Droga5, four steps to disaster?

Is there a life cycle here? A kind of self-destruction? The agency version of ‘all hubris must eventually be punished’?

Step 1: An ad agency does great work, gets really famous, attracts good clients.

Step 2: This goes to their heads, and they begin to make spots like this.

There are no immediate repercussions. Hey, they’re Droga5.

Step 3: The rot is in. And by the time an agency come to its senses, the damage is done.

Step 4: The run is over. Hubris is punished. Cue the next agency in waiting.

To be sure, this ad is formally interesting. As a kind of thought experiment. But as a piece of advertising, as a invitation to buy a brand, it’s an unmitigated disaster. (I have the anthropology to prove it.)

But you don’t need anthropology to see how very bad this ad is. It indulges in a dark, sustained act of diminishment. And you would have to be Droga5 to think you could get away with it.

Not for long.

Post script:

For more on the campaign, see this somewhat less hostile essay by Adweek’s Kristina Monllos here.