Warren Brown warns adland: stop making ads for yourselves
BMF co-founder Warren Brown, who announced on Monday he was stepping down from the agency he helped found 20 years ago, is unsure if he will find his way back to an agency, but has warned creatives to stop making ads to impress each other.
And he has fired a shot across the bows of creative directors trying to chase glory through scam ads, saying simple ideas and an honest approach was the key to success.
Brown steps away from the industry for a break with a body of work that has helped define categories from beer to sport, food and public health in both Australia and in his earlier years in the UK.
Along the way he has flogged Fosters with Paul Hogan, Levis Jeans, the benefits of meat and the curious Scottish carbonated drink, Irn Bru.
One of Brown’s very first ads was for Irn Bru.
Brown told Mumbrella that he believes creatives should stop trying to please their colleagues and start working to please consumers.
“I was convinced early on that the only creativity I was interested in was the work that people who didn’t like advertising would actually like,” Brown said.
“I didn’t do work for the industry to like, I thought the public were much tougher to crack”.
Brown also said that younger people entering the industry needed to be given the room to make mistakes.
“It’s healthy for the business to have new people trying to make same mistakes I was making 30 years ago. People need to be encouraged to make their own mistakes.”
Brown helped make Paul Hogan famous in the UK.
Brown said his own plans are fluid, although he sees more change coming and cannot rule out jumping back in the business at some stage.
“The business has changed several times in my career and it might changes again. The real question is, what is an agency?”
He also said it was important to “make a difference” for brands that entrusted their business to agencies.
“We tried to do that with the AFL (I’d Like to See That) and Lean Beef.”
Toohey’s Extra Dry was another brand that helped change the face of the market and heralded more than a decade of some of the best beer ads seen in Australia as the breweries tried to outdo each other.
He also warned of the dangers of “overburdening work and destroying the simplicity of ideas”.
“There is nothing worse than having something you sweated over and overburdening the advertising to get all the messages in. The more you pack into an idea the more it gets lost.”
And Brown, who has won 19 Cannes Lions throughout his career, reserved a particular message for the scam merchants who create ads purely for the purpose of winning awards.
“I have worked with some brilliant brands and people and have never done a scam,” he said.
Brown helped create one of Levis more iconic ads:
Women’s low iron levels was the subject of a major beef camapign:
Celebrities were lured to promote the AFL:
Big food was at the centre of another beef campaign:
Anti-smoking message revolted many but saved lives:
I have to say I agree with Warren. With social media and other digital disruption driving direct and real time contact and calls to action, ads are losing their appeal. In addition some of the ads are so creative that they make no sense to the target audiences nor invite you to act. I’m sure if you checked the response rates/data it would make you rethink creating a different ad for your clients.
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I love these industry types that exit the building and then have an opinion on the industry they represented for years.
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I once saw a credentials deck from BMF that said we make advertising that’s ‘fresh and popular’ – I love that.
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It is a half comment, a 50% statement, to say that “simple ideas and an honest approach is the way to success.” For instance, a complex idea and a dishonest approach, would have a chance of some measure of success, and a complex idea and an honest approach, would have as much chance of success as the suggested ideal.
to claim that some ads are “so creative that they make no sense to the target audience nor invite you to act,” is also a half comment , because the extent of the creative has nothing to do with the sense of the finished product, it is the intent that is obscured not by excessive creativity, but a deficiency in storytelling.
Having said this, I do believe that a simple story well told, via minimal dialogue and deep emotional overlay, is the best way to get a point across and to make an impact.
I site the Bic pen TV ads of the 1970s, featuring two young children in primary school, a dorky boy in national health specs, was encouraged to surrender his new Bic pen to, and by, a pretty girl in ringlets. Never out of date, base level understanding that everyone can understand at a glance, and a deep feel good emotion.
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@ Richard Moss, have some respect for an absolute legend of the industry you halfwit
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ad critic, I address you by the name you hide behind.
Your opinion is as welcome as anyone’s, but it seems likely that you don’t think your opinions through before committing them to words. I have the greatest respect for the good and the great practitioners, I have, and have always shown, great respect for the art form, for the creative and for creativity. I have worked at the very centre of it for 49 years. I have an informed and seasoned opinion which I am never afraid to voice, be it before a neophyte or an [quote] “absolute legend of the industry” [unquote]
I show no disrespect to anyone, which is more than can be said for you as you dub me [quote] “you half wit” [unquote]
If I were as reactionary as you appear to be, I might mistakenly or otherwise refer to you as a sycophant.
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Don’t you think he’s earned the right to his opinion?
Have you?
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