the utopia of better advertising

A lot of people have talked and are still talking about the end of image advertising, because it's bad, not working, run it's course, etc. It's all about 2.0, utility etc...but the fact is, it is not, nor will it be, because advertising has got a built in factor that prevents it from growing, gaining absolute quality improvement; humans.

Right now people are kinda falling in the same trap as in the ' 20, during the time of Claude Hopkins. We think that advertsing can somehow be scientied, just because it has more technical tools at it's disposal. People seem to believe that unless you provide a tool within the advertising, you are doing rubbish. We think this we such a zeal that we forget that it's just the hope we have manifested in herd talk. Bit like the neo cons, thinking that they will create a democracy and that oil will go down to $20,- a barrell and all will be peaches and cream, anyways...

The underliying mechanics of advertising prevent this because they are flawed in the sense that they are emotion driven. We look for insight into human beings and we tend to focus on communicating some value/bond between product and and customer. This basic fact allows for inversion of progress. If empowering women works (Dove) let's do it, if degrading them (lynx/Axe) works, let's do that.

No absolute progress is possible, because in order to feel like we are moving we will go in any direction, even backwards.


So why am I writing this? Because I just today talked with an agency who did no advertising, but " created solutions on a business and emotional end" and the talk got 'round to Gorilla ads and the usual bitching began. It was shite, waste of money etc.... They make fucking horrible websites and are gonna piss all over fellows comrades who at least entertained?

Advertising is about communicating something, right now and here. Something that makes a connection so that you will move from a to b.

Method acting looked more realistic and great then the old style stage type acting (and searched for character from an inside point of view/ kinda like the when planning came along), but it's still acting..nobody was any more a doctor then the actors 200 years before the method.


The future of advertising is already here and has been here since it's invention. Sure we will get better at using tools at hand. But it's role will not grow nor will it's quality be better 10 year from now.

That type of change will be driven by industrials, by people who build absolute stuff, who deal with the binary. Fields where once you go forward, you can not go back, because new reality denies regression. 1+1 is 2. It will never go back to being 1. Once you have an cure for something, there is no gain in talking 'bout the opposite.

Call me crazy, but perhaps that's the really brilliant part in Cabral and Fallons thinking; they know their limits and play their part of court jester with great applaud.