In-Between Days

Building a Bridge Between Two Different Creative Approaches

As an elder Millennial, I feel like I’ve existed between generations my entire life. I’m old enough to have lived through corded (even rotary) telephones, antenna TVs with no remote control, and having to dial up the internet on our family phone line. Yet I’m young enough to have been involved in the inception of social media, smart tech and the age of information (and disinformation).

This is also true of my career in advertising. When I started, print production was still a primary driver of ads. We presented campaigns on large poster boards. Magazines and newspapers existed primarily in print form with minimal dot-com presence. Digital ads were a thing, but only specialty shops focused on those and most brands didn’t really worry too heavily about their digital presence.

I entered the agency biz under the tutelage of those who came from the “three whiskey lunch” era of advertising, and I found myself yet again in familiar territory—between generations of marketers. My career began when “the big idea” was still the focus for each client but, at the same time, every day we were seeing the next “viral video” or viral post online or in the news. It was an inflection point between two generational approaches to advertising: The big idea that brought relatability to consumers while transcending brand and culture, and the new age of hyper-focused, short form, disruptive and flashy ideas that yanked a brand out of the clutter and stuffiness of the expected and into the cutting edge unknown — if only for a short moment in time.

While legacy campaigns had become part of our long-term culture spanning generations, the hot virality of modern concepts seemingly bound by no rules continued to push what was accepted and acceptable in every industry category — for better or worse.

The simple difference between these two doctrines can be boiled down to how they’re remembered. People remember those long-lasting campaigns that never aged-out of their relatability. “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” was a line coined decades before I even existed, yet that simple promise of neighborliness has never worn away. And while we may not remember the viral moments from modern history as quickly— frankly because of the fast and fleeting nature of them—their impact on the cultural zeitgeist is still immense. Each idea informing and inspiring the next without even intending to do so.

Being between generations my whole life has gifted me this interesting perspective as I analyze my own creative work and that of the talented peers around me. I’ve seen big ideas fall short if they can’t adapt to reach modern audiences amongst the infinite number of touchpoints that exist nowadays—digitally and terrestrially. Conversely, the viral approach can lack meaningful longevity and can struggle to inspire loyalty in consumers.

So, as creative marketers and brand stewards, it’s time we bridge the gaps between these generational approaches to find harmony in both: with verbal and visual ideas that cut through the ever-growing cacophony of noise in our lives, while invoking that warm, fuzzy feeling we got when connecting with a brand on a visceral level. It’s not about the product but, rather, about how it makes you feel being a part of that brand’s story.

The mentors of my early days were fond of saying marketing was simple. It was just a matter of asking people what they want and then giving it to them. And that may still be true, but what people want has definitely changed. We want connection. We crave inclusion. We want brands that say something about us as much as they tell us about them.

So, if we want to succeed as marketers in these in-between days, it’s imperative that we shift our focus and message from reasons to buy a product to reasons to believe in the brand.