10 Things I Learned On Advertising In An Art Gallery

theGetGallery10 Things I Learned On Advertising In An Art

Gallery

By Alex Goh,Associate Strategic Planning Director,

M&C Saatchi, Kuala Lumpur.

Insight

#1Find the counter-trend behind every trend.On insights: Flip the “insight” to uncover its other side. In the example below, the artist attempts to capture the idea that the other side to globalism and commoditisation is the rising instance of social alienation and cultural exclusion.

Images taken from: New South Wales Art Gallery & the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

#2


Be Open to Multiple Viewpoints.Learn to be open to different viewpoints. You don’t need to always agree with it. But you need to acknowledge that it exist and work with it.

#3

Don’t be an advertising academic.If advertising is all about getting someone to do or think something differently, we need to remember that real change is all about “feelings” – what emotions are you looking to trigger?

Selling anything comes from “feeling”; not “telling.”


#4

There are no absolute rights and wrongs.To be in advertising, you need to constantly adapt and evolve. To do that means not being fixated with a specific way of doing things. You need to play in-between the black and white. There are no absolutes.


#5


Ideation tip: Work with binaries and ironies.The world and the people in it is a very interesting place partly because of the ironies that surround us. In bringing a feature to light, consider juxtaposing it with its opposite – hard/soft, permanent/impermanent, light/heavy.

In the example here, a bronze “balloon” (soft) was juxtaposed with small clusters of “barnacles” (hard).

#6Images taken from: New South Wales Art Gallery & the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

Always create work you can be proud of.There will never be enough time. So with whatever time you have, short or long, create work you can be proud of, given the limitations and constraints.

#7


Make heavy work, appear light.True experts simplify rather than complicate. It’s your duty to help clients feel smarter, rather than confused, when they are around you.

#8


Make things up as you go along.With the Internet, we can search for opinions on anything, online. That also means we think less, on our own – instead, oftentimes adopting the opinions of others.

The guy you see below was tasked with teaching children how to experience art. His advise? Make up your own story to whatever is before your eyes. The act of “making up stories” itself forces you to more deeply process what’s in front of you. That’s “appreciating” art.

#9


Die to self, daily.Don’t stop yourself from trying anything new or different because “I’ve never done it before”, “I’m not the creative-type”, “I’ve tried before; it was baddd…”, etc. Every day is a new opportunity to be a different “you” – to be the best version of “you”, yet.

#10


Excuses never stopped time.Whether we do or we do not, the clock goes along its merry way. If we do, then the passing of time would have thought us something new and that’s time well-spent.

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Now, go be the best version of you.

By Alex Goh,Associate Strategic Planning Director,

M&C Saatchi, Kuala Lumpur.

[email protected]

Insight

10 Things I Learned On Advertising In An Art Gallery

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