Stop Avoiding: Call Advertising 'Advertising'

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By: Dwayne W. Waite Jr.

As communicators, it is important for us to be able to convey a clear message in a consistent fashion. In advertising, it seems like more professionals are shying away from calling what we do everything but "advertising," especially when it comes to effective advertising campaigns.

Good advertising can include storytelling, consumer advocacy, slice of life, and engagement. Why must we come up with the phrase "advertising that does not feel like advertising"? That is the exact phrase Peter Petrella of Gyro, the "largest independent B2B agency in the world," used when describing one of their campaigns for the Fairmont Hotels Group in Forbes' AdVoice section.

Of course he tries to clarify, saying that "often the best advertising doesn't feel like advertising," but again, it hints at a bigger theme: if good advertising doesn't feel like advertising, then why are we accepting anything less than good advertising? We rarely hear "good customer service doesn't feel like customer service," right? What is this mentality that we must separate good advertising from advertising?

It is an interesting situation. For if Petrella and Gyro's legion of creatives accepts this view, no doubt many others in our industry are also in agreement. We all are aware that there are players in this advertising game who are more skilled than others, and there are more still who moved up the game board due to taking advantage of certain situations, therefore "cheating" our lovely free enterprise theme of the market choosing winners and losers. For if that was inaccurate, then we wouldn't have to separate good advertising from "advertising."

Like every good advertising campaign leads with to a call-to-action, the industry needs one to right this ship of separating its fruit. If we believe that we must highlight our ripe advertising as something different than the prevalent rotten advertising, perhaps a cleansing of the garden is in order.

That's easy to say, but implementing such an initiative is not. We have our organizations, like the AAF, 4A's, and ANA that are supposed to be the beacons of what is good and true in advertising, but with such easy access into the industry now, to force these groups to be gatekeepers in their current status would be an injustice.

Let's call this a beginning of a conversation. As advertising professionals (not brand agents, or storytellers, or change gurus) we should not need to separate good advertising work from advertising.

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About the Author

Dwayne W. Waite Jr. is partner and principal at JDW: The Charlotte Agency, a marketing and advertising shop in Charlotte, NC. He enjoys consumer behavior, economics, and football.

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