One of the things I’ve found fascinating over the past few years is watching consultancies AND platforms mock the value of advertising and then increasingly try and enter that space.
And while you could argue it’s because they saw an opportunity to do it ‘properly’, the way they have embraced it – and executed it – has shown they seem to want to be more like the beast they wanted to slay than the beast they are.
What do I mean?
Go to Cannes and the whole place has been taken over by corporations.
All the best locations, beaches, hotels are the domain of tech, consultancies and platforms.
Now you could say that’s because they’re the ones with all the money – and that’s true – but what is amusing is WHAT they do.
Because rather than reflect ‘a better way to do what those ad agencies used to do’ … they seem to be doing the same thing ad agencies used to do.
Parties.
Give-aways.
Celebrity talks.
Expensive dinners.
In fact the only thing that is different is how desperately bad their attempts to show ‘they’re creativity’ actually are.
Nothing brought this home more than a poster I recently saw promoting an advertising festival.
An advertising festival representing the ‘modern’ world of the industry.
This was it …
What. The. Hell?
Seriously … what is it?
I’m not just talking about the design and colour palette that could make a 1987 acid house party feel embarrassed … I’m talking about all of it.
The email automation masterclass.
The ‘scale your YouTube’ talk.
The $15 million ad storytelling formula class.
And let’s not forget the ‘thumb-stopping’ direct response scripts.
Look, I get small business may get something out of some of this.
And I appreciate there are many elements to run a successful business.
But this all comes across as used car salesman shit.
Worse, used car salesman shit where their office is a portacabin on a muddy industrial estate in Slough.
In all seriousness, what I find astounding is this must be what the people behind this conference must think is creativity. And don’t get me started on what it says about the people presenting there.
I include Scott Galloway who said ‘brands are dead’ and then not only invests in elevating his own brand, but starts selling courses on how to approach better brand strategy.
[For the record, I respect Scott Galloway hugely but when he said that – like when Mark Ritson said his advertising course was a ‘mini MBA’, when it is nothing at all like a MBA – I couldn’t help but feel their focus was becoming more about building their own cult than building better marketers. In fact, given their approaches have now been so optimised, systemised and codified … you could argue it’s actually undermining brand building because everyone is following the same approach and the result is passive corporate conformity. But I digress …]
I guess what I’m saying is that for all the smarts of modern marketing, the people behind this conference – and potentially the people at it – are revealing they know jack-shit about creativity or culture.
And you know what? That would be fine if they didn’t pretend they otherwise.
But for all their big Cannes events … agency buy-outs … and talk about advertising, the reality is they view creativity as a ‘wrapper’ for their engineering type processes.
A belief there is a singular approach to engage and grow – regardless of audience or category. That the features around a brand are more important than the brand. Or as I told WARC, that the condiments are more valuable than the steak.
Do not get me wrong, advertising has a lot of problems.
It’s got a lot it can learn from platforms and consultancies.
But at our best, we know how to use the power of creativity and culture in ways so many of thehaven’t got a clue about.
Now some may say that statement shows how out of date I am.
How contemporary business doesn’t care about all that.
And maybe that’s right … but while I could point out the vast majority of brands who are infectious to culture were not born anywhere near a ‘consultants proprietary marketing playbook’ … all I have to do is point at the AdWorld poster and say, “Look at that shit”.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there will be a bunch of valuable stuff at the conference.
I am sure it will attract tens of thousands of people.
It may make the organisers a shit-ton of cash.
But for all the smarts appearing at Adworld, they sure as shit don’t have any appreciation of style. And I would like to point out that I say this as someone who was wearing an ironic Celine Dion T-shirt when I typed this.
And with that, I wish you a good weekend … which only gets better for you when I let you know there is a national holiday here on Monday so there will be no post till Tuesday [I know, I just had 2 days off for national holiday – deal with it] … so with that, I leave you with a sneak-peak of the Adworld virtual after party dance floor.
