By Alex Pugh

Most people these days ask, What does this brand do for me? People no longer buy products, they invest in brands that they believe in. Work that improves communities, the world, people’s lives, whilst not necessarily shifting product, creates overall goodwill towards the brand. No more hard sell. There is so much potential locked up in brands, in marketing budgets, in advertising to do good, why spooge a billion dollars on an advertising campaign that nobody gives two shits about?

 

It’s about time we asked what brands can do for us, after years of taking so so much.

 

Business is inherently conservative. Business has got to at least maintain the bottom line.

 

But fortune favours the bold.

 

Advertising is where art meets commerce. Whilst there has always been a lot of money sloshing around artists and other creative types, great advertising often comes up against those who are not bold enough to take a chance and risk that bottom line.

 

To get great work through the client gauntlet, you need the personal qualities of

 

Charming Obstinacy.

 

use one’s ability to please and attract in order to influence (someone).

 

+

 

stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.

 

Piece of cake. Win hearts and minds, but if you have a vision, by god, stick to it.

 

Make work that breaks the rules but is emotionally relevant.

 

If everyone is doing this, do that. If everyone is up, be down.

 

Just hold the whole goddamn business in contempt, to hell with the client, the advertising industry, your boss.

 

But remember who you’re talking to.

 

The consumer is priority one. That reminds me, we need another word for consumer. Target? Too militaristic. Something more emotional… Audience? Chum?

 

The work should begin conversations. This is something I always say. We are all just people, talking to each other. Make something that people give a shit about.

 

“People don’t read ads. They read things that interest them, and sometimes it’s an ad.”

 

Howard Luck Gossage, Socrates of San Francisco.

 

When confronted with a brief, consider what is the problem at hand and how can the solution make the world better, on a micro or macro scale?

 

If you can address both of these considerations, you’ve got a winner.

 

And lastly, my favourite piece of Steve’s advice…

 

Carry on weird.

 

Now, that is something I can get behind.

 

 

spooge

 

n. slang word meaning semen.

 

v. to ejaculate.