If I can make it on LinkedIn, can I make it anywhere?
The advertising and marketing community on LinkedIn is packed with hot takes and determined opinions. But is simply being talked about – in a positive or negative way – enough for work to be deemed a success?
I have a confession to make: I am an advertising columnist who is increasingly confused by how the industry operates and what it produces.
Let’s start with the recent spate of AI ads from brands such as Toys R Us and Coke. If I think they’re a creepy, lazy misuse of the planet’s dwindling carbon resources, am I a Luddite who needs to get out of the way of an inevitable future? Are they just the foothills of an upcoming mountain, or will there be a backlash to their artificiality?
Then there are the ‘fake reality’ ads, such as the North Face jacket on Big Ben, seemingly created just to go viral on social media. Are they inspirational genius? Depressing subterfuge? A flash in the pan? If they’re entirely CGI, should they be more imaginative, or is the possibility that they’re real an essential part of their appeal? Should they have to explain that they’re fake? If so, why?
