Whether you love or hate the new Telstra work, the lesson for the industry is to not be stubborn or ignorant

When Telstra launched their new brand platform ‘Wherever We Go’ during the AFL Grand Final, it was quite big news within the marketing industry. The campaign received a lot of coverage, and was largely received very well, getting lots of praise in the trade press and LinkedIn.

However, it was interesting to note that when commentators could be slightly more anonymous – either via the comment sections of certain websites, or in emails, WhatsApp or text messages, or chatting at a pub/café – the campaign was a little more polarising.

Of course, a survey of one – or ‘mesearch’, as a good friend of mine once dubbed it – is hardly a fair representation of the total discourse surrounding the campaign. Yet, be that as it may, my interactions with marketing folk were certainly dominated by Telstra chat for a whole week, and there were two clear schools of thought on the new campaign.

While it’s an oversimplification to pull the sentiments of the two opposing camps into singular statements, I’m a pretty simple guy, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

In one camp was those that thought the new campaign broke one of the ‘laws of advertising’ by not being consistent – either with previous Telstra campaigns, or within the campaign itself (ie: the OOH is far from ‘matching luggage’ with the TV).

In the other camp was those that thought the campaign demonstrated the power of creativity, and the need to always buck the status quo and do things differently.

Putting the actual creative work to the side for a second, my greatest takeaway from the numerous robust debates was a strengthening of a belief I already had in life: it’s not always black and white. Sometimes, both camps are right. And both camps are wrong.

When you stubbornly believe there are absolute absolutes, is when problems arrive.

For those that think you need to ruthlessly adhere to consistency, well, you’re half right. Consistency does help, is impactful, and is effective. However, too much consistency can render your work wallpaper, which means you’ll struggle for attention, the most important thing creativity needs to achieve.

On the flip side, for those that say doing things differently is how you achieve attention, and is true creativity, well yes, being different can capture people’s attention. However, building memory structures has been scientifically proven to be effective, and changing them every campaign probably isn’t the wisest move, because, amongst other things, it negatively impacts branding – the other pesky thing creative work needs to achieve.

To that very point, Telstra CMO Brent Smart had an interesting take on consistency. I’m paraphrasing and bastardising what he said, but it essentially amounted to him saying he believes being emotionally consistent can be more important than being visually consistent. In other words, you can feel the same, rather than just looking the same. It’s a valid point: who said memory structures had to be visual?

As with many debates, good (and bad!) points can be made on both sides of the fence. There doesn’t have to be a ‘winner’, so to speak. Personally, I find learning is a better outcome than crowning a metaphorical victor.

I applaud Telstra for trying something new and different when it comes to their marketing. Someone has to ‘go first’ when it comes to creating new rules or methods, because if we all always follow the exact same rulebook, work will decrease in effectiveness as everything will be the same.

Similarly, I applaud anyone who embraces the science available to us now when it comes to marketing. Applying that thinking and those lessons is a smart, savvy and proven way to increase effectiveness, which is the only thing that truly matters. ‘DBAs’ and ‘Memory Structures’ are not terms that creatives should snub their noses at. Or even worse, have never heard of.

As ever, balance is the key. Creativity should always strive to push the boundaries and explore new thinking. Yet it’s irresponsible, ignorant and stubborn to also not heed the lessons that science has taught us. This industry is great because of the magical tension of those two somewhat opposing forces.

We should embrace and do both, rather than ‘choosing a side’.

Ryan O’Connell is co-founder and chief strategy officer of jnr. 

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