Hero Worship
There's something to be said for watching and listening to people who are successful at doing what you're trying to be successful at doing. It's good to learn from the best. Good to get the big picture lessons. The problems start when you duplicate what others have already done. I think agencies do that a lot.
When I was younger, everybody wanted to be like Fallon. That accounts for the late 80s ubiquity of print ads with puns for headlines, all set in Futura Extra Bold Condensed. Depending on who you are as an agency today, there's a good chance that there's a lot of talk in the halls about Crispin, or Goodby -- or maybe AKQA or R/GA. Because if you're not one of them, you want to be like them.
Except...
Except Crispin already has the job of being Crispin. And that's not a job with a lot of open slots. And the things that made Crispin, Crispin, won't make you Crispin, because Crispin already did them. If you're trying to come up with the next Subservient Chicken -- um, the world already has one.
The million dollar homepage was a million dollar idea. The second one was worth about a nickel. In today's accelerated world, ads, sites, online...er... things -- are like that. Short half-life. A lot shorter than Futura Extra Bold Condensed ever was, because things spread faster, get made faster, get copied faster, get seen and known faster, and thus, get old faster. Not only that, but the conditions that made something breakthrough six months ago are different now, and will be different again tomorrow. So even if it's not a direct copy of the idea -- if it's simply a copy of the basic technique, it's still not new. Things change. Quickly.
The lesson -- you won't be the next Crispin by doing what Crispin did. But you might be the next agency to reach Crispin's level if you learn from the moves they made, and apply that thinking (in combination with your own, original, unique ideas) to come up with something that's as new in today's environment as what they did was in the environment of a year ago.
I didn't say it was easy.
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Advertising Marketing Creative Interactive Online Marketing Design Digital Design Blattner Brunner Ernie Mosteller BB Digital
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