Blue Obsession: Let the Instrument Help Make Its Own Advertisement

Read the campaign story

The pens were not merely placed beside the artwork. Waterman commissioned Dirk Dzimirsky to make a photorealistic image with its Blue Obsession collection, and a time-lapse showed the work taking shape. BBH London connected the making story with displays in Paris and Tokyo. The 2014 campaign gave the instrument a role inside the creative result it was promoting.

Editorial interpretation: a beautiful result can make the product almost disappear. Viewers may admire the image, remember the artist and leave with little sense of why the instrument belongs in the story. Showing the process offers a way back. A mark becomes a decision, repeated decisions become a surface, and the finished work becomes something made rather than something that simply appeared. The interesting question is not whether the product can borrow the artist’s reputation. It is whether the audience can understand a particular relationship between the person, the material and the act of making.

That relationship must preserve the maker’s contribution. A time-lapse compresses duration and can make demanding work look effortless. The instrument does not supply the artist’s judgment, practice or patience. A responsible adaptation can celebrate what a tool enables without implying that buying it transfers expertise to the buyer. The contemporary accounts document the commission, process treatment and placements. They do not establish typical user results, independent performance comparisons or an incremental commercial effect. The related exhibition and promotional activity belong to this same family, not additional campaigns.

Give the process a specific question to answer

For an invented drawing tool, the question might be how a repeated mark can create different visual textures. Build the demonstration around that relationship rather than around an impressive final image alone. Decide what the viewer should notice at the beginning, middle and end. If every stage merely says that the maker is talented, the demonstration has not yet explained the offer. The process should contain a useful distinction that survives when the music, rapid editing and polished reveal are removed. Keep the task modest enough that the relationship can be inspected without a specialist explanation.

Choose what compression may hide

Editing can make a process understandable, but it also changes the apparent effort. Note every removed stage, including preparation, failed attempts and waiting. Not all of those moments belong in the final piece, yet their absence should not create a false claim. A caption or an unhurried intermediate view can restore essential context. In a paper prototype, compare a sequence that jumps directly from start to finish with one that includes a meaningful decision. Ask what viewers think the maker actually did. The more entertaining edit is not automatically the clearer account of the work.

Credit the human contribution where the result appears

A process story has several authorship questions: who made the object, who designed the demonstration and who filmed it? Keep those roles separate rather than use a general production credit that obscures the central maker. For a fictional exercise, explicitly label the invented creator and never imply a real endorsement. If a real collaboration is later considered, permission and agreed uses should precede publication. Attribution is not only a closing formality. It helps the audience understand which part of the result belongs to the tool and which part depends on someone’s skill.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: draw an original six-panel sequence in which a fictional maker uses an invented paper-shading tool. Show one deliberate change in technique and its visible consequence. Prepare a second version with only the starting materials and final image. Keep all descriptions and the final result identical. Ask adult reviewers what the tool contributes, what the person contributes and what steps they think occurred between the two endpoints. No physical performance test or real artist commission is involved.

Compare process understanding and mistaken assumptions about effort. Record whether someone notices the instrument but assigns it abilities absent from the brief. A clearer explanation is a communication result; it does not prove that a tool performs better, that users will gain skill or that showing the process will increase sales.

Revise if the sequence implies instant expertise, copies a recognisable artwork or borrows an artist’s identity. Keep the exercise about explaining contribution rather than guaranteeing achievement.

• Define one visible process relationship.
• Draw both versions with original material.
• Label the maker and tool as fictional.