Do Not Go Into Advertising?
As my heart and mind is set to devote my lifetime to the world of advertising and all its evils, I couldn’t look away when I saw this headline: Do Not Go Into Advertising . Of course the automatic question is, why not!?!? According to the author of this article,
Advertising offers the creative person a bargain: You can use your creativity. Just not for yourself. In fact, you must use your creative skills in the service of something diametrically opposed to the ideals that creative people generally espouse. You will sell your creativity, for a tidy sum, to the world’s faceless corporations. You, the artist, will paint their faces. You, the musician, will give these corporations their voice. You, the writer, will help these corporations speak poetically. Your creativity is pooled and used to give character to something that has no character: a corporation, a machine that makes money. Your talents are used to give that machine a soothing, attractive halo. This, at the end of your advertising career, will be the sum total of your creative output. This will be your artistic legacy. This will be what all of your poetry has accomplished. A pretty face on the machine. You, yourself, and your own soul are not part of this equation. Your own creativity does not serve those things any more.
Okay, I must admit, that was pretty well written, and it does make me think. But then comes along another perspective: Counterpoint: What the **** Makes You Too Good For Advertising? In this article, the author argues that
1. Advertising forces you to get to the point.
2. Advertising gives you variety.
3. Advertising teaches you persistence.
4. Advertising teaches you that your creativity isn’t so goddamn precious.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading these articles, both with very different approaches to their argument, yet both full of personality. I love advertising. Sure, it’s evil in a way, but everything has its good and bad. I’m in love with advertising, obsessed actually, it’s on my mind first thing in the morning, throughout the day, before I go to sleep, and even in my thoughts and dreams. There’s nothing that would make me happier than learning about people and telling them stories. I’m not too good for advertising, and I never will be.
Zen Habits
Imagine a world where people matter more than profits.
Life isn’t only about work, & productivity isn’t everything.
Life where you work hard in bursts, with some breaks, is dreadful.
Life where you’re always doing something you love is art.
Datsun or Datsucks
For the past 6 months, Nissan has occupied a big chunk of my mind. I’ve been tracking all news of Nissan and reading into its history, and basically learning everything I could find about it. #NSAC #ChapmanPRA #love. So when I heard news that Nissan is bringing Datsun back to India, Indonesia, and Russia, I was really excited to see how this would all play out. Then, boom. Introduce the Datsun Logo. and in the words of this article, it’s a Datsun logo Datsucks.
Hey, this looks pretty familiar, oh wait…
Though it makes sense for Nissan to be keeping a connection between its branding and Datsun where it originated from, I feel that there should be a distinction, especially among the logo design. Where’s the creativity. Where’s the something new that adds a little something magical to something old? It’s oddly shaped and aesthetically unappealing. In the dark, you can easily tell a Mercedes Logo, or a Toyota, but if all you see is a dark oval blob, who will think of Datsun? This may be called a revival, but if Nissan fails to market it just as Nissan fails to market themselves, it may end up being the ultimate death of Datsun.
Get Unlucky
I can’t imagine ever purchasing anything from a store that posts this on their website. Intentionally or unintentionally. This atrocity should never meet eyes beyond the original designer’s own delirium.
Classically Trained to Love This!
This morning I came across these ads from Ads of the World.
I think it’s so awesome even Beethoven would smile.
The tagline is “Closer to the Music.”
Marketer's Manifesto 