How Dumb Can Art Directors be?

The answer is: Pretty damn stupid.

The furor over DDB Brasil's poorly thought out WWF ad has hit the mainstream media and Joe Average is pretty up in arms about it. It's a sensitive topic.

I'm an art director and I'm sensitive about stupid ideas. For life of me I can't figure out what this ad is about. All I can get out of it is an art director with the resources of a big outfit like DDB jerking off without really thinking about what the ad says. Because other than that it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Which leads to why this ad was done in the first place. It was an art director jerking off so they could win awards. Dog & Pony show wrote an excellent post, with some great follow up comments so I won't belabor the point. My question is who thought this ad was a good idea in the first place? The AD and copywriter obviously did, and they're idiots. WWF did according to an Ad Age article. And a CD must have as well. Why did they all think this was a good enough idea to win awards?

Art direction is about good ideas, not just good execution. Maybe people who read Luerzer's Archive too much forget that every now and again. But senior creatives should be tuned into the 'big idea' and have the experience to recognize a bad idea glossed over with nice execution.

Which ties back into something I touched on the other day. The big idea is not dead. Despite what social media hypesters will tell you. If you lose sight of the big idea, like DDB Brasil did, your brand will suffer. Sure, an idea might not survive across every execution in every media. Something culturally accepted in one market might get torn apart in another. But someone, somewhere should be keeping the big idea in mind and looking out for the brand's best interest. That shouldn't be a committee. You'd really think it should start with the art director and copywriter and move up the chain.