Jean-Marie Dru is the Chairman of TBWA\ Worldwide. He writes a “Thursday” to TBWA’s worldwide staff every week. Sometimes, he shares them with us:
We all know that, sadly, a very large number of advertising campaigns are mediocre. And this is what most people outside of our business believe. But they have not realized that good advertising can inspire people, and great advertising, though rare, can impact the world.
This is why The One Club, the organization that recognizes excellence in advertising in the US, has asked Director Doug Pray to shoot a new documentary feature to promote those ads that are truly innovative and inspiring. It’s called Art & Copy.
The film also celebrates the people who made these ads. It is not only about the craft. It’s about artists. It’s about pioneers. And it’s about people like Lee Clow who come along and change the way people see advertising.
“What’s different and perhaps surprising about this movie, is that it isn’t about bad advertising, that 98% which so often annoys and disrespects its audience,” says Doug Pray. “I didn’t want to make a doc that just trashes trashy advertising. Too easy, too obvious, and why bother? Instead, [I was]granted access to a handful of the greatest advertising minds of the last fifty years. I felt it could be a more powerful statement to focus the film only on those rare few who actually moved and inspired our culture with their work.”
Doug Pray takes an in-depth look into the creative processes involved in some of the most renowned American ad campaigns of the last half century such as “Just Do It,” “I Want My MTV,” “Got Milk?,” and “Think Different.” He delivers this through the eyes of some of the most influential people in the business including George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Hal Riney, and of course, our own Lee Clow.
Here’s what Lee had to say about his involvement with this film:
“Being in a movie was fun. Going to Sundance, hanging out with Robert Redford, signing autographs, what can I say! But seriously, if you see the film it will make you proud to be in this fun creative business. I think it will inspire young people to want a career in ‘Advertising.’”
Art & Copy recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently making its way throughout festivals and cinemas around the world. I encourage everyone to watch the film. Hopefully it will inspire you to do better work. To watch the trailer and find out more about the film, click here.
I’ll end with another quote from Doug Pray:
“Yes, I’ve made a positive film about ads. I’d once believed that our systems of commerce might go away, and with them, all unwanted commercial messaging, but they haven’t yet, and won’t soon. Advertising, in fact, may actually be an innately human act itself. But like all creative endeavors (books, paintings, movies, architecture) most of it is mediocre. Ultimately, I hope ‘ART & COPY’ inspires artists and writers to strive to make more meaningful, more entertaining, or more socially uplifting ads. With so much advertising surrounding us these days, it would be great to get that 2% figure a bit higher.”
Jean-Marie Dru, the inventor of Disruption and Chairman TBWA\ Worldwide delivered today a speech at the TBWA Creative Academy at this years Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz (Slovenia). Here are some sound-bites for all of you who couldn’t attend:
“Disruption has been invented in the mid 80’s. So you could ask: is it still relevant in the current decade? And is it still effective in the middle of the digital revolution?”
“The answer is without any doubt YES, but I will make two observations:
In the last 15 years, the focus of the methodology has moved progressively from convention to vision. Adidas believes that impossible is not a fact, but an opinion. Visa encourages to go and do things, in spite of the tough environment we are in. Nissan explains that “everything they touch, they try to shift”. Pepsi revitalizes the Pepsi generation theme by reminding us that “every generation refreshes the world”. And Absolut makes us discover what would be a perfect world, the world of Absolut.”
“As a summary of this first point concerning Vision, I would say that in this turbulent world, the role of Disruption has pivoted. Today it is more about creating a rallying point for a company or brand, a focal point, and this despite the increasing tribulations of the market – or rather, because of them. We need to create a reference point that we can constantly look back to, whatever unexpected directions the market may have taken us in.”
“The second observation I would like to make about the status of Disruption today is coming from the fact that we are living in a totally new world. In the digital world, we don’t talk to targets anymore, not even to consumers, we talk to audiences. Audiences who are not captive anymore. Audiences who judge brands on everything they do, on all the initiatives they take. Today more than ever, “actions speak louder than words”.
So the way a brand engages the audience in this new media world is key for its success. Therefore Disruption which is about brand belief must be augmented with another discipline, a discipline about brand behaviour. We call it Media Arts.
It starts by repatriating part of the media thinking into the agency. We can no longer think of media as just a means for brands to talk at consumers, but rather as all the places, spaces and experiences where people live their lives. It is time for advertising agencies not to be media neutral anymore, but to be media passionate.
It’s also time to understand that each and every touch point between audiences and a brand must be creative. And this whatever these touch points are: the packaging, the retail presence, the content of the website, the PR programs, the CRM initiatives etc. And we called this Media Arts because we believe each point of contact must tell the brand’s story, gracefully, artfully.
The problem is no longer just to ensure the coherence between the different elements of a brand’s communication, which some continue to refer to as 360°. But rather, to feed a constant conversation with our audiences, 365 days a year. From 360° to 365…”
“Brands are judged in the way they act and in all the initiatives they take. That’s why Media Arts is so important.”
“In a nutshell, Disruption is about brand belief, whereas Media Arts is about brand behaviour.”
Jean-Marie Dru (Chairman TBWA Worldwide) will join the TBWA Creative Academy at this year’s Golden Drum Festival. In his speech “DISRUPTION in a disrupted world” he will reflect on one of the toughest periods in the history of the advertising business and offer his thoughts on creativity and how brands should behave in the future.
Bestselling author and the inventor of Disruption – a way of unlocking the hidden potential of brands – Dru is a passionate believer in the power of big ideas. In his speech he will explain why brands now have an even greater need for smart and innovative thinking. And he’ll offer insights into how that thinking has helped mega-brands such as Absolut, Apple, Pedigree and Adidas.
With Disruption, Jean-Marie Dru gave TBWA an idea that has consistently set the agency apart from its competition. Both Advertising Age and Adweek magazines named TBWA Global Agency of the Year in 2008. And Fast Company magazine placed TBWA 24th on its 2009 list of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.
Disruption is both a mind-set and a methodology that TBWA uses every day to create the ideas that enable its clients to present brands in entirely new ways. It drives success by collaboratively, collectively and systematically interrogating and challenging the conventional thinking.
October 7, 2008; 10:30 a.m., Kodak Hall (Grand Hotel Bernardin, Portoroz SLO)
Starting tomorrow, mad-blog.com will report directly from Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz (Slovenia). We will share the latest news, background stories from Jean-Marie Dru’s speech on Wednesday, as well insights from Stefan Schmidt, president of this year’s jury. Stefan will share his experience as the head of the Golden Drum Film, Press, Outdoor and Radio Jury exclusively with the readers of mad-blog.com. Stefan is Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\Germany in Berlin.
This is the 200th post on mad-blog.com. Congratulations and a big hand to all those who have contributed so far. Over 20,000 absolute unique visitors from 134 countries joined us, spending an average of 2:59 minutes on the blog. Over 4,550 people have subscribed to our rss feed. Thanks for all the interest and support.
This is the perfect opportunity to share the most read stories celebrating Media Arts and Disruption. Enjoy and pass them on:
How an advertising agency fought for press freedom and broke industry records along the way.
As dictators around the world muzzle the media and newspapers confront an uncertain future, the freedom of the press has become one of the hottest topics of 2009. Advertising agency TBWA joined the debate with a disruptive campaign that scooped no less than nine top prizes at the industry’s annual festival in Cannes: a record. It centers on a crusading newspaper, a dictatorship and messages printed on trillion dollar banknotes.
“The story reads like something out of a movie, but it’s painfully real,” says John Hunt, Worldwide Creative Director of TBWA. “The setting is Zimbabwe, where one of the only sources of reliable information is a newspaper called The Zimbabwean, whose journalists are forced to live and work in exile. On top of that, the Mugabe government has slapped a 70 percent import duty on the paper, so very few Zimbabweans can afford to buy it. Needless to say, it has almost no advertising budget.”
TBWA’s South African agency, TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, wanted to publicize the plight of the newspaper while simultaneously criticizing Robert Mugabe’s dysfunctional regime. “Thanks to runaway inflation, Zimbabwean currency literally isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. So we decided that it would be cheaper to print ads on Zimbabwean bills than on regular paper.”
The insight was a perfect fit with TBWA’s “disruption” theory, conceived by its chairman Jean-Marie Dru. Disruption is about overturning conventions to come up with original ideas. In this case, TBWA ignored conventional news channels and turned money into a medium – the symbol of a failed state. After record-breaking inflation Zimbabwe had recently issued the 100 trillion dollar note, whose 14 zeros did not even add up to the price of a loaf of bread.
“Our team found themselves in a seedy part of Johannesburg exchanging a handful of US dollars for trillions of dollars of Zimbabwean cash. At another point we had Zimbabwean friends turning up at the border with refuse bags stuffed with banknotes. One bag was worth about two US dollars.”
Real money is hard to ignore. During the campaign, agency staffers handed out hundreds of high denomination Zimbabwean banknotes in the street. Printed on them was the message: “Fight the regime that has crippled a country”, accompanied by the newspaper’s website address.
TBWA also created the world’s first advertising posters made from genuine banknotes. Giant billboards fluttering with real money made the message dramatically clear. Smaller posters, often located near places that sold The Zimbabwean, allowed people to peel off the bills and show their friends. The agency sent envelopes stuffed with Zimbabwean money to radio DJs, TV presenters, journalists, politicians and other influential figures. Pretty soon, the media was abuzz with the story.
“While a wrinkled dollar bill with a message on it is a simple idea, digital media is incredibly sophisticated and swift,” says Hunt. “People would pass the billboards with their cell phone and take a picture. Then they’d send it out via Twitter or upload it onto their blog. You can guess what happened next: within about 24 hours the story was in newspapers and on websites across the globe. Today, when you have something interesting to say, people will share it.”
The campaign cost less than US$3000, but it was highly effective: a week after it had launched, hits on The Zimbabwean’s website rose from 2,000 a day to more than two million.
The campaign deservedly won the agency’s in-house Disruption Award Grand Prix. More public accolades came at the Cannes Lions 2009 International Advertising Festival, which ended on June 27. The “trillion dollar” campaign won no less than 9 top prizes, including a Grand Prix in the outdoor advertising category and a Gold in the prestigious Titanium category, which recognizes game-changing ideas. It’s the first time in the festival’s 56 years that a single campaign has scooped so many awards.
“The Cannes festival was a recognition that the TBWA method works,” notes Hunt. “What you need in advertising today is a single visceral idea that touches many people, expressed in an intelligent way across different media. At our agency, we call this Disruption supported by the use of Media Arts.”
In the midst of the recession, the campaign also showed that advertising techniques could be used for other purposes than pushing product. “Taken in context with brutal press restrictions in places like Iran and Myanmar, it’s incredibly resonant,” Hunt agrees. “Advertising is the most effective way of supporting a free press, so perhaps this is a timely reminder that our industry doesn’t just exist to create hype.”
Last year Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman of TBWA\ Worldwide, has an intense connection with the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. He had the honor to chair the jury twice and last year he gave a highly recognized speech “The Beauty of Big” as part of the festival program. This year he shares his personal insights about the festival with the readers of mad-blog.com. Enjoy the conversation.
Images can take a campaign international, but it’s the strength of ideas that will really unlock its potential. Just ask the US president Barack Obama.
PART ONE – You don’t need me to tell you how successful Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was. And you certainly don’t need me to analyze the communications strategy behind it. Even before the dust had settled, that job had been done many times.
But what struck me as I travelled around my territory during the US election race was the ease with which the Obama brand crossed borders. In cities from Amsterdam to Zurich, I saw T-shirts bearing Obama’s image, along with the now familiar messages: “Hope”, “Change” and “Yes we can”. Not that I wish to disparage the president’s international supporters, but I’m sure many of the people wearing those T-shirts had only a cursory knowledge of his policies. Obama was no longer a mere politician. He had become an idea.
I found this highly relevant, because in our business we’re constantly grappling with the global management of ideas. Ironically, despite the fact that it’s now almost 45 years since Marshall McLuhan first wrote of “the global village”, that task has become increasingly difficult.
In the early days of TBWA, our main concern was that our network was too diffuse. We were worried that we had gaps here and there; that the disparate agencies were not working closely enough together. Today, I think, most people agree that our network is highly cohesive. But wrangling those ideas has not become any easier. Digital media and empowered consumers have seen to that.
So how on earth can we ensure that our ideas cross borders with the agility of Barack Obama, without becoming distorted along the way? For a start, I’m utterly convinced by what my friend Jean-Marie Dru described in Cannes as “the beauty of big”. Other may disagree, but I personally feel that, in order to manage ideas on a global basis, you need a big, seamless network.
After that, the approach depends on each specific client. As most readers will be aware, there’s no cookie cutter solution. You need the answers to several questions. What is the strategic direction of the client’s company? Is it national, regional or global? What is its attitude regarding the standardization of products and marketing programs? If the client wants to change its positioning, does it envisage a gradual change or a revolution? Or does it want both, depending on the market?
And is the decision-making process centralized or decentralized? One interesting exercise is to put these questions to the HQ and the local markets. The answers are always revealing – and most often different.
In tomorrows part, I’ll be looking at examples how successful brands like adidas, Apple or Absolut have tackled the problem.
Perry Valkenburg is President Europe and COO International at TBWA. In this series of two posts, he explains why big disruptive ideas are the right way to tackle the global challenges for brands. If you have any comments or suggestions please email Perry Valkenburg.
Jean-Marie Dru, the inventor of Disruption and Chairman TBWA\ Worldwide delivered today a speech at the TBWA Creative Academy at this years Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz (Slovenia). Here are some sound-bites for all of you who couldn’t attend:
Jean-Marie Dru (Chairman TBWA Worldwide) will join the TBWA Creative Academy at this year’s Golden Drum Festival. In his speech “DISRUPTION in a disrupted world” he will reflect on one of the toughest periods in the history of the advertising business and offer his thoughts on creativity and how brands should behave in the future.
This is the 200th post on mad-blog.com. Congratulations and a big hand to all those who have contributed so far. Over 20,000 absolute unique visitors from 134 countries joined us, spending an average of 2:59 minutes on the blog. Over 4,550 people have subscribed to our rss feed. Thanks for all the interest and support.
“The story reads like something out of a movie, but it’s painfully real,” says John Hunt, Worldwide Creative Director of TBWA. “The setting is Zimbabwe, where one of the only sources of reliable information is a newspaper called The Zimbabwean, whose journalists are forced to live and work in exile. On top of that, the Mugabe government has slapped a 70 percent import duty on the paper, so very few Zimbabweans can afford to buy it. Needless to say, it has almost no advertising budget.”
Real money is hard to ignore. During the campaign, agency staffers handed out hundreds of high denomination Zimbabwean banknotes in the street. Printed on them was the message: “Fight the regime that has crippled a country”, accompanied by the newspaper’s website address.
