This ad campaign was done for Doc Martens by the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. It features Kurt Cobain, Joey Romone, Sid Vicious, and Joe Strummer. All of course are dead... and apparently in heaven. So rock fans and christians will, I guess, unite to say this one is pretty tasteless. I can't really comment on taste since I believe that to be completely subjective. I can however relate with Saatchi & Saatchi and hypothesize based on first hand accounts on how something like this occurs.
The creative process, generally and abbreviatedly speaking, begins with an idea. That idea is brainstormed upon to come up with a bunch of ideas based off of that inital idea. From that point it is just widdled down and tweaked until it is exactly the way the "artist" wants it to be. The problem with this is that when working closely on anything, it's always tough to step back and see the work with "fresh" eyes. This is especially tough for creative people I think mainly because even when the project isn't working, the creative person will come up with a "creative" vision on how the work will be received. For instance, when the ad was conceived and executed to what is shown here, I bet there must have been a point where they questioned if the ad was in fact tasteless. They then saw that most people would look at it as a homage to rock idols as well as making a witty observation on the lasting quality of Doc Martens. Great concept for an art piece and maybe student work. However they forgot that people just see dead people being used to peddle shoes. How could they not see this? Because they were too close in on the project. They just saw a seemingly good idea and went with it.
I believe this is how all bad ideas become realized. We see this in Hollywood all the time.... for example, through the randomness of my HBO setup, we've come across The Son of the Mask playing every once in awhile. How the hell did this movie ever get made?! Someone obviously came up with the idea, wrote a script, convinced a lot of people, and made this piece of crap. I bet somewhere in the production of the movie, someone said or thought to themselves... what the hell are we doing? This is going to be worst movie ever made! This segment of my life is being spent on the creation of the audio/visual equivalent of feces! But then ultimately they were persuaded by either the need to make money or by convincing themselves that it may actually turn out to be good.
Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this other then, I've been there Saatchi... and um, Saatchi. It's not entirely your fault. Someone should've piped up when they recognized that the idea was a bad one. In the blindness of creating something, its up to you to recognize when you're getting advice from the one eyed man... or woman.
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