The end game of advertising is to drive people to action.
Whether that means directly into sales, or whether the action of thinking about a brand, product or task differently. It’s an agency’s job to use ideas to create movement. Or at least to try and do so.
Mostly this process happens for paying clients, for obvious reasons, but when it happens off the back of passion, that’s when I feel advertising, or the talent behind it, shows their real power.
Last week an email hit my inbox that made me stop in my tracks. As an aside, this is rare. It was from an agency asking for us to help get the message out there for a campaign they were pushing, which is less rare. But what made me sit up and take notice was the fact that it was about the scandal surrounding Adam Goodes and the racism debate.
The poster the agency created read “Turn your back on racism”, with the aim of getting people at the Sydney Swans game against the Adelaide Crows to turn their backs to the pitch at half-time, as a show of support to Goodes.
Scanning the email, I was racking my brain as to why the agency in question was doing this. To get to the bottom of it I went straight to the top. The agency’s boss said he wanted to support Goodes and didn’t want the agency’s name out there.
We get email after email, wanting us to promote agencies and their work, which is fair given that it’s one of our main functions as the trade press. But for this great piece of work, this agency didn’t want notoriety, it just wanted action. The agency isn’t a secret, you can find it online, but for this editorial I didn’t want to mention its name because that’s not the point.
What is the point was that this poster was powerful. It was simple and clear, and I could tell it was made by people who believed in what they were doing. I’m not saying that people in this industry don’t believe in the work they do for clients - I’m sure they do - but I know that work which comes from a passionate place is what resonates.
Speaking to another agency boss at an awards ceremony where its charitable work just picked up a gong, he lamented, “it’s nice to do work that I can mention to the wife and feel proud”, and I believe he also added something about removing the feeling of further fuelling corporate greed.
This aside, why aren’t more agencies using their brains for good? I know the industry has it in it, and I also know a lot is done already, but think of the good that could be done if we all used our influential power for a higher cause. If it’s done, I believe the work will be better and our collective souls lighter, and who can say no to that?
A version of this story originally appeared in the latest issue of AdNews (August 7). Want to get you own copy? You can subscribe right here.