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04 Feb, 2013 – 3 comments
seek discomfort
I saw this image from Stefan Sagmeister’s “The Happy Show” which just opened at the Design Exchange in Toronto.
I love the simplicity of the statement and its meaning.
And it reminds me of some recent conversations I’ve had on the role of planning in advertising.
There are two, generalized, modes of thought. One is that the planner’s job is to study the cultural stream and find a way for a brand and its meaning to slip neatly into that current. The other path is to understand the cultural stream in order to redirect it in your favor. The latter requires considerably more media, a brazen message, and a willing brand. But I guarantee that the latter is also a helluva lot more fun to work on.
Slipping in to that cultural stream is the easy way out – the 14 month marketing manager’s solution. But the latter: the discomfort, the damming and diverting is the sustainable option. In the age of complexity, magnified by infinite connection via internet, culture moves faster than any brand ever can. If you try the easy way out, you’re here today and gone tomorrow. So thanks for the sobering reminder that the difficult course is the correct one.
I love this post. Whatever new idea you’re coming up with must create some discomfort or you’re not pushing envelope far enough.
My business cards (design by @gapingvoid) say “Great idea alter the power balance in relationship, that’s why great ideas are always initially resisted.”
That sums it up. If people aren’t offened by your new marketing strategy you’re not trying hard enough.
Jeph
Aren’t both approaches the same with the difference that number is just on the surface and number goes deeper? I still wonder if planning can truly influence behavior or if culture is the driving force and some planners and creatives are just better in reading the signals and therefor produce work that fuels and amplifies culture to a larger extend.