The motz of Butz: Today's advertising is not advertising for advertising
With a few, but really few exceptions, the quality of advertising has plummeted to sub-zero. Or can you tell me about a creative, eye-catching and new advertising idea? From Theophil Butz.
My thesis: One of the still active and important advertisers, who works on the client and agency side, answered the question "How is the advertising business doing?": "It used to be fun and we earned good money. Today it's tedious and we earn nothing." From my perspective, I can't say why it's no longer financially viable. But as far as the fun and new creative ideas are concerned, I experience this every day. Advertisements, posters, radio spots, TV commercials and all those e-mails are 90 percent garbage, i.e. ineffective. Just like the obtrusive SVP advertising with the stamping shoes. Too much is too much. The voters have clearly expressed this. Good, creative advertising requires courage, uncompromisingness and humor. If you are afraid of losing the advertising budget, if you make compromises and talk up the third-best solution into a creative super-solution, then the result is campaigns that make me grumble. I can afford such a moth because I don't have a budget of this size to lose. However, I think that everyone should have more courage to come up with more eye-catching, witty and creative advertising.
The unspeakable flyers that end up in my letterbox and in my e-mail account are brimming with boredom, are uninteresting and certainly don't arouse any desire to buy. That's what advertising is for. For example, when I take a closer look at some of the advertisements in the penultimate issue of Tagi magazine, I can't understand how intelligent products can be made so poorly and uncreatively appealing to non-stupid readers. On page 2, Swiss Power Group Groupe Mutuel couldn't make it clear to me what the message was, even after looking at it for a while. On page 9, Lindt tries unsuccessfully to win me over to their product with passion and pure passion. Several car brands seem rather unimaginative and undifferentiated. The corny headline of the Mazda advertisement is a signpost for the advertising misery. And it goes like this: "Get in now and start saving" (see picture). Haha. Please read my comment on the Swisscom ad on page 43 in Advertising Week 18. Just two pages further on, Knorr convinces me never to buy one of those gravy pots. The promotionitis ads on pages 50/51 from Migros and Sunrise are another prime example of our industry's lack of creativity and design. The following four pages are no better. I understand that advertising as I see it today is no fun. And as a customer, I wouldn't pay money for so much nonsense. My stand-up display this week is my self-carved Halloween pumpkin, which hasn't stopped laughing (see portrait):
Theophil Butz, once a star advertiser (quote from Ringier), now an inspirer and now a mocker. "Not an easy role, but a necessary one, which I perform here every 14 days." Please send any relevant information to [email protected].
