What the Heck.
Like all things done in moderation, it's okay for advertising to sip some of its own Kool Aid.
Lately, however, it feels more like the industry is adrift on a sea of sugary delusion and those purple, red, and oddly glowing orange icebergs up ahead are about to inflict serious damage on our theoretically unsinkable ship.
What got me started thinking in these mildly hallucinatory terms started last Friday with a breathless headline from Ad Age, "Inside United Airlines' Bold New Outdoor Strategy."
Same story, more or less, was repeated for the next three days, picking up steam, superlatives, and more and more trade pub repetition.
And what, you might wonder, was the deal?
Unless I'm totally missing the plot, the airline bought a large digital billboard in Times Square. This, they populated with a nice photo and, get this, a short headline.
As presented by Ad Age, this "travel cliche avoiding" creative was something unique, remarkable; described by United's ad chief as the airline's "boldest OOH advertising campaign yet.”
Their chief creative tells us why:
"We really tried to stay grounded in the reality of why people travel and not get lost in the daydreaming — I think we've banned the word wanderlust and daydream from our vocabulary."
Cynical me thinks, "creating desire, so cliche."
Even more cynical me thinks: I bet most of us have a least some recollection of 2013's "Friendly Skies" revival from United, the one that featured Rhapsody in Blue and narration by, fun fact, Matt Damon.
Wonder if anyone will remember "Heck Yeah, We Fly There" 11 years from now?
But this isn't to pick on United for doing what so many of us do on the all-too-rare occasion when we get to work on something of scale: we live up to our reputation and oversell it.
Frankly, if the Ad Age headline was, "Creative Team Down on Bended Knees, Sobbing ‘Thank God It’s Not Another Fucking Banner Ad’ " I'd buy the hype.
But to pretend something is amazing, bold, and breakthrough when it's, well, whatever it is, suggests we need to get a grip.
For real.
