This is Jelly Helm. If you don’t know him, maybe you should. But you’ve probably already seen alot of his work in your homes and in your life. One of them is probably the Nike Good vs Evil ad. A legend in advertising at Wieden+Kennedy who later quit his job and went on to teach at VCU about the evils of advertising, who then later came back to W+K to create WK12, an ad agency disguised as a school disgused as an ad agency that does work for non-profit organizations. He was also the person behind the Seeking campaign, which in many ways has affected my personal life and journey so far, and given me opportunities to travel to Portland and now to Shanghai. I personally had the honour of speaking to him once, and wished I had more time to learn from him, but I’m glad he has moved on from W+K and is now ‘doing the things that make him happy’, so he said in our last conversation.
Here’s a quote from his blog that i found interesting:
We were at a dinner party the other night and when one woman found out that I worked in advertising, she asked me, picking her words very carefully, “What do you think about truth in advertising?”
The biggest lie in advertising is not that the product doesn’t perform as promised, it’s the consumer fantasy of how to achieve a happy and fulfilling life. That script has stopped being credible. Eventually, inevitably, we stop seeking status and fulfillment through stuff. We seek connection and meaning through experience. We are entering the post-consumer society.
Post-consumer brands help us experience our humanity, joy and connection. The iPhone, Google, Facebook, Obama, Guitar Hero, the Wii, the Toyota Prius. Nascar. The amazing growth of the local food movement and Farmer’s Markets. We seek connection, and we seek experiences that make us feel connected. The post-consumer society.