A bit dry, and a bit inside, but this is a film for ad geeks that focuses on advertising since the big change: the day that art directors and copy writers started collaborating to produce not just ads, but the ideas behind the ads.
It used to be that writers would write their copy, then send it to the art directors,
who would lay it out. The new model has resulted in the creative pairing most agencies now use: one art director, one copy writer, and with any luck, one good ad. This approach has had such success that it has even moved into the newspaper world, more or less killing layout departments and resulting in software for "page ownership", which turns the copy editor into an editor, photo editor and layout artist all at once, as in the end they produce one vertically integrated page.
This is the insight I took away from the first half-hour, and the bit about newspapers is me applying that insight to my own past work experience. After thinking through this, I watched the film alternate between self-congratulatory interviews with the creators of major campaigns - for VW Beetle, MacIntosh, Air Jordan and other products - and disembodied stats about how many ads we all see in a day, lifetime etc.
An interesting series of anecdotes that lets you inside some big industry brains and even bigger successes, but you have got to LOVE advertising to really enjoy this one.
January 27, 2010
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