The day the music died

“Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are fluttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack
And leave your friends and go.
O never fear, lads, naught’s to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.”

-A. E. Housman

It was early October last year. I had just finished pitching for a large cosmetics brand. The client sent a SOW document. It said that they required me to make 8 reels a day for the brand. That’s when something in my head snapped. That’s when the music died for me. Obviously, I refused the business. Make no mistake. Perhaps the request was perfectly valid (though I thought it was sweetly stupid) but it was no longer the advertising that I so deeply loved. The request collided with my very being. With the very way I was brought up in this business. As Housman put it, there was nothing but the night for me. I left advertising that day. As Kenny Rogers’ Gambler played in my head.” You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. I folded my cards.

I am told that advertising these days needs to communicate in three seconds since that is the consumer’s attention span. The communication needs to be dumb because everyone wants things to be simple. So what if it sounds silly. Craft had to make way for the daft. Communication no longer had to  fit into a brand’s personality, its tone and tenor. It had to fit into a screen.

Brand awareness was so 1980. Now it was only about ROI. How many impressions, clicks, engagements. Instant gratification. The very task of advertising had changed. There was a time when brands and advertising would create an impression. Now impressions have a new meaning. Print is dead. No one watches TV. It may be true of a new generation. But it cannot be a brushstroke for humanity in its entirety. 

“You don’t get it.” they say. Of course, I don’t.

Content is supposed to be king. Then why does it read like a pauper?  Some brands don’t even get their grammar right in their content. Fine writing and great art direction have disappeared. It has become a world that has changed. The problem is I haven’t. And, frankly, that is my problem. That is why the music died for me. The orchestra must still be playing for many.

What also got me was the agency remuneration system. Cheap is now good. On several occasions,  projects are awarded to those who can do it at a fraction of the cost. Cheap is precious now. And there we all have ourselves to blame. Frankly, by under-cutting we screwed ourselves over. The larger agencies are even more guilty of that. They can work for a pittance because they have some businesses that are the golden geese for them. So how does it matter if the remaining 30% of the business works on ridiculous remuneration?

Marketing to a large measure has lost its mojo. Gone are the days of market visits, rigorous research and inspiring briefs. Media planning too has become banal. Now creating a media plan is a no-brainer: Instagram, Google Ads and you are home.

Someone on Twitter told me that advertising had become spam. True. Earlier it was intertwined with the fabric of our lives. Now it is naked.

This is not a reflection of advertising as it is. These must be the right things or else how would multi-billion billings agency still thrive? It is merely a reflection of what advertising is to me. My wife told me that I had to adapt to the times. But I am at the doorstep of 60. I am too old to learn new tricks. I don’t even want to learn them. Therefore, I bowed out. The lyrics of this business did  not make sense to me. There are millions of people in the advertising business. Obviously they enjoy being in it. Some for the love of it. Some for the compulsions they are surrounded by.

I was defeated by the advertising of these times. Are these not sour grapes? Not at all. It is “sweet surrender on the quayside”.

(Swapan Seth was in advertising. Now, along with two friends, he is attempting to build a platform in the elderly lifestyle space.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.