Old anew

Some thoughts on creative recycling for the sake of progress.

This past week the venerable industrial company GE did something quite creative.

They ran some ads in the newspaper.

Hold on.

Not just “some ads.”

But every single ad in the December 6th edition of the New York Times.

That’s over 20 placements.

In the Advertising business we call this a “takeover.”

Front page? A GE ad. Page 13? Another GE ad. Business section? Yep. Arts section? Why, yes. (A clever placement of the history of GE logos.) And back pages? Every one, a GE ad.

Now you may be asking yourself, “What’s the big deal? No one reads print anymore.”

That’s not the point.

The point is, they took over the entire newspaper.

The advertising move itself was news.

And people then talked about it on social media.

So the analog thing became a viral thing.

An old thing was suddenly a hot thing.

That’s creativity, friends.

Making something old, new.

We’ve seen this before.

Look no further than the Broadway smash-hit, Hamilton. An old story about the rise and tragic fall of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton made anew with a re-telling in hip-hop form.

Speaking of hip-hop, we’ve seen “old anew” when rappers Run-DMC re-mixed Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and created a monster cross-over hit. A song that, once combined, appealed to two separate audiences, Rock and Rap, and went on to multi-platinum success.

The fashion business does this all the time. Bell-Bottoms are back. Mom-Jeans had their moment. Twice.

Quite recently, I saw pop-star Harry Styles sporting a massive shirt collar that would be equally fashionable in 1974…and, frankly, 1774, yet was somehow incredibly modern.

I suppose you could make the argument that podcasts are kind of a new-fangled radio. Thanks to the pandemic and the app revolution, the world suddenly re-awakened to the pleasures and powers of the human voice sans visuals.

And let’s come back full circle to an “old” industrial company: Ford.

The first automobiles at the beginning of the 20th century were electric. Now we not only have EVs, we have a truck like the Ford F-150 that not only does its transportation functions, but can now power an entire house for days on end.

Electric that’s electrifying in every sense of the word.

Old…anew.

It’s not the newest approach to creativity.

But it’s an approach that just might help you create your next, new thing.