EDITOR'S LETTER ; Time to breathe

AdMedia,  Dec 19, 2005  by David Gapes

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"Five or six lunatics have joined together and exhibited their work." This is how a prominent Paris reviewer greeted Renoir, Monet and the dawn of the Impressionist era in 1876.

The point that James Hurman is making in First Impressions (P33), his take on the contentious topic of creative testing, is not that the French critic was an idiot - indeed, the evidence points to the contrary - but that repeat visits may have given him a more robust perspective.

The truth, Hurman concludes, is that even the most worldly, intelligent people, when faced with a new idea, are almost always incapable of recognising its value. The parallels with advertising, focus groups, and one-off creative tests are obvious: Good creative needs time to breathe.

And time to breathe is exactly what it took for our monthly cartoon, Hugh Manatee, to capture an audience. The work of an anonymous Auckland creative, Hugh's sly picture puns were greeted with groans when he started appearing in our pages two years back. These same readers now ask, "when's the book coming out?" (Answer: In 2006.)

Plenty of other nuggets, too, in this bumper holiday issue of AdMedia.

Like by John Atchison-Darby's revisitation (on P10) to David Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man, still guaranteed to stir creative juices after all these years.

And this month's three special features, Youth Marketing, Multi- Channel Marketing and Out of Home, which includes 12 pages of the best outdoor sites in New Zealand.

Have a relaxing break, everybody. AdMedia is not published in January, so we'll see you again in February.

David Gapes (david@admedia.co.nz)

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