shots 159: T is for Television

Nick Gill, executive creative director, BBH London, started his career in TV’s heyday, with the great John Webster. Yet he sees today’s more complex, fractured and tech-driven marketplace as the ideal environment in which to produce great storytelling and truly creative filmmaking

Twenty-five years ago, yours truly was attempting to find his voice in the medium of TV advertising. I had the benefit of being mentored by a true great, in the shape of John Webster.

It was all very different then. Quality 30-second TV campaigns were commonplace, the humour was Anglo-centric, special effects were done in-camera, there was no such thing as digital or mobile, and a platform idea was something you had waiting for a train.

They were happy times. I learned so much. But given the choice, I’d choose now. Why? Because we can do anything we want these days. We can dream without boundaries.

We’re all individuals! I’m not!

What got us here? Well, global advertising, for starters. At first, we thought everyone would laugh at our jokes but, seemingly overnight, we discovered British humour didn’t fly abroad. Irony and self-deprecation struggled too. Likewise gritty reality. New money in developing markets wanted to see Ferraris and Rolex watches, not fat blokes with big noses in pubs.

What gradually emerged was a new global language. It was a visual one, of course. But also one that appealed to the most basic of human desires. TV commercials focussed on hopes and dreams and shared mindsets; on love and life and success and ambition.

This was both a good and a bad thing. It was good because cultural barriers were being knocked down; bad, because global brand messages would eventually become homogenised. Two strategies emerged that more or less every brand in the world embraced – ‘Get the most out of life’ and ‘Be an individual’. Suddenly the whole advertising world had two ideas – running across beaches and graffitiing walls.

Even as brand messages homogenised, those same brands began to understand the power of film as a differentiator. Writing and directing flourished. Longer, richer, more ambitious TV commercials were made that could truly be called films. 

Spots for Guinness and Levi’s and Sony were triumphs of craft. Horses exploded out of waves to a Moby Dick-inspired script. Grunge and techno music underscored period Americana. Coloured balls cascaded down San Francisco streets.

Directors emerged with the sensitive eye of an independent filmmaker. Ringan Ledwidge would add elements to a film that it didn’t technically need, but without them it would be less special. The Hovis child saluting the soldier. The Axe couple goofing around with a sock.

More and more markets found their voice in this new, global environment. It was an inspiration to see the Hungry? campaign for Cup Noodle featuring tiny cavemen. I wondered where an idea like this had come from. Drugs? No, Japan.

I had a similar reaction to early Traktor work, as the Swedes took the US by storm. I never dreamed men with beards in the woods could be so funny, so cool.

Goodbye loyalty, hello engagement

As advertising globalised, so TV channels proliferated. Choice was sold hard to the viewing public. When many of these new channels under-delivered on quality, surfing and snacking became the norm. TV viewers became as impatient with their viewing choices as they did with the increasing interference of brands. Interruption wasn’t working. Hello engagement.

Brands had to up their game accordingly. Those that invested in long-term campaigns would enjoy success. BBH’s Vorsprung Durch Technik (Audi), The Axe Effect (Axe) and Keep Walking (Johnnie Walker) campaigns would continue to reward creatively and commercially because their clients stuck by them. Dove, Honda and John Lewis are similarly being rewarded for their staying power.

One big happy family… on the sofa

But it would take an explosion in media and technology to properly liberate TV advertising. I use the word ‘liberate’, rather than ‘threaten’, very deliberately. Technology took filmmaking’s brakes off. When I started out in the business I’d write a script that began with “A pig flies…” and people would say “You can’t actually make that.” This year, with the help of The Mill, we’ve created an apparently live-action Audi commercial entirely on a computer (Birth).

Interactivity has added a whole new dimension to film. It enables you to, for example, have even more fun with the Old Spice guy. It allows you to “choose a different ending” in the fight against knife crime. It enables you to buy clothes off the back of the ASOS model.

Cheap, democratic technology has allowed everyone to be filmmakers. Endless homemade films of amusing cats have inspired advertisers into ruthless YouTube courtship, as more and more comedy animals have stepped forward in the name of brands. How wonderful that an intelligent and poignant docu-film like Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches should trump all of them in terms of views.

With more and more time being spent online, digital-fundamentalists soon predicted the death of TV as an advertising medium. “It’s over,” they said. “The kids are now surgically attached to their phones.” This proved to be nonsense, of course. In the UK an average broadcast campaign of 400 TV ratings will still get you 234 million views. TV advertising is still proving to be twice as effective at increasing sales as any other medium. Buried in this exciting, yet bewildering, media landscape, that rectangle of pleasure is apparently as effective as it ever was.

Me? I’m a hippy when it comes to media. I just want everything to live happily together, peacefully and successfully. TV is so often the entry point into a bigger, richer story that continues to reward at different touch points. As so many people have observed, “The future is about ‘and’ not ‘or’.”

One of the great arguments for broadband over narrowband was that TV was a shared medium. You sat down and watched it with others. You laughed and cried together. But that still goes on. My children are invariably interacting with multiple screens on the front room sofa, mixing traditional viewing with ‘YouTwitFace’, as my young son amalgamates them.

All for the love of filmmaking

TV, as a watching experience, is better than it ever was. Smart TVs put you in control. HD is beautiful. Sports coverage is breathtaking. And the best screenwriters in the world have deserted the movies for this born-again medium. What an amazing environment for our work to thrive in.

Consumers are similarly more sophisticated than they’ve ever been before. They are advertising-literate. They smell marketing bullshit. They skip any pre-roll that doesn’t reward in the first few seconds. They’re informed and aware, thanks to the sheer volume of information available to them. They want brands to be well behaved and have a purpose. What an amazing challenge for advertisers, to have this amazing generation as your audience.

And this writer continues to love filmmaking. He thrives on the magic. The unpredictability. He loves storytelling. He’s fascinated by the structure of film. He loves the alchemy that happens when you put the right music on the right picture. Public Enemy ramping up the strength and defiance of those superhuman paralympians. Jean-Claude van Damme slowly spreading his legs to the strains of Enya. Aaaah.

So my toast is to the next 25 years. TV advertising works, and it’s here to stay.

Now let’s go make some great movies.