Despite what many think, advertising – and planners in general – like to talk about honesty.
What’s really going on in our audience’s mind.
What really will make a difference in their life.
What really they will respond to.
And while many may think that’s total bollocks, the fact is – in the main – it’s done with good intention.
But because of the way our industry works and the expectations placed upon us by clients, we tend to be quite one dimensional and obvious in our ‘honesty’ … where the backbone for our recommendation is based on identifying one thing that will sell our clients brand/benefit in a way that will reach the most people as possible.
And that’s good.
Except by looking for that one thing, we ignore all the other things that could add more texture and intrigue and perspective to what we’re trying to do. The other things that may actually attract people interests rather than continually trying to chase after them.
The reason I say this is because I recently read an article about David Hockney.
For those who don’t know who he is, he is a British artist who is renowned for his art and his pugnaciousness.
Anyway the article says this:
DAVID HOCKNEY: YOU’VE GOT TO BE HONEST
David Hockney has never been troubled by criticism, says Tim Lewis in The Observer.
Even in his youth – a gay, grammar-school boy from Bradford – he was protected by his own confidence.
“When I first got to the Royal College of Art, people used to mock me: ‘Trouble at t’mill, Mr Ormondroyd’, stuff like that, but I’d look at their drawings and think: ‘If I drew like that, I’d keep my mouth shut.’”
He wasn’t scared of being openly gay, either. “I thought ‘I’m going to be an artist, I have to be honest. We lived in bohemia, and bohemia is a tolerant place. There was a bohemia then. There isn’t now because you need cheap places for bohemia, don’t you?”
He loves to smoke – not least because it annoys “dreary health-freaks”.
“One time …” he relates, “… I was walking in Holland Park and I stopped to watch some rabbits playing”.
“I sat on a seat watching and then some magpies came down, black and white birds, and they looked rather good. I was sitting there having a cigarette and three girls come running by, jogging, and they see me and come: ‘Ow, ow …’ [he wags his finger] … and I sat there and thought ‘They think they are very healthy, but they haven’t seen the rabbits.’ And I thought: ‘I’m healthier than they are.’”
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So remember, next time you are given a planning project … don’t blindly follow the path that you’re being led down, look for the rabbits.