Campaign

I guess you could add many other advertising disciplines to the list of those that have lost their way a bit recently. TV advertising for instance. How often do you ever see one and think 'that was a good use of money'. So much communication seems to simply 'exist' these days. But isn't there another point - that digital (as it was always going to do) has disrupted the functionality of media - sort of buggered them all about a bit. And the dust hasn't really settled yet. So the question of 'can press ads still do what they used to' is a hard one to call - we consume media and messages in such dysfunctional ways these days that you suspect the very purpose of press advertising might even change in the future.

I agree with this point of view, I think that much of the industry's energy at the moment is spent on looking to the future, which automatically means looking at technological and interactive media. I also agree that much of the current mass media that is put into market today is of an average quality at best, and often shows little understanding of how each medium is consumed by real people. I believe that this is because traditionally the startpoint for all media creative has been the TV script. The last ten minutes of the creative pitch to the client being an explanation of how the TV idea can be translated into other mediums. It is rare to see a creative idea that is presented in a medium or channel neutral way. There are of course some agencies that can deliver this, but not many. For this reason many multimedia campaigns are not different representations of a creative idea, that marry with the consumer consumption insight of each respective medium, indeed they are more often than not a mediocre translation into other channels of what was initially a 30" script. For communicaions to develop, irrespective of media platform (print, ambient, iTV whatever) brands need to have a point of view, something to say and creative ideas that are excellent because of their relevance to the consumer and their ability to adapt into the channels that are consumed actively by the consumer.

Wrote 1500 not entirely incompetent words for a Chivas Regal ad last year. Had it art directed. Looked bloody good. But if I'd photographed a turd and set it on the page I think I would have got more support.

Then you must have missed the iPhone spots. The agency-quality ones that caught your attention onTV, that people sent in emails and still looked great in YouTube, that social groups posted links to demos, that stores let people feel and touch-- and hung life like psters in the windows where crowds peered after hours, and the web offered in depth understanding. This is pure Gossage, brilliant in its simplicity yet reminding them of a problem, offering a solution, telling them where to go or what to do next and if you needed a cause as a reason to buy now- it's because I gotta have it. It's customer-centric- it's not about the lighting or the models or the neat effects... it's about making the product easy to understand and want to buy. We forget it's our job to create demand... we've turned this over to the consumer and they don't do it well. Compare to Windows Vista with it's building covers and climbers that left you with no sense of why this is about you-- why you should want to be the first to have it. Everything in the Apple store, site and spots is insync and on message. It's the old rules more broadly applied.