A Demand for Wit in Advertising
Blitz Magazine
You spend 10 minutes at a party listening to a guy describe his passion for actuarial tables. By the time he’s finished, you’ve forgotten his name and have developed an aversion to all things actuarial.
On TV, you see a loud, obnoxious commercial. I can’t cite an example because I would have immediately developed an aversion to its product and forgotten it.
When communicating a message, the most effective method of having it remembered is by delivering it with Wit. Intelligent Humour.
We remember the Special K commercial showing an incredibly unattractive man preparing for a day on the beach. The Alta Vista commercial in which, thanks to Alta Vista, a geek has earned the devotion of, and a night with, Pamela Anderson (by rescuing her). The Pets.com commercial in which a guy sleeps happily on the floor while his dogs snore on the bed. Intelligent humour.
You’re in advertising—it’s your life’s work—and you’re reading this, thinking: “Why is she telling me this? I already know this.” Well, if everyone in advertising knows this, why are so many TV commercials so abysmally, depressingly bad?
Why are we fed a steady diet of Yuppies-With-Happy-Children driving SUVs to meet their Warm Best Friend/Smart Financial Advisor and invest their sizeable cash reserves so they’ll have plenty of money on which to retire and spend on their Adorable Grandchildren? Ugh. The warm fuzzies are anything but—they’re insultingly divorced from reality. And they’re not funny.
The only financial planning commercials I remember are those from Schwab, in which professional athletes explain the intricacies of investing. They’re funny. The car commercials I remember are from Nissan (Border Collie herds man sleeping in chair through city streets to Nissan showroom), those from Audi (because they’re beautiful and witty) and the innumerable witty Volkswagen spots.
Each year, when NABS Vancouver hosts the Cannes International Advertising Festival Winners’ Reel, the event sells out in hours. Because it’s entertaining. Those commercials are, for the most part, funny, intelligent, witty. They’re deemed the world’s best commercials, because they’re memorable and so are their products--no matter how obscure they seem. We remember the dancing penis commercial from an Australian Gay & Lesbian radio station, the chef-abuse spot for an Argentinean English school. Does anyone remember those that weren’t witty?
I would like to see a change in sensibility. I would like to see an end to this smug, dreadfully earnest, demographic-research-based celebration of presumed success. I couldn’t care less what Lindsay Wagner or Candace Bergen want me to buy. I want to see ‘real’ people in intelligent, mirth-inducing commercials. I want to not have to watch television with a book in my left hand and my right thumb glued to the mute button. I would like to see the bullshit obliterated, the noise turned down, the wit turned way, way up.