When it comes to dissing your peers, there’s a conspiracy of silence in the ad business. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when John Hegarty, the "H" of BBH, publicly observed that Joe Pyka might have had his head up his ass when Pytka remarked that British advertising had its head up its ass. Since both guys are icons in our business, I thought the issue merited some discussion.
Joe and John’s disagreement represents an old argument. Do you entertain to sell—as in the U.K.—or just sell—as in the U.S.? But Hegarty’s remark also touched on another issue: the waning creative influence of Joe Pytka himself.
I’d recently spent an uncomfortable hour at a seminar in L.A., listening to Pytka pontificate about how American culture came to an abrupt halt in 1970. He extolled Coltrane, Kubrick and a couple other brilliant, long-gone artists, challenging anyone in the large and largely dumbfounded audience to cite a true talent working after 1970. The only person with the nerve to take on Joe was some English guy from The Mill in London, and that argument degenerated into lame cross-assertions about the quality of the effects in Gladiator (upon which the Mill worked).
Like a lot of others, I sat there thinking, "This is bullshit, Joe." Why, in film culture alone, what about Soderberg, Tarantino, Solondz, Jonze, Twyker, Vinterberg, or either Lee—Spike or Ang? But it was too early in the morning to take a run at Joe, and the conference moderator seemed particularly dazed and chicken. I came away thinking, "Geeze, where have you gone, Joe Pytka? And why did so many of us turn up so early in the morning, expecting answers from you?"
When you get down to it, by today’s creative standards Joe seems to have been left with only his curmudgeonly reputation. His work is muffled background music to the flashy and sarcastic work being done by other, much younger, "storytelling" directors, like Glazer, Usher, Buckley, or O’Hagan. Joe never responded to the new look that Limelight and Propaganda brought from videos to commercials. And he never really got the sardonic humor now exemplified by hungry man’s roster. So why would a couple hundred hung-over executives turn up to be insulted by this guy?
But hang on, I think our interest in Joe goes deeper that his personal style—he’s still a consummate storyteller. And storytellers, particularly serious storytellers, are in short supply in our biz. In a commercial production profession invented by still photographers, run by art directors, and now deeply influenced by music video directors, you gotta search far and wide beyond the glitzy storytellers to find the true filmic narratologists.
Ironically, the proof that Joe’s own argument about U.S. advertising vs. U.K. is silly lies in the fact that his own best work is more "British" than "American." Joe’s signature campaign, John Hancock, stands out in sharp relief against all other American "corporate" campaigns. The Hancock spots are drop-dead real; they launch you into the fierce center of the characters’ lives. Most of them are so compelling that you completely forget Joe and Hill/Holliday are selling John Hancock’s brand and products. Which is exactly what John Hegarty and most British creatives have advocated for years.
Hegarty has repeatedly pointed out that people crave stories that are memorable. And that this "memorableness" is a key to consumer retention of a brand name or a product attribute. BBH refers to this process as creating "fame" for a client. I don’t know what Joe calls it, because he’s too busy extolling Monk, Pollock and Kerouac. Although Joe can be a boring bully in front of an audience, he’s still got the stuff when it comes to performance and story.
Where are Joe’s successors? A number of skillful storytellers are in the business right now, but nearly everyone good traffics in wry humor, and their work is dominated by comic book angles infected with bus station green. If you put the Budweiser Truth campaign, or maybe the Holiday Inn ads, up against Joe’s Vietnam AT&T spot of a few years ago, you’ll see how far we haven’t come.
Most "serious" commercials are like the phony insurance ad that made De Niro cry in Analyze This. And although I love the funny stuff, it’s the serious material that’s the hardest narrative work to pull off. Further, this narrative affliction extends way into humor. What passes for humor these days just ain’t that smart, funny or original.
In this era in which the revolutionary values of the ’60s have been copied, mocked and turned on their head, popular culture has become a vague miasma of insincerity constructed from a sarcastic vibe. I guess in a decade in which Ronald Reagan truly lost his mind, Clinton worked late through his final night to reassert his core corruption, and the spoiled kid of a weak former president stole the election via voter fraud—what kind of serious ad culture can we expect, anyway?
Hmm … maybe Joe is right about everything since 1970.
