Comments on: CREATIVE PARALYSIS.

By: Janis wilson

Janis wilson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:03:32 +0000

Hi Dave,
Yes I assumed you would disagree with what I wrote, though I’m not interested in intellectual ’sparring’ for the sake of it. As you say there is a need for a much deeper understanding of how we and our brains work and therefore how communications that influence us also work. It just srikes me that our industry is in some disarray at the moment, awash with theories and ideas which have little real scientific underpinning and some of the new science is and should be of interest to us. Something interesting happened recently in the psychotherapy world - which was very similar to how advertising is now - confused and awash with individuals pet theories constantly competing and laying claim to primacy. What has changed is some very clever people have put forward a new organising idea in that field which is dramatically changing the way therapy is done. Like curing phobias in one session rather than years! It seems to me like the ad world needs a new organising idea and we haven’t got one yet but we may be close and personally I’d like to be involved in that. I’m not sure about heuristics but to me where the interesting stuff is at the moment is in understanding about pattern recognition/matching, hypnosis and trance states, dream/REM sleep, imagination, expectation and need fulfilment theory, language patterns and story analysis.
It’s also looking like at birth we have lots of patterns already which form the basis for new learning. Which is where archetypal theory may fit in….
To any one whose interested I’d recommend picking up a book called ‘Human Givens’ by Joe Griffen and Ivan Tyrell which while directed to psychotherapy practice has profound implications for the communications business.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:37:50 +0000

Hi again Janis,
I just had a very interesting conversation based on your comment.
It seems you’re referring to ‘Habitualised Heuristics’.
I found this concept really useful as a tool for what we do.
But what we do still has to tick the boxes: IMPACT, COMMUNICATION, PERSUASION.
Maybe habitualised heuristics can help us do that, but it can’t replace it.
The reason is, this is basic human communication and it’s how we interact in every area of our life.
Without those three nothing happens.

By: dave

dave — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:53:43 +0000

Hi Janis,
I’m sure you posted your comment with the best intentions.
However, in my opinion, it is absolutely antithetical to producing good advertising.
However, I asked one of the guys I work with, who has a Master’s degree in psychology, to translate it for me.
“Neuropsychologists – the emperor’s new clothes…
The current thinking in the brain department of psychology is that there is loads going on and we have very little conscious ‘awareness/control’ over it. Things like networks or pathways in the brain exist and are fired off when stuff happens so we assume that they are very clever and important.
Football is a tricky analogy as physical motion is very obviously beyond anything but the most gross control i.e. how do you make your heart move or lungs contract? So the notion that the body takes over seems logical, but how? Hence the need for a deeper explanation of the power of the brain…
As for the pattern matching bit about Gorillas, smacks of post rationalisation to me. It is possible to argue that there is a deep level of subconscious processing going on – its equally possible to argue that unexpected events create attention from birth, when little or no patterns exist. Show a new born a face with three eyes and they will pay more attention to it.”
I appreciate the time you took to write it Janis.
But, hopefully without being rude, I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you wrote.

By: vinny warren

vinny warren — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:26:45 +0000

i thought the reason gorilla worked was because it was good viewin’. would have been even better had it been revealed later to have been Phil Collins wearing the gorilla suit though. what would neuroscientists would have made of that?

By: dave

dave — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:41:56 +0000

Quite right Jack.
However.
Advertising, for me, works on the Trojan Horse principle.
If I want someone’s attention I have to wrap my message up in whatever’s relevant to them.
That’s how I pay for their attention.
As you know, I’m a big fan of whatever you can get away with.
That’s why I always like to know what the parameters are, so I can step slightly over them without it looking like I’m taking the piss.
Without rules there isn’t a game.
And without a game we can’t play.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:00:28 +0000

Re Esse est percipi. Who was it said the first job of advertising is to be noticed?

By: Janis wilson

Janis wilson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:07:22 +0000

Is it just me but I thought that the Impact, Communicate, Persuasion model had just about been knocked out of the water by what’s becoming a near avalanche of neuroscience and psychology research?
What the footballer example here really demonstrates is that the thinking, conscious or rational(depending on how you define it) brain really interferes with processes that should be managed by the unconscious, patterned or habitual brain. A trained footballer taking a shot should be relying on that part of their neurobiology to ‘put it in the net’- the thinking part is much too slow to compute the options. What all the old models of how advertising works or should work fail to really understand is how the patterned/habitual part of humans works and therefore how to leverage that so that purchase decisions are managed by the unconscious - creating conscious attention is often times just what you dont want to do for a brand - it creates too much opportunity for thinking about the choices.
One of the reasons an ad like Cadburys Gorilla works is because it speaks directly to the pattern matching part of us which works on a ’something like this’ or metaphor basis. To make sense of the Gorilla in an ad about what should be a human experience we have to pattern match it to patterns of meaning we already hold - Gorilla = primal, instinctive, going for it, satisfying basic instincts like pleasure etc etc. Since it works metaphorically it can’t be processed rationally so our conscious mind essentialy gives up and keeps quiet and so the whole communication works at the unconscious level which is also the bit that’s going to kick in next time I want some chocolate - the ads essentially programming me to give in to my impulses. The better question for this ad would be ‘has the media attention on the ad actually worked against this process by bringing it too much into conscious awareness?’
Unfortunately we don’t yet have a cohesive model of how advertising works on the patterned brain level/s -we are getting there slowly but we certainly need to let go of some of the old models in the meantime.

By: Anca

Anca — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:24:38 +0000

http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-47.html

By: Conor

Conor — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:46:21 +0000

I personally don’t have any problems with being asked to come up with as many ideas as possible for a brief. Maybe I’m the exception here, but my first few ideas are rarely my best ideas. 30 ideas sounds pretty arbitrary but I can understand why a frustrated CD might pluck a figure like this out of thin air in order to get his teams to think harder.

Simplicity doesn’t come easily - or quickly. And, while it may have taken Sir John only 20 minutes to come up with ‘Laundrette’, I am sure there are plenty of occasions where he took a great deal longer and threw aside a LOT of other ideas to arrive at a satisfactory solution.

By: Riki

Riki — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:28:43 +0000

30 ideas per brief?
here’s why: http://saatchiandsaatchi.co.uk/

btw, funny how this site got hacked