Dissonant Advertising
Things are getting weird as brands lean into the entertainment potential of social media and abandon the "interactive" and the "parasocial"
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I was recently at a dinner where a venture capitalist turned to me sharply and declared:
"Advertising doesn’t work."
Personally, I’m ambivalent.
It’s Cannes Lions season and looking through the short list for the most prestigious award, the Cannes Lions Titanium award, I do not recognize any of the campaigns off the top of my head. This has become the norm for me, and in my opinion, has more to do with the fragmentation of the media environment than any failures on the part of the media planners. Or put plainly:
Where does one go to see ads?
Well, the first issue here is that unless you work in the advertising industry, for the most part, people are not seeking out ads. Before we had an omnipresent distraction device in our pockets, advertising could live in the liminal space between entertainment, the pause between songs on the radio, the break between acts in a television show, or the pre-show trailers of a movie. Now those zones are flooded by our phones—by texts and DMs and the temptation of the scroll.
This has had two effects:
Advertising has become less about product and more about brand.
The short list for the Cannes Lions Titanium are by and large about establishing purpose-led brands engaged in social justice work. Of the 18 short list contenders, I would put 14 in this camp:
EDF “The Flame that Wasn’t a Flame” by BETC—French energy company makes a sustainable Olympic torch.
e.l.f Beauty “So Many Dicks” by Oberland—Beauty company has a majority female board.
AXA “Three Words” by Publicis Conseil—Insurance company adds coverage for domestic violence to force majeure events like fire and flood.
Orange “Safer Phone” by Publicis Conseil—Mobile provider uses AI to censor dangerous content on your mobile device.
Finch “36 Months”—A campaign to raise the age to use social media from 13 to 16 in Australia.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Kernel, “Minefield Honey: Harvesting Hope” by Saatchi & Saatchi Ukraine—Helping Ukrainian farmers to clear mines and return land to agricultural uses.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Rakish, Chicago Hearing Society “Caption With Intention” by FCB Chicago—The Academy’s push to create more dynamic captions for the hearing impaired.
Pedigree “Caramelo” by AlmapBBDO—A pet food company gets street dogs listed as a breed to increase adoptions.
Mastercard “Life Donor Card” by MRM Germany—A credit card company lists people’s organ donor status on their physical cards.
Billy Boy “Camdom” by Innocean Berlin—An app that disables recording during intimate moments, preventing the surreptitious creation of revenge porn.
Indian Railways’ “Lucky Yatra” by FCB India—India’s railways attach a lottery to train tickets to encourage fare compliance.
Unilever “Vaseline Verified” by Ogilvy—Vaseline mythbusts TikTok beauty trends using their product, scientifically verifying which are safe and which work.
Herconomy “Breastmilk Money” by Serviceplan—A bank that offers accounts which accrue interest on breastfeeding.
Powerade “The Athletes Code” by Ogilvy—A sports drink that promotes athletic contracts with provisions for mental health and self-care.
Two are sentimental homages to the history of the brand:
Heineken “Pub Succession” by LePub—A beer brand helps an iconic Irish pub find new ownership.
L’Oréal Paris “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” by McCann—A beauty brand canonizes the creator of their iconic tagline: Because I’m Worth It.
One makes a promises to consumers:
Penny “Price Packs” by Serviceplan—A CPG brand puts the price on the packaging meaning it can’t be changed.
And one is a breakthrough in technology:
Sphere Entertainment “Sphere” by Sphere Studios—The Sphere in Las Vegas is a one-of-a-kind dimensional screen, both architecture and entertainment venue.
Many of these advertisements very much feel like brands speaking to other brands—and the advertising industry at large—which is not meaningless. Even if there are doubts that purpose and values trumping convenience and price amongst consumers, brands are also competing for talent, which does place a premium on working for prestigious purpose-led brands.
Advertising has had to become entertainment.
Ten years ago, social media promised to introduce a new interactivity to advertising i.e. the idea that via likes, retweets, and user-generated content to co-create a brand with superfans and online communities. This phase was always doomed to be short-lived. Valid reputational fears and brandsafe directives have distilled influencer marketing into a formula: friendly, fresh-faced brand ambassadors hawking product to their audiences. It works on those parasocially invested in the ambassadors, but only on those parasocially invested in the ambassadors.
Because these ads are created by third parties, oftentimes with limited client oversight, they have no choice but to be safe. And thus, they have become the infomercials of our time.
But right now, I see a third option bubbling. One that takes the insanity of our online ecosystem as a baseline and leans into it.
Here are three examples of what I am talking about: