I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Many years ago I put together a class called "So You Think You Want My Job" for the Boston Ad Club. It was designed for people who thought maybe they should get into advertising, but had no idea about who did what, or how things got done.

I assembled a curriculum, and sent it off to Pat Burnham, legendary second Creative Director at Fallon (behind Tom McElligott), for criticism and insight. And after a long while, this package shows up.

Turns out Pat had carried my curriculum around for months, trying to find time to read and react. Finally, he got on a plane, it got on the runway, and it stalled. So he had a few hours with nothing to do but critique my outline. I'm glad he did.

Pat returned my manuscript filled with underlining linked to lengthy quotes in the margins. Brilliant observations, all of them. Including this one:

“An instructor at the U of M told our class that we couldn’t get a good grade by writing a lot of facts and stuff about the subject. He said he knew just about everything there was to know about the subject because he’d been teaching the class for a long time. He said the only way to get a good grade was if he said to himself after reading our paper, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way before.’ That, to me, is what ads are (or should) be all about.” 
– Pat Burnham

I think you could build a communications agency of almost any stripe on that quote.

MOTTO:  "When we create ads/paid search/blogger outreach/gadgets/you-name-it, people react: 'I hadn't thought of it that way before.'"

How many of us hold our work to that standard?

It's deceptively, cruelly simple. First, you're aspiring to create words/images/architecture/motion/functionality/all-of-the-above that must be interesting, that must be so compelling they must be noticed. (Reminds me of Bernbach's Paradigm.) Which, in today's media landscape, is quite a challenge. Moment-graphics, anyone?

Second, your work (again, in whatever format or medium you're in) must not only be interesting, it actually has to be interesting enough to engage the audience. Their reaction, "Oh, that's neat," doesn't cut it. In other words, you have to make them care, even on a microscopic/nanosecond level. Your work must have a quality that gets people to stop whatever else it is they were doing and want to pay attention to you. As Robert Grudin puts the challenge, "Most people do not make discoveries because they do not expect to."

Third, and perhaps hardest—your work, once it's got their attention, got people to engage—has to get the audience to think differently. How often does that happen? Another way to put it is "surprise." You work should aspire to surprise.

For the sake of argument, swap "Google Gadgets" or "paid search campaigns" or "SMS-enabled billboards" or "brand characters on Twitter" for the word "ads" in this great quote from Howard Gossage:

“The best ads are something no one has seen before. They heighten our own perceptions."

Are you holding your work to that standard?

Comments

[robert john ed]

Good post Tim. I like that you point out most people don't make discoveries as a result of not expecting to.

Expect great, get great. This applies to many different aspects of life.

Hoping to make it to the MIMA event you have coming up...not positive though.

[Jason Sack]

Following the thought that "Most people do not make discoveries because they do not expect to" seems to lead back to the old-school precept of advertising as attempting to change human behavior rather than complement human behavior. Something I grapple with a lot - is it as simple as the difference between what and how? Or is it art?

Brands are becoming punctuation. Everyone wants to be an exclamation point - but what good is an exclamation point to a sentence full of gibberish? So if we replace "ads" with "content," we earn the right to use the punctuation. In that way, I think advertising is becoming more ambient. Or so I continue to hope.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

[Tim Brunelle]

Robert- Love to see you at the MIMA event, 'cause I know you'll ask smart questions.

Jason- I think advertising is as much how as it is what, and where. Good creative briefs always discuss those issues as they relate to the assignment. I like your thinking around brands wanting to be exclamation points. Or, as another mentor of mine called it, "borrowed interest." In other words, the ad isn't about the intrinsic value of the brand/service/product, it's about something else, and the brand/service/product is just an exclamation point at the end.

Thanks for moving the conversation forward.

[bazza_is_cool]

great article !