Simon Jensen – 19th October 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Return of the hat

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Advertising? Hmm, Dave Birss just told me, “Advertising is dead”. So what are we doing then?

Bill Bernbach said that ”Advertising is fundamentally persuasion, and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art”. Is it right, just because the great Bill Bernbach said it? George Orwell said, ”Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket”. But again, did the great­ Sir John Hegarty say, ”Which business are we in? If you think it’s advertising, you are in the wrong era.”

What do I say? I agree, kind of.

It has always been communication, hasn’t it? Since back to when Immigrants’ were telling stories from their adventures abroad, the farmers shouting on the marketplace to sell their vegetables, Bill Bernbach starting the creative revolution with “Lemon”, and Steve Henry making the great Tango Ads. Well it’s always been communication through conversation, but from different platforms. To make people talk has always been the core, and it always will be.

There is still a big difference between communication and advertising. For me, this little story describes the difference between the two. It shows why the advertising era is over, and why we need to go back to the time when people wore real hats.

On day the sun and the wind had a competition, to see if they could get the traveller to remove his coat. The wind started blowing fearsly on him, but the traveller just pulled his coat tighter. Then the sun started to shine down on him. Warmer and warmer. And suddenly the traveller just took off his coat.

Wind is advertising and the sun is communication. What I mean by this story is that the advertising era is over. Advertising could be considered a step lower than communication. In the last decades we have been living in an over communicated society, and that’s why advertising is dead. You can’t just persuade people to pick a product anymore. You have to, through creative communication, make people talk. Return to conversation.

Simon Jensen

Creative communicator ?