The Tuesday Rant: Where are the Words?

By / July 15, 2008 /

Volume 1 In a Series By Felix

Back in 1998 I remember seeing a screensaver running across the Mac displays at BBH, London. It was a simple phrase – “Words are a barrier to communication.” Nice, punchy, very BBH, but there was one slight, ironic problem – if words are such a barrier to communication, why was the message written as a sentence? Is it because trying to say that with pictures or symbols would take some serious effort? And the skills of a cunning Art Director?

A long time ago my idol Bill Bernbach said, “It’s not just what you say that stirs the people, it’s the way you say it.” These days though, advertising has become more like, “It’s not just what you show that stirs the people, it’s the way you show it.” Flicking through design annuals and ad blogs, we’re bombarded with ads that are visual puns or twists, with a logo stamped in the lower right-hand corner.

Clearly, we’re all adopting this BBH mentality some 10 years after I first saw it. Copywriters these days seem to be going the way of the DoDo, unless they know how to mash together two visuals in some funky way. It’s not difficult. If you’re selling really fresh canned fruit, simply cut the can in half to reveal a slice of orange or kiwi. Clever right? Maybe you’re a burger chain that sells coffee. Try turning a coffee bean on its side… see, it looks like a burger. Now go get some polish for your shiny award.

Another idol of mine, Neil French, wrote a terrific ad about this with the headline, “Don’t bother to read this ad, the picture’s missing.” It was an ad for Ibid, a stock library. And as far as I know, it got tremendous response. Hey, it won a gong or two as well. And there wasn’t a convoluted shoot or piece of Photoshop magic anywhere. But then again, that was aimed at people in the industry, and we can read… the general public obviously can’t judging by what I’m seeing the ad industry pump out daily.

I’m often told that advertising has changed because we’re just too busy to read. Try telling that one to J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. Or, that we’re inundated with hundreds of ads every single day, and so they need to be simple to have impact. But how can they have impact if they all look the same?

When I look at some of the ads that got me into this business, like the classic VW work, Chivas Regal (David Abbott, Neil French) or the Avis campaign, and then I look at what we’re all producing now, my shoulders droop. Then my eye starts twitching, with that psychopathic wink made so famous by Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies. Is this the evolution of advertising? It seems more like a recession to me.

But when we live in a world where the number one song is by a pre-pubescent looking mall creature singing “I Kissed A Girl” then I guess we’re all just responding to a market that has truly rejected words and logic in favor of a pretty picture with the depth of a puddle. It’s what I call the Paris Hilton effect – nice to look at, but there’s nothing under the surface. And after a few minutes in its vapid presence, you want to stab it repeatedly with a rusty X-Acto knife.

I hope one day history will repeat itself and we’ll go back to an age of advertising that uses reason, logic and product benefits to sell; something that tells you why to buy, not just what to buy. Until then, I suppose I’ll keep fighting the fight for better ads with compelling headlines and interesting copy. I don’t expect to win it anytime soon.

Felix.

P.S. If you’ve managed to get this far, you’ve just read more words than are usually printed in about 100 of today’s ads combined. You may feel dizzy, but this will pass.