Not long ago, B2B advertising was two George Clooney clones in immaculate suits shaking hands and promising to increase your firms productivity and profitability marginally better than their equally generic competitors. Now it seems the standard modus operandi has changed. Now the adverts tell you more about what a firm has done for the world than what it can do for you. Laying cables across ocean trenches, bolstering local economies with micro-financing or spearheading technological development for the post fuel economy. Often with no mention of the use to you as a customer, but always demonstrating the ability to combine profit and purpose. The promise is simple: We have done something out of the ordinary and we can do it again.
That’s no coincidence. It’s a demonstration of the rise of a new hero figure. Society needs heroes, always did. From princes to politicians, athletes to anchormen, poets to popstars.
Now that the business press has colonized the cool of lifestyle magazines, the most celebrated figure is the entrepreneur – or even better: the social entrepreneur. Who would have thought it? The inventors of tomorrow are now as glamorous as the entertainers of yesterday: look no further than Jobs, Branson, D’aloisio or Zuckerberg.
It’s obvious, really. The world is so saturated with commercials that empty promises inevitably drown in the noise. But the world is also rife with very real problems and while there is an abundance of proposed solutions, they often amount to no more than speculation. Is it really that strange that putting push to shovel seems to be the only way to garner attention?
Its official. The best form of advertising is simply doing cool shit. Now go and do it.