Sunday, September 7, 2008

Jelly Helm Ruined my Life[plan]


I couldn’t stop nodding my head in agreement with Jelly, executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy, during his presentation on the future of branding today at Cre8con.

According to Jelly, people develop preference for brands through experiences, such as holding an iPhone. If the iPhone sucks, all the advertising in the world couldn’t have turned Apple into the brand guru it is today. As Jelly said, people like brands that aren’t shoved down their throats. Instead, they like brands that soar on their own because they offer something that no one else can.

This leaves me wondering if we should shift our focus from advertising to creating unique products/brands that will sell themselves.

I am comforted that a bigwig such as Jelly had once questioned the validity of advertising after reading Noam Chomsky. While I haven’t read Chomsky, I’ve been wondering if advertising is anything more than “creative crap.” But I told myself, “Jelly is smart, creative and still in the industry so advertising must be fun.”

Then Jelly broke the news; he’s leaving Wieden+Kennedy to become a beach bum.

If Jelly is leaving he is either A) dirty rich B) given up on ‘good’ advertising , or C) having a personal life crisis.

Jelly leaving Wieden+Kennedy makes me wondering if I should just skip the whole “having a career” part of my life and jump start to “the living on a Mexican beach part."


I couldn’t find a link to Jelly’s website, but this might be better.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

To just an everyday consumer like myself, and not a designee or ad person, the whole concept Jelly is putting forth is kind of...obvious.

90% of advertising is a lie designed to sell a crap product that we neither want nor need. The idea that the real value lies in actually creating products that are valuable to people, things that don't need a hard sell, doesn't seem that revolutionary to someone not invested in the fakery of the advertising and PR industries.

megan pants said...

Yes, obvious.

But tell me you don't love this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4_mmGDPZek

I don't care if it makes you want to buy axe. Here's a secret everyday consumer, most "creatives" could care less about selling things, we just want to make fun stuff. And we call this "making stuff," branding. Nike didn't get cool just by being a shoe, there was a team of people at Nike that said, "hey let's make sweet shoes and do even sweeter stuff with them."

Anonymous said...

I did find it interesing that Jelly posted a number of brands, and remarked that these were all sound brands that had grown organically, without the help of ad agencies. The trouble is all represented rockin' products. (iPhone, Google, Obama etc) and that all represent a product or concept that is right for its time and/or game-changing in some way. With that in mind, is he indeed saying that W+K is bunk?

Anonymous said...

Jelly didn't leave W+K voluntarily...

Anonymous said...

Um, he didn't leave his *position* voluntarily. BUT he did leave w+k because he wanted to.

Anonymous said...

and he isn't living on the mexican border, he started his own business.