The Simpsons, Halloween and other sacred things

I love Cactus because they blogged the Simpsonization of their entire agency. My own illustrates this post, which is only sort of about The Simpsons.

This post is about messing with the sacred, Which the Simpsons movie certainly does. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to seeing it or if I'm worried that my favorite show has jumped the shark. (A phrase which has itself jumped the shark.)

For me, Rob Zombie's upcoming reimagining of Halloween is an even bigger concern. The 1978 original is a monument in indie film, horror and urban legend. It's one of the few films to successfully mythologize around the awfulness of fate. And it's scary as hell, without ever getting gory. Zombie is unlikely to take the same approach.

Messing with the sacred pays huge dividends if you do it right. In the world of film, Batman Begins introduced the masses to the real Dark Knight. In the world of advertising, Adidas reclaimed its legitimacy with great work from EVB and 180 Amsterdam.

What the reinventions of Batman and Adidas have in common is that they weren't reinventions at all, but rather a restoration of core values. Batman became the strong shadow of The Long Halloween. Adidas returned to its global athletic roots, which are a couple decades deeper than Nike's, with spots starring worldwide stars like Ian Thorpe and David Beckham.

The lesson is that when you have the opportunity to work on something sacred, you shouldn't superimpose your own values upon it.

I really, really hope Rob Zombie understands that.

Dumb ways to kill good work

Some cliches earn their status. Others are memorable mostly for their inanity. And still others lie in between.

"If you cover up the logo, that ad could be for anybody."

A brilliant insight. Also a clueless, lazy assertion.

It's said a lot by clients. Luke Sullivan took them on in Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This.

Sometimes clients need to be reminded that their product isn't substantially different from the competition's. All that may distinguish the two is the advertising you propose... You need to get your client to see that execution can be content and personality can be proprietary. They're called "pre-emptive claims" - claims any competitor could've made had they moved fast enough.

All well and good. But what if the objection is raised not by the client, but by someone who should know better? An account executive. Worse, a creative director.

"If you cover up the logo, that ad could be for anybody."

Often the definition of "anybody" seems to float along with the motivations of the objector. For instance, Adidas ran a spot where an Olympic weightlifter snatched a heavy barbell, pumped his fist, and walked offscreen. The spot ended with the Adidas logo and the tagline "Forever Sport." Adidas has a rich athletic history and a product line that validates this claim. A smart planner would have supported it. But cover up the Adidas logo and you could easily believe you'd watching an ad for the USOC, Gatorade or even Nike. If the same planner woke up on the wrong side of the bed on that particular day, the campaign could have been consigned to the agency basement.

And even when a claim isn't unassailably authentic, a well-done ad can create ownable space all by itself. Saatchi/London's classic work for XXXX claimed, "Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else." Except that Wikipedia reports that XXXX is one of a few beers popular in Queensland, and unpopular throughout much of the rest of Australia.

"If you cover up the logo, that ad could be for anybody."

Um yeah. And if we covered up the photo, that logo would be sitting next to some whitespace. It's all nonsense. We're not going to cover up the logo, we're going to end up making it 10% bigger. So please, unless the claim is random to the point of dishonesty, give it a rest.