Hula hoops and the heart of a brand
If you believe the Miami Ad School, the main ingredients for advertising genius is hula hooping, ping pong playing and midday beer drinking. At a recent Triangle Ad Club gathering, we listened to a recruiter tell us how they’re shaping the next creative generation through “pop culture engineering.” The international school’s sites replicate the environment of advertising shops such as Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO, Young & Rubicam and other younger boutiques. They must be doing something right — the school boasts it’s been named the best ad school in the world by the Gunn Report.
It was in sharp contrast to another Ad Club event just one week earlier — a showing of the film Art & Copy. This clear-eyed documentary recounts the early glory days of ‘60s advertising through the memories of those who made it happen: Dan Wieden, Hal Riney, George Lois, Mary Wells, Lee Clow. When you think of the impact of their campaigns — iconic messages that transformed our culture like "Just Do It," "Got Milk?” “Think Different” and “Where's the Beef?” — it’s hard to imagine that their inspiration came in mid-hula hoop. More likely, it was mid-scotch.
But they certainly weren’t sitting around thinking about how many times to work in the client name or to show the product. As Liz Dolan, former head of marketing at Nike, pointed out, these great ads went beyond selling products to touch a universal human nerve. They simply connected the brand to a simple emotional truth and let it resonate.
The juxtaposition of these two events jolted me a bit. Yes, it seems we’re pandering to advertising neophytes — creativity and play are the same thing! Just goof off and turn out zillions of big ideas! Umm, no, it doesn’t quite work that way. You definitely need a strategy that's grounded in research and thoughtful understanding of the product/service/message.
But the deeper message is this: While it’s absolutely necessary to study the project brief to understand our client’s objective, that’s really just the launching point. Great creative concepts don’t come from following a strict paint-by-numbers formula. Sometimes you have to escape the actual assignment and think about what an ordinary person cares about and tell a story. Maybe it's about running out of milk. Or turning running into a metaphor for tackling life’s worthiest challenges. That's what produces memorable ads that go beyond selling to build a brand. And that kind of creativity can be messy, ungainly and utterly vulnerable — like letting loose with your inner hula hoop.
Comments
Maybe we need more things like hula hooping and walking around the building instead of drinking beer and eating chips. A healthy body is a healthy mind. I'll take a walk around the building right after I finish this pizza left over from a meeting.
I thought a 3 martini lunch was the source of great copy and creativity, at least that's what I learned from watching Mad Men.
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