Elaine Idoni on Advertising.

As this hideous decade draws to its ravaging conclusion, a decade of wars, of stolen elections, of terror, of high-school, collegiate and fast-food-restaurant gun slaughter, of dying cities, of environmental meltdowns and havoc, as this decade is ending, Adweek is running a poll on a variety of purported topics. Among those topics is voting for Agency of the Decade and Creative Director of the Decade.

Poll Daddy, the service who are running this poll allows you to vote as many times as you wish for your favorite whatever. Right now, as I type this, Euro RSCG is leading as Agency of the Decade and their Creative Director, David Jones, is leading as well.

Apparently, management at Euro RSCG sent a memo out to their employees urging them to vote for themselves. I have nothing against Euro RSCG, though they're hardly whom I would have chosen. What I am peeved about is that a purportedly reputable advertising organ like Adweek will name an agency "Agency of the Decade" and a Creative Director "Creative Director of the Decade" with all the journalistic scruple of Pravda. The winners of those titles will puff out their chests, put those accolades on their email signatures, use them in new business and more. It's all bullshit.

This is a popularity contest plain and simple and it reminds me of Elaine Idoni. When I was ten or 11, Elaine Idoni was by far the prettiest girl in my school. Every year when we had elections for class president, Elaine Idoni's name would invariably be tossed into the ring and after some not-so-heated debate, she would win the election for no other reason than she was pretty.