It was almost 100 years ago when three stars, one Producer/Director (and one lawyer) banded together to form United Artists. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and some dude named McAdoo had the brilliant idea that creatives should control the creative process when it comes to film. Unfortunately, this grab at creative freedom is widely considered to be the impetus for The Studio System. This was a system that essentially commoditized every aspect of filmmaking to maximize studio profit and minimize creative freedom. It lasted for 40 years and took a government mandate to dismantle.
While United Artists (as a brand) survives today, the sea change they were looking to spearhead in 1919 simply did not happen. From an artistic standpoint, it actually caused more harm than good. The reason is simple. Stars, by definition, are too bright to see what is in their immediate surroundings. Said another way, stars are too self-absorbed to either know or care about what the public wants.
In our industry, the latest stars are the “Social Media Specialists.” These are the people who walk the ad agency red carpet. Unfortunately, in my opinion, many of them are showing way too much star quality.
As most of you know, I love Social Media and believe it has advanced and challenged everything we do as advertising professionals. But I am concerned about it becoming commoditized. I am concerned that a few stars in our industry will force a backlash that gives us 40 years of ad agency accountants telling us where and when we can engage. Based solely on profitability.
Scary ass case in point; I heard the US Army is using Pinterest for recruiting. Pinterest? That is a social media channel with a 97% female user base, that is essentially for posting fashion and wedding planning pictures. But, it’s free; it’s new and somebody who’s blinded by their own stardom sold the US Army on it. That is not where we need to be as a practice.
So here’s what. How about we make sure that Social Media strategists remain social. Don’t leave them to operate in a vacuum. If you have these specialists on your team or at your agency make sure they are intimate with the strategy and integrated with the team.
The last thing you want to do is leave a star to his or her own devices. That’s how you get movies like Apocolypto…and commercials like GoDaddy!
And…fade to black.
