The Interesting Product Trilogy Part 3

It seems I can’t leave this topic alone.

This is more just a clarification of the underlying point of the previous two posts on motivation and the justification for advertising.

Why do you need to work to advertise boring products?

Why waste money advertising the mundane?

Both of those questions are themselves begging the question. What makes a product boring?

Boring is subjective. That is the issue that too many people don’t understand. What makes great advertising is not the ability to make something boring into something interesting. It’s the ability to make anything interesting. Because boring is not a meaningful term for a product. Boring is a limitation that we work around.

After all, what makes flowery smells exciting? Why do ads about fermented grain fill us with glee?

Beer is not a fun product just because it makes you drunk. That’s a leading factor, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Products are interesting because we decide they are interesting. Sure, we are human. We have biases and tendencies. But ultimately our defining trait is our sociability. That is to say, our ability to change opinions and behaviours based on what others around us believe – or even simply what we think that they believe.

The point is, when dealing with dullness it’s important to remember that dull is not a scientific concept. It’s a human one. And you only have to be limited by it as far as you want to. Or as far as your abilities allow you to stretch it.

Why Advertising?

What’s so great about advertising? What interests you about it? It’s an industry that comes in for a great deal of flak. Advertising is to a lot of people a shorthand for dishonesty. For superficiality. For the soulless materialism which, it is alleged, is consuming our world. Obviously I disagree with that assessment. I hope you do as well. But why choose advertising?

I’ll tell you my first impulse towards it. I enjoy self-expression. Be it writing, or talking, or any other form of creativity. Communication interests me.

But it’s always been drilled into me that you have to be practical. It’s not enough to be artistic because the world is full of artists big and small. So use it in a way that can also sustain you, in a sustainable way.

Hence, advertising. Creativity, but corporate.

That’s a bit unsatisfying as an answer though. I think there’s more to it than that. Because I don’t see advertising as just caged artistry. Advertising is practical art.

What I like about advertising is that it’s all about expressing ideas in the most engaging way possible – and it’s like any kind of art form in that regard. Maybe it’s a bit idealistic to say that adverts are a form of art. But both are essentially about communicating ideas.

In advertising the idea is often pre-determined. Perhaps “sell more toilet cleaner” is not enough of an artistic impulse. Perhaps that disqualifies it from being “real” art. But Renaissance painters weren’t obsessed with the purity of their work. Trust me, they really weren’t. Art wasn’t respected in the same way back them. So they did most of their work to order. It wasn’t art for art’s sake, just a way to make a living. Art was an industry – with clear standards, competition, and a vicious love of gold. It still resulted in some of the greatest works in human history.

(There’s at least one post to be written about Renaissance art and advertising. It will come.)

In any case, the execution of the ideas is where so much of the interesting work lies anyway. An idea is important. But ideas change as you express them.

Moreover, with advertising, unlike other art forms, there’s a clear way of finding out how well you’re expressing those ideas – in the commercial success of your advertising. You learn quickly how best to communicate to your audience. It’s art with energy, art with focus, art with fight.

So there it is. I like advertising because I like art, and I’m interested in communicating ideas. And advertising is like art after a couple of Jaegerbombs.

Being Bright is Not Enough

A lot of my compatriots (read: competitors) trying to come up the rungs – or just get on the ladder – in advertising have a flaw. I know because I also have it. A belief that you are smarter than everyone else. That you don’t have to work as hard. That it can all be effortless for you.

That thought is your single biggest enemy.

It makes you lazy, it makes you superficial. And it makes you lose.

Contrary to popular opinion – and as I’ve said before – good ideas are not that rare in the world of advertising. And smart people are not some rare commodity.

Being smart is not enough.

Even if you truly are an exceptional brain, you have to work to get ahead. No one wants to pay for how gifted you are inside your head if you can’t translate that into results in the real world.

So what’s the real answer?

Being thorough. Being really thorough. Being so thorough it’s boring.

Being thorough is not sexy. But it’s the only way to do well consistently. I had a great teacher at a past agency who drilled into me the difference between good work and great work – not raw cleverness and sneaky ideas, but being thorough.

It might be the single most important quality to learn for any junior member of an agency.

Why? Because it’s the ability to anticipate and fix problems before they become problems. It’s recognition of the need to be humble, to go the extra mile, to support the team. It means always being prepared; to be an expert in any subject on demand, not just willing to do extra research but actively pursuing that knowledge.

From my own experience, I can say how important this is. I used to be nervous about speaking in front of people.

(I mean I still am, but I used to be too.)

I found a way to get past that fear though, and actually present with very little nervousness. How? The 11 Ways of Being a More Effective Speaker Through Yoga? No. Being prepared. Why would you be afraid of speaking, of questions, of making mistakes, when you know the answers? When you’re completely prepared it really limits your ability to mess up.

You might think you’re a good speaker – and that you can freewheel enough to get away with any lapses. You can’t. You will get found out. And there are far fewer second chances in business.

Here’s a strange – but fitting – analogy. Thoroughness is like the difference between flowers in a vase and a flowerpot. Both look good, but only one has lasting power. You need a strong base of hard work and dependability in order to do the exceptional.

It’s nice to be brilliant. If you can combine that with consistency you’ll be on to a winner.