Everything remains the same in advertising in our country, or am I wrong? (I want to be wrong!). However, I think we are on our way to a new edition of Volcanoes with a little more than three months to go, the advertising awards of our country, and everything seems to run the same difference. That is, everything has changed and it’s still the same. I do not understand.
Brother came in January and with a full auditorium, many emotions were detonated, with many ideas, proposals and learning. Then came the Escuelita and meticulously led us to proven ways to improve creativity. Several volcanoes have passed, we have participated in Clios, NY Festivals, Ojos, Fiaps, Caribes. A Costa Rican duo participated in the YCC in Cannes, and a dozen creatives have traveled to international festivals. The branches of the creative tree in Costa Rica have moved, and yet I see very few ripe fruits on the ground. What’s going on?
Are we going to continue blaming the clients? Are we going to continue thinking that they are the ones who do not allow us to do a good job? Are we going to continue arguing that it is because there is no money for production? That there are not enough resources to produce with quality? How long are we going to stop saying that it is others? When will be the day when we finally see ourselves in the mirror?
Let me put it mildly: Costa Rica lacks the courage to dare. The conformism inherited from centuries ago condemns us, without the generation willing to rebel has not yet appeared. Mine did not, and certainly, the current one is not doing it. I remember Pablo Chaves and Andres Artavia talking about güevos, Yorsh and Arete too. I remember the excitement of the most promising young creatives of the last 20 years, and I see them now in a soft dissolution to status quo and more of the same old same old. At the same time, the most creative agency of the last 15 years, jotabeqú, failed to make a national school and the strength of Alberto Quirós has not reached the market as we would like, and because of this, I see resignation to give more rice cookers to our ads.
We are still in the same difference, because we easily convince ourselves that what is created is different, although it is often the same as always. Do you see? Let’s open La Nación, not to go far, and enjoy the ads of Hipermás, Gollo, Cemaco, Casa Blanca, Epa, Más x Menos, Hogar Feliz, Importadora Monge, Verdugo, Play, Megasuper and Perimercados, just to name a few retail businesses, and we won’t really find anything different from what was done 10 and 20 years ago. A twist here, a twist there, a brief application on this side and maybe a life style photo over there. That’s it, in short, we’re still in the same difference.
The best thing about all this is the proliferation of graphic workshops in the advertisers’ offices. Such is the case of the CSU Wallmart group, where Jessica Soto directs the in-house, or at Mazda-Kia, where Totem is led by Manrique Segura and Melissa Flores, or the one recently started at Epa by Marcela Trejos, all ex-Tribu. Or the case of the Pipasa group that opened its in-house agency, the Perimercados group that is with its own, the Tommy Hilfiger group of stores, and many others. This deserves a separate chapter and extended mention, however, if we can anticipate something of these workshops it will be more of the same, since their mission is not creative but of information, dissemination and communication, from the point of view of the client and their marketing managers. Although we all know, I repeat: an ad can be made by anyone, a brand cannot.
The sparks over the years have not yet ignited the creative fire kept in the hearts and souls of our creatives. Since that wonderful Goldstar campaign by jotabeqú, or the great commercial for Rostipollos de Tribu, by Pablo Chaves and Javier Mora, since the campaign with which we won Pregonero for Gollo, the Gallo más Gallo, just to mention a few, I don’t see in retail anything that reflects our creative search, and rather, I regret the worn-out formula that is imposed above all others to continue with what the client understands as retail advertising, although one is not opposed to the importance of standing out, capturing attention and attracting in order to connect your brand with people.
In the other categories, with rare exceptions, we see examples multiply. While a Rock Ice shows us Cervecería Costa Rica’s willingness to innovate, with Imperial I’m disappointed, as a pura vida and a victory sign is a surrender to what they could have turned into a spectacular advertising innovation. In banking it is only necessary to take a look at the letter classes they are giving us with Scotia and HSBC, to wonder if we are really talking about a market with high levels of literacy, or if this is due to foreigners who still do not know that we can read a little bit in English and that we know how to spell.
The purity of the Costa Rican creative must be mixed with the indigenous Latin malice to move forward. The creative energy of our agencies requires the support of planners and accounts, media and production, to name a few, to achieve the desired transformation. If you’ve made it this far in reading these free-flowing posts in my blog space, I invite you to stop for a moment and sigh, pause and breathe in again. Inhale and exhale slowly until you feel the movement of your lungs and the beating of your heart. And if you manage to feel as I do, in the strength of your neurons and your whole being, call for rebellion with me and say enough of the same!
We have to take our ideas to the heart of the people, to the laughter of their spirit, to the astonishment of their intelligence, so that transported in ingenious and relevant productions, we can make people talk about advertising, comment on the ideas and generate a multiplication effect. When the general public enjoys commercial breaks as much as soap operas or news programs (which are becoming more and more similar every day…), series or feature films, maybe we will be closer, when they will prefer to open a newspaper for the ads rather than for the news, when they will look for our sites on the Internet because of the personal and specific.
We are in August, the clock is ticking and for all that is worth considering, the world is already preparing for Cannes 2008. It’s time for an inter-agency hug, focused on elevating our creative product in the country, recognizing the potency of our talent and defending it to the death. Let’s concentrate on our strengths. No more of the same, please.
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