The art of motes - Communications
A popular advertising festival heralded as the holy grail of creative communication is undergoing a quiet transition. Once considered to be the hall of fame for ideas that were sparklingly new, the current work seems to be a crop of curious tinkering that centres around motivations than provocations.
What triggers this shift, is the industry's anxiety with what works. of the several anecdotes and critical bullet points that punctuate the current language of delivering relevant product messages, the focus seems to be on the small stuff or in other words the breaking of the idea.
Ideas this year represents a framework: a blurring of whats creative vs whats contagious and whats effective.
We are in a time when pitched are being evaluated on all of the above three parameters, where work is bought and sold on its ability to stay relevant and good work ticks the boxes of these expected deliveries. Good work today is a delicate balance of something new that drives sharability and is measurable.
In the past there were operational phases of the idea, which structurally moved the brand point of view forward with abundant resources and ultimately exhausting itself. The current work seems to be more particle like than granular. Forms of message that could gather a storm or settle as dust.
It has few interesting implications on the way we work -
1. the idea is a result of teamwork. Essentially it is systematic combination of people: seated in the tall buildings of client offices, inside the glass walls of communication agencies, behind the monitor screens of digital partners and ultimately those who participate in the spreading of the idea.
2. there is emphasis on trial. failure of the idea is not deprecating or damaging as it used to be in the past. ideas could fail, it doesn't mean someone botched up, it only means it did not resonate
3. objective setting - strategizing - creative thinking are all important for anyone to do it alone
what has really shifted is: from advertisers thinking of audience as morons, it is the advertiser thinking of himself as the moron. Truly the time is for motes not notes.
What triggers this shift, is the industry's anxiety with what works. of the several anecdotes and critical bullet points that punctuate the current language of delivering relevant product messages, the focus seems to be on the small stuff or in other words the breaking of the idea.
Ideas this year represents a framework: a blurring of whats creative vs whats contagious and whats effective.
We are in a time when pitched are being evaluated on all of the above three parameters, where work is bought and sold on its ability to stay relevant and good work ticks the boxes of these expected deliveries. Good work today is a delicate balance of something new that drives sharability and is measurable.
In the past there were operational phases of the idea, which structurally moved the brand point of view forward with abundant resources and ultimately exhausting itself. The current work seems to be more particle like than granular. Forms of message that could gather a storm or settle as dust.
It has few interesting implications on the way we work -
1. the idea is a result of teamwork. Essentially it is systematic combination of people: seated in the tall buildings of client offices, inside the glass walls of communication agencies, behind the monitor screens of digital partners and ultimately those who participate in the spreading of the idea.
2. there is emphasis on trial. failure of the idea is not deprecating or damaging as it used to be in the past. ideas could fail, it doesn't mean someone botched up, it only means it did not resonate
3. objective setting - strategizing - creative thinking are all important for anyone to do it alone
what has really shifted is: from advertisers thinking of audience as morons, it is the advertiser thinking of himself as the moron. Truly the time is for motes not notes.
Comments
Post a Comment