Keeping up appearances.

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Even once an empire falls, the impression it leaves for eternity is wrapped in aesthetic. (Probably no one has beaten the Egyptians giving people bird heads if we’re totally honest, that shit went really hard.) That’s often the influence that carries on. Why am I talking about falling empires? No, this isn’t about you know who, but I’ll get to it.

The world of marketing and advertising has increasingly become ‘the left brain trying to control what the right brain does’, instead of actively empowering it do so.

We don’t control the supply chain, the legalities, the machinations, the engineering, the product quality, the customer experience. But we do control the communicative aspect that channels and amplifies all of this. We establish feeling. We influence fame. We mould perception. (And, there’s a famous phrase for the importance of that, has the word ‘everything’ in it somewhere.)

I was on a panel last week discussing whether ‘asking for a 5-star ad is anti-creative’. There’s almost more research and testing methodologies now as there are agencies. And people spending more time and money trying to work out what the most important buzz word is instead of going out and actually making something of value. Differentiation? Product? Positioning? Essence? Purpose? Personalisation? Targeting? Creativity? (Sometimes that still gets a mention.) Brand? Performance? Community? (The answer, of course, is that there is no one magic silver bullet, but it’s a lot easier to convince ourselves there is.)

Bob Hoffman explores this in the intro to his latest book, The Three Word Brief, and lands in a really interesting place. Impressionism.

The consideration of ‘impressions’ as an arbitrary singular equal measure has been one of the worst adoptions in the history of advertising. Mostly used as a metric to sell volumes of cheap media inventory, it’s created an environment where someone scrolling past one annoying web banner or skipping a video after x seconds is deemed an equal ‘impression’ as someone genuinely enjoying and sharing something, whether it be a film, a billboard, or a meme.

In short, pissing people off or making them smile or laugh are basically now considered ‘the same thing’. When you really think about it, it’s no wonder things are the way they are. I covered this in a previous piece about ‘thinking of people as eyeballs, and not people’.

I won’t go deep into Bob’s rationale, to do so, buy the book. But he poses that, even at a grand scale, the evergreen pillars of ‘logic’ and ‘emotion’ might be ignoring a third, potentially more important leg to the table.

Aesthetic.

This notion around people and ‘impressionism’ and how it relates to our business is quite an interesting take. And it’s anchored in the entirety of human history. The most powerful, memorable, and influential entities throughout history have all had something in common. Scale of impression. Yes, Nike, Apple, Coca Cola, but also Kings, Queens, Popes, Hollywood, and so on. Crowns and castles are magnificent for a reason. Those ordained by god still sit surrounded by material opulence. That all of these imagined cultural monoliths have remained mostly unchecked, for no reason other than perception of influence. And the fact that, under the veneer, most of these people and institutions are really just as flawed as any other, including you and I. Yet history proves that even the very ordinary can command immense influence when surrounded by extraordinary aesthetic.

In short, those that look, feel, and sound better - are. In the minds of the masses, anyway. It’s one amplifier that, for centuries on centuries, has brought and signalled power, influence, and fame over extended periods of time. And when it comes to brands, it’s no different.

So, why have we given up on it? For decades now, the importance of aesthetic has waned in favour of rational and logical noise, like ‘cost per clicks’, simply because it’s spreadsheetable. And with it, perhaps coincidentally (but likely not), brand health has dropped, people’s feeling towards advertising in general has plummeted, and we now live in a time where people actively pay money to avoid our product. (All the award shows feel kinda silly when that’s the case, don’t they?)

AI is, of course, going to make all of this even worse. (If you thought Facebook ads were bad now, wait till Zuckerberg is squeezing them out of a tube.) But I kind of find it encouraging. Because Bob’s well-articulated take on all of this speaks to what we’ve always felt at SICKDOG. Aesthetic is a monstrous weapon. Scale of impression a critically unfair advantage over the competition. It’s why we’re both a communication and design business. Not an ad agency that does a bit of design, nor a design agency that makes some ads. Both.

Because brands that look, feel, and sound better - are.

It’s the inescapable truth of history and human nature (and the animal kingdom if we really want to dig into it). And as we get ready to shovel people’s feeds with homogenous slop, brands might want to consider what kind of perception they’re signalling to their audience via their aesthetic. And this isn’t an anti-AI post, we use AI everyday, but it is a warning shot that technological advancements that happen overnight don’t change human behaviour that’s existed for eternity.

Like any other tool or tech, we’ll be using AI not to cheapen, to devalue, to coalesce. But to get to better quicker. To help brands reach a level of amplification they perhaps previously could not. To propagate a sense of scale that previously fell out of reach.

The quality of the impression we leave has always been a powerful multiplier. And now’s not the time to abandon our appearances - but keep them up. Amplify our signal even further. Move up the chain, not down.

Because it’s about to become a serious outlier. Maybe the biggest.

Side note. DTSA has become quite expensive to run. And it’s all your fault.

In all seriousness, I really appreciate the following and support. But as the follower count grows, so does the hosting costs. And I’m talking thousands here. I’ve toyed with making it paid to cover it, but I don’t really want to wall off content.

So I’m going to experiment with ads. I’ve rejected every offer up to this point, but if there are some that feel somewhat aligned, I may start including them.

Every click helps keep DTSA free (and grease the old wheels). Much appreciated.

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