The Writing On The Wall and Telling Short Stories for The Future
I was thinking about all the lines of inspiration that stood out during my advertising career and realized they were always telling me to go out on my own without fear and tell weird stories.
I worked in the advertising industry as a strategist for many years in Asia, Europe and North America.
I had always wanted to be an honest writer, but at the time a lot of creative writers were going into the ad industry to pay the rent. And I felt that in my soul.
Ad agencies have been kind of what the Catholic Church was to the artists of old. Instead of writing for car brands and using celebrity advocates, while doodling penises on all the office tables as all “the creatives” seemed to do, they had to paint naked images from the Bible all day.
But hey, we make compromises and sacrifices to survive. The Catholic church was anti gay and were killing gay people, and yet Florence was the underground gay capital of Europe at the time and Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael, the archangels of artists were just painting and chiseling all the naked men possible, religiously. Yes, the David’s ass was that perky. Yes, you can all look at it and admire it. You can force an artist to work for you, but artists tend to rebellion so they likelihood of them coding resistance into their work is very likely. The Sistine Chapel, for example, is very much coded in resistance. Michaelangelo was on the gay agenda, despite what the pope had in mind.
Thinking about this, made me think about the most inspiring advertising work I had come across. The thing with a good ad is it is you have to tell a story, that represents and product and captures the essence of that spirit to that target audience you hope to buy the product, and also sets the product and brand beyond all the competitors. “Commercial creativity.”
An enormous amount of work goes into that annoying video that pops up on your Youtube or plays at the Super Bowl. Typical video ad lengths vary, but most fall within the 15-60 second range, with 15-30 seconds being the sweet spot. Shorter ads, like 6-second bumper ads, are also used for brand awareness, while longer formats (1-3 minutes or more) can be effective for in-depth product storytelling.
It is a challenge to tell a story in 15 to 30 seconds. That is the key art of it. Tell a whole story that will not annoy your target audience, while also selling a product, elevating a brand against their competitors. You have a lot to achieve in a very short period of time.
You are essentially interrupting someone to tell them a story like a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on your door, to sell you something you don’t want, but also getting them intrigued and maybe even changing their mind. That’s a challenge. And if you are really good, you can turn someone who dislikes you into your friend and champion who tells others to go buy those shoes. Since the dawn of advertising, some of the greatest creative minds have beaten their heads against a wall trying to think of how to get you to buy Crest toothpaste over Colgate. I kid you not.
I remember sitting in on an all day focus group in Shanghai where for all day various people were asked to come in and be asked about how chewing gum is different from using mouth wash. And a whole report was written about it to try to get insights to get people to chew more Wrigley gum. I thought my mind would melt. But also had to take it seriously. I remember being asked so many time, “But what is the insight you are building your strategy on?” I never knew the difference between an “insight” and a “fact.” Or perhaps it was so hard for me to care when I was working on skin care brands, toothpaste brands, multivitamin brands, candy brands, soft drink brands, diaper brands, auto brands - it was hard for me to care because I didn’t. It was very much a job and I felt like I was on an IV having my blood sucked as I tried not to yawn in the Listerine meeting that was also mostly in Chinese and the office was an hour each way by taxi.
The last agency that I was a full-time employee for was called AKQA in Shanghai and they had big industrial style office with very high ceilings. I remember there was a huge quote painted on the wall that used to haunt me, it said something like “To not give your best is dishonor the gift.” I can’t remember what it said but it meant that if you are not putting your complete passion into something and doing what you are made for, you are dishonoring your own gifts. To me being at that agency, even though I had actually wanted to work on Nike, the reality was, I have never like commercial creativity, because I found it dishonest to my gifts.
My mom was very unimpressed by Nike, she said, “Bek, I spent $300 on a pair of Nike running shoes and they fell apart, got a hole in the toe in less than four months.” Yes, mom, we lied to you. Nike spend a lot on marketing and maybe not enough on quality products and environmental conservation…
I had always felt like I was a sell out and helping shift products was not my dream. Because advertising strategy, is largely manipulation. Or, perhaps, it was to me. I was not meant to be there. For me it violated my boundaries, but at the same time, I could think of no other way to pay the bills at the time.
All the writers in Shanghai were becoming ad strategists or copywriters because there was not reasonably paid work as writers at that time. I had writer friends who had interned at The New York Times in Beijing and immediately realized being a writer didn’t pay enough. Friends who went to Oxford and Cambridge, who had law degrees even ended up in advertising. We could not afford to starve as artists.
Kobe Bryant after he retired decided that storytelling was the most important way to inspire people to find their own greatness and push the limits of what is possible.
Of the many athletes and celebrities the brands I worked on have sponsored, two of them won Oscars. One was Kobe for Dear Basketball and the other was Jimmy Chin for the Free Solo documentary about Alex Honnold free climbing El Capitan.
Kobe was a Nike sponsored athlete for 17 years and Jimmy Chin was climber sponsored by The North Face for 20 years and Alex Honnold has been sponsored by them for 15 years.
It was actually the Egyptians the invented the short story. In some sense an ad is a very short story.
Taiwanese statue of a naked Kobe Bryant fighting a black mamba. China was obsessed with Kobe and still is.
Kobe Bryant immortalized with a 19-foot bronze statue outside the Lakers’ downtown arena.
At any rate, I like to think everything in life happens to inspire you to get to the next level. Even if they don’t make statues of you.
I am grateful for all the opportunities I have been given by multiple agencies around the world that I worked for.
Here are a few inspirational messages I did get from my time in the trenches of the beast.
Most of these messages inspired me to leave advertising and honor my own dreams as a writer.
These are a handful of the brands I worked on over the years, who did next level creative storying: Nike, Adidas, The North Face, Ford, Oakley (note: I did strategy work on a few of these campaigns, but not all):
“Write the Future, Risk Everything” (Nike)
“I Will What I Want” (Under Armour)
Protect This House (Under Armour)
“She Moves Mountains” (The North Face)
“Live Without Limits” (adidas TERREX)
“Make Yourself “(Nike)
“All In” (Adidas)
“The Explorer, Never Stop Exploring” (The North Face)
“Never Stop” (The North Face)
“Impossible is Nothing” (Adidas)
“Find your Greatness” (Nike)
“Dream Crazy” (Nike)
“Dream Crazier” (Nike)
“Find your Fast” (Nike)
“Here to Create Change” (Adidas)
“Calling all Creators” (Adidas)
“We all Need Someone to Make Us Believe” (Adidas)
“The Shining Path” with Alex Honnold (The North Face)
“A Love Letter to Winter” (The North Face)
“The Other Way” (The North Face)
“Rise and Shine” (Nike)
“Just Do It, Mr. Sun” (Nike China)
“Take Flight” (Air Jordan)
“See the Game Differently” (Oakley)
“Tough is in your DNA”, Built Tough (Ford)
“Ford Country” (Ford)
“Dancers Wanted” (Adidas)
“Better for It” (Nike China)
“So Win” (Nike)
“The Longer Days are Back, Never Stop Exploring” (The North Face)
“Here to Create, Creativity Gets you Noticed” (Adidas)
Find your Greatness (Nike)
Rewatching some of the work that inspired me and some of the campaigns I worked on reminds me that so many of these messages HAVE inspired me to have the courage to step out, push limits, walk the edge of what is possible, push hard and fight for better.
But I also think at this stage, I am going to go with the flow and see where creativity wants me next.
While I thought most of my time in the advertising trenches achieved nothing, I think it helped build resilience and find my own greatness. My mom always woke me up with the message, “Rise and shine.” I guess we all have to figure out what that means for us and just be it..
Right now is a unique moment in history where we need to be honing and sharing our craft. Be it witchcraft (you know I love magic, despite the haters saying “magic isn’t real, Bek” - how dare they tell a witch her magic isn’t real???), or meditation or even blogging.
We all have special gifts and some of our gifts are straight up weird. But be weird, find your craft and sharpen it like the sword of Excalibur, so we all rise and shine and change the world. Every time you inspire yourself, you might inspire someone else too and then we can use this to light up even the darkest places.
Be weird, people, and maybe, just maybe, you will unlock your own magic in the process and remember…
P.S. Here is my favorite ad copy of all time:
