Ruthless slayers of advertising.

I‘m tired of hearing people proclaiming the death of advertising.
My guess is I’m not the only one.
Truth to be told, the grim reapers of this industry have been around since
Don Draper wore diapers, predicting the future with the finesse of an elephant
in ballet slippers.
First, what is advertising?
It’s the art of persuasion, making people buy your subjective view on reality.
And why does advertising work again?
Simply because the reality is more complex than the human senses can grasp.
People will always buy the interpretation that best fits their perception of truth.
Be it new. Or exciting. Or funny. But it always has to be authentic.

Once upon a time, radio was going to kill print advertising.
Well, it didn’t.
Then television entered the scene as the ruthless slayer of radio ads.
It didn’t happen either.
When I started in this business I heard lot of of jinx about video killing tv.
Guess what? Tv is more popular than ever.
Then came the banner ads, the final nail in the advertising coffin.
The result? People hardly noticed the banners.
Because the banners were even more intrusive than the traditional advertising.

A few years later we were hit by a new technological revolution.
Social media was expected to forever change the rules of advertising.
It was regarded as the consumer’s final weapon against intrusive advertising.
Suddenly people had the power to block out all advertising, except the kind they really wanted to embrace.
We will soon remember this era as the weird days of interactive advertising.
In which the main idea was that everybody would love to talk to their peers about
the brands they like, interact with them, and gather in huge fan groups.
And yes, the consumers did interact – but not with brands. Only with each other.
(Except the one-in-a-million brand that were already of cult status.)
Fact one, these conversations are almost never about brands.
Fact two, people have always been able to block out bad advertising.
It’s called the RAS. I.e. the reticular activating system.
This is a part of the mammalian brain located in the brain stem, which uncounsiously lets you block out irrelevant ads.

Then came YouTube and put a new buzzword on the agency agenda.
All of a sudden everybody was buzy making a viral success.
But it wasn’t long before people got their head around the fact that a viral video
has a death rate that would make Pol Pot look like mother Theresa.
Speaking about crap, when the ad-space is free it gets crowded fast.
And ninety-nine percent of that space is filled with… you guessed it right:
Crap.
Crap costs money.
Which is usually the case with the overrated Anderson idea of ”the long tail” and
the concept of ”free”.
These might work perfectly for a few companies.
But for the average business owner it’s just fancy words for a crappy model.

Yes, there is a pattern here.
The advertising apocalypses is always sparked by technical developments.
The lesson here is that tech is not the solution.
We have to learn that technological advances are only means to and end.
And the end is always persuasion. The art of making people believe you.
Because you can’t trick yourself inside a persons mind.
There are no shortcuts. No free lunches.
You have to charm your way in.
If you’re dishonest, out of sync, irrelevant, boring, greedy, or plain stupid,
you’re not going anywhere, except spending the clients money.

Contrary to popular social media-opinion, making people to like ads isn’t
exactly new. It isn’t forced into existence by the digital technology.
It’s the timeless, immutable rule of all advertising.
Bernbach used to talk about this. So did Hopkins, and so are we.
It’s just that competition stiffens day by day and makes this increasingly
harder to accomplish. Regardless of media.

Have a look at the ancient, traditional ad above, made by DDB New York.
It was made more than fifty years ago.
Then ask yourself if this ad could work today.
I think it could.
The noble art of persuasion isn’t dead. Not in a million years.
It’s vibrant, constantly adapting, and as tenacious as mankind itself.
And the reason for this is very simple.
We see ourselves in it.