Creativity in the Cosplay era.
Decades ago, agencies were problem solvers. The world wasn’t as complex, and the act of creativity broke through the very thin walls of society and its uptightness.
Creativity, specifically in the advertising realm, has become a parody of a copy of mimicry of itself. So why is it this way now? Mainly, a lot of yeses were given to people who shouldn’t have heard the word.
The move to please and entertain clients has compromised the power of the creative idea and has replaced it with a value-math system of behavior shifts and influencers.
Anthemic ads that moved you to reflect on the human condition are now hollow pantomimes of images that are digitally altered or generated, with voiceovers that spout data points in a wild word salad of self-conscious and over-used parables.
Advertising, like popular music, in relation to the last 50 years, is now a cosplay of itself. Ads are looking for a cheap laugh or shock value by being everything ridiculous they can and garnishing that vision with wooden and juvenile writing. The latest storm in a teacup from the North Face is a prime example.
Using the word cosplay isn’t a gripe; it’s an observation that large swathes of the population are living in their own self-imposed costume of themselves; instead of searching for their real selves, they’ve adorned themselves with the costumes of sensibilities, values, and peccadilloes of people they admire or who make them feel good.
It sounds innocent, but it’s not. It’s a pernicious undermining of standards, rules, and connections that societies share openly to produce a revenue result.
An algorithm, not a mind, now calculates an ad that can move you. Audiences aren’t the same; they’re more fragmented, isolated, and insulated from a sense of community with their fellow humans.
Agencies allowed themselves to be duped into saying yes so many times that the bill came to be paid, and all the young, fresh faces in the world won’t cover up the compromise and what it has done to creativity and originality.
When it comes to creativity, the past couple of decades has seen the move to industrialize everything unknown about the skill of creative problem-solving, principally by the uncreative world of profit-takers.
The desire for profit has taken the art out of advertising.
And ultimately, the advertising business wasn’t really made for longevity, it makes money so it can live longer. It’s like an old rich Uncle that will never leave you anything in their will because he’s figured out a way to not die …by saying ‘yes’.