Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

 "Who cares where the creativity in advertising has gone? The primary purpose of an ad is to convince someone that your product can fill a need, not entertain a bunch of journalists or ad award panelists."    BrandingPost reader  Piper Kinison makes an undeniable observation of The dumber the marketing question, the more valuable the answer.

No argument here.  The issue, put forth in a recent Washington Post column, What happened to Creative Advertising?", concerned the wholesale changes wrenching the agency business over the past decade-plus.  The problem has to do with actually  convincing "someone that your product can fill a need".  Entertainment for its own sake won't do it, of course.  Entertainment as an end, no.  As a means?  Hey, you could do worse. And some companies do, time after time.  It's no coincidence that the most successful brands -- Nike, Apple, Jack-in-the-Box, Anheuser-Busch, VW -- have long been associated with the most entertaining advertising.