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My Campaign Promise – By @iroxdesign

My Campaign Promise

Being a child of the 80s I had the fortune of growing up with the best of British Advertising wit, in TV and print, during the 80s and 90s. Some I didn’t understand until I was a bit older but it was enough to pique my curiosity. 

During Ad breaks my family would either disappear to the loo or use the opportunity for tea-making against the clock, meanwhile I would be transfixed on the Ads. I loved the entertainment and thrill of figuring out what the Ad meant, in relation to the product, then feeling a sense of reward when I cottoned onto what it was trying to tell me – they were the greatest puzzles to solve. Sometimes it would be just the product reveal at the end that would have me buzzing. All of this applied to print too, the Billboards were phenomenal in the few seconds you had to glimpse them. 

If I were asked to name the very first TV Advert, Billboard Ad or Magazine Print I saw I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly, it was so long ago. Children’s Ads had to be the least creative in terms of visual message but they were still memorable somehow. Whether it was the silly voiceover that would give you the sense of ‘make your parents buy this for you now!’ or the bright visuals and sound effects.

Although some things, that have been outlawed in the modern age, I’m glad to see the back of. Such as cigarette placement Advertising. I’ve been haunted since childhood on the Ad slogan, ‘Happiness is a Cigar called Hamlet’ – it was a seriously bad influence, I would have an association with Happiness and Cigar-smoking. I took up passive smoking as a result, whenever we were at theme parks or anywhere I would intentionally inhale it as a sign of happy times. The good news is this habit didn’t last long, despite that the slogan still stayed with me – when a happy event was approaching in my life that slogan would suddenly pop into my head with the slow gentle music that usually accompanied it. Urgh *shudder*.

Unfortunately though current Advertising, in my opinion, has lowered its standards. The great Sir John Hegarty echoed these very same sentiments during a D&AD webinar this year, so I’m definitely not alone in thinking this – something terrible has happened to this once flourishing industry. The output has become random nonsense that is usually accompanied by some terrible loud repetitive track to try and be overly cool.

Therefore I feel a sense of responsibility and solemn duty to ‘Make Advertising Great Again’ – within the framework of modern output channels of course, such as social media. I was sidetracked by the film realm with the hope of Advertising Films but I see a far greater cause now. To save Advertising, on the whole, from its self-destruction and to bring back the elements that once made it the great Industry that it was. 

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