There is a curious thing beginning to happen in advertising and communications.

Ciphers. Treasure hunts. Puzzles. Hidden messages. AI generated words in images. Enigmas. Codes. Maps. #IYKYK. Riddles.

Why is there a trend to make it increasingly difficult for consumers to actually arrive at what we are trying to communicate? It feels counterintuitive at first, but looking a little more closely reveals that actually it's common sense.

It appears to be the antithesis of the brutal simplicity which has been touted by the founding fathers of creative advertising for the past 30 years or so. But, as a mentor of mine repeatedly told me: as advertisers we owe it to our captive audience, at the very least, that we entertain them - make them laugh, smile or think.

For our latest Beavertown project we looked to the stars - and to history - to create a giant piece of sand-based artwork which although was great to look at, when looked at more closely revealed something more. We wanted to challenge the perceptions of what a big brand-led image could be, we wanted to create intrigue and bake that into the concept from the word go. We worked with renowned beach artist Manuel Groelich and MIT professor Jo Melville to create a totally unique piece of art that paid homage to the area’s UFO past, championed our client in a uniquely attention grabbing way for media and hardwired a devilishly difficult cipher into it so audiences could go deeper into the brand world and - hopefully - emerge victorious. This would earn them prize money from Beavertown - but more than that, it would earn some brand respect and a new way of embedding a brand into someone's memory. When was the last time a brand made you think about Norse history, the stars, aliens, binary code - and gave you £100 as a reward?

We’re not the only ones. Publicis has readily jumped on the trend with their work for Takis x ALDI.

Titled ‘Drop Codes’ it is a series of fly posters with cryptic codes that, when cracked, reveal the date and location of the Takis x Aldi drop. Each variant in the campaign has a different corresponding code hidden within: from Spotify code taking people to a cryptic message hidden in the song titles of a playlist, to a complex morse code message and a highly specific what3words address which leads people to the aisles of a nearby Aldi.

It doesn’t end here - with Taylor Swift partnering with Google when she announced the re-release of 1989 in September. To do so, fans had to google 'Taylor Swift'. After which, a blue box appeared at the bottom of the results page. Unscrambling the letters on the screen would leave them with a keyword which, when keyed into the Google search bar, would complete the puzzle.  

Swift created 89 puzzles for her fans to decode and decode they did - in total 33 million puzzles were solved as they hunted for the names of her new track, crashing the system in the process.

What this new(ish) trend demonstrates is that firstly when our audience is being treated with respect (i.e they can work things out for themselves) they respond well to it; secondly to create something memorable in a world which is always trying to grab your attention and stick there - let the experience itself be uniquely self-directed and the message be the reward.

I suppose a way of thinking of this kind of advertising is ‘earned’ advertising, as the audience is left to find an extra hidden treasure amongst the regular programming.