the art of conversation

More Joy

BMW's Ode to Joy is another example of the One Word Brief Based on an Emotion. In the 1980s we planners tried to focus creative work more single-mindedly by reducing brands to 'essences' and reducing creative briefs to single-minded propositions. The idea was that you would get more cut-through if you tried to say one thing effectively rather than communicate a range of benefits. Someone told me at the time that BMW had been reduced to Cold Precise Perfect, which I thought was rather good. And was clearly the inhuman opposite of Joy.

In the Noughties planners have gone too far. One word is not enough, even if your name is Saatchi (we like this take on that venture). Particularly if it is a bland and blancmange-y word like Joy rather than an interesting and edgy word like Killer (our brand essence at the time for a household bleach). I can see why one bland word goes down a storm at the global sales conference. But really it's an abdication of responsibility. It can lead anywhere from gurning vignettes to gorillas.

And a brief that can lead anywhere is really no brief at all.

Dominic

OH JOY

We like to be positive here at the Art of Conversation but every so often we see ads like this. We can’t decide whether it is patronising poppycock or just twee twaddle. And it seems we're not alone in this view.

The Joy campaign started out as a rather good campaign for the new Z4, ‘the only vehicle in its segment to combine classic roadster proportions with a seating position close to the rear axle’. So there.

The agency GSD&M from Austin, Texas was apparently responsible for the original campaign, which featured a BMW Z4 painting circles on an enormous canvas. (A move which saw the ad being banned in Australia on the grounds that it promoted irresponsible driving. On really large canvases, presumably.)

Then some clutz somewhere decided that, if Jack Daniels owns September and Coke owns Happiness, BWM can own ‘Joy’. We’ve got Wagner and Schiller on our side, they might have argued.

So they compiled this piece of ordure, with its cheesy, sub-M People soundtrack, its series of gurning drivers and clichéd car porn visuals and ‘say-banana-show-banana’ vignettes with an uber-irritating voiceover which reads out the strategy ‘at BMW we don’t just make cars we make joy’. Thanks for explaining, I never would have got that.

What I don’t get is what it’s got to do with BMW’s eco eD thing, as we see a 4x4 twirling on an ice cap trying to run down a polar bear.

It comes across as a planning-free zone. As a planner friend of ours said, it’s fluffy and forgettable, does not resolve any need, will not get talked about, remixed or passed on, has no traction conceptually, has no creative distinctiveness ... and it really undersells BMW.

Apart from that, good effort!

(Our normal, positive service will be resumed next week. Or possibly the week after that)

Art & Copy

Following the success of Madmen, it would appear that putting the advertising industry on screen is becoming somewhat fashionable. 

We came across an edgy, creative-looking documentary trailer for Art and Copy - a new film which (according to Spout blog) "is a tribute to legendary creative minds in advertising, and the process through which they made their most iconic ads". And we were so excited we wanted to make you aware of it (if you weren't already).

The film was released on the 21st August this year and has won a few accolades already, including an award for Best Documentary Director at the Atlanta Film Festival. Take a sneak-peak below.

Simon