Advertising is dead….
One of my feeds recently alerted me to the existence of the Anti-Advertising Agency – ‘culture jammers’ who view advertising as ‘corporate graffiti’, sullying our environment at least as much as the spray can variety.
I have some sympathy with this view. It is arguable that being able to recognise advertising as such, already diminishes its effectiveness. Being able to instantly categorise a message as ‘advertising’ necessarily inserts a filter between us and the message, which of course is why market researchers are asked to evaluate ad effectiveness with reference to ‘engagement’, ‘enjoyment’ and so on.
Advertising as we know it, has been around for a long time. It was born in an era where people were hungry for, and accepting of, product messages. We live in more cynical (or maybe enlightened) times. Consumers know advertising when they see it, and the only real question is whether they are prepared flirt with it and maybe allow a little seduction to take place.
The game is getting a little long in the tooth. Too many clients seem to think that ad recall is the same thing as effectiveness (yes I know you have to be in it to win it), and too many research companies, with ad tracking products to sell, collude in this myth.
The result is a lot of obvious ads doing the same thing to be different. We, the consumer, are being bombarded with obvious messages at visually deafening levels.. subtle it ain’t and interesting it mos’ def is not.
So bring on the Anti-advertising agency (who by the way, are conducting quite an effective awareness campaign) and let’s think about how to make brands interesting without producing billboard graffiti. As a friend of mine said upon finishing Naomi Campbell’s No Logo, ‘advertising is dead, long live advertising’.
