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History tells us that advertising originated in a pre-competitive state, seeking simply to inform about a product: what it is, what it does, what it costs, where you get it. That was a long, long time ago. Ever since supply has exceeded demand, products have been using branding and advertising to create desire and set themselves apart from the pack. I came of age in the days of cheeky chefs replacing customers’ ordinary coffee with Folger’s Crystals, and big-haired models purring “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Advertising was about practical jokes and the promise of attaining transformation via a product.

These days, advertising bears little relationship to product information, and sometimes nearly eschews branding altogether in favor of pure entertainment. When I want to get information about a product that feels complete, reliable, intuitively ordered and clear, I go to Wikipedia. When I want to get subjected to a bunch of marketing blather within a tightly commercially-contrived order I go to the product’s corporate Web site. And increasingly, when I want to be entertained, I watch commercials.

Funny to describe watching commercials as a voluntary pastime, but the only commercials people ever sit through nowadays are the ones we watch by choice. It’s knocking the costly 30-second TV spot model on its ear, and making way for some inventive ways to engage with viewers through alternative media and a focus on entertainment. A surprising player in this movement is… one of the biggest and oldest behemoth ad agencies, BBDO. The antithesis of the small-cool-shop-with-a-foosball-table to which you might ascribe cutting-edge work, I’ve heard BBDO described as “the insurance salesmen of advertising.” How is it that they are able to compete with smaller, more agile, new-media-savvy agencies on their own turf? Under the creative direction of their new boss, David Lubars.

The BBDO of the past was the king of money-is-no-object superbowl spots, under the creative direction of Phil Dusenberry, who famously set Michael Jackson’s hair on fire making a Pepsi commercial. Hired in 2005, David Lubars is pitted as the antithesis of Dusenberry, though they claim to share many creative traits, because he’s making his mark in much narrower channels with ads that let the audience come to him. In interviews, he has spoken out against what he calls “shilling,” or making ads to try and sell a product. That’s not advertising’s job, he says. The guiding principle behind everything he creates is that it be something people would actually choose to engage with in their limited personal time.

Prior to joining BBDO, Lubars made his name at Minneapolis agency Fallon doing award-winning ad campaigns you may recall, such as the Citibank “identity theft” ads and the BMW short films series called “The Hire.” The BMW films, made in 2001, four years before Youtube launched, were released only on the web. Each one featured a different roster of A-list directing and acting talent, all starring Clive Owen as a character known as “The Driver.” BMW is never mentioned, nor does any logo ever appear on the screen.

The hiring of Hollywood talent for advertising purposes is far from new. Think of the much-loved TV spot Spike Jonze directed for Levis Wide Leg jeans featuring a hospital scene set to the Soft Cell tune “Tainted Love.” That ad had the confidence in its entertainment value to withhold any branding until the very last second, rather than rush to get it in before the viewer started channel-surfing.
The BMW films take it further: they are content with product placement, not “commercials.” The artistry of the films, Clive Owen’s studly gravitas, and the exclusivity of web-only distribution jibe perfectly with BMW’s most treasured self-image: the idea that luxury can move and elevate us as great artwork can.

Not only is Lubars unfazed by the sea changes that make other old-media agencies quake, they seem to be his greatest source of inspiration. Since being at BBDO, Lubars has pushed the agency towards making ads with more splintered channels of distribution, user-generated content, and interactive elements that alter the experience of the ad depending on choices the audience member makes. To promote the launch of BBC America, he posted a billboard in Times Square the content of which changed in response to text messages from viewers on the street. His response to TiVo was to create “One Second Theater,” commercials with one-second slices of “bonus material” hidden in the regular content of the ad. Viewers have to use the TiVo capability of pausing and, in effect, scrolling through frame after frame to find the secret goodies.

For now, entertainment value and interactivity seems to have edged out the witty slogans, hummable jingles, visual puns, and promises of transformation that were the hallmark of bygone eras. I find it interesting to consider whether a backlash or nostalgia movement could arise out of this blurring between advertising and entertainment, between content and commercials. Will we become jaded to the option for interacting with advertisement? Will so-called users become less excited about generating it? Will we long to be straightforwardly promised by a blatantly commercial entity that if we use a brilliant new product we can have immaculately clean pores and the life we’ve always wanted? I’ll be staying tuned to find out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.