A good Norm
I'm befuddled by one peculiar aspect of advertising.
For a business which is supposedly full of mavericks and creative thinkers, it loves convention.
There seems to be a herding instinct in the business, where everyone gravitates towards one way of doing things.
Maybe it's just lack of imagination?
Think of all the unspoken,
accepted norms in the business.
There's a way that car advertising should look and behave.
There's a way to make an online brand name memorable.
There's a kind of work that wins creative awards.
The tag line should come at the end of a TV ad.
Beer advertising should be matey.
There's no difference between products.
The USP is no longer relevant.
Planners write the briefs.
A brand ad is worthy, a direct response ad is dirty.
No one reads copy anymore.
One big idea is better than lots of smaller ideas.
Young is good, old is bad.
Featuring the product is lame.
Ok, so that's just a few pretty crap examples, but you get the idea.
We are surrounded by hundreds of accepted norms that shape the way that we approach advertising. They influence the way that we even
approach approaching advertising.
Then there are a whole other level of conventions that were going on without me realising, (until we set up Sell! Sell! that is) - accepted norms on a business scale.
How many people you need in an ad agency.
What kind of people should be in an agency.
How you should court the industry press.
How you should grow.
How you should charge for your work.
How you should behave towards clients.
Some conventions and accepted norms are based on common sense and good experience.
But many are just the result of bad habits and lazy thinking.
It's in the nature of the human brain to create patterns of behaviour, and the same is true for thinking.
We all know that creative thinking, if properly applied can make advertising work harder.
But by nature, we revert to old ways of solving problems unless we always actively question what we're doing, and question what is accepted.
Advertising should be a business of questioning and challenging. Of constantly interrogating convention and accepted norms to find a way of gaining an advantage for our clients over their competitors.
Yet it sometimes feels like, as a business, it's bound by and adheres to conventions and accepted norms like a fusty old gentleman's club.
Since the beginning of the year we've been working with the lovely people over at MyBuilder.com, developing a new ad campaign for them. That will come later in the year, but in the meantime, here is a tactical double page ad we've produced for them to go in At Home magazine this month. The idea was to replicate a full spread from a directory, the traditional place where people go to randomly find a builder. So, lots of fun inventing fake builders names, and replicating the unique style of directory ads. Which came a bit too easy, it has to be said.
