It isn’t a secret that advertising is dreadful.
Everyone’s got a theory about what went wrong: clients cutting budgets, prioritising data, the rise of planning, ad-tech, media-separation, A.I., etc.
All of these are part of the problem, but I haven’t heard anything that hit the nail on the head until I read this.
It wasn’t written about advertising, but I think it explains what happened when media exploded from 4 terrestrial channels to 100 cable channels and virtually infinite online channels.
It’s from an article in The Atlantic by Derek Thompson.
“…there is a paradox to scale, I think.
People who want to be big sometimes think, “I have to immediately reach the largest possible audience.”
But in a weird way, the best way to produce things that take off is to produce small things.
To become a small expert.
To become the best person on the internet at understanding the application of Medicaid to minority children, or something like that.
And the reason why I think this is true I call my Tokyo example.
If you go to Tokyo, you’ll see there are all sorts of really, really strange shops.
There’ll be a shop that’s only 1970’s vinyl and like, 1980’s whisky or something.
And that doesn’t make any sense if it’s a shop in a Des Moines suburb, right?
In a Des Moines suburb, to exist, you have to be Subway.
You have to hit the mass-market immediately.
But in Tokyo, where there’s 30-40 million people within a train ride of a city, then your market is 40 million.
And within that 40 million, sure, there are a couple thousand people who love 1970’s music and 1980’s whisky.
The internet is Tokyo.
The internet allows you to be niche at scale.”
This feels to me very much like what’s happened to advertising.
We used to talk about what made our product different, why anyone should choose to buy our product instead of a competitor.
But now the explosion of media means that everyone is terrified of being left behind, so everyone is trying to be everything to everyone.
That’s why every commercial says the same thing: rather than tell you why our product is different, and risk being seen as a specialist, we tell you our product will simply make you happy and we symbolise that happiness with dancing.
Our laundry cleaner will make you feel like dancing, our soft drink will make you feel like dancing, our supermarket will make you feel like dancing, our air-freshener will make you feel like dancing, our mortgage will make you feel like dancing, our car insurance will make you feel like dancing.
All because everyone is terrified of a point-of-difference, so everyone wants a point-of-sameness.
If your business is a shop in Des Moines it can’t be specialist, there aren’t enough customers for a specialist, in Des Moines a shop needs to be generalist selling everything for everyone.
That’s why advertisers are terrified of turning anyone off.
We haven’t realised that, with the explosion of media we are not in Des Moines, we are in Tokyo.
The audience is vast, and if we do the same advertising as everyone else we just blend in and become the same as everyone else.
If no advertising has a point-of-difference, all advertising has is a point-of-sameness.
Hence there is no reason for anyone to notice our advertising.
We all know it’s wrong and yet we can’t help doing it.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the ageing of heroes? David retired to write books, John to his vineyard … Years ago, David said “we all need heroes – people who make us want to climb mountains.” The same mountains still stand but the longing to scale em is gone.
Integration also did advertising in. Art directors and copywriters are to learn digital stuff. But digital art directors don’t bother with leading, kerning, layout … So what integration? Advertising people discarded our forte to dabble in vague stuff no one really understands.
I was talking to some Gen z in the agency & surprisingly many do not enjoy digital work. Given a chance, they’d rather learn about and do real ads