this is violence

I spend most of time here talking about how awful things are in advertising right now, especially online. I really think the web has brought a cultural sea change that most agencies still haven’t wrapped their heads around and it’s marginalized the importance of their work.

All that said, there is a reason I got into this. I love brands, and I love advertising. It’s this love that makes me so aware of how much more culturally important I think advertising used to be. Allowing for the possibility that I have an unhealthy relationship with this industry, I pulled some examples I love that I think demonstrate this.

First – two classics. The first one is very likely why I got into advertising in the first place.

I think this one may be one of the more perfect commercials I’ve ever seen.

But it’s not all nostalgia. Here are a couple from around 2006 and 2008 respectively.

When I was watching these again this morning, I realized a few things about them. First, each one I think uses the medium pretty much perfectly. When I was in college I took a short story writing class and the professor described the method of short story writing not as shorting a longer story, but as telling the entire story by fully rendering one single moment to become a metaphor for the entire narrative. I think each of these does that perfectly. They’re each 30 second spots, but each one is a complete story told through one single element or theme.

Second, each them is unrepentantly ernest. I was listing to the Talk of the Nation interview with Bob Garfield a couple weeks ago where he was talking about what he called “advertisings worship at the alter of comedy” and it struck me how true this is. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, but I miss when an agency and brand where not afraid to say “yes, this is culturally important.”

Looking back now, it occurs to me how balls-y these ads actually where. Comparing them to something like the current Nike MVP ads, there is a safety and a distance in the humor. For me, there is something wonderful about the ads above that take the risk of saying “yes, sports matter, Nike matters.” They wore their convictions on their sleeves and in doing so took on a level of noble vulnerability.

So there you have it, proof I don’t hate advertising.