What’s wrong with advertisers and agencies, can’t we come up with anything original? Just a while ago I listed advertisers who had all gone silly with the domino effect. An another stupid trend to follow right now is typography flying and rotating in accordance to monotonic speech and music. I found about 50 commercials from YouTube mimicing this “cool” trend. I mean riding a trend is something but to do the 50th same ad, hello, differentiation anyone?
Few examples:
we all want to look like the cool kids on campus. i see the same trend of me-too in fashion, hair styles, automotive designs, even with food. seems like every type of restaurant has “sliders” on their menu these days. every hipster, ad guy rocks some form of the faux-hawk do, messenger bag, etc. they’re all looking at the same director reels, editors, photographers, etc. remember when every print ad tried to look like a David LaChappelle ad for Diesel? for an industry that is supposed to be creative and stand-out, we all just pretty much blend into the same bowl of “creativity soup.”
By: windo on November 19, 2008
at 4:27 am
It´s not easy to be original in advertising. The whole nature of advertising is more like manipulated echoes from life, culture and common situations for stereotypical people.
But when advertising is echo from another ad, we ad people get annoyed. Consumers don´t care, unless it´s a really really really bad rip-off.
Of course originality is one goal. Like in everything else, it would be nice to be “first one”.. Like Steve Jobs quotes Wayne Gretzky, ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been.’ Well, we try!
Here is more not so original ads:
http://www.joelapompe.net/
By: Adele on November 19, 2008
at 4:13 pm
So, I guess as long as the public and the target group doesn’t know you’re making something for the 50th time and still see it as cool, you’re okay. But, with today’s knowledgeable web audience its increasingly a risk. It’s easier to lose credibility than create it.
Of course, not everyone is for differentiation and original stuff. Naked Communication agency’s Farid Yakob thinks (and his blog is also named that), “talent imitates, genius steals.”
The blog is a good reading as well; farisyakob.typepad.com/
By: Sami Salmenkivi on November 19, 2008
at 4:44 pm
@adele: i really love your phrase “manipulated echos…”
@sami: i have to agree w/adele on the comment of ‘consumers don’t care.’ sometimes we in the ad biz take our work so seriously, which is fine for feeling good about the work that we produce, but does it really matter to the john Q public? i’ve never met anyone outside the biz who paid attention to ads nearly or a fraction as much as we do. and if they are web savvy enough to see a resemblance in an F150 truck ad to the starbuck’s ad, do they really care? is it just a fleeting observation and they go on with their business of work, play, eat, sleep?
as long as the message that you are trying to communicate connects with the audience is what we are always setting out to do. whatever cute, trendy, gimmick we use to get the message across can be debated among our agency peers, whether good or bad. clients are gonna want work that moves the needle for them. consumers, if they are looking at ads, they’re most likely gonna look at the ones that make them feel, respond, act.
thanks for the opportunity to join in the discussion. cheers.
By: windo on November 20, 2008
at 3:32 am
I’ve been struggling with the same thoughts: to what extent does the difference between copying and innovation matter when you’re talkin to large audiences? A lot of them won’t know the difference. And the ones that do, well their thoughts are the product of cultural sharing/influence/copying as well. I’ve found it misleading to think of innovation as such a pure thing. We strive for new ideas, yes, but they only have meaning in the context of older, repeated ideas.
Quite a struggle, great thoughts by all.
By: Kyle Studstill on November 20, 2008
at 4:02 am
Have you noticed that one of the biggest blogs in design is borrowing your content, Sami?
http://www.presentationzen.com/
By: Zape on December 1, 2008
at 4:07 pm
Zape: Thanks for pointing out. I’m going to go and say that we had a lively conversation about the topic here already.
(Here’s the permalink for future reference: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2008/11/kinetic-typography-more-examples.html)
By: Sami Salmenkivi on December 1, 2008
at 5:03 pm