Fake Friend Creative

Ever have a fake friendship?  You know what I mean… the friends where the first conversation is always the weather, as if you hadn’t noticed the knifing angry sleet against your face. 

Fake friends are like most advertising creative. Fake friends love to talk about themselves, say all the right things, smile extra big, put on their best dress with their biggest poofy bow, all while their little chihuahua, Snooty-Poo growls nearby. 

And that’s EXACTLY what 90% of all advertising is. Let me tell you how great I am. See my pretty smile. Hear my big advertising fake voice. I’ve been in business for 714 years. Come see my fancy new sale. Our staff is so kind and so worried about you. We truly care — and our competitors hate babies.  

The business owner feels so proud of their campaign because it says all the “look at me” things they THINK it should.  In their eyes, it’s good enough for their “brand”.  And classically, the standard agencies comply.  They give the client what they want… big fake “feel good” creative that makes the client feel happy about their brand. 

But here’s the problem.  The consumer doesn’t give a flying football about your brand.  The only thing she cares about is a REAL. LIFE. BOND.  The fake friend and the fake advertising creates no bond. No intimacy. 

Me?  Sure — I too have fake friends in real life. But I don’t let our clients fall into that nasty, greasy, fake goo marketing hole.  I’ll fire myself before I’ll let you pay me to do Snooty Poo bad advertising for you.  

To keep you from it we compiled “8 Creative Rules for Funkadelic Awesomeness.”  Proven musts to make a beautiful ad campaign in our convoluted, oversaturated, and cynical marketing world.  These 8-truths are a mix of our own creations and geniuses far more genius than us.  But for you, they are a simple creative blueprint to keep you away from the Snooty Poo… and to give you a chance to make some real friends.  The ones you don’t talk about the weather with.  But you would walk thru that knifing angry sleet for them, just to feed their goldfish Cindi.

Those are the kind of friends humans really crave.

Craig Bennington