‘Who do you think you are? Michael f—king Angelo?’ Charles Saatchi

‘The Persuaders’ an article featured in ‘Seven’ a supplement of The Sunday Telegraph was my reading of interest this week. Written by Sam Delaney, expresses the business side of advertising in a short tale of the Saatchi brothers ‘bid for world domination.’

It expresses the limitations of working as a graphic designer, i.e. what is achievable, what can you get away with and how, their way of working and how to be persuasive.

So how do you become persuasive? You need to give the public something they want! Make them think they need it, what ever you sell needs to appear desirable or better than what they had before. And you need to be ruthless! Charles Saatchi was ruthless ‘who do you think you are? Michael f—king Angelo?’ Saatchi used the phrase when a ‘notoriously precious art director complained that his layouts had been tampered with behind his back.’

I admire the ‘ruthlessly simplistic’ approach to Charles Saatchi’s advertising work. Saying it how it is! When advertising for the Conservative party when Margaret Thatcher was in town, he completely criticised the opposition to show their weaknesses. I think some times we can be all too concerned with elaborating too much, being too arty, when sometimes the line needs to be raw punchy and simplistic. I think it’s a brave thing to do so, yet if used correctly can be very successful.

However being abrupt can cause problems of offence rather than persuasiveness. I would quite like to explore in today’s society, how perception can lead to offence, and how far it can be pushed. Is telling the truth or being to raw too much for our politically correct society? I think being raw, using shock tactics, overwhelmingly exagerating truths, needs to be used appropriately.

It makes you question how bigger impact does advertising and media have on our perceptions. ‘People living in every region of the planet had in one way or another have their perceptions, aspirations and behaviour impacted by those super sonic, neon lit, 30 second films that punctured their favourite television shows,’ supposedly.

It amused me to read, there was a time when ‘Creative people were being judged on the basis of how long they took for lunch. If you were gone for more than four hours, you must have been the most creative person in the agency. It was like Andy Warhol said, “Art is what you can get away with”.’ It suggests a simple, rash and easy way of working; I may try it myself one day!