Here Damon Stapleton, co-chief creative officer of Droga5 ANZ, argues that advertising is currently staring down the barrel of an existential threat. And the remedy to its problems can be found in the Swiss watch industry.
“Status quos are made to be broken” – Ray A. Davis
I am a watch nerd so I apologise in advance. But I think you will find the similarities quite striking.
Geneva, 1970. A grumpy man called Hans (the name is a guess but I am sure at least one Hans had a bad day when this happened) is having a terrible day. He makes Swiss watches. Proper ones. Springs, gears, craftsmanship. The quiet confidence of something that’s always been right. He knows all the rules. He knows how everything works. His creativity is on a set course.
Then on that frosty and fateful morning his sweating assistant Gunther walks in and says: Ah Hans, a moment please, it seems the Japanese have invented a quartz watch.”
“A what?”
“It runs on a battery. It’s more accurate. And cheaper.”
Pause.
“And this watch doesn’t really need us.”
This dark moment would become known as the Quartz crisis. You could almost hear the Swiss watch industry seize up. Time in Switzerland literally stood still. Ring any bells?
At this point, the Swiss had two options. Carry on like they always had for hundreds of years. Talk about heritage. Polish the same story.
Or panic. Then use creativity. Not engineering. Not efficiency. Creativity.
Because they weren’t going to out-quartz quartz were they?
What came next wasn’t an upgrade. It was thinking that changed everything.
It was the creation of Swatch. (A company that now owns almost every luxury Swiss watch brand in the world. Luxury brands that survived because the creation of Swatch gave them the time to figure things out.)
Plastic. Bold. Cheap. Fun. The exact opposite of what had been there for hundreds of years.
The idea that a watch shouldn’t try to win on precision in Switzerland at that time would have been about as popular as the manosphere visiting a Taylor Swift listening party.
It was a simple yet massive thought. A watch that reimagined what a watch could be. This wasn’t a technical solution. It was a creative one. A leap sideways. A reframing. An idea. The Swiss didn’t solve the problem with better watches. They solved it with better thinking. Now let’s talk about us.
Advertising.
Because the sentence has changed, but the moment hasn’t.
The machines have arrived. They’re faster. Cheaper. And they don’t really need us.
We’re having our own quartz crisis.
Again, two options.
Carry on.
Defend the old model.
Or panic.
Then use creativity.
Because we’re not going to out-machine the machines. The Swiss didn’t survive by protecting what they made.They survived by changing the question.
Swatch wasn’t a better product.
It was a more creative answer.
And right now, too much of advertising is trying to beat the future at its own game.
Optimising. Tweaking. Polishing.
When what’s needed is a jump. A leap. And by leap I mean a motorbike going 180 kms an hour over the Grand Canyon kind of leap. We have to let go of everything we think we know.
So what’s our Swatch?
Do we lean into the problem like the Swiss did? Or do we go somewhere else entirely? Do we start with tiny questions like what if everything could change? Or what exactly is an ad agency and how about tomorrow?
What I do know is it’s not going to be baby steps. It’s a complete reframe. It will be as radical as Swatch was in its time. Advertising’s Kodak moment has arrived. And here is the good news. That brave new world, is a world where creativity will be greatly needed. Because to build a new shiny city on the hill we will need ideas that don’t exist. Thoughts without a search history. Imaginings without a track record.
Hans looks down at his wrist. The second hand didn’t sweep like the old watches. It ticked. Bright. Plastic. Unexpected. His wife and kids liked it. This annoyed him. Where was the craft? He did have to admit that it told the time very well.
But that’s not really the point anymore is it?
When the world changes, efficiency alone won’t save you.
Creativity will.
It’s the one advantage that doesn’t get cheaper. The one move that changes the game.
When the world shifts you have two choices. You can protect what you have always made. Or you can create what comes next. One keeps you busy. The other saves you.
The Swiss didn’t just survive quartz. They out-imagined it.
We should probably do the same.
