When Lambs Eat Lions

Year after year, Cannes Lions changed from an elite advertising festival to an expensive touristic agency partially due to the growing lack of real content (weak presentations, dull seminars, boring-to-hell-and-back case studies etc,) and the strange decisions that the jury take for a while now. I'm amazed how this bastion of creativity recognition surely and steadily transforms itself into a dull presentation-based festival, dull as old marketing, dull as sales, dull as everything that stinks of conventionality. The other European festivals follow the trend and promote their destinations better than their purposes. "Baywatch Cannes" could be an appropriate title for an incoming soap opera about young branded creatives trying to fight their way up in the marketing ranks year after year, promoting mediocre ideas under splashy presentations. Shame or no shame, another festival is lost under the system's oblivion.

This year I was intrigued by the OOH GP for THEZIMBABWEAN NEWSPAPER. First, I question the originality of the idea. following this link (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366777/), you'll find a great movie, worthy to be watched at least until the characters create an wallpaper of old quids; if not similar, very inspirational to the TBWA/HUNT/LASCARIS team.
Secondly, I'm done trusting political campaigns coming from neighboring countries where the freedom climate permits the message to "walk" untangled without fearing a certain and painful retribution.

I do not questions the good intentions of the guys that created the campaign; I just question if this prize will not unleash a NEXT GEN ghost campaigns wave, prize-oriented and well sustained in this direction, a sure method for finally getting the top cherry out of Cannes and other festivals. Because I myself could create a campaign about Moldova (formerly part of Romania, now a distinct communist neighboring country), publishing it in Romania, developing everything in Romania, using a multinational experienced agency as background then promote it straight-to-Cannes for a big fat prize. Sounds like ghost? For me it does.

Common Sense

I think about common sense and its practical sides for a long time, regarding or regardless of marketing and this idea keeps popping out of my head: is common sense a irrefutable condition for the development of great ideas or it's just an opportunity to better link the idea to the target?

In either ways any good advertising idea should have common sense. The foundation of a great idea should be a common sense insight, relational to what people might remember after "ingesting" the idea. Enough 100 percents; enough "the best brand"; enough glorious epithets which eventually will become not-so-glorious epitaphs when the campaign fails its purpose; enough scorning towards the "simple minded audiences". Intrusion must be preceded by invitation, or nobody invites an intrusive guest without a common sense opportunity. Enough evasion and S.I.T. tricks, because it makes great advertising/ers linger among mediocre recipes that call themselves marketing systems. Enough.

Great Crisis Song & Video

And this is music. Thanks to Liviu for the link.

My USP

"Shower" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2008

"Primordial" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2008

"The Middle Way" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2009

"It Happened Then" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2008

"It Happens Now" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2009

"Organic" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2009

"Inner Conflict" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2009

"Outer Conflict" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2009

"Focus" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2008

"Defocus" 50x50 cm/acrylic&a.t./2008

Here are some of my latest works in which I concentrate on using unconventional materials with powerful plasticity such as chewing gum (a.t. stands for artist's technique) and acrylic paint in obtaining dynamic pseudo-controlled visuals (mostly letting the materials express themselves) with an artificial if not toxic appearance, a moon-like aspect and under some unique modes of expressing myself through gestures and composition. The concept stands for the omnipresent duality of things, the sudden changes of angle and perspective that reveal different sides of the same story, the dispute between the done and undone terms and of course, the inner dualist nature that we can find in almost everything that surrounds us. The artificial silvery chromatic is applied to the "sculpted" image as an unifier; the lack of color permits us to focus on the composition and the image itself, revealing the concept naked, in its synthetic form, without the use of specific artifices of painting and traditional arts.

Regarding the previous post, if someone asks me about my works, I could resume what's written above in a simple yet comprehensive and endorsing USP:
Through use of cheap yet plastic unconventional materials, I visioned some sincere dynamic compositions about the duality that resides in the nature of all things. Duality unconventionally expressed (in short terms).

Ars Gratia Artis

I graduated Graphics at the Art University in Bucharest several years ago and suddenly after that I began revising my options: to art or not to art. There were two blurry options for me at that time: professional illustrator or Art Director in a local advertising agency so I chose the option that payed best. No need to guess what option I chose, isn't it?
Today, after my ten years trip in advertising I look back and ask myself what was the impulse that propelled me to this road in the first place; why an advertising career sounded clearer than an artistic one?

I asked several of my AD friends what was their impulse and several of my artist friends what was theirs, and the results were unexpectedly frank and "marketish" (a word that I just came up with). The advertisers told me that the agency path attracted them because it promised them a glorious way of making use of their skills: career growth, festivals, constant publishing, upgrade possibilities, etc.
The artists emphasized on THEIR place in the system: my ART is like that, my SKILLS are better than others', my IDEAS were just meant to be in the galleries, I am taking part in an wonderful process / art, etc.
And it popped out: aren't both ways marked by Unique Selling Propositions? Aren't both advertisers and artists directed on their paths by to-be-achieved promises? By things that make the natural difference? By some clear thoughts regarding their positioning on a market?

In conclusion, my advise to artists is to find their USP and promote it accordingly. First you have to discover this USP deep in your inner psychological apparatus then you have to communicate it as applied to what you do, applied to your artistic endeavors, applied to your art. Be your own marketer, treat your artistic products as unique products with specific targets and fully campaign them using everything you got at your disposal: guts, wits, skills, passion, uniqueness, originality, predominance, vision, style, etc.

Example: Damien Hirst sells crude realities under a satyric manner using all sorts of metaphor amplifiers that are directly extracted from the very present we're living in. USP: a modern metaphor of what is and what might be. Sounds like a slogan, isn't it?

Example: Picasso sold the vastest range of imagery using deformity and unique ways of de-composing and re-composing the elements, thus resulting in an original and well sustained imaginative universe. USP: I see reality through my personal analytic tools and I depict it thoroughly using my own unique style of seeing things. Maybe shorter would be better, bute here is a USP for Picasso.