CR Blog
YouTube and creative suicide
Posted by Gordon Comstock, 11 March 2010, 11:20 Permalink Comments (17)
Above: From an Olympus Pen camera commercial by German agency DSG, ‘inspired’ by Taijin Takeuchi’s A wolf loves pork film, something the agency only acknowledged after a flood of accusatory YouTube comments. But we could have picked any number of other examples...
In 1937, just as technology was gathering momentum, George Orwell identified one of its fundamental truths. “No one draws water from the well,” he wrote, “when he can run the tap.” As soon as science gives us an easy way of doing something, doing it the old way instantly becomes a hopeless waste of time, in other words, a hobby. Once you can buy factory-built furniture the only reason to fashion a table for yourself is the arts and crafts impulse, and this, he observed, was the preserve of the “bearded fruit juice drinker”. The effect on craftsmanship is permanent. “In such circumstances,” he said, “it is nonsense to talk of ‘creative work’.”
So what is advertising going to do, now that ideas are available on tap,
in every office? Much has been written about the ethics of purloining ideas from YouTube [notably by CR here]. No one has stopped doing it. This isn’t surprising for anyone who’s worked on a nightmare brief. The one that’s been through the agency eight times, the one that comes with an apology from the head of planning, the brief that won’t flush.
The first day is OK, you deflect your partner’s ideas, eliminating the obvious. Even the second day has a kind of hysterical calm, like a test match at gunpoint. It’s the third day, when you’re in the desert, the place where careers are really made or broken, and the review appears at 4pm. Suddenly that clip of a poodle playing a bassoon starts to look so very very right.
It doesn’t just make sense for spineless creatives either. It’s an economic imperative. The problem is there in Orwell’s oxymoron: ‘creative work’. Work that is play. On the one hand advertising is an exercise in waste, an opportunity for brands to engage in that most inefficient of behaviours, entertainment. On the other it’s an industry, a multi-million pound concern, a tough market that promises its clients efficiency. Yes it would be lovely if we could all sit round having ideas, maybe playing a sitar, but if you can get it quicker from the net, you better do it alright?
And this will be fine until clients wise up. The net is accessible to all, so why is a brand going to pay an agency millions of pounds to trawl it for them? That there’s an art to the selection of content is the agency’s last claim to legitimacy. But it’s threadbare. Ditch the agency and how will the brand manager know which clip to choose? He won’t need to. As Bernbach said, research can’t have ideas, but it can certainly help select them. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It’s us or the computers and for the money men that’s a no-brainer. We don’t have to embrace the future, it’s coming for us like a septic great-aunt.
This article originally appeared in the February issue of CR. ‘Gordon Comstock’ (a pseudonym) is a London-based ad creative who blogs at advertanon.blogspot.com
17 Comments
Did anyone see inside John Lewis on tv last night? In it ad agency Adam & Eve pitched an idea for the xmas campaign based around something they saw on youtube, in fact it was nearly identical. Remember the stop motion bed music video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY
Watch the john lewis show here, skip to 13m in for the agency pitch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rgk5g/Inside_John_Lewis_Episode_1/
Thankfully the didn't go for that treatment, otherwise it would have ended up here as a youtube rip off :) Funny that the initial storyboard is exactly the same as the opening of the music video.
The ad they went with the end was very well done and fitted the JL brand much better.
2010-03-11 12:17:44
Curious debate. If you're under pressure to come up with something new, what do you do? Do you 'borrow' it from the internet claiming its yours? Do you come up with a crafty adaptation of a notion? Or do you create with chest-puffing-pride? I imagine for lots of creative people, its going to be a mix.
At the same time, with so many graphics a convenient click away, our brains soak up our fascinations. Its fully comprehensible that when our brains get in touch with our fingers to forge 'new' ideas, they're bound to emerge displaying an element of borrowing.
2010-03-11 12:23:18
If in doubt - Parody.
All the cool kids are doing it.
2010-03-12 09:37:42
"creativity is always about copying and stealing ideas...
However the effectiveness is not in what you copied, but how you copied it..."
- Originally claimed by a famous Japanese Samurai... about how he learned and adapted someone else's swordmanship to himself during a battle.
2010-03-12 14:51:25
I can't help but think that this is symptomatic of an industry that's getting too big - too full of unnecessary people.
People used to go to agencies to get a kind of thinking they couldn't find anywhere else. Only a small proportion of people (by definition) can think in a different way and offer genuine originality of ideas.
The problem here seems to be people who can't offer that level of creativity for whatever reason stealing ideas from people who can. An industrial cull of dull-minded 'creatives' would sort this out. Get back to the truly creative elite industry that we used to be so proud of - an industry populated by talented thinkers and exceptional crafts people. Not this flabby, overwrought and thieving monster that will one day self destruct.
The sooner clients are made aware of the apparent proliferation of second-hand ideas, the sooner the agencies who offer genuine clarity of thought will prosper. Only plagiarists and pretenders need to worry.
2010-03-12 15:33:41
Why don't these agencies pay a fee to the person who originally came up with the idea, much like they would if they were using a photo from a photo library? It's just immoral to profit from someone else's hard work. That's not 'borrowing', it's stealing.
2010-03-12 15:33:47
you guys should see what Brazilian agencies do.
check out this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lc4I2ULxgg
total copy of Keith Loutit in his bathtub series AND another bank commercial.
but the worse is that they remove all comments on you tube.
2010-03-12 16:20:16
Nobody seems to be stating the real problem. Clients.
Clients who have little imagination to understand something without having the exact thing shown to them, Clients who display little or no trust in the agency to create something that hasn't been done already, Clients who refuse to sign off ideas unless they can be shown the YouTube video or whatever reference that spells it out for them, allows them to take it back to their boss and explain what they're thinking of buying. And the agency favourite - clients who go to that other agency who showed them a neat bit of experimental film to rip off/appropriate for the execution of their ad - instead of that idea you had that can only be described in sketches and script form because it hasn't been done.
This will never stop. Ever. You just have to decide what sort of agency/creative you want to be. And accept that others may win awards and accounts by copying other people's work.
The John Lewis/Adam & Eve example was great to see. Good client. 'Yeh - that's very nice ironic, speccy advertising man - but what the fuck has it got to do with the brief - you know - the one you started the meeting with about buying that one special present?'
To all the creatives at Adam & Eve who didn't get their ideas that didn't come from YouTube videos bought or presented - take comfort in this quote.
"A firm belief and a sharp pencil are all you need to begin changing things. Your opinions are valuable. Never let them go or leave them with those who trade only in mediocrity. If there isn’t room for your ideas where you are, take them somewhere better. Things can always be improved. There is always someone who will believe in you."
2010-03-12 22:57:03
Funny. Nothing new here. This is Weiden's creative business model.
2010-03-13 17:42:49
Devilgate hits the problem on the head: "Nobody seems to be stating the real problem. Clients.
Clients who have little imagination to understand something without having the exact thing shown to them, Clients who display little or no trust in the agency to create something that hasn't been done already..."
In my experence, too, clients are afraid of originality: " that idea you had that can only be described in sketches and script form because it hasn't been done."
Surely a lesson to be learned here is, if you're going to nick an idea, don't make it so obvious.
2010-03-14 18:52:30
same as the land rover advert really
2010-03-15 10:48:41
Anyone remember this amazing promo video for Plan B ? ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11io4_plan-b-no-good_music ) Im am positive I saw an advert recently totally rinsing the presentation style very closely.
Also strangely, the video seems to be missing from most of the internet, couldn't find it anywhere at first.
Another example I think ( that is - of course - unless even this video was borrowed from elsewhere first! )
2010-03-15 11:23:51
Anyone remember this amazing promo video for Plan B ? ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11io4_plan-b-no-good_music ) Im am positive I saw an advert recently totally rinsing the presentation style very closely.
Also strangely, the video seems to be missing from most of the internet, couldn't find it anywhere at first.
Another example I think ( that is - of course - unless even this video was borrowed from elsewhere first! )
2010-03-15 11:37:15
Blaming it on the client is a bit lame. The agency could quite easily have produced an animated storyboard to show them. If they didn't have the time, then why not just come to a financial arrangement with the originator? They wouldn't dream of nicking a photo from a photo agency's website without paying for it, so why take something from YouTube without offering any compensation? Did they imagine that no-one would notice?
2010-03-15 12:58:29
Theres a car advert that's exactly the same as the above 2 films with the photographs too
2010-03-16 11:36:11
I couldn't agree more Mr Comstock.
While big dumb advertising continues to see the modern ad creative's job as simply 'styling a message' with some random creativity, the job will slowly be eroded - after all, it's easy to keep your eye out for new techniques or things that you take and use in your ads isn't it? While this is the case what exactly are these creatives adding?
I take the old-fashioned view that proper ad creatives are problem solvers - a key architect of what the message should be and how it would best be delivered.
I don't recognise the job of the big agency creative these days - it's all just tight trousers and youTube videos.
It's not the job that I signed up to do (back in ancient 'istry).
That's a minority view these days, unfortunately.
2010-03-16 16:45:41
One day, perhaps soon, the fashion for folky visuals, worlds made of cardboard, chain reaction machines, '...on its sleeve' stop-motion etc. will go. And then what will be fashionable will probably be something that can't be done on a shoestring. Limiting the reach of this problem somewhat. And you know what? I can't wait because then I might not feel the need to flick through channels quite so much whenever the programme I'm watching takes a break.
2010-03-24 14:56:13
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