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The Profession’s Democratisation ERIK KESSELS
the most. And this is certainly not a lack of creativity in all cases but much sooner a lack of vision. A professional advertiser’s trump card is his ability to think of a good idea
INTERESTING TIMES
Nowadays everybody’s a photographer, website developer, even advertiser. To be sure not all with the same flair and professionalism but it’s a fact that our professions have become accessible to everyone. If you ask someone in the street what he thinks about your last advertisement you stand amazed at the level of professional knowledge the average Dutchman is able to unload on you. Once such knowledge was reserved for advertising agencies but for years they have lacked any differentiating expertise. Terms such as ‘casting’, ‘location scout’ and ‘storyboard’ are now common knowledge so that even your nephew is quite capable of a detailed analysis of your strategy and approach to target groups. The internet has unlocked our profession and made it accessible to a broad section of the population. The gateway is wide open and will likely never be closed again. And it is in this sense that you can speak about a democratisation. Whereas advertising agencies used to shroud the development process in a haze it now all stands exposed to the public eye. The profession has become entirely transparent. Clients, too, are up to speed with the ins and outs of the process and are seldom taken in by pretty imagery or whizzing ideas. This only serves to make the profession more interesting. It is namely less to do with peripheral phenomena and increasingly more about the core issue: a good idea. That ability to create a strong commercial idea is what the millions of ‘enthusiasts’, who now swell our ranks, lack