Homo Viator

I have always liked watching ads; I find them to be more informative and entertaining than those dull Tv formats that dominate airwaves these days. As a teenager I always wanted to work in an advertising agency and I would deliberately zap through the channels, looking for ads. When in a country whose language I do not speak, ads are sometimes the only media formats I can understand. One should not underestimate what one can learn about a country and its culture by just looking at the billboards in the streets. Humor, for example, differs from country to country and that is always reflected in it's advertising. Indian ads make use of almost pantomimic style comedy, for example.

Even though some of my readers may not like the fact that advertising's main objective is to sell you something (which I do not mind at all), let's not forget that the tactics it uses are often very artistic, creative, innovative and social-critical. Of course many ads portray a surreal, perfect-world kind of image, but good advertising reflects societal behavior and often implicitly criticizes it.

If advertising was always as entertaining as the two ads below, would people really want to miss it? Maybe companies should tackle TiVo by simply hiring more creative agencies that produce entertaining ads? Unfortunately, a lack of creative agencies is not the problem. During my work I realized that what is lacking is creativity at the other end, the client side. Company executives and product managers often think too much with their left side of the brain. (also check out "Some people just do not like him")