How Jeremy Allen White is breaking down boundaries in adland
The Bear actor’s turn for Calvin Klein has ignited wide debate across the ad industry’s favourite social media channel: LinkedIn. Which is a wonderful thing for the health of the industry, says our ad correspondent Ben Kay
Have you seen the new ad for Calvin Klein undies? Of course you have. It’s the one with the guy from The Bear taking his clothes off as he jumps around on a New York roof.
But have you seen the LinkedIn reaction? The one where advertising people hotly debate the missing concept, the inscrutable strategy, and the lack of a proper insight? What about the furore about the furore? More ad people despairing of the fact that advertising people were despairing of the fact that this wasn’t advertising as they knew it?
And now here I am, about to pick all of that apart, so we now have a meta-meta-meta reaction to a man selling underwear by running around in his underwear. (I haven’t even considered your reaction to my reaction. Another day, perhaps.)
I decided to devote over 1,000 words to this topic because it’s an example of an interesting phenomenon that I believe offers benefits for the whole industry, but particularly its creativity.
Like it or not, we now live in a LinkedIn world (Twitter/X, too, but this situation is certainly more prevalent on its more business-focused sibling) of wide and instant connection that has given rise to new practices that make a difference to what we do.
In the UK, dissections of the latest advertising used to be confined to your creative department, its pub, and the latest copy of Campaign magazine. Amongst those people the chat was necessarily hierarchical, with the most senior opinions dominating, and therefore ‘correct’.
Now we have the more egalitarian world of social media, where people at all levels, from all agencies, and all countries, can discuss and debate the work as soon as it drops. We even get other departments chiming in with their expertise (hi strategists, producers, and account management!).
So now the people who are concerned that this ad for pants should have an ‘idea’ can learn from other people who understand that ‘fashion’ is a different category of advertising, one that has been operating without so-called concepts for many very successful decades.
Now we have the more egalitarian world of social media, where people at all levels, from all agencies, and all countries, can discuss and debate the work as soon as it drops
Then the people who worry that there is no insight can be enlightened: the insight is that people find The Bear dude attractive. No need for much qual or quant there; just a pair of eyes and a pulse. But there are others who have touched on a more debatable debate: does the fact this ad has been shared far and wide mean that its job is now done?
Perhaps. I would argue that its ultimate goal must be to go beyond awareness and actually sell lots of underwear, but then advertising is merely the voice of marketing, and the sale will finally be made by a combination of promotion, placement, price, product, and people. (If you don’t know about the five Ps of marketing you can Google them now and be more fully armed for your next online advertising conversation.)
It’s also worth mentioning that Calvin Klein can additionally tap into the immediate public feedback of their own social media channels to adapt their work and products, or push out further executions for zero cost. This campaign has inspired tens of thousands of (overwhelmingly positive) comments, and offered a chance to see if the target market prefers a slightly different set of underwear. That’s all an incredible opportunity for real-time research that used to take months and cost a fortune.
In the past, agencies were divided into silos, with departments mistrusting other departments, creatives only occasionally chatting with other agencies’ creatives, and often condescending to people from countries that failed to trouble the jurors of Cannes Lions or D&AD. That version of adland was relatively small, but we can now expand it at the click of a mouse, and there is much to be gained from that expansion.
I’ve listened to older creatives talking about how they used to read the best American magazines because they were the only readily accessible place to find the work of the best American agencies. And that was it, really: no TV or billboards; just a tiny trickle of overseas press inspiration that increased once a year with the publication of the Art Director’s Club Annual.
Here in 2024 the industry routinely produces work that would have blown the minds of even the greatest of the old-time greats
Imagine if that trickle had been a non-stop global torrent, sending great work under the nose of every creative on the planet as soon as it appeared? Of course, there’s no need to imagine; that’s what we have today. So you might be inclined to ask why so many people think the work was better in the past.
My theory is that the bar was fairly low in those days. Have a look at a D&AD Annual from the 60s or 70s and you’ll find lots of underwhelming guff. Of course, the very best work of that era still stands the test of time, but there’s a degree of survivorship bias here, where the best 500 ads from 5,000 award-winners are repeatedly exhumed to teach the kids of today a lesson.
Here in 2024 the industry routinely produces work that would have blown the minds of even the greatest of the old-time greats. Sure, there might not be so many carefully argued 1,000-word press ads, but we’ve moved beyond that, both in terms of media possibilities and production techniques, but also in terms of the kind of concepts that today’s consumers find fresh and relevant.
I believe that the New York Times’s Truth campaign is as good as any ad made in the 20th century, as is Burger King’s Stevenage Challenge, Nike’s You Can’t Stop Us commercial, and several dozen others.
We’ve moved on in so many ways, but much of that is based on our ability to promote, disseminate, educate, and debate so much more work so much more freely. That is very much a good thing, and every ad that goes through that process is a step forward for the industry as a whole.
The overall progress might not always be immediately apparent, but if we can at least appreciate a guy prancing around in his underwear for the correct reasons, then perhaps we should all take a moment to appreciate how far we’ve come.
Based in Los Angeles, Ben Kay is a creative director and copywriter, and advertising columnist for CR; ben-kay.com
