A product of his time's "classy advertising"?

"Some say streetsmart advertising today is classy advertising. In look, in copy.
     "I agree and disagree. Streetsmart is not just knowing what the streets want, the trend, the times. It’s also knowing which street to get to for which sales item, and I don't just mean the surveys and laboratory FGD research.
     "For even with the guidance of FGD's, still classy advertising's dictate could mean being conscious of a creative class and that class’ condescending missionary esthetics upon other (folk, etc.) classes. So that classy advertising often churns out quiet Western layouts like this:

 

 

or one as trendy as this:

 

 

or one American hip as this:

 

 

or one cutely 'cool' like this:

 

 .

 

 

"Streetsmart advertising would require, however, that we do not leave out recurrently appropriate looks for certain streets that in their turn require imagery as mundane ('trampy') as this—

 

,

 

and I don't mean Marilyn Monroe on the pic but the most class D Filipino image that a CD might even abhor. This empathy for the appropriate street market could also produce a layout as jeepney-ish saturated as this—

 

,

 

or one as textbook-esquely 'unsophisticated' as this.

 

 .

 

     "And the reason for that is simple. Streetwise is not knowing what art schools and ad industry gurus teach us to design for all of society (read: executives, the A market, suburban culture). Streetwise is knowing the truth that every single city district consists of multi-cultures that must not just be segregated by a simplified FGD for the purpose of knowing who we want to address primarily at a hurried presentation.

 

 

"To do real classy advertising should mean getting into 'classes-conscious' advertising in its realest form, streetsmart advertising that means living those diverse cultures in our cities' streets the way method actors immerse themselves in their characters' surrounds for a period of time.
     "But certainly I would still adhere to the universality of the principle of 1) simplicity of an emotional or specific message and the factor of 2) emotionality itself either by way of human humor or wit or historical intellectualism. There's what I mean too by living those diverse cultures in our cities' streets, as against living among ad execs intent on pleasing a client's understandable conservatism or investment trembles that often require the use of all page spaces and the mention of every value in his product.
     "For ultimately, the reason for hiring ad people as experts of the market must be reaffirmed by the old notion that true ad people live the lives of spies and not rather the lives of coffeeshop yuppies just so they could sip coffee near the tables of potential clients."

 

---Vicente-Ignacio de Veyra
   streetwise classiness advocate