Binatone Murdered My Ad Man
I have been thinking about how I am always fairly down on traditional ads and the agencies that make them. Ironically, when I left college, I aspired to work in an advertising agency. I actually wanted to be a fancy pants film director, but making TV, posters and press (with actual cameras), was sort of about as close as I could realistically get to that.
Anyway, it was never my aim to ‘go digital’ (digital didn’t even exist back then), that just sort of happened, my interest in electronics led me there. From an early age I’ve been into games and gadgets and thankfully that’s had a positive effect on my career. As a result of my ‘geek streak’, I have slipped into pixel-based advertising – and now I have a job in a flourishing and rewarding industry. A lot of geeks will try and tell you that digital isn’t really advertising, but it is, it’s just on a device rather than on the telly
So, while it’s piss easy to bang on about how shit TV ads and ATL agencies are (particularly if you’re a smug ‘new media’ twat), the reality is that I, like many other smug ‘new media’ twats, wanted to, and did, make TV ads. And if it wasn’t for the fact that my Dad bought me a Binatone, I may well have been still doing just that.
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5 Responses to “Binatone Murdered My Ad Man”
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Nahh, it’s not advertising… Well it doesn’t have to be. Telly and Radio are spouted out to a homogenous audience that advertisers like to segment into their imagined audiences. Digital is distributed over a network that is optimized for one-to-one connections. It’s real people doing stuff, not just consuming it. That’s the interesting bit about digital - that’s the future… That digital these days is sometimes seen as a new type of advertising is a result of laziness, sentimentality and old fashioned thinking.
Sorry, that’s a painful truth.
While I do not disagree with your description of the role of digital and it’s ability to engage over and above the tired format of TV and print, I fear you are missing my point. In 1950 a brand went to a company because they were struggling to sell a product, in 2008 a brand does the same - the channel has changed, yes, but not the mechanic.
We may not call ourselves advertisers, yet we both advertise.
Ok Maybe…
My point was that advertising is aimed at putting a product or service into a consumers ‘evoked set’. That’s a passive thing and if you wanted to work in advertising - making films etc - when you were growing up before the internet existed, then that’s what you were aiming to do.
‘Digital’ by its nature is interactive. It allows for much more than simply pushing a message to an audience. To limit it being an analog of 1950’s advertising is a bit of a shame.
I’m on disability and had to find some way on the internet to make the few extra bucks I’m allowed to earn a month. I chose pixel advertising and have done very well considering I’m giving most of the money away on a pixel lotto type site called EllwoodCity.Biz
i do not disagree with that knotty