Commentary
Here's A Really Big Idea: Is Tech The New Creative?
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, October 20, 2014
That seemed to be one
of the bigger ideas emanating on the “Big Idea” panel on that opened the first day of OMMA Chicago. And mainly, it’s because of what’s going on -- not in Chicago, or even New
York, L.A. or any other big advertising industry Mecca -- but in, you guessed it, Silicon Valley.
“One of the reasons we’re obsessed with Silicon Valley,” Razorfish Executive Creative Director Sam Cannon said, is because, “we’ve just seen a ton of creativity coming out of Silicon Valley. We’ve seen products and services that have changed how we behave.”
Sure that includes a lot of technology and data science, but from Cannon’s POV, it’s really just another form of creativity. Most importantly, he said it is happening at a pace Madison Avenue has never witness before -- at pace that might be more like “Moore’s Law” than the principles of Leo Burnett.
It’s a pace, Cannon said, “Frankly, we haven’t seen on Madison Avenue before.”
While a lot of ad industry execs focus on the data and technology aspects of that, Cannon said it’s really about executing big ideas. “I wouldn’t confuse that with replacing creativity.”
Cannon noted the speed of that change is also impacting the way Madison Avenue creates even more directly, noting that creative production software and technology such as Adobe’s Creative Suite have changed the game for agency creatives. To contrast the ease of use and manipulation of the digital creative versioning software, Cannon said he started out in an era when he would literally lay physical type on a page and burnish it.
Image provided courtesy
of Shutterstock.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
I'm glad to hear the conversation is beginning to turn to the idea that while data and technology are certainly important, it's the creative execution that's actually viewed. The story of a brand or the consideration to purchase a product or service is communicated to the prospect via the creative. The data and targeting just helps you get that creative to the correct person. The creative feels like half of the equation yet in the past I think it was considered an after thought. However, even today single-image static JPGs are the default unit on mobile and that's a shame.
__________I'm not if we can say that Adobe’s Creative Suite is facilitating the creative very well for banner production. Flash, as you know, is failing 20 to 30 percent of the time due to mobile web traffic yet continues to be the standard. Last I checked, Flash ads created with the newest Adobe tools we're NOT even compatible with DoubleClick's ad server so that's a disaster. In the HTML department no one is using Adobe Edge. Period.
Really? As an industry we already have a problem where agencies get so distracted by media tactics that they're operating without message? I suppose what he's really saying here is that his agency is making vast sums of money with Silicon Valley creativity - that I'll believe. Except, it doesn't benefit clients and distracts from the real issue: saying something that matters to people who care. Sad to hear that industry leaders like this remain as clueless as ever.