Before the Internet Works on Its Creative Problem, Advertising Needs to Work on Its Confidence Problem

It is Advertising Week in New York and the agenda for members of the online advertising community is “branding” and “creative.” In his report for Adweek, veteran new media observer Brian Morrissey writes:

“As the advertising world descends on Manhattan this week for Advertising Week, the watchword for most is digital. Yet despite the lip service paid that the future of the industry is written in bits and bytes, the Internet after 15-plus years has still not proven itself as a branding medium.”

And he quotes IAB CEO, Randall Rothenberg, who says,

“We need to concede that going back 15 years, without meaning to or thinking about it, we fundamentally created the medium to be a direct-response medium.”

As leader of the internet’s trade association, Randall Rothenberg has been fabulously effective at confronting its demons and moving the industry forward. But, “without meaning to or thinking about it” is only partly true in regards to the 15 year drift away from brand and into direct response-dom. Yes, we didn’t mean to and we didn’t think about it, but 15 years ago we were positive nonetheless: advertising was broken and online was going to “fix” it. The difference between brand and direct response didn’t enter into it. Advertising, period, was a tired business and its heroes, the brand strategists and creatives, were to become relics of a by-gone age. Relics, purged by the New Media classes.

In his article, Brian Morrissey quotes Jeff Levick, President of Global Advertising and Strategy at Aol, which is stepping-up as a champion of today’s creative online initiative. Says Jeff:

“If we really want to fix brand advertising online, we have to go directly to the creative community. We have to understand the limitations of today’s unit that drives them crazy.”

I don’t know what drives the creative community crazy these days. I do know there was always plenty to drive them crazy in the past: the limitations of print and 30-second spots, Account Executives, outdoor billboards, bus shelters, packaging, copy testing, focus groups and budgets among a few. Every time I drive past a highway billboard at 70 miles an hour, however, I marvel at how creative and branding manages to break through the limitations of a cruel commercial world.

But, yes, time to fight back and push back on the creative envelope. Let it happen. Absolutely, positively, overnight. More and better and bigger if required. Get behind it and push. Stand in front and salute. It may be a cruel commercial world, but nothing helps makes it a little brighter than great creative.

But let’s be clear, advertising creative is not the problem. Advertising confidence is the problem. Believing is the problem. And, as anyone will tell you that sells for a living, before you can sell you must believe.

Advertisement