In august last year I was asked to argue a debate in favour of big ideas over big data. Little was I to know that my defence of the Big Idea could never be about to be validated more perfectly.
AMV, for many years, were the top agency in the UK and the jewel in the crown (creatively, not financially was The Economist). Their advertising was legendary and I show some of it below. It was always on posters and garnered more PR than it did sightings. I rarely saw an Economist ad in the flesh but I knew them all.
Proximity now hold the account and the proudly stay
We use data-driven creativity to solve business problems
Their data driven creativity brings together a bunch of algorithms (I guess) to create an an ad on medium that ticks every box going. And the result is a piece of communication that adds up to…well, zero.
It’s a sad day indeed to see how the Economist has abandoned its incredibly intelligent generation-long advertising campaign on posters for a TV spot that will simply make you cringe.
From these….
To this….
Truly a sign of the times.
