Why clients (or anyone) don’t really trust us?

This is a new documentary that’s going to be released soon. Its about ad people who were laid off and were forced to look at their passion and do something ‘that matters’, as one of the guys in the video says.

And to me this perhaps, underlines why clients don’t trust us or, as a matter of fact, why even we don’t trust others in advertising. A lot of the people in the industry today aren’t in it because they’re passionate about it or believe that what we do does matter to the world.  There’s a sort of perverse pride we take in saying “It’s only advertising, not life or death” an attitude that shows in the work we do and the way we present it to clients.

The truth is that if you measure the importance of what you do only in terms of the immediateness of impact on individuals, you will almost never be good, much less great. Think of Van Gogh, was his painting a wilting flower in a vase going to really change the world? Was it a matter of life and death? The reason we acknowledge him today as a master and write about the impact of his work on European Art was because you could see the burning passion and the absolute dedication he had to pursuing it. Unencumbered by thoughts of the greatness of his work or even his talent, he simply focussed on what he did and put his life into it.

This isn’t a diatribe against people in the industry but merely a request for some introspection. If you really believe that advertising doesn’t matter, go find what you love and do it really well, or else, like the people in the film you would’ve wasted a large part of your life, with neither you nor the industry, benefiting from the time. Hopefully if over time we start hiring more and more people who have a genuine passion for advertising and communication we’ll gain back the stature we had in the 60s and maybe one day even match chefs in respectability and an association of the profession with passion and dedication.

For the simple truth is, only if you practice something like your life depended on it, will the output be powerful enough to change the lives of others.