Upside-down advertising; a new spin on culture

Elon Musk is known for firing people on the spot if they give him the answer, ‘but that’s the way it’s always been done.’

The firing part is a bit silly, but he’s onto something. Because conventional wisdom is conventional. And conventional holds us back.

Ad creatives are trained to have pure and original ideas that spring from their fertile imaginations. Start from zero and launch those ideas into culture on a wing and a prayer. 

You think anyone gives a shit? They don’t. 

The problem is that culture is the things we choose to do and watch and play and swipe; TikTok memes, Netflix series, Spotify playlists. 

You honestly believe your little idea, no matter how genius you think it is, can possibly live with the things people do first thing in the morning, last thing at night, on the toilet, on the train, in the bath? 

You think anyone gives a shit? They don’t. 

Above: Culture is now defined by the things we see and hear on platforms such as TikTok, Netflix, Instagram and Spotify.

I’m weird because I never worked for another ad agency before I started my own.

I was Creative Director for a famous satellite broadcaster. I never got taught conventional advertising wisdom. I don’t know what the rules are. But I do know what people love. 

In my upside-down of advertising, there’s another way of developing creative ideas. Start with something that is culture. And, often, social media is the culture of our time. The Friday feeling TikTok meme. The craze for recreating old photos. Rick-rolling. 

There’s another way of developing creative ideas. Start with something that is culture.

Take it, twist it 20%, and make it your own. Do it with skill and sensitivity. Do it with relevance. This way you aren’t firing a feather missile at a two-metre thick, steel reinforced door. 

You aren’t trying to penetrate culture. Or saying ‘please culture, let us in’. 

You already are culture. 

You start from a position of strength. You start with something people already know, remember, love. Something they chose to watch or sing in bed, on the toilet, on the train, in the bath. Like an earworm that you sing with the kids every Friday on the way to school. 

Above: Brothers and Sisters' recent campaign for Center Parcs leant into the 'recreating old photos' meme.

For our brand new We Buy Any Car campaign we took the Friday feeling TikTok meme, invented by Mufasa, and reinvented it as Just Sold my Car to We Buy Any Car. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me their kids are now singing ‘Just Sold my Car to We Buy Any Car’ on the way to school. 

When did you last hear kids singing an ad? 

For our new Center Parcs idents, we took the TikTok trend for taking old photos and recreating them, and headed into the vast, untapped bank of photos taken by loyal Center Parcs customers over the decades. Culture layered upon culture layered upon memories. 

Let’s magpie our way through social media culture borrowing the best bits and twisting them for our own ends.

Let’s magpie our way through social media culture borrowing the best bits and twisting them for our own ends. Upside-down advertising is like great hip-hop. Don’t write an original piece of music from scratch. Sample a much-loved old soul record, or a Phil Collins classic. Loop it. And spit your truth over the top. 

Does it make hip-hop a lesser art form? Last time I looked, it was the defining musical movement of our time. An art form fit for the saturated media age, when everything has been done and it’s better to take a riff people know and remix it than start with a blank sheet of paper.

Choosing the sample and breathing new life into it takes skill.