I’ll probably get a lot of raised eyebrows for this, but to me, good advertising is like having a superpower. It’s just that instead of making me invisible or able to toast bread with a glance or [insert ridiculous superpower here], it allows me to create brands and manufacture feelings through a wide range of key ideas.
What interests me most about advertising, then, is the way in which certain ideas and strategies can be used not only to sell merchandise – which I believe should be the main purpose of all good advertising – but also to give life to and create an attitude towards a much too tangible carton of milk or a plastic case with an apple embossed on it. I mean, what would your iPhone be without a soul?
In this sense, good ideas in advertising (those big small ideas I talked about a few centuries ago) can make food taste better, soap wash cleaner and certain political figures seem smarter. The entire advertising strategy, from the awareness stage to the action stage, is, I believe, a fascinating process based on a simple yet powerful idea – the superpower which makes you the hero or the villain. Or both.
