A Musing.
It’s been a week of New York marinating in its own juices; the dew point has been set to maximum sticky and “back of my neck/dirty and gritty” seems more like a snapshot than a song lyric.
Frankly, with The Reductionist’s brain imitating the frying egg in the old-but-still-famous anti-drug spot, I’m hoping you’ll allow me the luxury of a few random skitterings instead of anything coherent. Something along the lines of what’s probably happening right now when the predicted rain lands on the copper top of the Helmsley Building over on Park: splash, sizzle, and dance.
Looking it up, Wiki says the building’s “lantern-like” roof was originally gilded, then painted green, then gilded again with the gold leaf later removed. Sounds like way too many creative projects we could both name.
Striving for great, we devise and revise, too often to the detriment of the work. Not saying that going with your first creative instinct is always right, but sometimes you need to consign those censorious inner demons to the soundproof mental time out room where they can self-flagellate among themselves.
Then again, sometimes not. There’s a “coming soon” window advert for a new pizza shop opening on Columbus Circle that reads “Authentic Roman Italian Pizza”—I’m still wondering if that’s a redundancy and if not, why not? So, okay, differentiating your fine pie from all the other fine pies in a city full of fine pies is always worthwhile; but this one still seems hot from dept. of déjà vu all over again.
Funny thing about New York: hyperbole, like everything else in this town, has its own neighborhood. You want antique French poster art—whole buildings full of the goods in or around Greenwich Village. You want over-the top bloviation, mid-town is the place to be, with Times Square the obvious epic epicenter.
Midwest humor: “what’s the difference between a party in New York and a party in Minnesota? Answer: In New York people leave without saying goodbye. In Minnesota they say goodbye and never leave.”
Speaking of repetition and bloviation, the advertising blogosphere has been full of its usual post-Cannes cross currents. Half the posters are humble bragging (“so proud”), kvelling (“of my team”) or a combo (“so proud to have led my team”). The other half have sailed so far off on the bitter boat they couldn’t get back to land if they were born with fins. “What’s next, participation trophies?” is the mildest damnation.
Personally, I have a foot, or a fin, in both camps. It’s comes as no shock that advertising awards shows are entirely self-indulgent funhouse-hall-of-navel-gazing stuff, not to mention the most avariciously profitable rip-off this side of a Manhattan parking garage. But I still think having these North Stars glittering in the industry firmament is an incentive to aim for wonderful.
Where “awards” add value, at least with the right juries in the top shows, relates to their ability to shine a high wattage spotlight on winning the battle for attention—and it doesn’t take a piled-higher-and-deeper econ degree to grok the value of an ad that doesn’t. Where they miss, and it’s hard to be sure the Effies are still so much the exception, relates to downstream metrics, hard sales results included.
Since making the case that creative work works is among the more existential items on the industry chopping block, the criticism has serious merit. Not that anyone should start holding their breath until they turn a shade of titanium expecting a shift in attitudes.
Just in the nick: today’s posting from search consultancy Pile and Company is headlined “Why aren’t funny ads winning more awards?” Clicking to the story, you read: “Cannes 2021: All purpose and no play makes adland a very dull place.”
Talk about the perfect way to end a musing about New York—a slice of wry.