If you’re an art director you can work in any country.
If you’re a copywriter, you can’t.
Because at art school you take a class called ‘visual communication’.
You learn to communicate without words.
This is basic semiotics.
The words ‘stop’ and ‘go’ don’t mean anything in Mandarin.
But a little red man standing still, and a little green man walking, mean the same thing in any country.
That’s why the same road signs work in every country in Europe.
Although we can’t understand a word of each others’ languages.
But it’s even more difficult than that for a copywriter.
Not only must they work in their own language.
They must work in their own culture.
I found that in New York.
When I switched from being an art director to a copywriter.
Because I didn’t grow up in America, I had had hardly any ethnic knowledge to draw on.
I didn’t know who Howdy Doody, or Jackie Gleason, or Dick Butkus where.
So I couldn’t write about them.
They didn’t know who Desperate Dan, or Spike Milligan, or Bobby Moore were.
So I couldn’t write about them either.
If you’re still not convinced how important a common language, and a common culture, is consider this.
In 1776 America fought the War of Independence.
After the war, anti-British feeling was naturally very strong.
The 13 colonies had to choose a language for their new country.
The vote was evenly split.
6 votes for English as the national language.
6 votes for German as the national language.
George Washington had the casting vote.
Imagine the history of the world if he’d voted the other way.
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Visuals can be cultural references as well.
A dancing puppet has nothing to do with keeping your brain hydrated unless you’ve seen “Thunderbirds”
No disrespect, Dave but I think your point is valid if you only intend to write using local cultural references. I’m sure it was like that a while ago but now you and I live in a globalized world. Someone in Stoke Newington can relate to ‘Friends’ and a Peruvian can get a laugh watching ‘The Office’ without ever being in ’slough’.
You could run most of The Economist headlines in new york or Singapore. Most Lynx and Sure adverts you see on british tv are made in Argentina. Same for Coke.
In fact, I think depending too much on your cultural references make you a lazy creative. If everything is familiar to you, It’s harder to look at things in a fresh light.
I think a good creative should be able to extract universal truths out of the product he or she is working for.
That’s why Cabral is so damn good. Or David Droga, a guy who has worked in Australia, Singapore, London and NY.
They can’t rely on gimmicks or borrow interest so easily. They have to look for deeper meanings.
But then again, that’s just me.
Ideas need to be recognised by the proletariat no matter what. Cultural references have to be tapped into. Otherwise it’s all generic but then again I’m sure you know that. What’s intriguing me is did you find America to be less fixated with appealing to the youth market? The latest figures here now show that there are more 65 yr olds than 18 yr olds so will agencies start to employ less cheap canon-fodder or should I not hold breath?
A dancing puppet has nothing to do with keeping your brain hydrated except a massive pun…
Viva les Art directors
Hi J.
Good question, it deserves a full answer.
When I left London, all advertising was bland and ‘international’. Everyone had to have the same mid-atlantic accent. Martini ads with beautiful people, that could run in any country.
It was the same all over America, except for Bernbach in New York.
He celebrated ethnic differences, and suddently it was okay to be working class.
He made people proud about what made them different.
I wanted to see that happen in the UK.
So no one would have to be ashamed of having, say, a cockney accent.
I don’t like bland and international.
But the point about Cabral is good because he is, I think, an art director who works in pictures not words.
So they do work everywhere, because pictures are pretty universal.
Hence Mandarin, a written language based on pictures. So all Chinese can read the same language even if they can’t speak Cantonese, or Hokkien, or Shanghainese.
Personally I love the differences. I don’t want one big homogenised European state type society.
I want France to be different to Germany and Italy.
It’s more romantic that way.
It was the same with British music.
It got really good when it stopped trying to be me-too American, and became proud of what made it different: The Beatles, The Stones, The Faces.
I like Duffy singing about the tube at Warwick Avenue, not the subway downtown.
I like what makes people different.
Hi John.
Ever since I came back from America I found Britain youth-fixated.
I got turned down for a CD’s job at Leo Burnett, Chicago because I was a kid of 30.
Over there you weren’t taken seriously until you were 40 or 50.
In London, if you’re not a CD by 30 you’re considered over the hill.
I think both systems are stupid.
You should judge someone by how good they are, not their age, sex, colour, religion, or sexual preference.
In News York, Ed McCabe was the youngest person ever elected to the Advertising Hall of Fame, he was whizz kid of 38.
I once asked Malcolm Gaskin about this.
He said he thought it was because the UK was a much smaller country.
So the only way we could compete with America was novelty, keep changing everything quickly.
Fashion rather than innovation.
Change rather than improvement.
So you get a pretty mindless belief that new is good just because it’s new.
I don’t think new is good.
I don’t think old is good.
I think good is good.
John, I just heard The Zutons on the radio, complaining that their third album wasn’t selling because the public didn’rt think they were young and new and exciting anymore. QED
I’ve had to contend with the exact same issue dave. except i never went home.
I agree with J. Droga and Cabral and I, if i may be so bold, have an edge over the cultures we work in. we’re outsiders. we don’t know the culture innately so we have to rely on simpler human truths. we have to go deeper than “you know that guy who used to be on that show? let’s use him”. we don’t know or care about that guy on that show.
it makes you a better communicator because by definition, you’re different. you actually LIKE baked beans, for example. they don’t.
and mr. gaskin is right about the ageism thing. and the fact that the UK culture turns over a lot quicker than the USA. never thought of it like that but it is true. the UK culture is insanely desperate to embrace the new and jettison the old. to the point where it can be destructive.
btw, wasn’t Ed only 34 when he was elected to the hall of fame? even more depressing.
I know what you’re saying about simple universal human truths Vinnie.
“Wassup” and “We’ll take your pennies” could work anywhere.
But there are some language differences.
I couldn’t have done ‘Gercha’ for Courage Best Bitter in New York.
I couldn’t have done ‘Hello Tosh, Gotta Toshiba’ there either.
Coming back to London meant I had access to universal human truths, plus an ethnic inside-track which I hadn’t had in NYC.
Dave,
That’s right. You did “gertcha”. i keep forgetting who i’m talking to here!
one my all time faves. effortless and un-selfconscious expression of the brand. and a pop culture hit because of that.
pure beer advertising.
“Hello Tosh, Gotta Toshiba”
brings back memories. I LOVED that ad as a kid, in fact I remember pissing off my sister immensely by replying to everything she said to me with “Hello Tosh, Gotta Toshiba” and she eventually punched me in the face! She’s always hated Toshiba since then!
ha, little ironic in a post about not knowing the local culture that you present an american urban legend as fact.
http://www.watzmann.net/scg/german-by-one-vote.html
haha again - guess i should have read this post first:
http://cstadvertising.com/blog/2008/08/20/being-right-v-being-interesting/
that’s what reading your posts in reverse chronological order gets me.
“If you’re an art director you can work in any country.”
Bit of a generalization. I was art based and it is only possible to work in an Asian or Arabic agency if you have willing helpers who can do production for you. Like ,say, a type mark up in Hangul.
Images can be misinterpreted in different cultures. I recently saw a poster in Japan for a stage production of Driving Miss Daisy, with an all Japanese cast.
The insensitivity of a Japanese actor in black face make-up is possibly shocking to a foreigner new to Japan, it is meaningless to a Japanese, and kind of funny to any foreigner (black or white or whatever) who has lived in Japan for a while.
Earlier this year at Shibuya station i saw two earnest blonde and blue foreigners protesting at the start of Japan’s whaling season. The guy was trying to hand out leaflets, the woman was parading a full color photo poster of slaughtered minke whales. Blood everywhere in the pic, huge gobbets of whale meat being carved up on the ship deck.
I looked at the photo and felt hungry….
ps; In the early 90’s Leo Burnett mailed out an agency promo item in Hong Kong to prospective clients. A clock with an image of a rockin’ Leo on it. A great bit of funky fun thought the newly imported mid-Western managers.
This gift caused great protests from Chinese clients.
In their culture the gift of a clock is tantamount to a death threat, and it was furthber compounded by having a picture of a dead man on it.
And one should never gift a potted plant to a Japanese unlucky enough to find themselves in hospital.
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