Bewitching and bewildering ad campaigns of the week

Branding expert Andy Rice focuses on an advertisement campaign that is part of an ageism backlash. This, and more, in Heroes and Zeros.

According to Branding expert Andy Rice, the ad that wins the Zero award was committed by Business Day last Friday.

A duplicate front page with advertising. He felt it destroyed the mechanical experience of reading the paper.

Hero choice of the week: A campaign dealing with ageism in the advertising industry.

If you are working in the advertisement and media industry and are over 35, you are history.

But there is now a backlash, globally. Some agencies in the UK, like 'Ancient and Modern', are arguing that creativity can improve with age.

Here are two hero examples from their website :

Ancient: Citroen ad - scroll down to red car: Click the link: https://ancientandmodern.agency/work-ancient/

Modern: Diabetes - Click the link: https://ancientandmodern.agency/work-modern/

The reason that I've chosen Business Day to be the Zero is because I think it's crossed the line and forgotten that it should be delivering a seamless respected and enjoyed customer experience rather than always chasing the advertising dollar.

On Friday, I think, there was a wraparound duplicate cover around Business Day, whether or not only for subscribers I don't know I am a subscriber - it was a full page and a bit, vertically. So it kind of had this cheque book stub of newspapers that made it incredibly difficult for me as a regular reader of good old fashioned paper newspapers - to enjoy my paper.

It would not fold back; it just did not work mechanically as a newspaper.

Andy Rice, branding and advertising expert

The strategic heart of the ad industry globally is probably in London. Many of the issues raised in the industry start there. Now the latest one is about ageism in the ad industry.

It seems that the average age of all employees in the industry globally is in their 30s. It has always been the case. But it's never been raised as a big issue - it always had this unspoken message that says your ability to be creative once you're past your mid-40s vanishes. An awful lot of really talented people find that they're being excluded once they get past that magic age barrier. A couple of agency startups have been riding on this very practice. One called Ancient and Modern.agency

You'll see some lovely work from the 80s and 90s and current work as well.

There's another one called Fearless whose credentials say ''Agencies are obsessed with youth - we're obsessed with talent''.

A lot of people who were well-known names in the industry in the 80s are coming back saying we're as creative as ever. The work that Ancient and Modern put up is terrific.

I thought I'd choose one ad to showcase - and settled on a television commercial from Citroen.

Andy Rice, branding and advertising expert

The specific Citroen ad under discussion starts at 00.50 seconds in the video below.

Listen to the full interview with Andy Rice below.

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