You would think it’s next to impossible to get excited about advertising. Sure, as consumers, advertising just washes over us most of the time, but it can also affect us emotionally or touch a nerve in our collective conscious. And yet, to really feel inspired by the process of it all–finding a creative spark and seeing through to a brilliant execution–well, that’s something most people just don’t think about.
Part celebration of some of the greatest advertising of the last half-century and part inspirational meditation on the nature of creativity itself, Doug Pray’s ART & COPY serves as a beacon for what any advertising and creative professional should aspire to. To hear it from the mouths of respected ad legends like George Lois, Hal Riney, Lee Clow and Mary Wells, advertising is about more than just selling a product. It’s about selling an idea or an emotion–about making a connection.
Interspersed with segments on billboard rotators, telecommunications and satellite technology, ART & COPY reveals interesting facts about the cost of advertising both to business and to consumers. You’d probably never guess how much it permeates into our daily lives and how much it can influence you. Why exactly do you buy the brand of soap you buy or own the brand of car you own? Advertising is so much a part of our world that we often make buying decisions without realizing it. To a cynic’s eye, it can seems like a devilish trade to be in and truth be told, a lot of times it can be. There’s plenty of garbage floating around out in the advertising business and while it’d be extremely easy to pick off all the duds, Doug Pray and his team clearly understand that what inspires creative types the most is seeing creative ideas at work.
Legendary New York adman George Lois at his Manhattan home during the filming of ART & COPY. Credit: Chris Glancy.
Hearing George Lois tell the origins of the classic “I Want My MTV” campaign or Lee Clow get to the essence of the legendary Apple “1984″ Super Bowl commercial or even Dan Wieden explaining Nike’s famous “Just Do It” campaign makes it clear that truly great advertising comes from passion and knows no limits. No matter what the number crunchers and pencil pushers might say, it’s not strictly about business or selling a product. Sometimes it really is about creating a work of art.
As someone who’s worked in the design side of advertising, I know that the hurdles one has to face can be daunting. There are many battles to be fought; some you win and some you lose. There are times when it seems like no one gets your idea or when a client is just too stubborn to really take a chance, but when your creation manages its way to that final stage and successfully goes out into the world, there’s no greater feeling. By the end of its nearly 90-minute running time, it only seems right that ART & COPY mirrors that exhilaration as we witness the magnificence of a telecommunications satellite being launched into orbit.
You don’t have to be in the advertising business to take something away from ART & COPY. It packs in a lifetime worth of knowledge, wisdom and insight into how great ideas can come to life. As is lamented in the film, not everyone in the world can be a creative genius and not everyone gets a chance to shine, but if nothing else, seeing what the possibilities are can only make you strive to do better.
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