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Creative Director’s Choice: System1 Agency's Paul Spriggs on Agent Provocateur creative risks

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By Kyle O'Brien, Creative Works Editor

September 13, 2018 | 4 min read

Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the work they think is the best out in the ad world – the ads and campaigns they believe are making a difference.

Agent Provocateur

Agent Provocateur

This week, Paul Spriggs, Americas president, System1 Agency, shares why Agent Provocateur’s latest campaign is a risk worth taking in an effort to remain authentic.

Paul Spriggs of System1

Admittedly, I’m not the intended audience for this campaign, so my comments are less about what I like or don’t like, but rather observations and questions.

No need for a headline, or body copy in this ad to explain or tell a woman what to do. The model’s pose is not accidental. It is designed to prompt a feeling. Women, however, will interpret what that feeling says in different ways depending on the psychology of the individual, just as art is interpreted (and judged) in very different ways. For some, it will convey a strong, confident brand for women who are empowered to express themselves.

I wonder if part of the motivation for the image, apart from showing a one piece, was to offset the provocation of the top image. I think a more simplified, bold layout would have been stronger.

The brand name and its whole reason for being is as an agent of provocation, so the client could be credited for maintaining its authenticity, perhaps bravely in today’s tinder-box environment, where the media can demonize an ad or brand, and the people associated with it in an instant – or an Instagram. Agent Provocateur seems to have avoided that fate, so far, because of its authenticity. It’s also a niche brand and not a mass-market penetration play. They’re not trying to appeal to all women. Or maybe because what and who determines the fate of an ad is random, inconsistent and contradictory. It certainly seems that way when it comes to advertising in this category, globally.

Like Agent Provocateur, Victoria’s Secret has consistently maintained its purpose, lauded for many years, as empowering women to feel sexy, for themselves, or whoever they want. Yet, unlike Agent Provocateur, some in the media have recently attempted to reframe the brand to mean something less empowering to women, in speculating on the reason for the recent sales decline. The media is more influential on public opinion than advertising, so there may now be more pressure from the media-influenced masses and from the board, to move away from the brand’s roots. As a private company, Agent Provocateur is more impervious to these pressures.

Today the stakes are extremely high when it comes to creating advertising like Agent Provocateur’s, because the environment is so fickle, and, unlike art, the bottom line is at stake.

As far as Agent Provocateur goes, it gets my vote for taking the risk.

Paul Spriggs is Americas president, System1 Agency.

See the work by clicking on the Creative Works box below.

To see the latest creative ads and campaigns, visit The Drum’s Creative Works section. If you would like to feature a creative director in our Creative Director’s Choice, please contact Creative Works editor Kyle O’Brien.

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