Totally agree that Saatchi comes off as quite the dinosaur. He and Martin Sorrell are quite the pair these days, in terms of sending mixed messages and making dim-witted statements.

When I read the article a few weeks ago, I too found fault with the logic and thesis of Saatchi’s argument. As I wrote on my blog:

Couldn’t the problem be due to a general decline of creativity in advertising, especially in large shops? … It isn’t about simplicity and speed as Lord Saatchi suggests. It is about value and choice.

More here:
http://www.i-boy.com/weblog/2006/06/dead-flowers-on-advertisings-grave.html

~G~

I found a great idea on The Lex Eclectic, a personal Myspace blog of a girl I went to college with. We crossed paths at the Occidental Weekly. I believe she edited our copy, but my memory is a little froggy. The following is a quote from a recent post …

I agree, very well put.

Did you think he really meant that advertising was dead? I read it several times and came away assuming that was a rhetorical device; ie ‘people say advertising is dead’ but the speaker knows better. It reminded me vaguely of something like Octavian’s speech to the senate in the movie Cleopatra

Another thing that seems confused to me is whether the one word is supposed to be your internal understanding only or something you actually trumpet in ads (which he implies in most of the examples he uses). He said this in the follow up chat on the FT site:
MS: “And bear in mind, one word equity does not mean a one word slogan. The word may not even appear in the slogan.”
Whereas… My hunch is what they are really picking up on and getting carried away with is the modish tendency of names and slogans to coalesce – a stylistic trend to one-wordedness, like you can see in agency names and other neo brands (Mother, Naked, Innocent, Believe…) I could half agree that is a current way of putting things, a style or fad. You could probably trace it back to things like Hal Hartley movie titles, but it is now official policy at Saatchi towers. I bet it was that which buoyed them up with confidence – if one wordedness feels ‘cool’ and ‘in’ at the moment, then it must be right????

I also wonder if this and similar projects (like Lovemarks) which repackage the old 1950/60s messaging models are most interesting as processes of (potentially catastrophic) reform; acknowledging that the world is changing and that a few reforms are needed can be fatal as de Toqueville pointed out: eg in pre 1917 (and pre 1989) Russia?

Moronic is too good a summary btw, it plays to his case.

cheers
John Grant (& not remotely anonymous)

ps thx for the link btw

“Moronic”? “Brain-damaged”?… I’m sure Maurice is rattled now!

I have to say, this whole matter is disturbing but not surprising. Individuals like Saatchi tend to react by seeing a situation as so complex, that it can only be boiled down to that “one thing”.

Meanwhile consumers, customers and users will relate to the “many things” and many ways they CHOOSE to engage brands.

Why do I watch the Geico gekko ads over and over? They’re fun. Listening to the way they’ve managed to capture that British speech thing with the letter “R” gets me every time. And, the animation is terrific. Did I mention they were fun?

How about the Vonage ads? Fun. Especially the one with the idiot husband dancing in the background (we LOVE ads that portray men as idiots.)

Fun.

Maybe that’s the word Lord Saatchi was searching for.

Burger King comes up with those goofy websites, the dancing chicken for instance, and people flock to them.

Advertising definitely not dead, you just have to be more creative and produce a message people enjoy.