Advertising Is…
“The difference between the enduring and the forgettable is artistry”, said Bill Bernbach.
In an age defined by short-termism, falling advertising effectiveness and AI, I think this is an idea whose time has come again.
We know more about how advertising works than ever before and yet effectiveness continues to fall. Nearly a billion people worldwide now block advertising – we are literally creating a product that nobody wants. And marketers themselves are losing faith in the ability of advertising to make an impact.
Look at any ad that endures in the memory, that has created social capital for a brand, that has lodged in the public consciousness – Guinness Surfer, Apple’s 1984, Stella Artois’s Reassuringly Expensive – and it’s clear that if a brand wants to insert itself into culture, if it wants to establish shared meaning, if it wants to become a social currency, it will get a great deal further if it approaches advertising as if it were art.
So, for once, rather than asking the question, ‘how does advertising work?’ – as a scientist or an engineer might approach a mechanism or machine – I’m going to ask a more fundamental question. I’m going to approach advertising as a philosopher might approach art, and ask, ‘what is advertising?’ Just as I did with Jesper Albansson of Ocean Outdoor at WPP’s NextM conference in Stockholm.
Bernbach was a philosopher. He studied philosophy. And he believed in the central importance of art to the effectiveness of advertising.
So, here are seven ways of seeing, seven ways of looking at advertising as a philosopher might approach art. Because if we change the question, we might change the outcome; we might start to think in terms that get us to more memorable, enduring and effective work.
Art is Truth, Advertising is Truth
Artists look at their subject as the truth and find a way to express the truth their way with freshness. The philosopher Heidegger referred to this as ‘unconcealment’. Unconcealment is the role of advertising too. Jeremy Bullmore said that advertising reveals. Before him, Harrison McCann in 1912 coined the expression ‘The truth well told’ for his agency. And ‘truth’ was at the heart of the thinking of those at the forefront of the 1960’s creative revolution too. David Ogilvy said ‘tell the truth but make it fascinating’. Bernbach believed that the truth is rare and that is why it stands out.
Art is Beauty, Advertising is Beauty
‘Beauty is the sensuous shining of the idea,’ said philosopher Hegel. Truth and beauty are profoundly linked. Since Plato they have been held in a triad with ‘goodness’. Truth, beauty and goodness go together – if we imbue our communications with truth and beauty then our brand is likely to feel good or right, to feel coherent. Beauty helps to ensure not just coherence but permanence – something that people continue to cherish. In the 1880s and 1890s Paris, members of the public would tear artistic posters off walls to take them home. As Keats put it, ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever’. People are drawn to beautiful things. We seem to have forgotten that advertising needs to be attractive – that beauty has a merit all of its own.
Art is Experience, Advertising is Experience
Art only develops meaning when it is encountered by its audience. Philosopher John Dewey said, “The work of art is complete only as it works in the experience of others”. The same is true of advertising. You need to invite your audience in and reward them for their effort. The evergreen “I never read the Economist. [Management trainee aged 42]” poster is effective because it respects its audience’s intelligence, trusts them to connect the dots and rewards them for it. The root of the word ‘communication’ means the process of making something shared together. Advertising is about creating shared meaning, which is where broadcast TV and Out of Home excel. It’s very difficult to create shared meaning in a personalization-at-scale media world.
Art is Possibility, Advertising is Possibility
Art opens people’s eyes to possibility. John Dewey said, “The moral function of art itself is to remove prejudice, do away with the scales that keep the eye from seeing, tear away the veils due to wont and custom, perfect the power to perceive.” Advertising is no different; it too opens people up to possibility. Skoda transformed its image in the UK through a campaign that got people to see their brand differently, and together with a solid product, established it as a desirable mainstream brand. Great advertising, like art, suggests possibilities – through music, imagery, metaphor and by what isn’t said. Rick Rubin put it this way: “Art is confrontation. It widens the audience’s reality, allowing them to glimpse life through a different window. One with potential for a glorious new view.”
Art is Story, Advertising is Story
From the earliest cave paintings to The Last Supper, art has long been used to tell a story. Stories build brands – think, ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’, ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ or ‘Where everything’s done proper’. These stories embed themselves in public consciousness. Rather like a myth. I don’t mean myth as the literal-minded might interpret it – a modern interpretation of the word, meaning a ‘lie’ – I mean myth in the original sense of the Greek word mŷthos – a story that is culturally important, that conveys meaning – a deeper truth that can only be understood implicitly, a story told aloud in the oral tradition, that lasts. As Hannah Arendt put it “storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it”. Stories create coherence for your brand, and coherence is importance because it helps you to stand out in a fragmented world, making it easier for people to think of you, supporting price, margins and profit.
Art is Drama, Advertising is Drama
In the 17th century, the most valuable paintings were history paintings – scenes that dramatized a moment, focusing on a single, defining, dramatic action. Go back further to the Commedia dell’Arte, which influenced everyone and everything from Shakespeare, to Pantomime, to Punch and Judy and modern TV comedies, and it was through character, the body and the voice that figures dramatized their feelings and moved the action forward. Not so very far away from Sean Bean’s performance in Yorkshire Tea’s ‘Where everything’s done proper’ campaign, as he draws his pointer like a sword, addressing his troops. The body is just one way to bring drama to your product, of course – juxtaposition, inversion, making things bigger, repetition in space and time, reducing them to their simplest form. Leo Burnett once said, “There is what we call ‘inherent drama’ in every product, and our No.1 job is to dig for it and capitalize on it.” And art usually finds a way.
Art is Feeling, Advertising is Feeling
“Art is not a handicraft” wrote Tolstoy, “it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced”. Creating a feeling is as important in advertising as it is in art. Bernbach’s philosophy at DDB was “Only art makes you feel. And only feeling makes you act.” Advertising that invites emotion does three important things; it orientates the audience’s attention, helps to lodge your brand in memory and raises your brand to the top of the mental shopping list – establishing salience and preference. It improves your chances of being chosen and it reduces sensitivity to price. Cadbury’s “Garage” – is a perfect miniature framed as intimately as a Vermeer genre painting. It connects and creates meaning.
Understanding how your audience feels about your advertising, as we do at System1, is a measure of coherence. Incoherent and fragmented advertising will not elicit surprise and delight.
The campaigns I have referenced are exceptional because they are in many senses commercial art. Advertising, like art, is truth, beauty, experience, possibility, story, drama and feeling. Looking at advertising this way helps us to remember the qualities that make advertising memorable, powerful and enduring.
And in an anchorless world defined by short-termism, what could be more fundamental than that?