This one will sting a bit. Especially to the ones who have gone to advertising schools to learn creativity. There are a plethora of books that teach the art of advertising and there are gurus who have taught the art of storytelling themselves. Not invalidating their accomplishments or teachings completely, the #DotsFired now is set to spark some real conversations.
Our Thoughts: Let’s get cracking
Ideas cannot be tamed, they said. Some of the award-winning ideas emerged when they were let loose. A simple brief like “think something new”, or “do something different” was never enough to come up with a creative campaign. As advertisers, we are always hungry for more details. Be it for the likes of David Ogilvy or Prasoon Joshi, the juggernauts in the advertising industry today are always fuelled by such details.
Why do we think that rules hinder the creative process? Having brand guidelines to define a brand persona is one thing. Putting the creative thought process on a leash is completely yet another thing altogether. Creativity, by nature, means breaking the pattern to stand out from the crowd. Thinking out of the box means, standard rules and regulations do not apply. Simply by even deviating from the rules, the purpose of creativity can be achieved. So, stating the obvious here – if rules are meant to be broken, why have them in the first place? Here are a few of the rule-breaking ads that have changed the way we look at advertisements.
Dove – Real Beauty Campaign
When
most of the beauty soaps paid handsome (pun, intended) fees to
celebrities to endorse their brand, Dove chose to break the rule that beauty
soaps should be endorsed by beautiful people. In fact, they made a point that
their soaps made even the simplest looking people beautiful, and that was the
beauty of breaking the rule.
Dove Real Beauty Campaign:
Ariel – Share The Load
It
has been an age-old belief that the kitchen and bathroom belong to women when
it comes to cleaning them. The role of advertising today has evolved only by
breaking such draconian rules and stereotypes. Ariel launched a gender-neutral
campaign that portrayed men doing the same kind of household chores as women
did ages ago. This campaign surely hit the white with this kind of
storytelling.
Ariel #ShareTheLoad
Tata Tea – Jaago Re
Who would have thought that a simple morning beverage could be so powerful?
While the whole world put their best efforts into highlighting the features,
advantages and benefits of a product, Tata Tea broke the rules and didn’t
highlight any of them. Instead, they focused on the higher-order purpose of the
brand – to not just wake up, but awaken!
Tata Tea #JaagoRe
At 3 Dots Design, we believe that rules are important in certain cases where the products or services demand a particular discipline in them. For brands that wish to take creativity to the next level and let rules take a backseat for a while, 3 Dots Design proudly goes berserk over ideas without letting go of some basic rules of advertising that are an integral part of every communication.
Though our opinions on this topic are not put in any framework, you have all the rights to question us about why we think what we think and how we think it works or doesn’t. Write to us, comment below or if you have stronger dots to be fired, or reach us out on our social media handles.