Comments on: Cloudy Advertising, embracing the new complexity in brands, agencies and consumers

By: Abel Reel Brief

Abel Reel Brief — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:17:49 +0000

Abel Reel Brief

I anticipate new films by people like Abel Ferrara, Gregg Araki, David Finche

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:26:46 +0000

true, that is an unfortunate slip of the tongue, but i’d be willing to chalk it up as a pointed reference to jameson’s work. “change, dynamism, plurality, hybridity and open-endedness” — rather than postmodernism as espoused by academia, he hints — is really “the cultural logic of late capitalism.” then again, i’m a bit partial to eagleton; his review of dworkin’s latest book was spectacular…

By: Grant McCracken

Grant McCracken — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:16:53 +0000

Paul, great spot, thanks, and IMHO exactly right until the last two words. What is “late capitalism” besides wishful thinking and really glib thinking at that You would think I guy as smart as eagleton would know better. Thanks, Grant

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:29:13 +0000

another article i came across reminded me of this blog entry. in a review of a book on bakhtin, terry eagleton writes: “One might recall, however, that there is nothing inherently positive about change, dynamism, plurality, hybridity and open-endedness. What has altered since Bakhtin’s time, although neither Pechey nor the postmodernists seem to have noticed, is that if these were once alternatives to the system, they are now entirely indispensable to it. No regime is more in love with the multiple and dynamic than late capitalism.” (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/eagl01_.html)

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:12:48 +0000

i just came across an article in ad age pointing out geico’s robust growth, particularly in new customer acquisition and brand awareness. http://adage.com/article?article_id=118844 sounds like their strategy might just be working after all…

By: hart

hart — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:28:16 +0000

I think Mike Hughes is kidding himself. I talk to consumers about advertising all the time, and in general, they make few connections among GEICO’s various parts. I suppose you could argue that the campaigns were presented serially, they might have some additive effect. But the chief effect under the present circumstances is brand confusion. GEICO spends a small fortune in advertising and their business results are pathetic. The shame of it is that the campaigns, taken individually, are quite good.

By: jens

jens — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:22:01 +0000

you probably have a valid point, grant, but i do not think that the geico example cuts it here. geico is advertising before the age of branding. it is just about attention – which is also about the only thing that advertising can contribute to our world where meaning does less come from spin-doctors but through experience. — college-boys’ humor playing with the cliches of the advertising genre. that is gutsy, intelligent and does not seem to wear out easily. car insurance is about as far as commodity can go. — it is cheap, it is fast and the guys who commissioned the ads are obviously intelligent and daring. do i need to know more? do i ever want to know more? …maybe some mission statement or the ceo’s message? of course not.

By: petar

petar — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:30:51 +0000

It makes perfect sense to do what geico does. think of it as an album and geico the record label, the agency the A&R director/producer and the creatives the artist (they’ll like that…). you got your lead single, albumtrack and filler. now the lead single will try to get mass appeal, the great album track will allow an artist to show a different (deeper, shallow) side, ( more emotional, more angry, funny, or show their influences through a track that reminds you of an other artist). the filler is just that, filler; a funny trhow-away track that makes sense in the context of the album. what connect them all is the tone of voice ( with music literary)guarded by the producer, who in turn has to sell it to the label, who have to feel that it will sell. Russell Davies called it polyphonic branding, Mohammed Iqbal called it elongated brand communication. at the end of the day, it’s only human ( and yes i know it is so 90′s to see a brand as human) to be different things to different people, becuase people will like( buy) you for different reasons.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:17:49 +0000

Cloudy Advertising, embracing the new complexity in brands, agencies and cons

This is noisy advertising. There is no internal logic here, no secret strategy that makes all these campaigns go together. In fact, to grasp this work, we have to “shift frame” entirely, by which I mean, we have to give up the assumptions and the mea…

By: Glen

Glen — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:30:30 +0000

I think in the case of Geico, inconsistency works towards their selling point – the only consistent thing in all the ads – which is saving money on car insurance. Everything else becomes irrelevant, or in this case irreverent and absurd. It’s a self-deprecating jab at themselves and the advertising medium. It’s also a great exercise in theme-and-variation.

I remember Geico commercials before the gecko, when they were throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck, and there seems to be some benefit to having some sort of focus. Focused complexity, as oxymoronic as that sounds, seems to be an effective concept in finding the sweet-spot where brand love happens. Where brand qualities become implicit rather than explicit.

The Geico brand emerges though these manifestations of the same theme (saving money) to give you an idea of the brand that is more than the sum of its combined advertising campaigns. Like a cubist painting, we are able to see multiple dimensions at once.