Advertising’s biggest crime is impatience. That and putting QR codes on billboards, but mostly impatience. We live in the age of instant everything. Instant noodles. Instant opinions. Instant success and instant disappointment. If a campaign doesn’t go viral by Wednesday, it’s already yesterday's news and everyone’s pivoting like they’re auditioning for Strictly.
It’s not only advertising. Entertainment is just as ruthless. One season wonders such as The Get Down, High Fidelity, and Kaos are all smart, stylish and apparently too slow to spark. We expect ideas to arrive fully formed and commercially bulletproof. But great, repeatable ideas don’t work like that. They need time to stretch, to settle and find their groove.
Only Fools and Horses, the now-legendary British sitcom was almost shot in the paddock after season one. Low ratings and a lukewarm audience response saw executives circling like it was a lame pony. But it was given time. It came back, got better and by season three it found its feet. By the time Del Boy fell through the bar, it was the most beloved sitcom in Britain. Not just a hit, but a multi-platform, international juggernaut spanning 20+ years: West End musicals, prequels, sequels, board games and cultural references that still get quoted today.
It didn’t do that by pivoting. It did it by persisting. It was given time to get good. Audiences were given time to catch up and because it was allowed to mature, it became beloved.
The John Lewis Christmas ad wasn’t born a blockbuster. The early outings were nice enough, polite piano covers and product shots with feelings. It took a few goes to find its emotional groove. By the time Monty the Penguin slid onto screens, it wasn’t just an ad, it was a national event. The audience caught up. And now it's stitched into the fabric of British culture.
The most interesting thing about 'The Most Interesting Man in The World' is that before he became a global icon he wasn't very interesting at all. The original version featured a younger actor delivering one-liners about adventure that actually caused a decline in sales during test campaigns. Rather than abandoning the concept, the team stuck with it and refined it. They recast the role with an older, more seasoned actor and reworked the writing. The campaign eventually achieved cult status, increasing sales by 22% and became a flag bearer for keeping the faith, creative patience and perseverance.
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is now iconic, but early on it faced backlash. Critics called it patronizing and doubted the authenticity of its “real” imagery. Instead of folding, Unilever doubled down. They listened and shifted tone, introducing 'acts not ads' as a way to communicate authenticity and believability. Through campaigns such as Evolution and Real Beauty Sketches they were able to turn skepticism into support, creating a lasting movement that challenged beauty norms and redefined what advertising could do.
Most campaigns today are killed before they’ve had a chance to breathe. A faint whiff of negative feedback sees a campaign shelved and the business go to pitch in the hope that a shiny new team will create a shiny new idea that the public will immediately take a shine to. Even without the negativity, if an idea isn't a home run first time, fatigue sets in for the marketing team long before the public have even clocked what they’re trying to say. The team has seen the deck a thousand times but the audience has barely seen the pre-roll once. If you’ve got a campaign built on something solid, a strategy with teeth and execution with edge, don’t panic if it doesn’t explode on day one. Let it evolve. Give it time. Give it space. Give it to at least season three.