Dare to be the same as everyone else

I do not necessarily hate the automotive industry. Nor do I have a personal vendetta against advertising people. Hey, I even wrote something nice about the good people at Ford some time ago. But, somehow, advertising brings out the worst in everybody (like people that have had to witness the Fortis adcampaign-disaster surely have noticed…)

As I was on my way to work this morning, I caught a glimpse of a big Ford billboard. On it, a nondescript vehicle, that has apparently been manufactured by Ford’s designers is shown in the traditional advertising way; a little diagonally, very shiny and metallic…

The header on top of the billboard read: “Dare to be different“. Which left me stunned by the complete and utter lack of creativity of both copywriter (and entire agency) and client. How generic can a payoff be? How very ‘not different’ to say ‘dare to be different. I would think it would be absolutely impossible to think of a tag-line for a car manufacturer that says ‘me too’ product more than ‘dare to be different‘. If I were the CEO of that advertising agency I would fire the copywriter and give the account director an enormous raise immediately.

It’s such a strange combination. People that actually dare to be different, or the people that aspire to be someone who dares to be different would never in a million years want to be seen in that car. The header that makes sense would have to be ‘dare to be just like everyone else‘. And would that be so bad?

In the world of NGO’s the fashionable term is ‘leadership’. All NGO’s are looking for people they can turn into ‘leaders’,which means that -since everyone is leading- we’re not actually going anywhere. There are too many people that consider themselves to be leaders anyway. We need followers. People that do the actual work. We need people that dare to buy a Ford Kuga since it makes them just like their neighbour. I can only conclude that the Ford ad people have got it all completely wrong….