this, more doing and acting. And less making pompous statements about giving people voices and letting them see themselves in ads (which is incredibly patronising), issuing sanctimonious reading lists and ticking boxes to keep the inclusion and diversity police happy.

Manhattan or Mainhattan? My favourite campaign of 2019

2019 is far from over and can still throw us a few surprises, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say that this is my favourite campaign of 2019.

Normally, expressions such as "programmatic advertising", "data-driven creativity" and "personalised ads at scale" leave me cold (and feeling old, to boot.)

But the campaign from Deutsche Bahn to encourage summer holidays in Germany is all of those, and a masterclass of how it should be done. You see, behind it all is an idea. It's a clever idea that would make a fine poster campaign. Indeed, it may have stuck at being a poster idea had the client had a higher budget.

The genius of the campaign is how Ogilvy Germany personalised the campaign, using destinations that people were searching for online, and matching them with their German Doppelgängers, faster than you can say ... Doppelgängers.

It's a triumph of collaboration - at times over adversity. As well as the budget, which forced the thinking down the "digital only" route, there were challenges sourcing images ("how many do you want"?), with GDPR (using people's Facebook data). And that's before you start on the different mindsets of advertising creatives (the BIG Idea) and the digital performance people (trained to test and learn).

But Ogilvy, Getty Images, Spirable and Facebook all got it together for the client, resulting in the 2 million special price train tickets being sold out in two thirds the normal time.

Who needs exotic locations to do a wunderbar ad campaign?

Goodbye yellow (and red) plastic sea

Even sixteen or seventeen years later, the inspiration for Toy Box Club founders Jess Green and Sheela Berry rings true for me: "... drowning under a sea of unloved, predominantly plastic toys." Which parent doesn't remember the take-over of their living space by this deluge of plastic, wondering why the smallest people in the house had the biggest (and most) belongings.

At least in my son's toddler days, it was mostly in primary colours, before the onslaught of pink and lilac lamas and unicorns for girls and poison-green pirate ships for boys. With more and more categories moving to a subscription model, what a brilliant idea to set up a brand offering toys and books for pre-school children on a "new toy box every month" basis.

All the boxes on the toy box are ticked (sorry!) - the box is recyclable, the toys are thoroughly cleaned with Ecover before being passed on to the next family, it's all gender-neutral, so no pink ponies with sultry eyelashes, and all is thoroughly safety-tested.

But, but, but - toddlers don't understand about sustainability and subscription business models and all that, and when it comes to it, they are possessive little blighters.

And here, the Toy Box Club has the answer, too. If your child should get attached to a particular toy, of course you can buy it from them, too.

A heart-warming idea

How often do you see an idea that deftly combines human emotion, the latest technology and doing good for society that's also absolutely on-brand? Not so often.

The idea "Memory Lane" from the energy-provider Stockholm Exergi and their agency Accenture Interactive does all that. The claim (or maybe it's the purpose) of the brand is "Together we make Stockholm warmer" - which can of course be interpreted in both physical and emotional terms.

The technology is reversed-engineered AI voice, so that rather than you asking your voice assistant for information, it will ask you questions - about your early memories, your first love - and record the conversation, eventually capturing this in a book. The agency placed 10 Google Home devices in the homes of people aged from 75 right up to 101-year-old Ingegerd, so that they could tell the stories of their lives.

It's a brilliant idea. Of course you can argue that this would have been perfectly possible to do ten or even thirty years ago, with dictaphones and interviewers.

But. Sometimes the barrier to actually doing something isn't the idea, or the will to do it. It's something purely practical - the expense, the time-consumption, the hassle.

This is a perfect example of how AI can work with human emotion and intelligence, accelerating and supporting it, rather than replacing it.

Should advertising always be a mirror?

I read an excellent article this week by Graham Booth, entitled Why your advertising should be MAD. Graham presents a reel of 15 ads that he's helped to create during his 30 years' experience and comes to the conclusion that all of these - though very different  - have something in common: a genuine creative idea. The ads are well worth a look, and I'm sure even someone not employed in the ad industry could say, with confidence, what the idea in each is.

By contrast, we're surrounded these days by idea-free advertising, as I bemoaned a couple of posts ago. But, as Graham says, "every ad should aspire to be more than the strategy put on screen, or the brand purpose spoken over generic visuals, or some reflection of the 'real life' of the consumer." Looking at his 15 ads, he remarks that they all employ metaphor, or exaggeration, or contrast. None of them "tell it straight." Hence the title - Make Advertising Drastic (or Daft, Dangerous, Dada ...)

But Graham is just an account man turned researcher. What does a creative director say?

Here's a creative director getting a bit mad, too, but in another sense. I suppose you do get mad when you have someonething telling you that you don't exist. But I do wonder when and where all this "demanding to be reflected" business started. For someone creative, it seems to be taking things terribly literally. I am sure that Graham Booth had plenty of respondents in his group discussions saying they didn't like the ad because the woman on the storyboard had blonde hair, and they've got dark hair.

"Representing diversity" is not a creative idea.

How does this creative director know that the woman in the trainers/chocolate/car ad isn't lesbian? Is sexuality of any relevance whatsoever when you're selling floor cleaner, anyway? Shouldn't we be looking at finding universal human truths that unite us, instead of being divisive?

I vote for getting away from these real life ads (which all look like what we used to call "mood videos") and get creative, and MAD.

But if you're going to do real life, do it well. This ad from Coke is a terrific example and, I'd say, uses a slightly MAD mirror.

Safety and Style

I've said before that the trick to a successful brand often lies in a paradox - either resolving it or celebrating it.

For my first post this year, here's another first: "A beanie that's as safe as a helmet."

Antiordinary is a helmet for skiers and snowboarders which is soft and flexible (and looks to all extents and purposes like a woolly hat) but which hardens on impact. This is achieved via use of non-Newtonian materials (I had to check that one, but it's liquids that don't obey the usual viscosity rules, such as quicksand, ketchup or do-it-yourself cornflour slime), which is a good association for the brand name.

The helmet is the brainchild of 3 jolly-looking Aussie guys, who use words like "rad" and "shredding" on the website, but assure us that the helmet, once launched (via Crowdfunder) will get all the usual required safety certification.

All of this leads neatly into the paradox this solves: safety and style in one, conforming in a non-conformist way - what could be more perfect for the young target market?

And why stop at ski-ing? I am sure there are helmet opportunities to be had far and wide.

A stitch in time

I have always been fascinated by the Bayeux Tapestry - not just for its awe-inspiring ancientness, but also from the juxtaposition of the medium and the content. An action-packed bloody battle depicted through that most ladylike, refined and patient of crafts - tapestry, or more exactly, embroidery.

There's a similar juxtaposition going on with the BBC's FIFA World Cup 2018 launch commercial, created by their in-house agency BBC Creative, and Blinkink. The thrills, spills and action of past World Cups have been captured in 600 individually embroidered frames. The style of the embroidery and the soundtrack to the resulting film are inspired by the host nation, Russia.

A 7m long tapestry will live on after the winner has hoisted the trophy in July. This is only 1/10th the length of the Bayeux Tapestry, but it certainly reflects the tagline of the film: History will be made.

I'm sure there are other interesting and creative ideas for combining medium and content in unexpected ways that this could inspire.

And will it perhaps still be there to marvel at in 1,000 years?

AIBU?

One of the liveliest sections of the Mumsnet Forum discussions is the section entitled 'AIBU?' - for the uninitiated that's 'Am I Being Unreasonable?' There's everything on here from the trivial to the traumatic, and the answers rarely stop at a simple 'Yes' or 'No.' Ideally, I'd guess, one would like to be regarded as a touch unreasonable, but with justification.

On the subject of unreasonableness in the world of marketing and advertising, here is a short article in Campaign from Mick Mahoney, Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather, London. It's entitled Being Unreasonable in four easy steps and starts by quoting George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

It's implied that being unreasonable is a harder job than being reasonable. The reasonable man 'adapts' where the unreasonable one 'persists in trying.' And not only is unreasonable harder, but you're likely to be met with more resistance at the end, too. If something 'seems reasonable' it'll probably be accepted. It'll do. The boxes will be ticked and we'll move on. (Ugh.)

But will anything change? Probably not.

These days, our obsession with 'seamlessness' and 'consistency' means that we'll feel more comfortable with reasonable ideas. It's about fitting in and following. It's about looking at the past and what worked there to generate ideas for the future.

It's actually about not needing people at all - reasonable, unreasonable or otherwise. It's how AI works.

But shouldn't our ideas be more about standing out, being unique, leading, being first? Using our innately human ability to put things together to create something new?

To quote George Bernard Shaw again:

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

Fearless Falcon

If you follow Cannes and Creative Awards, you won't have missed that a certain sculpture took a lot of the top prizes this year. But what you may have missed, if you don't live near Sheffield, is another sculpture which I think deserves just as many accolades is also really rather quite good.

IKEA have recently opened a store in Sheffield and part of the clever stuff dreamed up by their UK advertising agency, Mother, to accompany the opening was Allen the Peregrine Falcon, seen above. His creator is sculptor Jason Heppenstall,  a wonderfully talented chap whose forte is sculpture of furred, feathered and scaled creatures as well as marvellous mechanical devices, all made from scrap steel. So what could be more appropriate for Sheffield than the town's symbol, a Peregrine Falcon, made of steel?

But it's not just any old steel. The beautiful bird of prey is constructed from a total of 17, 126 IKEA Allen Keys - hence the connection, and the name. The connection with IKEA doesn't stop there, either. The vision of IKEA is to help create a better everyday life for the many people, and I should think that the sight of this beautiful bird brightened many an everyday in Sheffield over the last week.

This, to me, is the essence of a great brand idea: something that combines the smallest, everyday element of a brand with its long-term higher reason for being in a way that's totally relevant for the people it's communicating with.

Now, who can remember which brand or company is behind the Fearless Girl sculpture? Anyone?

The content generation

I've always felt slightly queasy about the word 'content' when used in connection with creativity and ideas. As I mentioned here, my immediate association when I hear the word is with stomach contents - some kind of homogeneous chewed-up pap.

Even worse is linking the word 'content' with the verb 'to generate.' The idea of 'generating content' suggests the churning out of some sort of stuff that is completely devoid of any kind of creativity.

'Generating content' is a major preoccupation of the modern age. Indeed, many people are not living in the moment any more, but rather continually generating content for their Facebook or Instagram feed. The pressure is not just to keep up with the Joneses next door, but to keep up with every one of your five hundred Facebook friends. No wonder status anxiety is on the up.

Increasingly, I feel that this means for brands that they must surprise in their communication. Not just  generate more content of the sort that anyone with a Smartphone can load up to Facebook. For example, this beautifully batty campaign ('Did you mean?') from the email marketing platform MailChimp, by Droga5.

No deep psychological insights, no issues and attempts to save the world. In fact, the idea is no different really to that behind Compare the Market's famous meerkats.

But with the surreal films for Mail Shrimp, Jail Blimp and Kale Limp, along with all sorts of fake brands, products and even a band, the executions are thoroughly refreshing and original.

Not generated, but created.

Stand up to live!

I wrote a post a little while ago about creativity, and particularly how the incubation phase, where 'nothing appears to be happening' can be much enhanced by a walk outside, or a 'slow ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day', as Helmholtz put it.

I often come back to this thought, and to John Le Carre's assertion that 'a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.' Whether we are creating something, or merely putting previously unconnected ideas together to gain a deeper understanding of something, the process needs time and space.

There's a fascinating article here about the connection between walking, thinking and writing, with some of the physiological basis for why a leisurely, or even brisk, walk may stimulate thought and creativity. But it seems that if you're trying to find the definite answer to a specific question, then walking ain't the way to find it.

And, furthermore, if you do go for a walk in search of original thought, then best to leave the mobile behind. This excellent article warns of the dangers of distraction: living online rather than going online now and then.

More airport ideas

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Hot on the heels of my last post about airports, here's another super smart piece of advertising, this time from Samsonite.

Do you remember those 'My other car is a Porsche' stickers? I'd guess the creative people who thought this one up did. Samsonite suitcases are durable - we all know that if prompted, but is it really top of mind, outside the holiday season?

The idea, created by Publicis Paris, was to offer free luggage wrapping (SAMSO'WRAP) to people with other makes of suitcase at Palma airport. This was on the condition that they were prepared to act as ambassadors for the brand, as the wrapping carried the message 'I wish I had a Samsonite.' So this would be seen by all as they rolled their nicely-wrapped bags through the airport terminal and beyond.

What I like most here is the thinking. It doesn't start with budget or media. It starts with thinking about people and where they are likely to be receptive to the message. Brands today spend a lot of time on the internet - indeed, most of today's really big brands didn't exist or couldn't have existed pre-internet (amazon, Google, airbnb, Facebook, Uber).

But I think tangible brands, especially when they are talking about something physical and experiential, such as strength and durability, need presence in the real world, in exactly the right place at the right time. This cheekily provocative idea is worth so much more than a beautifully produced film featuring hundreds of tap-dancing elephants on a suitcase - because it is connected 100% to real life.

I think it's an open and shut case.

A winning idea?

As we're right in the thick of holiday time, I thought I'd look at a couple of ads associated with airports. The first one is First Flight, Heathrow's first ever TV ad, to celebrate the airport's 70th birthday. Using the tried and tested John Lewis formula of a cute kid and music to pull at the heartstrings, this is the story of a first flight through the eyes of a little girl with an owl trolley and a very fetching pilot's cap.

It's a watchable enough ad, but I'm not sure it really captures the magic in the way it should. Is flying still as magical as it was when I was a young lass, when we'd go to the Queen's Building as a day out, just to watch planes take off and land? This film doesn't show anything of the crowds, the delays, the mangled and lost luggage, the confiscated drinks and children's scissors (I speak from experience ...)

But, OK. I still think it's a brave thing for Heathrow to do, especially in these times of terrorist threat. And it's marvellous to hear that Bowie track again.

My second example is something I saw on my way back from a week away on business, when I arrived back at Frankfurt. An ad for the Bad Homburg Casino in the baggage hall. I hope my pictures will do it justice:

A baggage carousel disguised as a roulette wheel. OK, again the cynical may say that putting your luggage in the hold is a bit of a gamble, but I don't care.

After a long and hard week away, this idea, involving no apps or digital cleverness simply made me smile.

Good one.

Reuse, recycle, resauna

Some of my favourite new product ideas are actually old product ideas.

In other words, new uses for old or obsolete products. I've seen telephone boxes used as mini libraries, bags made of old lifejackets, airline drinks trolleys for the home bar, old boats converted into bookcases (although I'm not convinced the boats in question have ever sailed) and even old skis used as signposts.

Talking of ski-ing, the latest idea to catch my eye is Saunagondel, where old ski lift gondolas are converted into mobile electric saunas. They're available to rent or buy and can be used more or less anywhere. Quite the thing for the stylish exhibitionist.

I'm convinced this is an area where brands could do more. It sends such a positive message when new uses are found for something old, with a little ingenuity. One of my pet peeves is the short lifespan of electronics - TVs, printers, scanners, computers and so on. The old ones are difficult to dispose of and no-one wants to repair anything any more.

Or there's my current favourite jewellery - made from old Nespresso capsules.

Put a tiger in the bank

Brands have long used symbols from the animal world in their logos, names and advertising. Animals are universal symbols, and can quickly convey a host of easily-understood values or characteristics. From the bears on Hofmeister beer and Fox's Glacier Mints, to the black horse used by Lloyds Bank, the Peugot lion, or the Andrex puppy, animals are used to convey anything from strength to softness, to cleverness.

One of the most popular animals used as a symbol is the tiger. My childhood memories include the famous 'put a tiger in your tank' from Esso and Tony, the Kellogg's Frosties tiger. But sadly, the number of tigers in the wild is now far fewer than in those days, with the numbers left in the low thousands. Tigers are on the brink of extinction.

When I published my children's book The Bother in Burmeon , whose storyline involves rescuing a tiger from a most horrible fate as a tiger skin rug, I decided to donate some  of the royalties to a tiger charity, and chose Tiger Awareness.

I am now very pleased to see a great idea from the Panthera conservation organisation: Tiger Royalty. 
This is one of those ideas that's just so brilliant and spot-on that I'm amazed no-one has thought of it before - royalties for tigers from all the tiger-inspired brands and products that are produced around the world, an artistic rights fee for tigers that goes towards the funding of Panthera's Tigers Forever Program.

As Tony the Frosties tiger would have said - That's Terrrrrific!

It is Christmas Day in the Workshop

If I could pick what has been the biggest change in the way marketing and advertising people work over the last twenty-five years or so, I'd have to say that it's the rampant rise of the workshop. Since I've been freelance, the majority of requests that come in are for designing and running workshops.

I looked at my trusty Oxford Dictionary (published in the 1980s), and at this point, the main definition of 'Workshop' referred to 'a room or building in which manufacture is carried out'. Maybe that's why I have always associated the word with the grim connotations of 'Workhouse'. There's a secondary definition, which does suggest a 'meeting of several persons for intensive discussions, seminars, learning' but the emphasis here is on something extra, for educational purposes.

These days, workshops seem ubiquitous. I have even heard 'workshop' used as a verb - 'let's workshop it.' What did we do before workshops? Well, we did have plenty of brainstorms, but I notice these have gone rather out of favour. The post-its, the flip charts, the marker pens are now the weapons of choice of the workshop facilitator.

With colleagues working on a project often dispersed geographically, one reason that workshops have gained popularity must be the need to use the limited time that people are together, face to face, wisely and effectively. There's a worry that a free-flowing discussion, or a simple meeting won't be productive, therefore the need for more planning and structure.

While this makes sense in a lot of cases, and a well-conceived, designed and run workshop should yield results, I'm sure we've all experienced so-called workshops that have over-run, gone off on another tangent, provided reams of indecipherable post-its, or have simply confirmed one or two lowest common denominators, aka 'alignment'.

Often these workshops are ineffective and focus on consensus rather than brilliance due to a lack of clarity at the outset of what the purpose is. For me, brainstorms are about ideas, while workshops are about specific solutions to specific questions. It's a bit like qualitative and quantitative research.

Before we go into automatic pilot and 'workshop it' - we should ask ourselves: what is 'it'? What is the question we want to find a solution to? Is a workshop the best way of doing this?

Or should we have a brainstorming session, or simply a good old-fashioned meeting?

Wherefore art thou Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth ...?

AXE. Romeo Reboot Manuel | Trailer (english) from THE KUMITE on Vimeo.

Hot on the heels of the ad that writes itself (see previous post) comes the personalised ad, from Axe in Brazil. The brand has created 100,000 versions of its Romeo Reboot commercial via programmatics (yes, I know, I don't have a clue what that is, either.)

Four broad audience segments have been identified - based on music taste and previous purchase - with four top filmmakers each shooting their own version of the film. Within each of these, various scenes can be personalised, leading to 100,000 permutations in all.

This is, without doubt, impressive.

But is it yet another case of doing something just because you can? Something in this reminds me of those children's books where you can choose which way the plot turns at a number of points. And although these have an undoubted novelty effect, in the end most children would rather be reading Harry Potter.

Technology can never be a substitute for a great idea, based on human insight, that unites people - whatever their taste in music, deodorants or Shakespearean heroes.

Ads that write themselves?

I wrote a little while back about the brilliant idea of a coffee poster that started an outbreak of yawning on the Brazilian subway. Still on the theme of coffee, and posters, comes what's being hailed as the world's first artificially intelligent poster campaign. Rather an unfortunate choice of words there - I would hope that the world has already seen many, many non-artificially intelligent poster campaigns.

Anyway, it has been created by M&C Saatchi in London for a fictional coffee brand, Bahio, and it's a poster that evolves according to how people react to it facially. This goes on for a month until the 'best' ad evolves through a kind of high-speed natural selection.

You can read more in this article but I thought I'd list some of the key principles at work here:
- Darwinian natural selection
- powered by a genetic algorithm
- analyses strength
- 1,000 images/fonts/layouts/copy
- length of engagement ... and so on and so forth.

Human creativity and judgement seem to be absent, apart from thinking up the whole thing in the first place.

Creative nightmare or the way to the future?