Simply Irresistable

As we go about the business of attempting to persuade and engage on behalf of brands, our ability to create, recreate, manipulate and enhance entire worlds, to spin stories that span the globe, to fill visual fields with stunning, spectacular, mesmerizing imagery—all in brief chunks, fractions or multiples of a minute—this ability seems no longer to be bound by technology, but only by imagination and budget. It’s definitely a fascinating time to be doing what we do.

But, for all the mindblowing, eyebrow-raising, impossibly beautiful or sublime stuff we conjure up, it remains the power and beauty of simplicity that I find most evocative and enduring. The quiet power of a genuinely human moment, whether to illustrate a selling point or to encourage a brand bond, trumps spectacle and wizardry. Why?

Is it because such focused simplicity is hard to think of? Hard to capture? Hard to sell? Absolutely. In the words of Chairman Jimmy, “If easy is one end of the continuum, simple is the other.” In these digital glory days, complexity has become so easy, its power has been largely sapped. And flash and glitz in lieu of a genuinely human moment seem to be the rule.

For those of you who still watch TV, I recommend studying the following four commercials, currently running:

The AIG spot that consists of nothing but home video of a baby laughing the enviable laugh of a new, human who has just discovered the intoxicating joy of funniness;

The Bud Light “Dude” spot (I’ve seen two, actually, but only one succeeds completely, because this is a great one-shot idea that, in the sad, conceptually impoverished tradition of Anheuser-Busch advertising, is apparently being stretched and squeezed into a campaign by beating one good moment to death—see Whassup, Frogs, etc);

The Wal-Mart Christmas spot touting more checkout lanes, in which the “lane open” lights above each lane light up in synchronization with the bells of a simple Christmas carol;

The Fresh Step commercial in which the cat needs a bloodhound to help her find her cat pan.

Of course, I could also cite almost any Apple, Nike or Volkswagen ad ever made, but you already know and, I’d guess, admire/revere/worship these bodies of work.

And it should, but won’t, go without saying that simplicity is not in itself a sufficient condition for delivering an evocative message that contributes to our culture rather than further polluting it. Many of the dullest and most demeaning ads ever created have been very simple. Head On. Apply directly to the forehead.