John Hunt has been interviewed for Lürzer’s Archive latest publication. MAD blog shares parts of the interview with you. The full conversation on “the art of the ideas”, the world’s most awarded campaign ever “The Zimbabewean”, this years amazing examples of Media Arts “Gatorade – Replay” and the Pepsi Refresh Project can be found in the current print edition of Lürzers’s Archive.
L.A.: What, to you, are the most important changes advertising has gone through since you first got into the business?
John Hunt: Philosophically, probably the most important change is that we are losing our arrogance in just telling people what to do. We’re finally realizing we can no longer merely interrupt them and hope repetition will do the rest. We now have to be what they choose to engage in.
L.A.: There is a huge interest in all things digital now – also in advertising, of course. Has this interest, this turn towards digital, come at the expense of other media? Creatively as well as financially? What about print advertising? How do you see the future of print?
John Hunt: I guess it’s only natural that all things digital have moved to the centre of the target. When I see how my children consume media, it’s clearly different to when I was their age. This is a fundamental change as opposed to just “adding another media.” We have to rewire the way we think about communications.
It’s still being baked at the moment, but advertising will never be the same again. I still think, though, you have to have a great idea at the centre of everything you do. And that idea has to be your organizing principle. Media is now really any space or place between the brand and its audience. I don’t think this marks the death of print. It will, however, reset its position in the queue.
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L.A.: What is some recent advertising that has impressed you?
John Hunt: I’m a big fan of the “Replay” work we did for Gatorade, out of L.A. It’s a really smart way of engaging an audience by giving people a second chance. I think the most memorable work, in the end, is usually based on a simple human truth.
Acknowledgments: The work “Replay” for Gatorade has been awarded 2 first Grand Prix awards by the jury of this years Cannes Lions Festival, topping the categories PR and Promo (June 22, 2010).
See what AdAge and Adweek say about this groundbreaking idea.