angry blogging, finger wagging, happy happy joy joy

November 1st. This is the piece from today. I've not actually seen a copy of Campaign today, so I guess it might not be in there. But this is what I sent anyway.

One of the problems with writing a blog is the phenomenon I think of as 'angry blogging'; you're always on the look out for things to write about, and there's little social pressure not to complain the whole time, so any little slight on contention becomes the trigger for a sustained and unpleasant rant. It's why the blogosphere sometimes looks like a digital version of Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? And a similar thing occurs when you try to write a column. As you wonder how to fill your 460 words every week you quickly realise that the easiest way out is to pick fault, poke holes and point fingers. Let's face it, no-one's going to run out of material pointing out the inadequacies of the advertising industry. But it's starting to bore me, and, I imagine, you. Elementary child psychology tells us that it we want behaviour to improve we don't point out failings and wag our fingers; we point out improvements and lavish lots of praise. And if it's good enough for Dr Tanya Byron it's good enough for me. Because, for all the institutionalised stupidity in advertising, media and the related arts we still support some extra-ordinary talents and some bewitching imaginations.

And, even if I wanted to keep up the downer, (as it were) recent headlines would force me to confront the continued potency of advertising. Google, for instance, have recently hired a bunch of top ad people and are starting to think seriously about how to tackle 'display'. Microsoft are so enamoured of the ad business that they've bought an agency of their own, they've done deals with ITV and they've bought a stake in Facebook; they're convinced that ads will be a significant revenue stream in their immediate future. These are not stupid companies and they are thinking hard about advertising. Now, it's true that when Google and Microsoft talk advertising they're not imagining brand enhancing 60 second TV commercials, they're thinking about functional, transactional, data-driven, click-based communications. But eventually, once every efficiency has been wrung from the web, they'll start to need those skills of imagination, craft and intuition that our funny little industry has so painstakingly acquired. Because although the venture capitalists and MBAs think of web advertising as one huge machine for the rational sorting of functional needs we humble ad folk have learned something more alchemical; how to turn sparks of inspiration into economic drive. A serious overhaul of how advertising gets made is both necessary and inevitable but there's a large and appealing baby in there that we shouldn't lose with all the bath water. That's what I plan to think about in future columns (if Campaign'll still have me.)

Comments

[Paul Fisher]

Terrific post Russell.
As a venture capitalist I felt I needed to add something of a response.

The ad industry is both a massive contributor to UK economy and is also something special in the world of business for its "imagination, craft and intuition"

The point is, VCs are excited by the way that measurable ads are changing the industry and how the performance / web side of advertising is taking market spend away from the traditional ad industry. That's disrupting lots of companies and unsettling lots of execs, and we make money where markets are disrupted.

There's also some wonderful examples of the admen using the web very innovatively: nikeplus probably being the best.

However the ad industry is changing for ever: there will still be room for the innovative creative but my gut tells me advertising is inevitably becoming far more "functional, transactional, data-driven and click-based"

PF

PS. An amusing aside for the uninitiated is that the web is seems to be calling "naked" to some of the emperors clothes that have covered the ad industry for so long.

[David Burn]

Have you noticed that many novels, plays and poems are depressing, rather than uplifting?

It's hard to tell a happy story, and only the most gifted dare to do so.

[fran]

And after the venture capitalist perspective, here the MBA two cents:

I just finished reading "Advertising. Art and Science", by Stephen King. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Class-Brand-Planning-Timeless/dp/0470517913/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/202-9334828-2019860?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194604198&sr=8-1

It was written in 1982, but hey Russell! you should have a read before you embark on your happy happy journey.

[Rodney Tanner]

Good column Russell.
I have just finished this weeks offering for a marketing column I was invited to do for a local English language newspaper in Mexico City and you are so right about being judgmental and pointing fingers. But I learnt very quickly that that is not appreciated. Firstly, from Pat my wife and in home editor, who gets on my case for being cynical and bitter. Second from the business editor, who told me straight that satire and London humor were not appreciated. So luckily non of my rants have ever appeared.
It goes back to a theme you were on about a year ago on "doing interesting things". That is why I started blogging and why I got asked to do the column. So thank you for that:-)
London is a different and much much harder. Wit, disruptive ideas, and justified intellectual outrage are expected.
But the late Phillip Klienman (sp?) managed to be interesting and relevant in his Campaign columns all those years ago, without resorting to outrage, so it can be done.