Laurence Green: three advertising lessons from beyond advertising.
Depending on how you spent your Christmas Day, you may well have renewed your acquaintance with a hapless inventor, his long-suffering sidekick and their dastardly nemesis.
As we wave goodbye to the season of advertising best practice – that short window where our audiences like what we do – it struck me that there might be some stuff to learn from Wallace, Gromit and friends. Rather, that is, than just staring remorselessly at other people’s ads and what other people think of them.
For a start, it’s nice to hear some Northern voices on our screens. Turns out everyone can understand ‘regional accents’. Aardman have form in this regard, advertising…less so.
Next up: less is more. Gromit is a masterclass in understatement: a dog whose character is almost entirely conveyed by bodily movement (even his disbelief at being offered a voice-activated assistant). But Feathers McGraw is next level.
A penguin who disguises himself as a chicken, Feathers is the epitome of villainy despite, or rather because, he’s “hilariously blank faced,” in the words of The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw. “Every blink that penguin does is relevant”, Aardman has explained. The audience fills in the gaps.
Advertisers would do well to remember this as they reach for AI solutions where once they sought creative ideas that invited us to do just that.
Finally, and most generally: we must all beware an over-enthusiasm for efficiency over effectiveness. Outcomes (actual outcomes) matter more.
In ‘Vengeance Most Fowl’, gnome-robot Norbert wreaks havoc even before Feathers’ malicious intervention, despite Wallace’s best intentions. Inputs optimised, ‘neat and tidy!’ maybe. But better? No.
“Tech…that’s the thing. As long as it knows who’s boss,” Wallace hopefully declares. But whether HI or AI finds itself in the driving seat next year, perhaps our industry’s New Year’s resolution might simply be to make things better, and not just faster or cheaper. We’ve all seen where that ends…
Laurence Green is Director of Effectiveness at the IPA and a trustee at Aardman. He is writing in neither capacity.
