Will adland recover from Boris’s slap in the face?
The most important event in 2019 happened on December 12. The stunning Boris Johnson Election victory. Yet, the UK advertising industry had nothing to do with it. Had Boris pressed adland’s doorbell, I don’t think he would have got much of a welcome.
The bulk of adland voted Remain and were hankering after a second Referendum (how foolish they all look now). But the real reason why Boris didn’t press adland’s doorbell is far more worrying to the UK advertising industry: he didn’t need to.
For the first time since the great Conservative victory in 1979 there were no scions of the Saatchi dynasty shaping Conservative communication. The great “Labour Isn’t Working” poster – actually created by my founding partner at WCRS, Andrew Rutherford, (not Tim Bell who sadly left us last year) had a successor in 2019: Get Brexit Done.
But it wasn’t written by an adman. It was created by the brilliant Dominic Cummings, who had authored the Referendum campaign winning “Take Back Control”.
And if the UK likes to think it’s a Global Creative Leader, perhaps we should humbly recognise that the core team working for Dom Cummings weren’t even from the UK. The core team of Isaac Levido, Shaun Topham, Ben Guerin and Chloe Westley were all from Australia and New Zealand.
I have no idea who produced what, but the overall result was a hugely sophisticated social media blitz that enraged Labour as much as it delighted Boris supporters.
The CVs of this youthful team are hugely impressive. Chloe Westley studied Counter Terrorism at St Andrew’s University. Ben Guerin is just 24 and studied Law as well as Science in New Zealand before he set up a community company to teach code sharing to people in interactive workshops.
How does the bandwidth of your creative department compare with this?
The latest output of Boris’s in-house creative team shows that, far from resting on their oars, they are continuing to build on the stunning victory they helped create.
In “Shocked” we see a first time Conservative voter, Dave, who is shocked to find Boris walking on to the set as he explains why he voted Conservative for the first time in his life.
And Boris Johnson in a second film answers the Web’s most frequent questions on Brexit: a simple original and fresh and make good use of Boris’s intelligence and spontaneity.
If you compare these ads, or indeed the best of what ran in the election campaign itself, the Labour output seems flat-footed and desperately and trying too hard.
I am sure that this Conservative Campaign will continue right up to the next election.
I bet that these ads don’t cost thousands of pounds to make or weeks or weeks or even months to develop.
With endless meetings to discuss.
They are done by a fast moving, free thinking team of young people who learned their communication skills 20,000 miles away.
If the most important campaign that ran in the UK last year can turn its back on the UK advertising industry, why should leading brands here not take a leap out of the Boris Johnson advertising playbook?
Dominic Cummings recently put out an invitation for original thinkers and “creative weirdos” to join him at No. 10.
Apparently 35,000 people have replied.
I wonder how many are from your own creative departments.
There was certainly controversy over one of the first to be appointed. But despite this initial hiccup, bringing in more diverse creative thinking can be as valuable in our industry as into Number 10.
“bringing in more diverse creative thinking can be as valuable in our industry as into Number 10”
The School of Communication Arts has been doing this successfully for a decade. And the Ideas Foundation for nearly two decades, has been working with its five-year programme amongst young people – 14-18 – from diverse backgrounds to do the same.
One of our alumni is a Creative Partner at Droga5.
Another is working as a young marketing manager for Apple.
But these are small steps.
Will this new flow of talent be enough to refresh the industry that Boris’ team clearly felt wasn’t up to the task of winning the General Election? Hopefully.
But last year’s Cannes Awards show there is much room for improvement in UK advertising.
Brazil won almost as many awards as the UK (85 vs 90). And the US, which to lag behind the UK in the Sizzling Sixties now won three times as many advertising awards as the UK.
Cast your mind back a few decades when Levi’s swept all before it in 1992 in Cannes with cool dudes leaping off swimming pools to even cooler music. Or, in 2001, Stella’s brilliant film with the soldier returning from World War One refusing his father’s glass of wine in preference to Stella Artois.
Or Honda’s miraculous commercial of 2001 – COG – where everything just falls into place.
Will last year’s star Cannes UK award winner “Viva la Vulva”, from Libresse, be so watchable as those films in two decades time. If so, I think it will be more about gender than making advertising history.
Interestingly, the creative team behind the ad for Libresse, Caio Giannella and Diego Oliveira – both from Brazil, not the UK – have now left the agency world (they were stars at BBDO) and worked for Apple in California.
As does Xandria Carelse-Dutlow, the young Ideas Foundation star who has now left Publicis to work for …. Apple.
And I bet that none of these moves were for a pay cut.
The truth is there are now many alternative ways for people with brilliant cognitive thinking skills to earn a living.
20 years ago, Facebook didn’t exist. Today it offers a starting of over £100k – four times more than the average starting salary for a graduate joining an advertising agency.
Don’t mistake me – I love British advertising at its best.
But I just fear that its best may be its past not its future. It still contains some huge talents – and not all creatives.
If you haven’t read O&M’s Rory Sutherland’s “Alchemy”, you are letting yourself down and your client.
But we have to ask why the man who wrote the two best slogans in the last decade – “Take Back Control” or “Getting Brexit Done” – (Dominic Cummings in case you weren’t paying attention) doesn’t work in adland.
“Getting more diverse talent – and not just focussing on ethnicity – is the biggest challenge facing our industry.”
Getting more diverse talent – and not just focussing on ethnicity – is the biggest challenge facing our industry.
The School of Communication Arts and the Ideas Foundation (and one or two others) are working hard to bring more diverse talent into our industry.
If we are successful, maybe Boris will find the creative talent for the 2025 General Election from within the UK.
In the meantime, maybe I should send my CV up to Dominic Cummings for his scrutiny.
About the author, Robin Wight
One of advertising’s leading creative minds who has been involved in some of the world’s most iconic campaigns, Robin now runs the Robin Wight Ideas Clinic, an idea-generating programme enabling companies of all sizes to reboot their brand in just 2 days.
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