A long time ago, I met a prospective client who absolutely loved Wieden.
They were besotted with them.
I was at W+K at the time and asked them what it was that they liked about us – expecting them to talk about NIKE or some other global work.
Instead they said this:
“Any agency that can make me care about a brand of milk is genius”.
The ad they were talking about was this:
Now while that was nice to hear, there were 2 things that led to them that point of view.
1. They worked in a different market and category to milk, so the fact they saw this, reinforced the stretch of great creativity.
2. They looked for the brand of milk in their local supermarket … which reflected the stickability of great creativity.
Of course, what they were really saying was the secret to great creativity … and that is it changes how you look at the world.
I say this because I recently saw a great example of it.
It may not have the charm of If Cats Had Thumbs.
And it certainly doesn’t have the budget.
But it’s up there with making you stop, think and reassess.
Isn’t that great?
A simple statement that has changed what I think of door handles and the importance of door handles.
Or said another way, it’s made me care – possibly for the first time in my life – about something I use every day of my life, without fail.
When you consider the ad is simply a photo of a bloody door handle, you not only realise how brilliant the idea of equating it to a ‘good’ handshake is, you realise how shit so much advertising must be when they’ve got tens of millions to spend and they still can’t make something you remember.