Giles Keeble: advertising and selling, money or principle and where’s that great US work?

Last time I mentioned the importance of understanding ‘the role of advertising’: I should have written the role of THE advertising – the ad or campaign in question. The role of advertising is to sell: a product, a service, an idea. The role of an ad or campaign can be a number of different things- from communicating a new ingredient, a new model, a new price, or changing perceptions (for example, the great ‘It’s a Skoda. Honest’ or the original Lucozade repositioning).

Selling is the objective; the advertising strategy – and from that the creative strategy and execution – are how to get there. So you need to understand what the business issues are and how advertising can help, if it can, and in what way.

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The Bell Pottinger disaster made me reflect how many agencies have taken the shilling over the years. Was it Bernbach who said a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money? With a business to run and people to pay, it can be difficult. I worked for some agencies who would not work on fags and toys for example. Do any agencies draw a line these days, and if so where?

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I’m in the US at the moment and have yet to see a good ad. There must be good stuff as it’s where great work originally came from. But there’s so much advertising it may simply be hard to find.