Of late, in the US, its been exposed that our ability to keep a secret is roughly equal to Paris Hilton's ability to keep her legs crossed. A bunch of Russian interlopers were seized by the FBI and just yesterday something like 92,000 secret documents were published online at a site called http://wikileaks.org/.
It occurs to me that in this plethora of information is a parallel to the advertising industry. The Obama administration was quick to point out that none of the 92,000 documents linked posed a serious security threat to the US or our troops. Andrew Exum in The New York Times said, "I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance."
Yet we keep making these communications.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. We have tons of communication but none of it is really that important. None of it matters. But we keep on sending the crap out there.
It seems to me that you shouldn't communicate unless you have something to say. If what you have to say has no significance, why say it?
Why not try to find something unique to say, instead? (Years ago, when 100 millimeter cigarette burst onto the scene, Benson & Hedges made their cigarette 101 millimeters long. Their jingle via Mary Wells, "A silly millimeter longer," at least communicated something different.)
Life would be better if advertisers and National Security people followed this advice on acting from John Wayne: "Talk low. Talk slow. And don't say too much." Unless, that is, unless you have something to say.
