In World war One, the British invented the tank.
And they used it to beat the Germans.
In 1940 the Germans developed a better tank.
And they used it to beat the British.
Then the Russians designed a better tank.
And they used it to beat the Germans.
When the tank came out, it was a new app, in our terms a new medium.
And it made the cavalry obsolete.
But what it didn’t make obsolete was the need to out think the competition.
The need to be creative and original.
The need for surprise.
And here’s another surprise, that’s what we do.
Whether it’s advertising or social-media.
From Tintoretto to Twitter, that hasn’t changed.
It can’t.
If you want to be in that 10% that works, you have to out think the 90% that doesn’t.
Sorry that’s the bad news.
All the people who were hoping that jumping on the new media bandwagon was going to do the work for them.
Sorry, no.
You still have to think.
And spouting jargon isn’t the same as thinking.
See, I’m not a spokesman for advertising.
In fact I couldn’t care less about advertising.
Most of it doesn’t work anyway.
Don’t take my word for it, look at the numbers.
In 2005, £18.3 Billion was spent on all forms of advertising and marketing.
4% was remembered positively.
7% was remembered negatively.
89% wasn’t even noticed or remembered.
So, provably, about 90% of advertising is a waste of money.
What I’m interested in is the other 10%.
But that isn’t advertising.
That’s creative people out-thinking non-creative people.
Being smart, being innovative, being daring, taking unfair advantage.
I love that thinking wherever you find it.
Sport, business, military, design, film and yes, sometimes even advertising.
Why would anyone who’s interested in creativity spend their time defending something that is 90% non-creative?
Scorcese and Spielberg don’t defend film, they defend great films.
Steve Jobs doesn’t defend computers, he defends his vision of technology.
John Lennon didn’t defend music, he defended rock and roll.
Wenger and Ferguson aren’t spokesmen for football.
They are spokesmen for the sort of football they like their teams to play.
That’s what surprises me about the debate between the new media gurus and advertising.
On the new-media side advertising is dead and the whole world is about conversations, and social media, and tribes, and whatever the latest jargon is.
On the advertising side the numbers show that advertising is still alive and people are watching more TV than ever before.
So what.
The issue is still what the issue always was.
Good is good and crap is crap.
It’s not my job to defend the rest of advertising.
It’s my job to beat the rest of advertising.
Whatever media you’re in new-media or traditional, you will have way less than 1% share of voice.
However much you’re spending.
What good is 1% to anyone?
You may as well keep your money in your trouser pocket.
The issue is what the issue always has been.
How do you generate that 1% share of voice into a 50% share of mind?
But that’s always been the issue for creative people in whatever area they operate.
That was the issue for Caravaggio, for Picasso, For Erwin Rommel, for Elvis, for Orson Wells, for Charlie Saatchi, for Richard Branson.
So why do we spend all our time worrying about advertising versus new media?
We’re not in either of those games.
Not if we’re any good.
We’re in creativity.
We’re in the game of out thinking other people.
Or we’re in the 90% that doesn’t work.
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Amen!
One thing to add: if someone is ever referred to as a ’social media guru’, don’t give them money.
Bravo! And with new media around, the competition is way much more stiff. Good luck to everyone out thinking every body else.
Hi Dave
Another great post. It does sometimes seem to me that social media has given the opportunity to planners to get one over on creatives and assert their dominance. Frankly I’m drowning in commentary and opinions. I think your post cuts to the chase.
On another topic, what are your thoughts on the term ‘creative’ being applied to a job function in the modern age?
TTFN
Chris B
I agree that creativity matters much more than arguments of medium. Thinking about your first example, it wasnt the tanks themselves which mattered so much as how you used them.
As an aside, and example of how misunderstanding technology can be disasterous, the Polish Cossack commanders initially believed that German tanks were made of canvass, and that their swords would tear through the material when they attacked them.
Hi Dave,
The Russian T34 beat the German tanks by saturation.
Tiger, Elephant, Panther, had superior engineering but
the parts were terminally unique, not interchangeable.
So when a Tiger broke down, they had to abandon it.
When a T34 broke down, they just robbed the next one.
And so the T34 became famous for its adaptability.
Every time I ask any of the Digital Gurus
What Sales Per Hit Ratio have you generated?
I get nothing but a long silence and a groan.
I sense that’s what it was like
for Geman Tank Commanders
on the Eastern Front in 1944.
A-fucking-men. Very well said (as usual).
Brill, Dave.
This is a test to see if the captcha fix works.
Hi guys,
The Captcha (Craptcha?) mechanism seems to have been fixed.
Thanks Grilla and John W for telling me.
Hi Chris Butterworth,
The problem is we don’t have another name for the ‘creative’ department.
It’s too cumbersome to say ‘art directors and copywriters’ everytime, so we say ‘creatives’ for short.
I wish there was another word.
The problem is remembering that ‘creative’ is an adjective not a noun.
As Edward de Bono says, “There are a lot of people calling themselves creative who are mere stylists.”
I heard Anomaly have, written on the wall in large letters, “Creativity Before Strategy”.
I like that a lot.
Hi Kevin,
I agree, the creativity for me wasn’t simply designing a better tank (Panther or Tiger) it was redefining what the purpose of a tank was (T34).
Surprisingly the Germans let the Russians out think them.
I say surprisingly because it was a similar situation between the Spitfire and the Messerschmidt 109.
Both were equally good planes, but it took 4,000 man-hours to build a 109 and 13,000 man-hours to build a Spitfire.
However good a Spitfire is, it isn’t 3 times as good as a 109.
Which, for me, makes the 109 more the more creative solution.
Nice note.
Where does come from your advertising efficiency figures?
I’m a creative Jean, I just remember things that interest me.
I don’t remember exact sources, publications, dates, etc.
I do remember it was a researcher called Alan Read who found them for me several years ago.
If I was subpoenaed before a jury I’d call him as a witness.
I’m sure there are lots of these figures on the internet.
If you’re interested you should get a planner to find them for you.
That last comment is fucking priceless.
I heard this the other day, is the definition of an academic.
“an academic is a person who see’s something work in reality but will never believe it till he can see it work in theory”
Social media says it’s all about conversations. But think of how many boring conversations you’ve had in life. We can’t remember the ads we saw yesterday, but nor can we remember the conversations we had with family and friends. Conversation isn’t the answer. Being memorable is. I don’t want to have a conversation with my toilet paper. If social media has something interesting to say, people will listen, and participate.
Dave, your post brought to mind a story. I was asked to create a TV spot that would absolutely compel women to have a mammogram. I wrote a script, delivered by an actress sitting alone on a staircase with a photo album in her hand (which we created). It went something like this: Alison was my best friend. They say 1 in 8 women will die of breast cancer. It’s just numbers… But when that one is someone you love. Alison died last year. Would a mammogram have saved her life? (Tight shot to face. She’s crying.) I ask myself that every day. (Actress was fabulous and actually recently had a friend that really did die of cancer). We showed the spot to the roomful of clients. The women wept openly. The men wept silently. All agreed it was the most powerful thing they had ever seen. And that I had done precisely what they had asked of me. It never ran. They were too scared to air it. Sometimes true communication that will produce results is killed because of fear. So we don’t know how much creativity is out there that never sees the light of day.
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-128-129.html
Love that definition Jim.
I will certainly nick it.
As Chris Wilkins used to say, “Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism.”
Dave,
Inspirational. I am writing from Ireland, a country in economic meltdown. God knows people in the creative community here need a blast of positive energy like that. Gerry Kennedy
Hi Gerry,
It is tough to be brave in a situation like that.
Most people behave like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
The only alternative is to remember Bob Dylan’s words
“When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
We’re in creativity.
We’re in the game of out thinking other people.
Simple as that - great post.
Trott is God.