OM2 Glenn Churches

Biography

Glenn Churches has had a career in the advertising industry for over 20 years, taking him from offices of multinational agencies in New Zealand to Australia, including McCann Erickson, JWT and Lintas (now Lowe Hunt) in addition to a number of local agencies. Glenn has won a number of creative awards in the United States and Australia. Presently, Glenn operates a small advertising consultancy mainly providing copywriting and advertising concept development services to leading brands and agencies, along with working for a variety of smaller companies..

Lost for words.

An essay by G.C.

{15th of May 2005}

Words are playing a diminishing role in the communication industry. Visual diversity, in particular, is dominating advertising in many of its forms relegating clever words, wit and writing to a subservient and an increasingly minor role.

Ironically, we communicate on the phone with words. We read newspapers with words. Answer emails with words. We’re bombarded with commands on the road like No Right Turn and Exit and Small Car Only – all with words. Are we simply too ‘worded out’? Perhaps it is the visual communication industry’s job to employ different tools to deliver messages that typically ask people to buy things. Could it be the role of other stimuli like interesting graphics, colour and compelling photography to solely attract attention and deliver a message?

Of course we haven’t dispensed with words entirely. There are still supermarket style ads with discount offers. Indeed, classified ads and school notice boards are as wordy as ever. Yet it’s the showcase work we proudly put in our portfolios that are today seeing a drought in good copywriting. This isn’t simply an Australian phenomena, but certainly a trend that is sweeping the civilized world. But for now, let’s consider our own backyard here in Australia for reasons why our advertising might be so tongue-tied.

In the fifties and sixties, large numbers of people from Europe began calling Australia home. One of the most successful movies of the time They’re a Weird Mob in 1966 made comedy of the situation. “Are you fair dinkum?” questioned the bewildered Australian. “No I’m Italian” came the reply as an Italian migrant found difficulty getting to grips not only with a foreign language, but with ‘Australians’ and their vernacular who seemed more like ‘aliens’.