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When I’m not PR-ing, I work with Louise Dyer, founder of Dart Design, as a brand consultant. I love it, because I love the whole process of branding. And that started at Ogilvy & Mather, a great ad agency, my first job, and where I stayed for 10 years, it was THAT amazing. Promoting, protecting and deveoping a client’s brand was our number one objective and, as most marketers know, if you do that consistently, you can weather whatever’s flung at you. Here’s an article that we (Dart Design) wrote recently on some great developements in advertising that do far more than sell a product.

Do you remember that time when the TV ads came on and there was no way to skip them? As the number of channels, screens and streaming services have exploded, the idea that we should have to spend any of our precious time watching someone trying to sell something to us, is plain absurd. Most of us don’t want to be sold to anyway, so our scepticism about advertising has made the savvier marketers even savvier.

The importance of precision targeting has always been clear; it’s a given that you have to get into the consumer’s headspace so you can talk their language, but the mid-noughties was a time of frenetic change and challenges as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all launched. You either kept up or lost out in the communication stakes. There were many who regarded this new marketplace as the Wild West or a dark art and didn’t really engage until a lot later; but this was fertile ground for those who could see the endless opportunities for creating meaningful brand relationships.

But you have to stop looking at your screens at some point, when you’re commuting to work or going to the shops (well, some of us are doing those things now), there’ll always be a place for tradition media like OOH, providing your message recognises the new landscape.  So, say ‘hello’ to ‘unadvertising’. Unadvertising, which gained popularity in 2015, overtly recognises the consumer scepticism about advertising and uses this to a brand’s advantage. Take, for example, the campaigns for the Oatly, Oasis and Small Luxury Hotels; they are instantly engaging because of their raw honesty, their innate understanding that they get you; they also flatter your intellect, your ability to discern, and doesn’t that make you feel better about those brands?

As a life-long admirer of UK advertising, I think our agencies have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to unadvertising. Hands up if you remember the 1994 Ronseal ad for its Quick Drying Woodstain product? Well you may be too young, but you might be familiar with its highly memorable line: “does exactly what it says on the tin.” Among all the lifestyle and designer imagery associated with DIY at that time, this one line, delivered by a novice DIYer, cut through all the posh paints and interior snobbery-speak like a hot knife through Styrofoam. Whatever label we may give to a certain genre of advertising, one thing will never change, the best ads are always the ones that inform, impress and take you by surprise.