Let me start by saying I have a lot of respect for Charles and Maurice Saatchi.
What they did … the legacy they created … is, even now, amazing.
Their agency was responsible for so many of the ads that went on to define my childhood – both in good and bad ways – however, as I got older and entered the industry, I started to understand just how audacious they were in terms of what they thought the ad industry could be. And do.
Back then, their mantra was ‘Nothing Is Impossible’.
And they certainly lived up to it.
But while this led to some truly incredible work, it also led to the brothers ultimate downfall when they tried – amazingly and brilliantly – to buy Midland Bank.
There have been many reasons written about why their plan didn’t work out … and what happened subsequently … but I have to say, I’d imagine working for them at the time – with their sheer confidence, swagger and ambition – would have felt pretty intoxicating.
However this post isn’t about that, it’s about what happens when, in your quest to keep moving forward, you lose your values or self awareness and end up being a caricature of what you once were.
I’ve seen it happen.
I once worked with an advertising great who ended up believing everything they did was great, simply because they did it.
It didn’t take long before they were phoning in their work.
Not caring about what was going on around them.
Saying whatever they wanted because they believed whatever they said was wanted.
It was pretty tragic and I remember a very horrible conversation between us, where I said he had become the beast he had been obsessed with slaying.
It didn’t go well for me.
And, within a year, it didn’t go well for him … when his deluded arrogance took a step too far and his actions and behaviors couldn’t be ignored any longer.
Nowadays I occasionally see him spouting racist shit about immigration and foreign workers, which I find even more shocking given he spent so many years living across the World, not to mention – if rumours are to be believed – doing unspeakable things with certain people when he was in Asia.
But this isn’t a post about an old, short-lived, delusional colleague – nor it is to suggest the Saatchi brothers are anything like my old, delusional colleague … however this is about the moment [at least for me] when the Saatchi brothers revealed they may have not grown with the times, but were lost in old times.
This.
It was early Jan, 1990.
Saatchi was – I believe – the biggest agency in the World.
And the World was changing.
The party of the 80’s was over and everyone was trying to work out what the next decade had in store. One thing that had already started to happen was the fall of communism.
Protests had been happening throughout 1989 and they continued to gain momentum when, in November of that year, The Berlin Wall – a symbol of Communist/Western ideals – fell.
And it was on that wall Saatchi had placed that ad.
Not on the Western side, but the Eastern.
It wasn’t up for long, but they paid to have it there.
A way of showing their mantra.
An act of deliberate provocation for shock value.
An attempt to keep the spirit of 80’s excess alive.
A claim it was welcoming East German’s to independence and choice.
But the problem was, it wasn’t the 80’s anymore and so it came off as an act of commercial vulgarity. An act of cynical shamelessness to try and capture the headlines. And suddenly, the agency that could do no wrong suddenly went from being audacious to trying too hard.
Or said another way, Saatchi’s were trying to hold on to the past rather than lead the future.
Can you imagine an agency doing that now?
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of them out there that have a complete lack of self awareness … not to mention another bunch whose entire business model appears to be ‘doing things first’ … regardless of its value to culture, creativity or commerce … however I doubt even those guys would think doing this would be a good idea today.
Or at least I hope not.
And that’s why I believe a positioning is not as good as a point of view.
Because positioning’s are set in stone.
They don’t move with the times … they stand firm, shouting their same tune regardless of what is going on. But a point of view is different. There’s flex in that. It lets you express what you believe, but how you express it is shaped by what is going on around it.
There’s longevity in a point of view.
There’s resonance in a point of view.
There’s less need to shock, because you always speak what others are trying to say.
Saatchi’s continue to do great work.
Saatchi’s continues to be filled with great people.
But I’ll always wonder what they could have been if they’d not crossed the line from audacious to caricature.
You can read the story of the Berlin Wall ad, here.