As if advertising was meant to be some sort of altruistic art-form (heh), the crew over at Outhouse of Fairfield, CT, have come up with this little gem, OvercomeAdbesity.com as their answer to bottom-line advertising. I have to admit, it’s nifty and the message is — well you can decide about that for yourself.
Basically, they’re miffed about the state of things, and apparently have too much free time on their hands. Everyone’s got to take a stand on something, but has Outhouse forgotten the first rule of advertising? You decide, after the jump.
What is the first rule? It depends on who’s running the place, but most ECDs will tell you it’s to make money via great work — in that order.
The idea that good work begets cash is advertising’s only stab at altruism and hearkens back to an era when seeing clouds of pot smoke emanating from creatives’ offices DURING WORK HOURS wasn’t surprising. But we can’t all work at (insert 1960-70s era “cool” shop name here), and furthermore it’s 2008, and half the adworld is owned by Publicis and the other half looked up to Fallon.
If only Doc Brown really existed.
So maybe it’s time for a fresh start. Outhouse seems to think so, but hopefully they’re not so ardent as to go Tyler Derden on our asses.
This isn’t to say ads aren’t art — but at the end of the day, we all gotta eat and so do the kiddies — No matter how you swing it.