Comments on: Sir John Boots It Badly

By: SidneyStencil

SidneyStencil — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:56:42 +0000

Just look at him. Sir John, I mean. He's got 5 (that's five) buttons on his sleeves. As he talks about taste. What a natural. Did you mute the canned applause when you embedded the video?

By: Rodney Tanner

Rodney Tanner — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 02:05:33 +0000

Grant:
Fear not, just down the soft carpeted corridor from Sir John sits the Chairman of his agency (BBH), Jim Carroll, one of the best planners in London. Jim Carroll recently did a piece on the 10 principles for marketing in the age of engagement.
1) The first priority is engagement. Does it have something to talk about?
2) Fame is a legitimate objective.
3) Recognize the critical role of the aesthetic. Consumers are sensitive to visual stimulation and demand extremely high standards
4) Embrace speed and immediacy
5) Explore beyond narrative
6) Extend across platforms
7) Treat brand messages as content
You need a big idea to hold it all together
9) Take risks
10)No sector is exempt from these principles

No black boxes here. The BBH planners seem have to have it down pretty well.
If you want a copy of the article, I can fax you a copy. He also outlines the challenges now facing research.

Just my 2c worth.

By: john mcgarr

john mcgarr — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:23:47 +0000

Can Sir John be right and wrong at the same time?

Maybe its simply the problem of complexity - how or why any piece of communication works is so highly complex (given the unique cognitive and cultural differences across the populace seeing it) that it is impossible to distill success down to a small, easily comprehendible set of "rules" or patterns.

It appears to me he simply erroneously suggests this is a matter of the single idea of "taste" when it is more likely a matter of complexity causing unpredictability - we are not "cognitively wired" to handle the huge volume of information required to be able to predict effectiveness because it is too complex a process.

I would suggest therefore a "safe-fail" approach of eliminating numerous alternatives would allow us to "test our way through" to success by narrowing the field through an iterative process, relying on only the one human ability that is undeniably effective: 20/20 hindsight!

I am in the process of developing a research methodology to address this issue - the only problem being, I am not aware of any agencies who are set up to embrace a "safe-fail" creative development process. If anyone is interested or aware of any, feel free to contact me (thru Grant if you can't directly through this post).

By: srp

srp — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:53:56 +0000

I'm a bit sympathetic to the message that advertising contains an irreducible core of inarticulable insight. It seems implausible that algorithmic or even heuristic approaches could reliably generate competitively superior advertising content. Such approaches might help us recognize which inspirations are good ones after they've been prototyped, but probably couldn't ever generate good ads in the first place.

As McCloskey pointed out in If You're So Smart, no literary theory can reliably generate a great work of art, no economic theory can reliably deliver profitable business ideas, etc. These are open "rhetorical" fields of endeavor, not closed "scientific" ones. Science can still improve our judgment, however.

By: Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:27:24 +0000

"It's the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew . . . is wrong!" From the play Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.

By: jkh

jkh — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:44:52 +0000

even heroes like john hegarty get old - and with them their believes and tricks.

tempus fugit, friends.

at least grant stays young, elastic and fresh. he has also never been tempted by quite that kind of brutally raving success sir john and company enjoyed in the 90s.
turns out that is a good thing.

By: The Owner's Manual

The Owner's Manual — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:29:33 +0000

The bulge in the demographic snake's stomach known as Baby Boomer should force some changes in the patina of advertising, but it may be a tad early to see it, and it may be too late for it to work.

I noticed an almost brutal cutoff of TV programming of interest when I turned fifty. The advertisers, hence the producers, are uninterested in over-50 eyeballs and it shows. You don't have to be cynical to describe popular entertainment as written by and for juveniles, and advertising as the mendacity of omissive, commissive manipulation.

Thank God for PVRs. But back to the Bulge. Will agencies be forced by ennui-soaked retirees intent on spending the kids' inheritance to abandon the mystery and "get real?" If they do, will it be received as were the efforts of a company during the 1950's, who went so far as to satirize what is now being TIVOed out of existence?

I refer to Petrofina, who advertised that filling one's tires with pink air was coming soon, while simultaneously sloganizing, "work hard, sell a good product, and don't try to kid anybody."

The coming culture may be too old and wise to take advertising seriously.