Advertising has never been shy about being behind the bandwagon, then jumping on it and saying they've been steering it the whole time. It's also a business that's never met a buzzword it didn't like.
If you've been on any agency website recently, usually in the About section, you've probably noticed the unholy alliance of bandwagon with the buzzword du jour: Storytellers.
Apparently agency creative departments aren't staffed with copywriters and art directors anymore. Instead, they've been replaced by storytellers.
I get it. It's a romantic notion, and it plays well in pitches where the client is told how the "story" of their brand will be conveyed to the waiting masses. Like many other things in advertising, it's hyperbole.
It's the janitor calling himself a sanitation engineer.
I can't exactly tell you why this trend pisses me off so much. Maybe because it's so blatantly untrue. Or the image it conjures up is of someone who's facile with exaggeration, able to spin a yarn or an impossible - and unbelievable - tale out of thin air.
And if there's anything advertising needs to be more of, it's unbelievable.
Storytellers, the really good ones, are skilled at the practiced art of spinning straw into gold. But when the story's over, compelling though it may be, you're still left with straw.
As for the agencies who insist on calling themselves that, I believe their future can be summed up in two words found in every story.
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