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By Imogen Watson, Senior reporter

May 12, 2021 | 18 min read

After the tributes to the late Nick Kamen prompted a flood of retrospectives about Levi’s 1986 Laundrette ad, The Drum asks creatives from around the world whether they think ads from today’s era will stand the test of time, just like BBH’s classic from the golden age of TV.

Laundrette. An ad that resurrected a tired brand, built an agency and made an indelible dent in popular culture. They just don’t make ads like they used to... or do they?

As the news of Nick Kamen’s death circulated last week, retrospectives about his starring role in the 1986 Levi's ad by BBH quickly ensued, reflecting on the impact of the game-changing spot.

And while Laundrette safely hangs in the advertising hall of fame, it got The Drum thinking: will ads of this era be talked about in years to come? If not, does modern-day advertising have a problem of not being as memorable (or visible) as advertising from the golden age of TV?

And so we asked notable creative directors and advertising figures from around the world – which of today’s ads will stand the test of time like Levi’s Laundrette... if any?

Rory Sutherland, vice chairman at Ogilvy

One of the reasons that older people are more conservative than young people is surprisingly simple. Bad news is fast; good news is slow. Oldsters are hence conscious of improvements in life that are completely invisible to the young. You have to understand that forty years ago, when we heard the words ‘Welcome to Jamaica, Mr Bond’, it was inconceivable to 99% of us that we would ever go to the Caribbean ourselves.

Many people in Britain who watched Psycho in 1960 were left aghast by the shower scene since they’d never seen a hotel room with an en suite toilet. It was hence easier to be exotic back then. In the same way, back in ’86 there were only four television channels, of which only two showed ads. Really good content back then was scarce. To give you some idea of how odd the media environment was, a largely incomprehensible gameshow called 3-2-1, of which the highlight was a £10,000 animatronic dustbin, routinely reached an audience of over 10 million.

You were hence almost pathetically grateful for any high-quality content, even if it was a fleeting advertisement. And one of the reasons why people thought the ads were better than the programs was that much of the time, they really were. The open-jawed amazement I experienced when watching BBH’s first ‘Russia’ ad for Levi’s – in a non-multiplex cinema – is something I’ve never quite experienced since.

Let’s be honest, it’s different now. But that’s not to say there aren’t new and potentially ingenious ways to be distinctively famous. The problem is that a weird conspiracy between media agencies and tech firms has connived to turn marketing communication into a bizarre efficiency optimization game, with creativity treated as a kind of an afterthought. There are notable exceptions to this – from Dove to Meerkats.

Dove: Reverse Selfie, Ogilvy

Vicki Maguire, chief creative officer at Havas London

‘Laundrette’ left such a mark because no one had ever seen anything like it.

It changed the rules in the space of 60-odd seconds, and that’s why we still talk about it more than 30 years later. If we’re talking about those seminal ads that continue to shape culture and wield influence long after their media plans have run their course, then look no further than 'This Girl Can'.

It was the first time we saw real cellulite on a real woman in an ad that wasn’t the ‘before’ in a before and after demo. For millions of normal women, that opening ‘get the bikini bottoms out of your arse’ twang is iconic. As with Laundrette, we’d never seen anything like it. And it will stand the test of time because it has already changed everything.

Sport England: This Girl Can, FCB London

Billy Faithful, chief creative officer at Engine UK

I’m not convinced Laundrette has been talked about for years, outside BBH, until the sad loss of Nick Kamen before his time. An iconic ad, no doubt, but was it something that we collectively referred back to as a guiding light for our thinking today?

Today there are still ads that seem to transcend advertising, become actual culture (as opposed to Cannes case study culture), and appear like a line in the sand. Of late, Spike Jonze’s Kenzo ad springs to mind. Jonze’s depiction of female beauty as fierce, funny, violent and gentle all in one moment, for me, is as timeless as Nick Kamen reading The Sun in his undercrackers. If people are consistently saying, ‘You know, a bit like that Kenzo ad’, you’re probably looking at an icon. There is, and there’ll always will be, a simmering undercurrent of ‘back in the good old days’ in adland. The golden age isn’t behind us; you just have to work like hell to get a nugget of it for yourself.

Kenzo: The New Perfume, Spike Jonze

Kate Stanners, chairwoman and global chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi

Advertising now, compared to ‘the golden age’, is more layered, less singular. It is strange that more advertisers don’t recognise the power of simplicity when they are all jockeying for memorability in a cluttered environment. When you think about the ads that you remember, they are the ones that created a mood, a sensory feel. The track, the cinematography, the simple idea, and the uncomplicated story. They entertain you, seduce you, and they stick with you.

Perhaps ads from this era will be more remembered for the effect they had. So much of the work that cuts through now is causal. Its mission is clear. Brands like Dove changing our idea of beauty, or Always changing our idea of gender imbalance, or Nike’s Kaepernick ad: “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything.” This is work that impacts us and will be remembered because of the cultural context as much as the execution.

There are ads that will stand the test of time. Libresse’s ’Viva la vulva’ is an ad that I think will be remembered in years to come. A strong, campaigning message, delivered with smooth class and great wit. Nike’s ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ is another. It has authenticity, pace and attitude that makes you want to watch it again and again.

Ultimately, for me the difference between ads that stand the test of time, and those that don’t, is craft. The writing, the art direction, the photography, cinematography, the music, the illustration, animation, the directing, the casting, styling and acting. It is that detail that ends up staying with us, work that connects to the heart and the gut and not just the head.

Nike: Nothing Beats a Londoner, Wieden+Kennedy London

Steve Aldridge, chief creative officer at Wunderman Thompson

Advertising will always be talked about. Or at least relevant, creative, thought-provoking ideas will be. If not, then we have failed. Creating distinctive, innovative, work that connects with audiences, inside and outside of our industry, is why we come to work.

The work we produce today will be remembered and revered in years to come, more so than in the past. Today, brands, through the advertising they make and the creativity they bring, have an even bigger responsibility to inform as much as entertain – to have a point of view.

It’s become part of our vocabulary to talk about films rather than ‘TV’ because it’s a medium, not a channel. We engage with them in so many ways, not just television. They help us form opinions and tell us where brands sit on the big issues of the day. Look at Nike’s ‘Dream Crazy’ with Colin Kaepernick. Or Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ and Bodyform and Libresse’s ‘Viva la vulva’. All are films that will be remembered and shape ideas still to be made. Advertising helps us reframe and sometimes make sense of the world we live in – such as Tesco’s ‘Naughty List’, the best ad last Christmas. I have no doubt this is the golden age of film.

It’s good to occasionally look back, but we are lucky to work in an industry that firmly believes the best is yet to come.

Nike: Dream Crazy, Wieden+Kennedy Portland

Seema Miller, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Wolfgang

The Levi’s Laundrette is a classic. It reminds me of a time when advertising was more provocative, unapologetic, and honestly, more compelling. It’s the kind of work that made me fall in love with the industry.

Today, we’ve traded provocation for populism, a point of view for mass appeal, and brand love for lots of likes. We are so worried about offending someone that we inspire no one. Two campaigns that I think we will talk about for decades to come are ‘The Most Interesting Man In the World’ and the original Old Spice ad in which Isaiah Mustafa captured people’s attention with ‘Hello Ladies’.

Like Laundrette, they are provocative, unapologetic and compelling. Technically I don’t think they were launched in the last five years, perhaps that’s telling too. Advertising needs to get its swagger back.

Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Wieden+Kennedy

Alex Grieve, chief creative officer at AMV BBDO

I believe ads from this era will be talked about for years to come. This may not be a golden period of advertising, but the very best of what we do still has the ability to land like a hand grenade in culture. The cream is still there, it’s just a much thinner layer. Advertising from the golden age has had more time to sink into the public consciousness. And don’t underestimate the effect of nostalgia in further heightening its memorability. Modern-day advertising suffers from the fact it is only one of many forms of ‘entertainment’. We must work harder now to get people’s attention.

We have to use creativity as a weapon to break our client’s work free from the pack. Work that respects these tenets has a chance of being remembered. Great is timeless. Saying that, I believe our body of work for Essity will come to be seen as the case study for how to do purpose advertising. ‘BloodNormal’ was more important but I think ‘Viva la Vulva’ signalled a step-change and showed that purpose could be tackled with wit and joy; that it could be entertaining as well as worthy.

Bodyform: Blood Normal, AMV BBDO

Simon Vicars, exec creative director at Colenso BBDO

Ads will still stand the test of time, but it won’t be the promo and activation work that people will remember. That work is usually designed for a particular moment in culture, and when that moment passes I think those ideas age quickly. I’m not bagging that stuff, it gets on the news and it’s effective in the moment, it just doesn’t seem to endure like a story told through film. Films and stories make you feel, and I reckon a feeling is harder to forget.

I have to go back further to Volvo 'Epic Splits'. That’s iconic to me. That feels like it will endure. Killer music track, visually unforgettable and a simple product story. Which, when you think about it, are all the ingredients that Laundrette had for Levi’s.

Volvo: The Epic Split, Forsman & Bodenfors

Dan Cullen-Shute, chief exec and founder at Creature

It’s increasingly tempting, particularly when prompted by something so graciously perfect as Laundrette, to start getting a bit misty-eyed for the halcyon days of advertising. The days lunches were long, spot lengths were longer, and each 3-minute ad break was 180-seconds of solid Ridley/Tony gold.

I feel the same way about my golfing ability, to be honest. I look back, and I see glorious 7 irons to within three feet of the pin, and booming drives directing fairways... what’s weird, though, is that if you took me to a golf course tomorrow, you’d see me hacking my way around it, swearing a lot, and probably hitting the ball sweetly twice all day long. Reader, I’ve never been a good golfer. I just don’t remember all the bits where I sucked.

And the same is true of advertising. Sure, there’s more of it around nowadays, which inevitably means there’s more of the pap, but there’s still gold to be found. And in twenty years it’s the gold that we’ll remember; and the pap will just be background noise that we’ve forgotten: the canvas against which the masterpieces shone.

For the last five years, I’ve been running an advertising agency, and I’ve both applauded and, on occasion, been consumed with envy as great work has come out of all corners of the UK. There are a ton of ads I’ll remember. But standing the test of time? That’s different.

That demands that it’s stepped outside the mean streets of Advertising Town, NJ, and has ended up emblazoned on the public consciousness – it has ended up genuinely impacting popular culture. And that’s a much shorter list.

John Lewis, the beneficiary of the greatest campaign of my lifetime, is an obvious place to start; perhaps too obvious. C4 Creative consistently does amazing things, particularly when the Paralympics come around. I’m even half tempted to see if I can get away with chucking our Green Party work at the wall – it’s not like politicians have got any less childish.

But the ad that sprung to mind immediately on being asked the question was that Ikea one. You know the one. The one with the rhyme-spitting dinosaur. The weird one. The really funny one, with the slightly questionable strategy that you’re totally prepared to forget because the ad’s so good. The one with the guy that I haven’t heard of, but you probably have, because you’re almost certainly cooler than me, rapping. Doing the voice of the dino, I mean. Yeah, that one – the one everyone you know really liked, whether they’re 8, 80 or somewhere in the middle. That’s the fucker.

Ikea: Silence the Critics, Mother

Bianca Guimaraes, partner and executive creative director at Mischief USA

While ads from this era will be talked about in years to come, I just think they won’t necessarily be pure films like the Laundrette ad. It might be a brand act or a digital idea rather than the more traditional TV ad.

Fearless Girl comes to mind as an ad that will stand the test of time. It had all the right pieces - a hooky name, it was placed in the perfect location, good craft, and it tapped into a cultural moment to solve a real problem. It became so part of culture, that people almost forgot it was an ad.

I personally find advertising more exciting now. We have so many tools and technology solutions at our disposal, we can make any idea we dream of possible. Obviously, the insight and idea will always come first, but having these things ready to hand, means they can live in more ways today than ever before.

Fearless Girl

State Street Global Advisors: Fearless Girl, Kristen Visbal

Tim Gordon, co-chief creative officer at Droga5 New York

I hope ads will be talked about in the same way as Levi's Laundrette. What made many of the ads from that time so great was a real dedication to storytelling. They were interrupting your time so the best ones felt an obligation to entertain. That’s what made them great. They were simple, smart, clever, irreverent and unabashedly creative. I think work that does that today will also stand a chance at being remembered.

I reckon today's ads are just as memorable. Just think of all of the amazing pieces that have come out in just the last few years – ideas that have pushed the boundaries of what advertising can be and represent.

Now that isn't to say that there aren’t absolute marvels from the past, many that still hold a flame today. Today, the media landscape is so different. That era had 'must-see TV'. We have the internet. One focused and one fragmented. But at the end of the day creativity is paramount and will always be what gives longevity to a piece of work.

Selfishly, I think Under Armour’s 'Rule Yourself' campaign featuring Michael Phelps will still be standing many years from now. That, and Channel 4’s 'Meet the Superhumans'. And Puma’s 'After Hours Athletes' if we are stretching the concept of '5 years'.

Under Armour: Rule Yourself, Droga5

Jason Cobbold, chief exec at BMB

I’m not so sure we’ll see quite the same enduring appeal today from any one ad. Yes, the Levis ad is beautifully crafted, measured and cast, but it also tells a different story of gender. That’s what made it ahead of its time. Advertising generally fails to exhibit quite the same bravery today, and if it does, it tends to reflect rather than project new ideas into culture.

Horses, penguins, meerkats and tenors might all lay claim to a part of our collective memories over time. But I suspect it’ll be the big things that say something different about our lives and our culture that will really endure. 'Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives' will more likely end up in the history books.

NHS: Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives, MullenLowe London

James Long, creative director at 20ten

I absolutely think ads from this era will be talked about in years to come. Music plays a huge part, it’s what gives adverts like Laundrette its style. Utilising music to the theme and to carry the idea is simply - smart. Get it right, and people are likely to remember the advert every time the song comes on.

A real game-changer in my opinion was KFC’s 'Chicken Town'. It offered the middle finger to chicken shop imitators through humour and nostalgia. The music sets the tone: the cover of the 1972 instrumental 'Love Theme' by Nino Rota, best known as the main title song to The Godfather. That, partnered with the directors slow-motion styling, and the cast of jaw-dropping ‘rubberneckers’ - we have a theatrical advert to remember, which hangs off the right music choice.

Ultimately there is just more of it, more ways to consume it and therefore more opportunities to be targeted by it. So, visibility isn’t the issue, it’s about hitting the right ‘note’ with the audience. Get their attention by triggering audiences’ ears, before their eyes. Platforms like TikTok elevate snippets of songs far quicker than the traditional album release, so brands should be savvy with sound to get noticed.

KFC: Chicken Town, Mother

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