Uncanny at Cannes
Although I have enjoyed Cannes, met wonderful people and saw some beautiful work, I have often, mostly when at parties, felt uneasy in Cannes. To be more specific, I have felt strangely out of place. Although I saw (and enjoyed the company of) many people I’ve known and appreciated for years, I still felt like a stranger at various moments. Cannes, by the way, is just a stark illustration: I have, at moments, felt out of place in my industry for quite some time now - and I’ve been wondering what the problem is. I think I’ve found it.
The problem arises when people start talking about the awards: who won what, and how many, how deserved or undeserved it was, how the Belgians are doing, how the Film shortlist was worthless but titanium great, and how can they reduce a brilliant longlist to only 23 Titaniums in a shortlist, or, like in a recent discussion at the CCB awards, what criteria the jury should be using, etc. At these moments - and I can’t help myself - I stare at my conversation partner like a guppie fish. I don’t know what he’s talking about, I don’t know who won what, and I don’t care.
Now, before I go on, let’s make something clear. This is NOT a traditional rant about awards being irrelevant. This is NOT a rant from a bad loser - I wish we won some awards, I would be glad. This is certainly not about the quality of the awarded work - I’ve seen brilliant things in Cannes. And it’s not a form of snobbery - I look upon my lack of interest as a professional fault, something I should work on. I feel I should care - the point is, I just can’t bring myself to it.
As I said, I think I found it. I have come - over the years - to develop my idea of what business we’re fundamentally in - and having these discussions in Knokke and Cannes have helped me, finally, to put my finger upon it. I have come to believe in Invisible Marketing, a concept fundamentally in opposition with the very idea of awards.
Invisible Marketing is about writing a line in a political speech that gets picked up by the media, and starts working magic both in and out of the party.
Invisible Marketing is about launching a song, winning a gold record, and using that song for communicating and promoting values associated to the brand of your client.
Invisible Marketing is about creating an news event that gets picked up by all media, and changes the way the public opinion looks upon your client.
Invisible Marketing is designing a training program that helps sales people say the right things to their customers.
Invisible Marketing is coining a new term or name for a service of your client, that immediately helps his customers see the product in a new way - thereby relaunching the sales of the product.
All of these examples have two things in common:
- we’ve been doing them for the last year(s)
- we can’t tell anyone, because it only works when nobody knows it’s staged. So we keep our mouth shut. To the point that a journalist from the professional press didn’t know about a campaign we did 4 years ago. Because we couldn’t tell - so we didn’t.
It’s all about “nudging” people a certain way, gently pushing their ideas or behaviour in a certain direction without showing you do. You may remember the book I’ve written about earlier, “Nudge“, which is all about exactly that.
Saturday morning, I was listening to a speech by some people of Profero, not an agency I’ve heard of before, but I share their vision. They saw the rol of agencies as being “creative business partners”, and cited Don Draper’s visit to the Menken store in “Mad Men” as exactly what they meant - talking about the store, the products, the staff, and not once about the advertising strapline.
It’s what we strive to do. It’s not easy to escape the traps of the traditional advertisng agency. It’s not easy to find the people with the right mindset. It’s definitely not easy being paid for this kind of services. But we have to do it. Because it’s, I firmly believe, our only future as an industry.
Met dat idee van ‘creative business partner’ sta je niet alleen, denk ik.
In de V.S. is Sapient een van de grote pioniers op dat vlak. In ons land heb ik dat idee ook al gehoord bij de mannen van Boondoggle, die ook stellen dat wij van de vakpers enkel de bovenlaag zien: de campagne die al dan niet een prijs wint. Onder die schil zit een strategie die voortvloeit uit de rol als partner die advies geeft op businessniveau en dus niet enkel meer op communicatieniveau. Een intelligente evolutie vind ik, al is het ook een evolutie in de richting van wat de PWC’s en de McKinsey’s van deze wereld doen.
I fail to see where the ‘invisibility’ comes in, all of the examples you cite have something to do with the public picking it up. And I doubt it would have mattered to them if you had won an award for them or talked to the press…
The difference with consumers today is that they don’t really mind advertising, as long as you deliver something interesting and/or worthwile for them to look at / toy with / interact with / think over /…
They don’t care if someone from an agency talked to a politician and gave them a good way to talk about a subject, as long as it’s a subject they care for.
I can give you thousands of examples of succesful records that were launched of an advertising campaign (let’s start with Flat Beat).
‘Who took my badjas’ became a news event lately, our walking trashcans and cigarette butts ended up in popular newspapers before the trade press. Why would a new event be less valid if an idea from an advertising agency lies at the base?
Do sales people mind if the agency came up with a training program if it helps them? Do their clients mind them being trained by said program?
I’m going to stop refuting the whole notion of invisibility there, but I got the strong impression that awards moved beyond the ‘advertising strapline’ and the classical view and that they’ve fully embraced the idea that campaigns need to put something in motion. Sometimes it’s a nudge, and sometimes it’s an earthshake, and I’ve seen all types awarded at Cannes (and not just there) for example.
dag piet,
je weet : als er één mens is met wie ik het graag eens ben, dan ben jij het wel.
maar niet vandaag (sorry, beetje over tijd, maar de provencaalse zon hield me een weekje tegen) : ik ben het deze keer niét met je eens.
- “invisible marketing” : zonde van de tijd. als marketing één doelstelling heeft is het wel dat er een goed product/goede dienst opgepikt wordt door de markt. de doelstelling kan dus niets anders zijn dan ‘maximale zichtbaarheid’ te verwekken. ooit. ergens. en liefst veel, altijd, overal.
- marketing is veel meer dan communicatie. een open deur, i know. maar je hebt het (vooral) over “onzichtbare communicatie” : dingen die weliswaar onder de radar blijven maar toch ‘ergens’, ‘ooit’ worden opgepikt.
- reclame maken is een mooi vak - weet ik. maar waar jij nu op botst is een van de redenen waarom ik eruit wou en meer wilde. een merk maken is zoveel méér dan een campagne maken. reclame is de brandstof in een raket, maar als je naar de sterren wil, moet je vooral een goeie raket hebben. ik denk dat cannes en co. belangrijk zijn als forum voor de beste reclamecampagnes van de wereld. maar hoe je raketten moet bouwen, dat zie je er niet.
- om een raket te maken moet je ook gepassioneerd kunnen zijn over dat laatste boutje. anders gaat de vlieger niet op en ontploft het ding. marketing- en merkbeleid houdt zich daar mee bezig. reclame zorgt voor de steekvlam (de lift-off). en als zo’n steekvlam niet net heel veel licht geeft, niet net heel veel kabaal maakt dan geraken we toch niet ergens tussen de sterren.
dus … invisible ?! with a bang, ja !
If two of the smartest people in advertising (well, let’s limit ourselves to “Belgian advertising”, because I’m sure there are smart people out there too
disagree with what you’re saying, then you should at least listen, and see if you went off the rails somewhere. So, Yves and Walter, here’s to you.
Basically, you’re right. My mistake. I shouldn’t have talked about “invisible marketing”, but about an “invisible agency”. It’s obviously true that everything we do has as an objective to be picked up by the audience somehow and somewhere, otherwise what’s the point? Packaging, news stories, product design, anything, it’s all supposed to drive some form of consumer interaction ,engagement, reaction, etc. Point taken.
I know too, Yves - if only because you pointed it out to me quite eloquently in Cannes
- that communication is now accepted by almost everyone to be more than “classic advertising” and that it involves creating movements, stirring public debates, etc, and I know too that most award shows now do celebrate these forms of communication. I know - if only, again, because you pointed it out to me, this time at the CCB 
- that many agencies are on that boat now, and we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously there. Again, point taken, and believe me, very earnestly taken too.
However, that was not what I set out to write - and I’m the one to blame for not making myself more clear. What I wanted to say was this: I have reached the point where I find it much more interesting to influence and steer all the things that drive consumers’ reactions well before communication ever comes into play. It’s what Walter calls the rocket. Because all of of the examples you quote, Yves, are still “communication”, are still not “the rocket” (and again, my blame, I did use certain of these examples there as well (the song, for instance), and I shouldn’t have).
Having said that, it’s the rocket I’m interested in. Maybe it’s because I believe that that is what ultimately drives consumers most effectively, maybe it’s because I’m tired of coming in - as an industry - when all the most important parameters have been set out, maybe it’s because I believe that “less is more”, or maybe it’s just old age creeping in. No offense, Walter, but if you say that’s why you wanted to get out and wanted more, that probably has something to do with age (or let’s call it experience
as well.
And that’s what made me feel uncanny in Cannes.
Now, what’s the solution? Stepping out? No, because, on a personal level, I’m not ready to be “a consultant” - again, no offense. But, on an organisational level, because I don’t want to do this alone, I want to take the whole agency with me. I (want to) believe it’s possible for a whole agency to adopt that attitude - and to become relevant to clients on a much deeper, business-instead-of-communication-level. In other words, I want us to become a rocket-building-agency. Humble, discreet, but very effective behind the scenes, where it all matters. In other words, not Neil Armstrong, but the engineers that built the rocket - and whose names are unknown to the greater public. The invisible agency, if you wish.
Call it a personal journey of myself, but luckily also of my fellow travelers at GERMAINE. And yes, it’s not an easy road, but it’s the one we’re very committed to explore.
And no, this does not mean I’ve lost touch with advertising - it’s still a great job. And it doesn’t mean you won’t be seeing me in Cannes anymore. Hà, you wish!
Quick update: a blog that really helps shaping my thoughts about this is by te head of Zeus Jones in Minneapolis. And here’s just another post that makes this point: http://www.zeusjones.com/blog/2009/great-examples-of-how-operations-can-become-marketing/