For the love of advertising

Dear vagabonding, mindlessly scrolling reader.

Do you love advertising but hate the work that's coming out of this shit factory? 

Please don't take any harsh steps. Kindly refrain from committing career suicide by joining the creative team of a start up, or do a course on social media marketing, or worse, start terrace farming.

An easy antidote to this emotionally gut wrenching feeling you have everyday is to simply visit Dave Dye's blog. 

To all those in marketing and advertising, this should be a monthly pilgrimage.


Like they say - when there's no way forward - go back and restart your journey.

I, for one, made my visit this time, and read one more of the wonderful series that he has created titled :"what I liked before I knew what I was supposed to like."

The series traces the catchy, memorable, sometimes borderline irritating but effective ads that made some of the industry's greatest fall in love with advertising.

The series also looks at some of the beautiful work done by these stalwarts.

The blog itself should have a fan-page of sparkly eyed, dropped jaw visitors like myself. 

The blog will give you a much needed kick in the nuts, jolt you out of that sick hatred towards the shitty work now, inspire you to put in more work and thinking - and will do all this by keeping that smile that was slapped out of your face in the past few years.

The one I visited today, was the one where he covered the ads that piqued the great Richard Russell's interest and also - displayed some of his less known but brilliant work.

For the uninitiated (hand to heart, I was one a few years ago), Richard Russell is the one who helped W+K win that Honda pitch with his Honda Brand Book. It's a book we have all surely downloaded or seen in the past. If you haven't - I suggest you do and show it to your clients. The proud playbooks we create today will weep at the greatness of this book and run into hiding out of shame.
He went on to create the famous "Grr" ad for Honda - an ad that powered a hundred dreams for the brand, but also fueled a million dreams in every agency. 

What caught my attention though was the amazing work done for Perrier and Gordon's Gin.

Perrier work is a testament that even a product shot along with wonderful, humorous minimalistic copy can cause the most rational of minds to give in to a smile.
It reminds me of the eternally fresh Absolut Vodka series and the Coca Cola "For Everyone" campaign.
I have, in the past, seen some amazing work where the product was made the hero. In fact, DigitalBuzzBlog has an amazing collection of how digital took this further by creating more sensorial, holistic and memorable experiences for brands using the product at the core. Heineken comes to my mind along with some fab work by the automotive industry.

The other work is by Gordon's Gin.
This piece of work, didn't win any awards, and you may know why when you see the ads. But left to me, if I were a jury for any award show (and created badges and posts on that for sure, just like the community demands) would award the client and Richard Russell without batting an eyelid. In fact, this ad needs to be given not an advertising award but a bravery award.
You read that right - BRAVERY AWARD.
Please see the work and prove me wrong.
The ads demonstrates that the ad and marketing world today are a bunch of castrated folks who are now immune to blows to the nuts and have lost all taste of the good.

Please, please see the work here... 

https://davedye.com/2021/09/29/what-i-liked-before-i-knew-what-i-was-supposed-to-like-richard-russell/  

I want to know of ONE client or agency who would dare do anything close to this masterpiece today. I dare you... I double dare you. Damn - I triple dare myself.

I implore that we all take a careful look at these pieces of work and slap ourselves out of the bullshit excuses we give ourselves everyday - and do justice to the work. 

We can't attain the creative heights of these giants but it is our responsibility to not let this world they have built drown in the turbulent ocean of mediocrity.

Thank you Dave Dye for this. I got my much needed nut kicking today for a better and more inspired tomorrow.

Love,
Lover of past work by unknown greats who we absolutely need to discover and learn from and pay our tributes to.

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