I remember when I studied marketing (over 10 years ago at this point) and we viewed some ads for cars, they were all aspirational and told tales that may not have necessarily had anything to do with the cars (other than showing them)--but through the powerfully imaginative storytelling, I was sold. That essay is on point, Sam!
Interesting, degrading, perverse. Reality hunger feeds into Andreessen’s metaverse privilege, maybe as cope for the exorbitant inequalities of our world. Though, exhibitionism and voyeurism seem to be digital réinventions of production and consumption.
But why bother telling a story when you can just throw a ton of money around and get celebrities right next to your brand? It's not advertising. Advertising might shed some brand awareness or drive a customer to take action.
I proposed a simple idea of limiting production budgets for Superbowl ads to a modest $20K. If you're confident enough to spend $8M on the airtime, you can find a creative way to make $20K work hard enough to fill that airtime with something memorable.
I was just as shocked as you to see how cringeworthy the commercials were this year. I don't think it's a deliberate dissolution of craft or wit but rather an absence of talent, mise-en-scene, and dramaturgy--they looked like D-grade film school assignments. The Super Bowl means nothing to me. But I always look forward to the range of commercial talent on offer each year. I think back on last year's BMW ad with Christopher Walken, a clever idea that worked! Incidentally, my favorite commercial of all time was this 1970 VW paragon of pith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhK4lpqcnY
I'm with Julie below -- none of the so-called reality stuff is real. I'm a sucker for shows like "Alone," but I'm constantly irritated by obvious contradictions in the underlying story. Give me "Deadwood" or "The Wire" any day over the pseudo-reality tripe.
Brilliant analysis. The irony (?? tragedy? horror?) is that celebrity “culture” and IG feeds aren’t REAL. Not in the way that the real, physical world and the world of imagination are real. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I hold to Salmon Rushdie’s argument that magic realism is a more true form of reality than nonfiction. I’m devastated that we’ve shifted from storytellers to voyeurs. To give up our active purpose, in favor of passivity, is deeply disturbing.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of the whole Joseph Campbell thing, but it had a good run. I wonder whether most people have always tended to the voyeuristic, but a way to scratch that itch just wasn’t available to them for a variety of reasons (modesty, etc.).
I missed the Super Bowl (again), but someone did point me to Nike’s attempt to hitch their languishing brand to the surge in women’s sports in the U.S. Seems to me their ad has both celebrities (athletes) _and_ story, told in a kind of poem recited by the narrator over Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love” (a band who used to be reluctant to license their music).
The only question with this ad is how effectively its imagery (retro black and white) and message connect to the Nike brand in the minds of the right demographic, as presumably the game is watched mostly by middle-aged men.
At $8 mil for 30 seconds, that’s $16 mil to Fox for this ad, plus production costs. Go big or go home.
What a true and disheartening reflection Sam. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions, the human imagination is often seen as deeply connected to the soul. I fear the conclusion this suggests!
I have a family friend who worked at a streaming service and he said any show or movie that was based on something that already existed did, on average, 10x the numbers of something original. Referentiality seems to be the starting point now. If you're starting from scratch, whether it's in a movie or a commercial, you're doomed.
At the Frankfurt Book Festival last year, there was a consistent stream of disillusioned foreign rights agents who worked for Netflix and the like; they said most of the time, big conglomerates just buy out the rights to any and all books that might look good on a screen, and then never make the show, thus owning the majority of the author's work for who knows how long until the author is maybe asked to write a sequel because THE NEXT ONE will be the one! On the other side of the coin, so long as writers play that game, the game will be shite. At some point, principles have to take precedent once more.
That Seal ad was like a terrible nightmare!
I remember when I studied marketing (over 10 years ago at this point) and we viewed some ads for cars, they were all aspirational and told tales that may not have necessarily had anything to do with the cars (other than showing them)--but through the powerfully imaginative storytelling, I was sold. That essay is on point, Sam!
Interesting, degrading, perverse. Reality hunger feeds into Andreessen’s metaverse privilege, maybe as cope for the exorbitant inequalities of our world. Though, exhibitionism and voyeurism seem to be digital réinventions of production and consumption.
But why bother telling a story when you can just throw a ton of money around and get celebrities right next to your brand? It's not advertising. Advertising might shed some brand awareness or drive a customer to take action.
I proposed a simple idea of limiting production budgets for Superbowl ads to a modest $20K. If you're confident enough to spend $8M on the airtime, you can find a creative way to make $20K work hard enough to fill that airtime with something memorable.
https://dtpennington.com/a-proposal-for-superbowl-ads/
I was just as shocked as you to see how cringeworthy the commercials were this year. I don't think it's a deliberate dissolution of craft or wit but rather an absence of talent, mise-en-scene, and dramaturgy--they looked like D-grade film school assignments. The Super Bowl means nothing to me. But I always look forward to the range of commercial talent on offer each year. I think back on last year's BMW ad with Christopher Walken, a clever idea that worked! Incidentally, my favorite commercial of all time was this 1970 VW paragon of pith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhK4lpqcnY
I'm with Julie below -- none of the so-called reality stuff is real. I'm a sucker for shows like "Alone," but I'm constantly irritated by obvious contradictions in the underlying story. Give me "Deadwood" or "The Wire" any day over the pseudo-reality tripe.
Brilliant analysis. The irony (?? tragedy? horror?) is that celebrity “culture” and IG feeds aren’t REAL. Not in the way that the real, physical world and the world of imagination are real. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I hold to Salmon Rushdie’s argument that magic realism is a more true form of reality than nonfiction. I’m devastated that we’ve shifted from storytellers to voyeurs. To give up our active purpose, in favor of passivity, is deeply disturbing.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of the whole Joseph Campbell thing, but it had a good run. I wonder whether most people have always tended to the voyeuristic, but a way to scratch that itch just wasn’t available to them for a variety of reasons (modesty, etc.).
I missed the Super Bowl (again), but someone did point me to Nike’s attempt to hitch their languishing brand to the surge in women’s sports in the U.S. Seems to me their ad has both celebrities (athletes) _and_ story, told in a kind of poem recited by the narrator over Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love” (a band who used to be reluctant to license their music).
The only question with this ad is how effectively its imagery (retro black and white) and message connect to the Nike brand in the minds of the right demographic, as presumably the game is watched mostly by middle-aged men.
At $8 mil for 30 seconds, that’s $16 mil to Fox for this ad, plus production costs. Go big or go home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ezn5pZE7o
What a true and disheartening reflection Sam. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions, the human imagination is often seen as deeply connected to the soul. I fear the conclusion this suggests!
Thank you Kimberly. I think it’s really a tragic development.
I have a family friend who worked at a streaming service and he said any show or movie that was based on something that already existed did, on average, 10x the numbers of something original. Referentiality seems to be the starting point now. If you're starting from scratch, whether it's in a movie or a commercial, you're doomed.
At the Frankfurt Book Festival last year, there was a consistent stream of disillusioned foreign rights agents who worked for Netflix and the like; they said most of the time, big conglomerates just buy out the rights to any and all books that might look good on a screen, and then never make the show, thus owning the majority of the author's work for who knows how long until the author is maybe asked to write a sequel because THE NEXT ONE will be the one! On the other side of the coin, so long as writers play that game, the game will be shite. At some point, principles have to take precedent once more.
That’s the most depressing thing I’ve heard this side of a Ted Gioia post. That’s so sad to realize.
Much to fight back against these days