Don Draper, from the hit TV show Mad Men, is said to have been inspired by real life art director and ad guru, George Lois.

Lois was one of the leaders of the so-called “Creative Revolution” in advertising during the 1950s and 1960s. He became one of the most influential admen in advertising history. He once said that true creativity can solve almost any problem. “The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. And I really believe that. What I try to teach young people, or anybody in any creative field, is that every idea should seemingly be outrageous.”

Outrageous? What’s that? A quick scan through today’s advertising begs the question, “What happened to true creativity… the fresh thinking… the outrageousness?” It has apparently gone by the wayside of the omnipresent digital media habit.

Media has become the message. Social media screams, but too often
it’s white noise. Concept is no longer king, it’s been replaced by the opportunistic prince of immediacy. You see plenty of communications with ideas forced by a tie-in to a product promotion riddled with QR codes, URLs, Facebook and Twitter icons and, if you’re lucky, maybe a cool music track.

When was the last time you saw an ad that made you think, “Wow,
that was really great.” Think back to VW’s “Lemon” ad: It was revolutionary. Recall Apple’s “1984″ TV spot: It was hypnotic. Remember Nike’s, “Just Do It” campaign: It helped to ignite a fitness frenzy.

Even during this year’s Superbowl, the ads were less than spectacular. The big ideas felt more like sophomoric musings involving dogs, babies, girls in bikinis and an expensively produced spot that referenced a teen movie from the 80’s. Apparently, ad creatives had taken the day off.

The outrageous idea needs to be resurrected. The kind with a powerful hook that punches you right in the grey matter.

Relying on media to do all the work is a bad habit. Creatives in the ad business need to go to work. Spend more time up front on the concept. Play with it. Take it to dinner. Go to bed with it. Be fun. Be poignant. And bring outrageous back to life. God only knows the industry needs it.

I once knew a guy who owned a video and film production house back in the ‘80s. Business was good; he was cranking out TV spots on a daily basis…literally. However, at the time there was also a newly emerging media – the Internet. This person always prided himself on having the foresight to see marketing trends and knew this Internet thing would be huge. In fact, he told me more than once that “traditional” media like television and billboards were heading down the path of the dinosaurs. “To be successful you must be able to quickly adapt.” And he did just that. He sold off his production facility, virtually overnight, and built a new studio dedicated to what he saw to be the only viable future in marketing: creating websites and banner ads. There was just one problem; the rest of the business world didn’t react so quickly. He was out of business within three years.

O.K., O.K., so the Internet boom eventually came to fruition. According to market research website eMarketer, the U.S. online ad spending is expected to grow pretty spectacularly from $29 billion this year to $46 billion in 2015. However, this Great Digital Age we’re now in appeared without killing off other forms of advertising. In fact, eMarketer also predicts that U.S. TV ad spending will account for over 39 percent of all major media dollars spent by advertisers in 2015!

So what we end up with is a gluttony of viable media options: Internet, social media, billboards, print, television, radio, direct mail, email, etc. “Great!,” we marketers cry. We can now fine-tune media plans and target any audience or groups with surgical precision. All these options are there for us to draw from, like arrows in a gigantic quiver. We can now align databases with audience preferences and create accurate, up-to-the-minute lists. ALL thanks to the wonderfully vast marketing mix at our disposal.

But wait just a media minute, mister. What if these options fall into the wrong hands… like unknowing clients’? Here’s a typical conversation about media choice these days:

Agency: So, why do you want to be on Facebook?

Client: Everybody’s doing it. It shows we’re at the forefront of our industry. Our message can potentially reach billions of people… on a personal level.

Agency: But you sell industrial limestone.

The bottom line: Just because the choice exists doesn’t mean it’s right.. And choosing the right media is more complex than ever before. That’s where the experience of a good marketing firm comes in handy. With practical knowhow, experience and a solid marketing plan, we can align your needs with the right media mix.

Of course another option might be to get rid of some of that media, maybe with a big sale…

But then we’d have to decide where to run the commercials: national spot TV, cable, in an eBlast campaign, website video, viral marketing on YouTube…