BBDO Guerrero CEO Tony Harris writes about SheSays Co-founder and Mr. President Creative Partner Laura Jordan Bambach’s Master Class, “Why Advertising Isn’t a Dirty Word”, held on June 17 at the Cannes Lions International Festival of creativity.
The speaker has a tremendous track record in cause related work – helping to set up the “She Says” initiative to encourage more women into creative and management roles; working to spread the D&AD gospel across the world; establishing the CAANT festival to celebrate Cannes teams unable to attend.
Laura now has an issue with the kind of work the industry produces and wants work that leaves a legacy – this is her “purpose” and she wants to see work that lives up to this. She sees much of the industry’s output as “advertising pollution” and “filler that brings only diminishing returns”.
Some of this is hard to hear but she believes strongly in the need for brands to act with compassion using some notable case studies to illustrate her point – Climate Name Change, Terre Des Hommes and Paddy Power’s campaign with Stonewall are examples.
I find myself conflicted here because advertising in and of itself is a good thing if it promotes changes that can then have a positive economic effect so to wipe all of this out as “pollution” seems naïve. However, she is right to say that because of the creativity that our communications industry posses, we can put our collective minds to more thoughtful solutions. She says we have “a responsibility to set the trends for the future of society” – I agree but I also believe we have a responsibility to the commercial imperatives of brands, products and services. The two can easily co-exist and it is wrong to feel that so much of what we do is unworthy.
