Unexampled

I'm as big a fan of recycling as the next guy. But I draw the line when the concept spills over from the physical to the creative environment. This conceptual spill is just as disastrous in its way as any oil spill.

I know that a new idea is generally a new combination of already existing stuff. But that's not the same as creative recycling.

These days we embrace music sampling in lieu of composing new music. We make movies out of old TV shows. And TV shows out of movies or existing real-world video. There is no excuse for this kind of recycling, because, unlike our physical resources, our creative resources are infinite. We are not in danger of running out.

Nowhere is this more apparent, or, apparently, less of an issue, than in advertising. The industry is rife with Ad Fads, bandwagon-jumping, copycatting, the cutting of cookies and cooking up of half-baked, uncomfortably familiar ads which are the end result of spending twenty minutes on solutions to problems that would need two weeks. In lieu of a campaign, we clone one ad over and over, with barely discernible cosmetic differences.
Once we've wrapped a message in a particular new and interesting way, shouldn't we move one to the next new one? Instead we scramble to generate as many more examples of that same wrap, thus enervating its power and putting the lie to the term "Creative Department".

It's not that there are no new ideas, as so many of us rationalize. The problem is that there are so many old ideas, many of which are pretty good, and pretty easy to redo with slight changes in the window dressing.
Take the new Pringles commercial. Here's a fresh idea. Let's do a commercial for snack food where the snack food is being consumed at a party. When the snack food runs out, the party suddenly stops. More snack food appears and the party resumes.

Or consider taglines. In the past few years we've had a glut of taglines in question form. Then a bunch of "Life is such and such. Do so and so." lines. And one word tags. Lately we're seeing lots of two- and three-parters. A random stroll through one current issue of a weekly business magazine produced these:

Saturn. A different kind of company. A different kind of car.
Allure. Real men. Real allure.
Headstrong. Strong opinions. Strong Results.
Cognet. Real world. Real time.
Authoria. Personal questions. Personalized answers.
Five Star. It's better. We'll prove it.
Slates. Modern. Intelligent. Style.
Marriott Residence Inn. Room to work, room to relax, room to breathe.

Or look at executional devices in commercials. A decade ago, morphing was big. Five years ago, those flashy things that editors insert between cuts when the film isn't very interesting became so ubiquitous I grew concerned for epileptics. Then reptiles had their day in the sun. Now we're seeing lots of puppets. And we continue to hear the punch line that's been beaten to death for a couple of years now: "What?" (as in the Ringo " . . . What? Too many syllables?" spot). We hear this overworked punch line in movies and commercials, as well as several times per episode in every single sitcom every week.

The list is endless. The question remains: Why? Of course, there are lots of answers. Most clients have an easier time buying what they've seen. Marketing research favors the familiar. The Law of Centropy still holds. The review system in most larger agencies encourages explaining your idea by citing examples of existing ads out there which are similar. Ripomatics have been such an effective tool for selling TV spots to clients for so long that those of us who once expressed concerns about the pitfalls of such mimicry gave up our futile protestations long ago. Many (most?) creatives are lazy thinkers. Many (most?) creatives have no lives outside the agency and turn to award books and directors' reels as their primary source for ideas. The inevitable result: idea incest.

Still, I ask "Why?" Why, when there are still an infinite number of reasonably unexampled ad ideas yet to be invented? Why, when the most powerful, most successful advertising is overwhelmingly the unexampled stuff?
Ultimately it comes down to this: Time. Very few ad agencies or creatives are willing to take the time and make the effort to create, recognize, support and sell unexampled ideas. And very few clients are willing to pay for that time, or accept the "risk" which often accompanies unexampledness. Achieving unexampledness is the long road, and a painful process at every step.

Almost always, as I witness another assignment being jammed through this or that agency, the goal has become simply to complete the task in the allotted time, with no time to even consider the quality of the solution. The resulting work is often surprisingly good, all things considered, but just okay when you take away those considerations. Looking at all of this "competent" work, I think to myself, "Boy, I would love to have seen the great ideas those guys would have come up with a week from now. Or even a couple of days from now."
As Chairman Jimmy never tires of pointing out,"Time is the currency of quality." I would add that unexampledness is a prime measure of that quality. And, generally, American Business doesn't put a premium on either. Thus, the unspoken motto of Advertising remains: Same old same old.