Venue can’t afford for people to keep calm. Or to carry on.

on Mar 01 in Advertising, Bristol, Culture, Double Art tagged by Peter Blackman

It feels like ‘The Kings Speech’ is front and home page news for the UK media at the moment. Here in Bristol however, it’s the King’s poster that seems to be everywhere.

‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. A message from George VI to his subjects. First it was being used to sell pies. Now it’s being used to try and save an entertainment magazine. Why? Why should a 1939 poster, that was never used in its original historical context, be so attractive to brands that they stake their growth or even their very survival on pastiches of it?

The BBC has asked the question if ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ is the ‘the greatest motivational poster ever’ which is odd when you consider it was never used during World War II. Over two million copies were printed, to be distributed in the event of a national catastrophe, but they remained in storage throughout the war, as the catastrophe of invasion (or a similarly serious incident) did not occur. So perhaps the BBC are in fact referring to the extraordinary popularity of the poster in our own times? For it is everywhere. Mugs. T-shirts. Tea towels. Posters.

The BBC article makes some interesting points about why a forgotten poster from over sixty years ago should be so popular now:

“To some, the world in 2009 seems as uncertain as it was in 1939, even if modern-day anxieties focus on redundancy and recession rather than bombs and the Blitz. Perhaps this is why the message still seems so relevant.”

“A message of such powerful simplicity might not be so forthcoming these days. Today’s government posters attempt to convince the public of an unappreciated danger and get them to modify their behaviour. The “Keep Calm” poster is merely an injunction to think another way and continue acting as you have always acted.”

“It speaks to peoples’ personal neuroses. It’s not ideological, it’s not urging people to fight for freedom like some propaganda posters did.”

All of these thoughts seem well reasoned and plausible. But why would a brand want to adapt it, use it as a platform for their own message? Is it as simple as ‘times are bad, life is shit, you might as well accept it, and add a little enjoyment to your life by eating our pies.’ I can see how that thought process works. I’m not sure it would work as effectively as actually devising a motivating and original marketing campaign for Pieminister, but I’m sure it’s raised a laugh. If not sales.

But Venue? Does it work for them? Scroll back up to that quote from the BBC article, from Professor Jim Aulich, an expert in propaganda art at Manchester Metropolitan University ”It’s not ideological, it’s not urging people to fight for freedom like some propaganda posters did.” Well to save Venue magazine, people are going to have to fight. They are going to have to become ‘ideological’ about the magazine. About how they read about their local music, restaurants, art, performance and events. For if people are merely stoic, and keep doing what they are doing, then it will go out of business. For people were not buying it in sufficient numbers. To use a famous Churchillian phrase, ‘Keep buggering on’ doesn’t work here, because the buggers weren’t buying it.

At the marketing agency I help run, we once produced a ‘Keep Calm’ pastiche for another local brand. Not for their advertising campaign mind you, but simply for a meeting. The brand was Original FM, and the issue was that noone was listening to it. It’s first RAJAR figures were so bad that the owner memorably said ‘You could play 24 hour f**king bagpipes and get the same results’ Rather than suggest that he rename the station Bagpipe FM, we went back and made this comment about Original.

What we meant that the output was too dull, and there was none of the energy and humour that characterised successful radio stations. The then owners of Original were receptive to what we said - they had come to the same conclusion. As a result we won the task of launching Jack FM on Bristol. Enough of how fabulous Double Art are - the point here is that a poster that said ‘Keep Calm and Listen to Original’ would have had absolutely no effect whatever on listener numbers. I’m worried the same is true of the ‘Keep Calm and Buy Venue’ campaign. It might provoke a smile, but will provoke people to want to find out more about Venue? To discover that an independent and opinionated local magazine is both important and useful? I’m sorry to say that I’m pretty certain it won’t.