the commercial your commercial should look like

"Whatever happened to commercials?" asks Michael Imperioli, in one part of a series of commercials for 1800 Tequila. "So many of them don't make any sense, and you can hardly tell what anyone is selling." How is it that a commercial reached a level of enlightenment lost on even the biggest advertising agencies in the world? This ad from Dead As We Know It, New York calls out one of the worst offenses in advertising: letting the ad overshadow the brand.

There is an insidious trend in advertising over the past few years. It’s what I refer to as “advertising absurdism.” Examples of this trend include Wieden & Kennedy's Old Spice deodorant campaign, Grey’s Dairy Queen Blizzard and DirecTV campaigns, and many more that create a stream of creative that is as surreal as it is illogical. Most often these campaigns are characterized by long camera shots filled with fast copy, and include a storyline fit for a few hours compacted into 30 seconds.

The paradigm for this style is W+K’s Old Spice deodorant campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” While the novelty of the ad sent it viral almost instantly, making it the prevailing “buzz” of the Internet for some time, the replication of its absurdist technique in other campaigns (and, even in future iterations of the Old Spice ads) make it seem cheap, played-out, and completely lacking in substance. As a result, these brands are trapped in the failed attempt of advertising creatives pushing a product with a trick, rather than a substantive brand strategy.

In contrast to this advertising absudism is the cutting simplicity of the 1800 Tequila ad, featuring nothing more than Imperioli in a suit with a bottle of 1800 Tequila. "This is a commercial for tequila,” says Imperioli — a fatal, sardonic swipe at the pop-advertising trends.

Humor, special effects, story appeal, and the like are advertising techniques. They are not products. However, when technique (whether effective at capturing attention, or not) overshadows the brand and becomes the true product of the ad, there is a serious problem. Humorous commercials like Grey’s “Russian Oligarch” spot for DirecTV may have great recall with consumers, but how many consumers connect the ad’s tiny giraffe with DirecTV? DirecTV paid Grey millions of dollars to sell a fictional creature and a rich Russian — at least, that was the end result.

The Dead As We Know It ad is about as close to perfect as you can get, and should serve as a model for how simplicity can take a brand further than large advertising budgets, special effects, and overly creative account teams. There are no distractions in the 1800 commercial that detract from the key purpose of the ad: to sell tequila. Imperioli may be a TV celebrity, but his Sopranos fame isn’t vast enough to overpower the tequila he’s marketing. From the dark, classy setting, to Imperioli’s haughty tone, and even his simple — yet finely tailored — suit, are all branding signals that serve to enhance the brand. Those signals convey that “real men drink real premium tequila,” as notes Tim Nudd of AdWeek, when the spot was featured as the site’s Ad of the Day. “Why make it more complicated than that?”

Some of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the years have been some of the simplest (and, not for lack of creativity): Bill Bernbach’s “Think small;” Dale Pon’s “I Want My MTV;” Goodby Silverstein’s “Got Milk?” So, indeed, why make it more complicated than that?

think simple.

"Some copywriters write tricky headlines -- double meanings, puns, and other obscurities," David Ogilvy, one of the greatest minds in advertising, once wrote. "This is counter-productive…your headline should telegraph what you want to say."

"Iconic designs that stand out apart from the crowd have just one feature to help them stand out," writes brand identity guru David Airey. "That's it. Just one. Not two, three, or four."

More recently, AdAge Editor in Chief Rance Crain flatly stated, "Good ads are simple and direct."

"Bad ads aren't," he continued.

If there is one ubiquitous theme throughout all the disciplines of advertising, it's simplicity. Simple headlines. Simple logos. Simple ads.

Unfortunately, as Crain points out, simplicity is "a characteristic that advertisers have a woeful lack of these days."

Simplicity seems like a simple concept for advertisers. You only have 30 sec. in which to sell a product to a customer, so it would seem like ad should be as concise and direct as possible. Sometimes, in the case of print, the time to capture a prospect's attention is even shorter -- three seconds at most.

So, why then do copywriters write blind headlines, or creative directors piece together television spots that waste 80 percent of the airtime on setting up some plot or twist unrelated to the actual product?

The war for consumer "attention" is certainly not anything new. It's a battle advertisers have been fighting since the days of Claude Hopkins and before.

The new war, however, has evolved. Advertisers now seem certain that in order to grab a consumer's attention, a commercial must be "novel," "sensational," or "spellbinding." They try to engage audiences with complex plots or graphics, or either misguided attempts at comedy.

The result is often a complete bust; for example, Kia's cosmic adventure advertisement during the Super Bowl.

Do you even remember what car they were advertising?

Simple and direct ads are, many times, very vanilla. They don't have the "wow" factor. That is, they're not built to entertain.

They're meant to sell product, which (used to be) the purpose of advertising.
And, you don't have sacrifice engagement for simplicity. Apple ads (agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day) are some of the simplest campaigns running right now. Yet, I bet after reading that sentence, you immediately thought of an iPad or iPod.

The Reese's "Perfect" campaign, from ArnoldWorldwide, is another exam of utterly uncomplicated ads accomplishing everything they need to do.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to trick the audience into being engaged. As Leo Burnett said, there is "inherent drama" in every product. The true skill of an advertiser is to find this drama and bring it to life. That is, without tricks and games.

Think simple.