The Formula 1 champion Mario Andretti once said: “If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” The same thing should apply for the world of advertising, I guess?

Most products are commodities. Yet, in this commoditised world many planners and creatives try to communicate product uniqueness.

”There’s nothing unique about this product” is a too common stated that results in frustration or in advertising that is irrelevant.

Relevance and differentiation are of course still important objectives of communication, but they don’t necessarily have to be based on product relevance. The important thing, after all, is the goal – to sell more stuff.

It’s time to bury the benefit ladder thinking.

As I see it strategic planning carry much of the responsibility of advertising thinking. If we are determined to base advertising on dramatising product features, we will always have the problem of products that are commodities.

What’s the alternative? The answer is philosophical:

German philosopher Immanuel Kant concluded that we can know nothing about things as they are themselves. We can only know the world of appearances. In other worlds, objects have no inherent properties beyond the ones provided by our senses.

And even modern-day science tries to redefines what everything is actually made up of.

What does this mean in practice for brand thinking?

Most importantly, there’s only one reality, the one perceived by the beholder. There’s no absolute truth or arguments, only the perception of it.

Does this mean we can communicate whatever we want? No, but freeing ourselves of product benefit thinking and embracing the fact that perception is everything means we also can reframe the role of communications. We can create alternative brand propositions that aren’t based on product propositions and by doing so we find ways of connecting with people in new and meaningful ways.

It has to be said that most advertising agencies are pretty good at market sensing: we imitate, adapt and evolve according to the latest trends in communications. For a long time, this process used to be easily manageable, because trends only affected the output of the advertising agency, not the business model. And even if they did, the pace at which they did it wasn’t unmanageable.

Things are different today, because now trends equals technology. This has made change much more difficult to source and to leverage. Today, being up-to-date with the latest technology trends isn’t enough to gain a competitive advantage. This has opened up a field for new types of agencies with different business models, often with specialising in a certain innovations.

A competitive advantage can only be temporary, and considering the accelerating pace of technological development, a niched communications agency at the edge of innovation will almost certainly become outdated at one point in time. This is because innovation requires thought leadership, which in turn requires investment into human capital (e.g. R&D).

Perhaps the most successful innovation strategy for an agency is to find the sweetspot between innovation and commercialisation?

The Human Chain by Wieden + Kennedy.

There’s no perfect template for creative briefs. But with the iPad there could well be. This template would be interactive and customizable in real-time – just drag ‘n drop the elements you need. Or download new ones.

The name of this software? iBrief of course. Could somebody please invent this?

Entrance: Welcome to a British Gentlemen’s Club

Our advertising agency is expanding its offices next month, and discussions on how the interior design of the office should look like has been a topic of interest among many (including myself). As I’m quite allergic to Barcelona chairs and Arne Jacobsen, I’ve made my own concept boards. Here’s a how an advertising agency should look like, in my opinion. Keywords: Functional, personal and fun.

Like it?

Meeting room: keepin’ it clean. Big table, retro chairs.

Idea rooms: eclectic and  inspiring, bring your own personal things.

Landscape area: open, social, efficient.

The Copywriting Room: inspired by Harvard Law School.

You have probably heard “Trust me when I’m saying this won’t work” or “Back in the Eighties when I started out in advertising…” echo in your ear. There are indeed a lot of old people in the communications industry. There is one key problem with relying on old thinking: today’s world of communications requires a lot of new thinking – just to stay in business. To prove my point: David Ogilvy might have been a star 60 years ago, but his agency the way it was set up in 1950 wouldn’t survive for two seconds in 2010. One day your knowledge will be outdated and irrelevant, if it isn’t already.

Remain dissatisfied.

Picked up this classic Volkswagen ad in a vintage shop in Stockholm today (not sure from exactly what year it is, do you?). More advertising should be timeless like this.

Creating social or cultural conflicts is a great creative strategy for achieving communicative momentum. Especially when the brand allows for it. Above is a “promo trailer” for a fictive company called Sandhamnstek (part of a social media campaign to generate PR) we set up for our client TV3 who will air a reality show about an island outside Stockholm that gets invaded by a certain group of people during summer. Unless you’re Swedish, it may be hard to fully appreciate this, but the strategy is to create tension by addressing real issues that are opposite to Swedish norms and values. Not to be confused with simply pissing people off, although there’s a fine line between the two.

Technology doesn’t only let us create wonderful new applications and platforms. It’s also a good friend for pushing good old content.

As technology becomes commoditized at a fast pace, there’s no intrinsic value of selecting media for any other sake than efficiency. The real agency challenge is therefore not to be innovative per se, but ability to exploit innovation.

Two of my favorites when it comes to content:

Get your Basketball and The Life for Halo ODST 3.