Belly of the Beast

There was a campaign a couple of years back for Holiday Inn Express in which ordinary people do jobs for which they are supremely unqualified—brain surgery, nuclear reactor maintenance etc.—and perform perfectly, thanks solely to a good night’s sleep.

In the real world, of course, this doesn’t happen—just ask Michael Brown, late head of FEMA. But we tend to forgive the hyperbole because, well, it’s advertising.

Advertising conceived, written, filmed and edited by professionals.

All of which makes the current rage to hand over the responsibility for the creation of advertising to the people being advertised to, very weird indeed.

Some seriously big-time advertisers are doing it, like Mastercard and Chevy. The thinking, I guess, is: everyone (that is, everyone under 30) is comfortable with the technology of content creation, so let them have at it. Let consumers “define the brands on their own terms” as the planners would say.

I would say: not so fast.

First of all, there’s a big difference between creating content and creating ads. People make mixes and movies and FaceBook shrines because it’s all about them, and it’s fun. Who’s going to spend quality time, on their own dime, creating something that, if it came from anybody else, they’d try to avoid?

People who are trying to become ad professionals, that’s who.

Or people looking to game the process with snarky sendups. Just ask Chevrolet, whose DIY Tahoe campaign resulted in a deluge of “Tahoe Sucks” ad parodies posted for public viewing.

Then there’s the peculiar spectacle of ad agencies charging clients hefty creative fees for the idea that consumers should supply the creative. That is, if I may say so, totally meta. Agencies are having a hard enough time justifying their existence. Acting like ten percenters for unpaid consumer creative honchos doesn’t help.

Finally, there’s the uncomfortably undemocratic fact that most consumer-generated ads suck. Most consumer-generated content in general sucks, but when it’s the movie of your life, or your girlfriend’s, who cares? When it’s a spot for Maalox, and it’s on TV, it’s a different story.

In the early 90s, as interactive technology emerged, industry executives imagined a future where consumers decided the crucial plot turns and outcomes of their favorite shows.

That didn’t happen, and you know why? Because we didn’t want to write our own shows. We wanted to leave it to the pros.

One of two alternate realities about creating effective advertising is true:

1. This is a professional discipline requiring real skills worth paying for.
2. Anyone can do it, and should.

I have to believe it’s No.1. Running “Fill in the blank” ads encourages clients to believe it’s No.2.

I don’t know about you, but I like my ads served straight.

Not “under the radar.”
Not pretending to be blog, chat, tv show, editorial, video game, how-to manual or global positioning applet.

Are you advertising something to me? I want your name, your logo and your real web address.

When someone tells you something useful, or makes you laugh or helps you see things differently, don’t you want to know that person’s name?

What sends a lot of ads into Tivo oblivion isn’t that they’re ads but that they’re boring and stupid. People don’t need to be “disarmed” with unbranded ads masquerading as content. They just need a reason to care about the brand.

In a rare–and somewhat appalling– display of candor, a Citigroup/Smith Barney ad in yesterday’s WSJ explored the possible financial upside of an avian flu pandemic.

Coming as a “strategic brief” from two of their senior research directors, the ad is chillingly nonchalant: “The investing implications of Avian Flu could be large, pandemic or not.”

No doubt true: double-down on Cipro, respirator makers and pork (the other white meat), and you could maybe make a pile if Big Bird hits. How you’d get all that money out of the bank through the hysterical mobs and the National Guard tanks is another story. But that’s where smart financial advisors can make all the difference!

That big red Citigroup umbrella sure covers a pretty broad spectrum. On one end you’ve got Citibank, whose message that life matters more than money is conveyed beautifully in its “Live Richly” campaign. On the other, you’ve got Smith Barney, whose perhaps inadvertent message is neatly captured in the title of their FREE report: “Avian Flu: Science, Scenarios & Stock Ideas.”

Today on the Times Square Shuttle my subway car was given over to the latest round of Continental Airlines ads–the “Work Hard. Fly Right.” campaign that’s run since 1998.

I was the creative director on this campaign at Ayer. Not the writer–Jack Cardone wrote the line. Not the art director–Mike Grieco developed the blue field/gold globe/white type look.
And they run the business creatively to this day, now at Kaplan Thaler.

I did what creative directors on big brands do: picked the winner out of the line-up, got everyone saluting internally, sold it to the client, sold it to the client’s resentful international agency roster and fought off the forces of re-think during the campaign’s infancy.

Seeing the work in the subway–hell, getting on a Continental flight and looking at the cocktail napkin–is an odd experience. I see the whole back-story: the brief, the tissues up on the wall, Gordon Bethune, then-CEO of Continental, laughing and cussing. I feel an intimate connection to this work. But it’s a ghostly connection. These ads live on, but in a different plane of existence than mine.

All creatives who have contributed to long-lasting campaigns have had this feeling–like they’re Alec Baldwin and Gina Davis walking around their house in Beetlejuice. It’s both gratifying and creepy when work lives on after you have moved on.

An advertising copywriter starting a blog.
Talk about late to the party.

I feel like the last creative to use morphing in the 80s.
Or the creative force behind the umpteenth “mockumentary” campaign in the 90s.

But hey.

Unless I write something interesting, the only one who will know that I’m dipping my virtual toe into the datastream is me.

And if I do write something worth reading, linking, responding to, well then:
I’m not too late.