He is the very model of the modern advertising man (2011 version)

Hawkeye Pierce is so last millennium.

Back in 2008, I posited that Alan Alda's portrayal on the M*A*S*H series was the idealized image of how creative people in advertising view themselves: witty, irreverent, iconoclastic, hedonistic, slovenly and eccentric, but also capable and confident, dedicated and dependable, principled, tenacious, and when the chips were down, absolutely brilliant.

But really, that was an image taken from an earlier era, when even flawed characters were always primarily defined by their inherent decency. The richer, more complex characters of television today provides an ever better template for those anguished souls battling for creative integrity in ad agencies:

Meet Dr. House:


Yes, another doctor (because don't we all view the creative process as a matter of life and death?) -- but while Hugh Laurie's Dr. House is as undeniably brilliant, intuitive and typically unshaven as Dr. Pierce, the similarities end there.

Dr. Gregory House is impatient, caustic, judgmental, lacking in empathy, argumentative, self-obsessed, and tortured by by his inner demons as well as his outer weaknesses. Yes, he has a brusque charm and moments of humanity, but for the most part, he's unapologetic narcissism and relentless snark. And the best part is, that all of this is excused (usually with difficulty, but always ultimately excused) because of his superior talents. He's a misanthrope who's not just tolerated, but respected, despite his unchecked character flaws -- indeed, everyone around him willingly accepts (again, usually with difficulty) that the price of his greatness is having to put up with his eccentricities and anti-social behavior.

No, not the most flattering portrait of how we see ourselves -- but let's face it, we're all too self-obsessed to notice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not just hyperbole

Image
Maybe you've seen this classic Guinness poster, created back in the '30s and assumed that it was nothing more than silly hyperbole: And you'd be partly right. The idea is actually based on the high iron content of Guinness (probably from the water used), though of course, the benefit of this is exaggerated to an unbelievable extent in the poster above. That didn't stop the image from becoming so iconic that a pint Guinness became known as a "girder." The image also inspired this parody from Heinekin some 40 years later (though its likely that many young drinkers never realized its source), that both fit the idea into its own ad format and made the male sexual subtext even more implicit: (Best not to take any of this too seriously, though. In reality, the pictures in the Heinken ad would have to be reversed.)
Read more

Fly Me Again

Image
We referenced this ad campaign in an earlier post , but it really deserves its own entry. This memorable/notorious American Airlines campaign appeared back in 1971, at the behest of National Airlines'  Lewis Maytag  who sought to modernize the airline and the image of its stewardesses.  (Yes, they were still known as stewardesses back then.) At the time, airline advertising had frequently based their messages on the friendliness and attentiveness of their stewardesses, but previous efforts tended more toward the chauvinistic end of sexism spectrum, treating them more like Ladies Of The Air than ladies of the night: (Despite the caveman ethos of the headline and illustration, if you click on the ad to enlarge it and read the copy, you'll see it's actually about men being so beguiled by their stewardesses that they often took them for wives -- after first mistaking wives for servants, I suppose.) But now, with the sexual revolution and women's liberation in full swing (an
Read more

I wanted to like this ad, I really did

Image
When I first came across it, I (wrongly) assumed it was the work of Doyle Dane Bernbach, using a very minimalist layout to catch attention and evoke emotion, sort of like they did with the Polaroid ads in the ‘60s . No logo, just a simple headline, and an intriguing illustration that tells you nothing about the product, only the elation it will inspire in the woman in the your life. What an incredible way to portray a woman leaping into the arms of her man, I thought, showing only what’s necessary to imply the situation, spurring the reader to imagine the embrace, the eyes, the kiss.   Brilliant, I thought. Then I read the headline.    “Wear an Arrow Shirt and you'll simply sweep her off her feet!”   No.   No, I don’t believe this ad, even for a minute.    The only way to sell this scenario is if the emotion implied feels true. Even in 1949, it’s hard to imagine anyone got this excited about a dress shirt. Unless he just got home from the service and this is the first time in years
Read more