Last weekend, I discovered the new Diesel communication campaign in Next, the monthly supplement of French newspaper “Libération.” Fashion is a crowded industry where brands fight each other to get customers’ attention and, eventually, preferences. That means the money to buy a pair of used jeans. In terms of communication, it is often a creative field and, IMHO, Diesel’s last campaign is remarkably well conceived. Let’s try to analyze why.

Some background first

Diesel is an Italian fashion brand, created in 1978, targeting the 18-35 years old. Since 1991, Diesel has opted for a slightly provocative advertisement strategy, as illustrated, amongst many campaigns, by the 1991 “For successful living” campaign or by the recent “Global warm ready”. The tonality and originality of those campaigns found echo in the press and media, helping to support the buzz around the brand and to build its strong identity. Many of the past campaigns have received awards. It was interesting to learn that Diesel has a Creative Director, Wilbert Das, who has worked for Diesel since 1988.  His  responsibilities range from directing all product design as well as all communication campaigns. In other words, he is Diesel’s own Steve Jobs. This is something I get.

New campaign baseline: Be stupid

Don't tell me you've never tried

Diesel’s new campaign baseline couldn’t be simpler: BE STUPID – yes, caps are part of the claim.

In a series of no less than 40 visuals (at the time of writing), the campaign conceived by Anomaly London, explores a wide range of stupid behaviors, from taking (stupid) risks:

Are dogs allowed to play with their food?

to behaving in full brainless mode:

I remember that night.

passing by different identifiable territories of, well, stupidity:

childhood:

He takes him for a ride

teenage:

Former favorite sport of mine.

university:

I know that look.

with even some steps into plain absurdity:

A Brazilian male model is hidden somewhere in this image.

The baseline comes at the right bottom corner of each visual ad, immediately followed by Diesel logo. Note the logo’s small size.

Copywriting work

No less than 15 slogans support the baseline. This is a prolific campaign, to say the least.

1. Smart may have brains but stupid has the balls
2. Stupid might fail. Smart doesn’t even try.
3. Smart has the plans, stupid has the stories.
4. Smart sees what there is, stupid sees what there could be.
5. Smart listens to the head. Stupid listens to the heart.
6. Smart says no. Stupid says yes.
7. If we didn’t have stupid thoughts, we’d have no interesting thoughts at all.
8. Stupid is trial and error. Mostly error.
9. Smart may have the answers. But stupid has all the interesting questions.
10. Smart had one good idea and that idea was stupid.
11. Smart critiques. Stupid creates.
12. Smart plans. Stupid improvises.
13. Only the stupid can be truly brilliant.
14. We’re with stupid.
15. Long live stupid.

Amongst those 15 slogans, only two commit the brand with the claim: “We’re with stupid” and “Long live stupid”. Most of the slogans oppose “smart” with “stupid” with uses of copywriting tricks which elevate the two adjectives to the rank of characters, as if “Smart” and “Stupid” were two new “Tom” and “Jerry” cartoon heroes.   Those tricks are: the systematic use of singular (impersonating where you would expect generalization), the slogans’ shortness and symmetry (evocation of fairy tales), the parody of sayings or popular wisdom and the substitution, in the sentence, of a more expected word by “stupid”.

Eg: science is trivial and error. Girls listen to their heart.

At the end, you don’t have just slogans but a collection of stories with two recurrent characters, one of them ending more appealing than the other (guess who).

This collection of slogans summarizes a decade of speaches, essays and news magazine stories about personal development, importance of emotions and all that emotional quotient (EQ) versus IQ crap. The wording can only ring a bell into the target group, as those theories were largely relayed in fashion press,  female magazines and other Men Health kind of literature. The copywriting work builds here a set of cultural references which not only supports the claim that we’ll detail a bit later on, but also locates the campaign in the perfect time and cultural environment, something we will talk a bit later too.

If some slogans are used with different visuals, it’s interesting how they don’t systematically fit with the visuals. Most of the time they do – but not always.

Compare:

Is it a trump in your hands or are you just happy to be on this page?

with

OK - but what if we dance?

Not being a native English speaker, one slogan doesn’t click for me – and I am not helped, in this case, by the visuals:

A variant of the Mexican duel figure

This is of some importance because the campaign doesn’t seem to be adapted in other languages. In French magazines, the ads are the same as here. Since our law requires a translation, this takes place in small size font under the ad. The French translations, quite literal, don’t work with the campaign – possibly because we have so many synonyms for “stupid” that the word doesn’t work for us or because good copywriting work don’t fit  in other languages. Another interesting detail: the translators followed their linguistic instinct using PLURAL  when the campaign emphasizes the SINGULAR. “Smart critiques. Stupid creates” becomes, in French, “Les intellos critiquent. Les stupides créent.” This is the opposite effect wanted by the copywriters, as the plural doesn’t favor the two adjectives characterisation.

Thanks to the copywriters, we now have:

• an imperative baseline (BE STUPID) which is not an order (no “!” at the end)
• two easy to figure recurrent characters (STUPID and SMART)
• a collection of stories or new popular wisdoms for every life situation
• a reminiscence of last decade popular psychology
• a perfect fit with today mainstream atmosphere
• two assertive supports from the brand (WE ARE WITH STUPID and LONG LIVE STUPID).

The last textual element is almost invisible and still on every ad. With no high resolution file available, I couldn’t crop it but I can show you where it is:

Kids, don't do this at home. Better smoke outside.

The text at the right bottom corner says: “Shop online at Diesel.com”

The reason why it is so discrete? The brand doesn’t want to upset its retailers and shop managers.

Visual art

Let’s start with the obvious. Since this is a campaign for a fashion brand, all models are beautiful. No practical jokes on their physiques (a form of stupid humor which is not used in this campaign), only their attitude or behavior can be qualified as stupid. Photographs are of good quality, with a great attention paid to environment, details, locations. A significant aspect of the visual work lays in the always perfect shots of the clothes. At no time would the brand deny its core activity: they produce clothes and all the clothes look good on the models. As strong as the creative concept might be, it doesn’t impair with the essential values of the brand. They’re here to show (and obviously sell) their clothes. That’s fair enough, but it’s a basic principle that had somehow disappeared in some other fashion brand’s campains. This is, I believe, a positive consequence of having a Creative Director. Mr Das is not only in charge of supervising the campaign, he’s the stylist behind the collection, which certainly consumes more of his time than Brand communication. There’s no way a campaign could hide or damage his styling work. In other words, you don’t mess with his primary work.

The slogans are either over the photo (but never over a piece of clothing) in flashy and joyful colors or printed next to the visual, on black background. Those two principles transmit two different ideas. The first one is pure fun and entertainment while the second one takes on the appearance of a manifesto. The black background adds weight to the slogans, even more to the two supportive ones. In Next magazine, the campaign starts with four manifesto kind of ads before the first visual appears. And, by the way, Diesel was the only advertiser in the magazine’s issue.

My new motto

If the manifesto ads only use slogans without the visuals, Diesel published on its website a text only video exposing the full theory behind the campaign. You can watch the video here but, as I’d like to keep you longer on this post, here’s a transcript.

Like balloons
we are filled with
hopes
and
dreams
but
over time
a single sentence
creeps into our lives
don’t
be
stupid
it’s the
crushers of possibility
it’s the
world’s
greatest
deflator
the world is full of smart people
doing all kinds of smart things
that’s smart
well,
we’re with stupid
stupid is the relentless pursuit
of a
regret
free
life
smart may have
the brains
but stupid has
the balls
smart recognizes things for what they are
stupid sees thing for how they could be
smart critiques
stupid creates
the fact is
if we didn’t have stupid
we’d have no interesting thoughts at all
smart may have the plans…
but stupid has the stories
smart may have the
authority
but stupid has one
hell
of
a
hangover
it’s not smart to take risks
it’s stupid
to be stupid
is to be
brave
stupid isn’t afraid to fail
stupid knows there are worse things than
failure
like
not
even
trying
smart had one good idea
and that idea was stupid
you can’t outsmart stupid
so don’t
even
try
remember
only stupid
can be truly brilliant
so
be stupid

This rather interesting piece of contemporary prose is well set up in the video, with a colorful font and well thought rhythm of appearance and disapperance. Music is good too. As you noticed, most of the text comes from the slogans, with little additions enforcing the brand’s manifesto. Presumably, some slogans were not used in the campaign (like “smart may have the authorities but stupid has one hell of a hangover”). We’re dealing with advertising here, wich means that, like in old time theatre, it’s only about illusions, tricks and impressions you want to give. Watch my right hand while my left one steals your watch, that sort of thing. The reasons the campaign uses those supportive elements is to provide a vehicle for all the codes, the appearances of engagement. The art of mimicking  a political statement is used to engage the brand’s values and reputation in a post ironic way. They do expend a lot of effort in demonstrating their faith in stupid, don’t they?

This definitive lack of economy (40 ads, 15 slogans, no visual ads and text only animation) of this campaign belongs to the campaign concept itself. The profusion helps to build the claim, first, and, second, to engrave the campaign in the current (eg early 2010) social and economic ambiance or context. Before we move to the claim itself, a final word on the visual work: the logo.

I mentioned it earlier but I’ll say it again: look how small the logo is. If you’ve ever worked in an advertising agency, you know that 99% of your clients will always want their logo bigger. A good lesson to learn here: if your concept is stong enough and if your creative work stands apart, you don’t need a bigger logo. Especially since the brand commits a lot of resources, again, just to demonstrate its support, its engagement to stupid, which translates in a well orchestrated signature of the campaign. That’s what the two supportive claims (We’re with stupid and Long live stupid), the four no-photo ads in the magazine and the text video are made for. They assert the brand so strongly that it doesn’t need a big logo anymore. They claim to the world “We, Diesel, did this and we want to make sure you know we did and why.”

And I suspect the logo would have threatened the space allocated to the items of clothing too. Remember: you don’t mess with a Creative Director’s work.

The hat should always fit with the bag.

So, what’s the claim?

A campaign claim sums up all elements (messages, slogans, baseline, visual codes etc.) used by and for the campaign. This is the first thing you should work on when you start  a creative project. What do you want to tell/to sell? What is the promise you make to your target/your audience? When designing a campaign, you decline your claim in the elements we reviewed, which makes sense to look at the claim now, as we used the campaign tools to figure it out. That’s the hell of a deduction method here.

Be stupid and you’ll be happy.

The campaign claim promises the target they’ll be happier if they behave in ways that are considered stupid by more conformist others. They should do so in the most open way, satisfying whatever sort of inner child they have (from the anally orientated todler to the sexually aroused sophomore), alone or in group. By acting stupid, they will assert their own singularity amongst their peers, a singularity Diesel has decided to turn into a social value (by committing to it).  Therefore, by wearing Diesel clothing, the target will join the self-aware of Stupid’s superiority community and will be likely identified by its members as one of them.

The claim satisfies a large number of essential needs belonging to the target group (18-35 years old):

• to find clothes they can wear
• to distinguish themselves from the crowd without becoming too singular: they want to be cool, to be recognized as being cool. They don’t want to become goth or emos
• to have fun without being ashamed of having fun (escape Mom’s frowning eyes)
• to cherish whatever inner child they have
• to stay young for ever by acting like if they were still young (even a 22 years old feels old compared to a 16 years old)
• to be recognized as creative people (current Graal of self identification)
• to do all of the above (and get all the benefits) without investing more (of their time, money, energy) than the price of  a pair of jean’s

Most of the targeted girls will never do this:

An obvious protest against body scans in airport

but the campaign let them believe they could have the, well, balls to do it. That’s the kind of girls they think they are (somewhere in their self image perception, between the inner child and the prospects for the future). Since we’re on this ad, this the closest as a political reference you get through all the campaign. Diesel is not foolish enough to associate itself with any political lines – while stupid could qualify some political views, as they are perceived by, say, the establishment, while they might (or might not be) shared by the target group. This campaign is a cocktail and it needed at least a reference to political activism (remember girls burning their bras in the sixties ? Naked demonstrations and so on?) in the mix. The ad above is the nice touch with a double safety belt: men will look at it primarily because of her bare chest, women because damn, these jeans are tight and yet they make her such a nice shaped bottom. Believe me: they won’t consciously think about a possible rebellion against Big Brother.

Of course, the claim is provocative and ambivalent. If one reads on first degree: “Be stupid” , the brand loses all credibility (which they don’t care that much) and customers (which they do care for). Most of people outside the target group will read it on first degree (and it started on some forums, already, even on some forums specialized in communication and advertising).

When you decide to propose a provocative and ambiguous claim like this one, you better make sure you won’t aleniate too many members of your target group. That’s damages containment. The campaign covers its own risks by using:

• proliferation (the more visuals or story of stupidities you show, the higher your chances that at least one will be perceived as relevant within your target group – and, as a bonus, possibly beyond it)
• brand’s commitment (in this case, the mocked political engagement)
• transformation of qualificative adjectives into archetypical characters. They don’t tell you “Be a stupid person”. They say “Be/Act like Stupid” as if stupid was a good role model to follow. Acting like someone is absolutely not the same thing as being something. You feel less insulted, as all kid know.
• perfect integration in the current social-economic atmosphere (which is my next point).

A perfect beginning-of-2010 communication campaign

Advertising campaigns don’t stand alone – which is one of their differences with Art. They are only relevant in a specific period of time context. To be successful, to qualify as an excellent campaign, they must fit with a socio-economico-cultural context, what we call in French “l’air du temps”. The closest translation provided by an English member of our team is: “of its time” (or less natively, “zeitgeisty”). Grasping this context cloud often years in advance is not pure magic. Some people are naturally good at it – typically the fashion designers as they have to create their collections years in advance. It’s also a line of work. In the advertisement industry, strategic planners are in charge of this task. They compile data, combine analysis with their knowledge of sectors and with their intuitions and the results is provided to the Creative department to feed or validate the copywriters and designers’ work.

I find that Diesel campaign is particularly well “of its time”.

Best cover ever?

It comes after almost two years full of crisis, mainly financial and economical, for which the smart guys, read the bankers but also the people in charge, share some responsibilities. The fake The Economist’s cover on the left (issued in September 2008) summarizes well what the vox populi might think of this crisis. The crisis itself is far from being over, but after more than a year of talking about it, of living with it, this campaign bets on the fact that their target group is fed up with it.

Hence the colourful typographys and the provocative claim.

So far, I believe they are the first one to turn their back to the crisis in such a provocative way.

This campaign mashes up some of the recent popular trends as well. Of course, there is a reference to the Jackass period (a MTV show where professional stunt men were performing outrageous and often dangerous acts, such as being locked naked in a temporary public toilet, having the toilet being reversed and shaken by some caterpillar loader with all toilet’s content being sprayed over the inmate. Now, what can beat this level of stupid?) but the Jackass crew was definetely not well dressed. They were stupid with no style. If the campaign evocates them in the target group’s mind, so much the better, but I don’t think it belongs to the primary sticking factors with the current context.

Others references are the sharing photos on Facebook practice:

Can't wait for her new profile picture.

and, more generally, the sharing trends of stories or of insignificant facts of one’s daily life (Twitter anyone?). This aspect emphasized by the campaign comes with the slogan “smart has the plans but stupid has the stories”, definetely a better asset in the digital social market we now live in.

Three has always been a wrong number.

Typically a French night

The two ads ahead could illustrate one of the many messages published on the popular website TFLN (Texts from last night) which agregates users’ sent text messages from their parties or whatever. Main texts are just revealing what my parents would call stupid behaviors. The website (and the iPhone app) are popular enough for a book to be published, compiling the “best” text messages and some never published ones.

Samples from TFLN
(518):
alright so where did all these fingerpaintings on my bedroom wall come from?
(1-518):
dude. you drew those with your dick
****
(206):
I fucking love fucking science majors-- she told me that she wanted to know if her gag reflex got better
or worse with alcohol, and that her initial evidence had been inconclusive. So, next few weeks, yeah,
gettin blown periodically. All I have to do is keep a log.
****
(262):
I guess the cop knew i was on a walk of shame and felt bad...i got to play with the siren the rest of the way home

It’s all about the stories, today. Storytelling is one of the last pop-concept that broke out into the medias, in the form of good and structured stories replacing political messages, newspaper structure and everything.

Another sticking factor with the time we currently live in is to be found in this assertion again smartness and the call for being creative at all costs, including the risk of failure. Just some advertisement washi-washa? Well, also the main arguments of Seth Godin’s latest book (published in January 2010), Linchpin. Mr Godin is a  widely recognized pop-digital-guru whose influence cannot not be denied. I haven’t read his latest book but I did read the manifesto about it he proposes for free.

You can download “Brainwashed – seven ways to reinvent yourself” here. I will just provide you with a tiny summary of the manifesto.

The intro claims that the system teaches you that you’re average. The manifesto proposes seven levers available for anyone in search of reinvention.

1. Connect (in the sense of social medias and sharing stories, tips, contacts etc.)
2. Be generous
3. Make art
4. Acknowledge the lizard (eg recognize your inner resistance that blocks you from being creative or from just starting this Great Novel you know you have in you) (have the balls, in Diesel words)
5. Ship (eg finish what you started, deliver something even if not good enough to your perfectionnist eyes)
6. Fail
7. Learn

The ones in bold echoes, according to me, the Diesel campaign claim.

My opinion is that if your campaign matches with current trends and with essay works published at the same time it runs, well, that’s a campaign on its way to success. Because the claim will make sense to your target group.

There is only one indicator to measure the sucess of an advertising campaign: the level of sales. Diesel will know if the campaign is good when they will check their sales. All the rest (awards, this post, academic review) doesn’t matter.

The last thing I’d like to cover here is…

What an organization can learn from this Diesel campaign

In conceiving its campaign Diesel faced a problematic exactly the opposite of that faced by most institutions. They needed to elevate the campaign to a certain level of abstraction (which they did by turning smart and stupid into archetypes) in order not to be burdened with the weight of their product’s practicality. I say it again. Clothes are banal. You can buy clothes everywhere for any price. In order to make the target group actually buy those specific clothes, they chose to add a level of abstraction. It doesn’t matter if their T-shirts are in cotton or in linen, what matters is: stupid wears those clothes.

Most institutions deal with the opposite: turning the abstract into concrete. Making their target feel the practicity of their claim by incarnating it in palpable things.

Reverse problematic illustrated.

Other than that, here are elements an organization should keep in mind when thinking about a communication campaign:

• Stick to your core values.
• Get a Creative Director. A good campaign is not designed by a committee, as they say. Nothing good has ever been designed by a committee, for that matter. Ask Steve Jobs if you don’t believe me.
• Get a team. An agency. People like copywriters, strategic planners, designers. The best ones.
• Get an astronomic load of money. I can’t find any figures for Diesel campaign, but my guts  (and my little experience in the field) tell me it ain’t come cheap, far far far from that.
• Do not hesitate to segment your audience. Find a target group and stick to it. Accept the fact that you cannot talk to everyone at the same time.
• Be provocative if you can endorse it. If you can’t, work on your claim before everything. Once you have the claim, don’t change it.
• Make your claim in phase with the socio-culturo-economico context. Not the current one, mind you, the one in six months, in a year or in two years. The one in which your campaign will have to live.
• Have fun. There nothing less serious than advertising. Which is why it’s so fun to write about it in a serious way.

Some references

Diesel website

Diesel on English Wikipedia

Diesel on French Wikipedia

Wilbert Das on Wikipedia

A nice discussion about the difference between goths and emos

Official Jackass website.