When Creativity Works Against You or, An Inverse Look At Bravery
Very recently I was having a drink with Yew Leong Tan, renown film director and vintage ad man.
He said to me after a sip from his hot chocolate that he thought that the people that did Apple’s advertising were brave.
Now, any ad person immediately thinks of key campaigns like 1984, Think Different or I’m a PC, I’m a Mac and says “No shit.”
But what Yew Leong refered to is Apple’s other advertising; the billboards and posters that simply show a picture of an iPhone on a clean, white background and, although laid out perfectly, very boringly states in Myriad Pro,
The iPhone 4. Now in white.
I walk past those posters and screw my face up in disgust at how empty it is of an idea.
“The agency that does that work is ballsy.”
Said Yew Leong.
“You’re going to have to explain that to me.”
I said as my right eyebrow climbed my forehead skeptically.
Basically, the bravery came not from doing something wildly different that no one had attempted before, but from stepping back and letting the brand and the product speak for themselves with succumbing to the creative need to make it clever, smart or outlandish.
It takes balls and strength to realise when your ‘creativity’ is getting in the way of the communication and resist the urge to put an idea into it.
By stepping back and stripping the ad of everything except the product, logo and a single line, the essence of the Apple brand resounds.
I’ve experienced this a few times while I’ve been here in Malaysia on a much smaller scale.
I’ll type out some short, witty copy for a brochure, flyer or print ad. And the Account Executive would come back and say,
“We have to change the copy. People here don’t know what an ‘early bird’ is.”
(Or something like that.)
“Ugh. Really?”
“Yeah. Like, I know. But probably not the average person. They’ll think we’re talking about birds. Maybe just keep it simple and just say ‘Sign up today.’”
“Really? Ok, that’s fine, I suppose.”
That small frustration that you get when your little embellishments get stripped away and the ad is a straight-forward message. It’s a thorn in your side as a copywriter, but it’s for the greater good that the communication will be received better.
Something that one begrudgingly accepts eventually.
Sometimes you have to step back and admit that even though it’s not witty, visually amazing or provoking by your standards, it works.
And it works better that way.
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