Bob Liodice Gets It Sort of Right.

Bob Liodice has a piece on the sorry state of TV advertising on his blog. It's not exactly ground-breaking but it's interesting enough in a corporate-speak kind of way — even if Bob is one of those writers prone to the unfortunate overuse of exclamation points.

I agree with much of what he says about clutter, cost and measurement, but I think he's looking back through rose-colored glasses when he talks about creative. I think creative product is as good as it's ever been. In fact, if you look at spots from 20 years ago, they seem pretty mindless to me. The obvious strategies, the corny tag lines — sure, they worked but today's consumers are too sharp. They just won't suspend reality enough to believe something like, say, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen." At one time, that was considered pretty effective advertising.

The problem is that people don't pay that much attention to any commercial any more. Great spots are still being made, but with the fragmented media world we now inhabit, it's pretty much impossible to produce work that really generates water cooler talk. Too few shared entertainment experiences.