annabelle begins a blog sort of thing
I’m going to start writing about advertising. The nature of the writing won’t be cringe social criticism. It will be cringe in a different way, springing from a somewhat controversial opinion of mine that advertising has aesthetic value. That it provides a useful lens for understanding how people feel about themselves and the world, just like a novel does, or a pre-school kid’s crayon drawing of their family. Why is daddy frowning? Why are all the good holiday ads this year super macabre? All roads lead to Rome.
I’m doing this blog thing for 3 reasons:
1. I want to work in advertising. As a copywriter, not a critic, at a cool agency that’s work is praised for creativity & insight. To get one of those highly sought-after jobs & make stuff I like, I need to do the research, watch everything that’s out there, and focus. Actually focus. As a student of English literature in undergrad, my analytical writing was a big source of confidence and calm for me. It narrows my focus, supports me to produce stronger creative work, and is for some bizarre reason is really fun for me. So, I want to do it again! This time for brands.
2. I haven’t been able to find anyone writing about advertising in this way: meaning, in a way that is analytically rigorous but also on speaking terms with pop culture. The American Journal of Advertising’s focus appears to be on market research & consumer psychology findings, both super interesting subjects but not what I’m looking for (I emailed the editor for access, unless you’re a tenured comms professor it’s a brick wall!) Google pulls up 0 results, as did Humboldt University’s librarian. Why is this?
I suspect it’s because advertising creatives and academics don’t respect each other. Academics view advertising as a cheap medium that exacerbates social ills and isn’t (I repeat, is not!) art, even when it makes us giggle. (Remember when Zizek did that Abercrombie thing?)
Advertising creatives don’t think about academics (ha ha, that scene in Mad Men.) Advertising creatives pride themselves on being colorful, no-BS types. They say fuck a lot, and they judge the quality of their work on 2 very simple criteria. First, is it creative? And second, Does it work? (Some would argue the two are switched in order of importance.) Their audience is made up of several billion regular people, the consumer. Academics, or the sorts of people who pitch research pieces to journals that are only stocked in arty Berlin bookstores, appear disconnected from regular people. And so the two sorts of people don’t mix. They don’t hit it off at parties. They don’t exchange numbers.
I wish this wasn’t the case. I think the disciplines have a lot to learn from each other. I like academic types, people who enjoy brain gymnastics. “Don’t overthink it” is a cardinal rule in advertising. So I guess I’m trying to bridge that gap, or maybe even challenge it.
3. A few weeks into my new life as a student of advertising in Berlin, at an arty bookstore, I picked up a copy of Ian Lynam’s The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Artists & Photography. Lynam is a Tokyo-based American designer and design critic who’s a regular contributor to the big design journals (which, unlike advertising journals, exist.) With a voice that’s clear and piercing and only in a few places self-satisfied, Lynam says a lot of interesting things about design, a subject that intimidates me, and then at the end addresses aspiring creatives, saying it’s important for them to actually do things. This may seem like an obvious instruction. But I found it motivational.
I have no credentials for this writing besides loving ads. I am a first-quarter student of copywriting at Miami Ad School in Berlin (our curriculum includes courses like “Intro to Photoshop.”) In an ideal world I would have a hobby that was not this, like kickboxing. But here we are. Follow along if you feel like it.
For some reason this host website thinks it is May 2019. It is not. It is December 2023.
