engagement
To properly understand advertising, it needs to be viewed as part of popular culture.
When it works it is often because this is the environment it inhabits.
Not any particular media vehicle.
If anything, this has only become more important as the number of potential media choices and environment grows.
I'm fond of Paul Feldwick's 'showbusiness' argument, that goes something along these lines.
Advertising and entertainment have forever been inextricably linked.
The best advertising has always borrowed most of its creative themes from 'show business'.
The popular music, comedy, celebrities, sport, drama, sexiness and fashions of the day.
Advertising and popular culture are two parts of the same whole.
Paul suggests that not much has really changed since PT Barnum and The American Medicine Show.
A song-and-dance to put a smile on their faces, and put them in the mood to buy.
Maybe everything is PR. Or at least 'publicity'.
Media themselves are only an audience gatherer.
Sure, they can help with engagement by attracting an audience appropriate for the message and maybe keeping a bit of attention.
Media engagement, however, does not equate to advertising engagement. Nor is that media's job.
Paradoxically, in spite of the infinite number of media channels now available, when great contemporary advertising works it is often because it truly inhabits the broader culture - and it stands up on its own.
Advertising is a mass phenomenon.
'The publicising function of good brand advertising is all-pervasive'.
As the old saying goes 'If you want engagement, make a more engaging ad.'
This is an engaging ad, if ever there was one.
And there's no business like showbusiness.
