Doom, gloom and the ads we consume.
Do you ever feel like the world is ending?
Back in December 2012, I was drinking my very first WKD (the blue one) at an end-of-the-world-themed house party, marking the rumoured end of the Maya calendar. I’ll admit I did have a slight twinge of anxiety as the clock struck midnight just in case the apocalypse did strike all of a sudden. But it obviously didn’t, so we laughed it all off and danced the night away.
The issue is that, a decade later, that twinge of anxiety that the world might be ending has grown into a perpetual state of uneasiness. For a start, we’re at war, with bonus threats of nuclear destruction being thrown around. “Lockdown” used to be such a scary word, but now it’s entered our everyday lexicon. Want to either be fed or be warm this winter? For a huge amount of people, you’ll have to pick your favourite, because you can only afford one. Then you crack open the can of worms that is climate change, and the list just keeps going on and on.
It’s a dark-humoured joke I regularly make, but it’s starting to feel less and less like one: maybe the world did end in 2012, and this is hell.
So, in this day and age of doom and gloom, what does it all mean for brands? You can’t play it safe anymore - now, there is no ‘safe’ anyway. The cacophonic assault of marketing that people face day in and day out means that the likelihood is you’ll just blend into the white noise, yet another dose of static.
When was the last time you pressed rewind on an ad? Was it just that enjoyable, or were you trying to understand what in the hell you just watched?
If you don’t already know us, we’re all about being positively bonkers here at 2050. And, we know, at first it sounds… well, for lack of a better word, bonkers.
When I first met my now boss, Adam (MD of 2050), I’d never heard the word “bonkers” so many times in a conversation - I couldn’t fully wrap my head around why it kept coming up and what was so special about it. (But I’ll be damned if that was going to stand between me and a dream role, so I went with it for the time being.)
All these months down the line, I get it. It’s second nature now, it makes nothing but sense; if you want to stand out, you need to be positively bonkers. Let’s break it down, starting with the latter word of the phrase…
It’s that out-of-the-box thinking that’s going to make your audience stop in their tracks and take notice. It’s the era of crazy marketing stunts - they work for a reason. Captivate the crowd with something they’ve never seen before.
I’m a firm believer that these days (and particularly with the younger generations) the best ads are the ones that don’t feel like ads. Immediately recognizing that something’s an ad and completely ignoring it is second nature to Gen Z, after the onslaught of repetitive and ‘samey’ ads that we’re now entirely desensitised to. Instead, the best ads feel like a cultural movement - something that people want to be a part of.
This is where the first half of our “positively bonkers” mantra comes into play. We all already know that emotive marketing is a powerful tool. But we’ve also already covered that the world is a wee bit depressing nowadays; society is seeking escapism more than ever, and can you blame them? Just being bonkers isn’t enough, you also need to bring some positivity to the table. To quote the icon that is Marie Kondo, “does it spark joy?”
At the end of the day, all I’m searching for is a distraction from the feeling of impending doom. (I originally mistyped that as “destruction” so, if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know...) If a marketing campaign gets me thinking and makes me feel good, then they’ve nailed the brief.
Whilst the locusts haven’t descended quite yet, we’re certainly living in an uneasy time - we could all do with a little more “positively bonkers” attitude in our lives, and, most pressingly, our marketing campaigns.
