Platitude Attitude.

I was feeling bad. So I bought a positive affirmation t-shirt.
I'm ok now.

Like many people, I suppose, who read this organ, I am fully-ensconced in the "Apple ecosystem."

I have an Apple watch on my wrist 16 hours a day.
An Apple tablet by my bedside.
An Apple phone in my ass-pocket.
And an Apple computer covering my groin.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning (after peeing like a racehorse) is strap the aforementioned watch onto my left wing. Heaven forfend I miss counting a step. And each morning, I get a dopey "affirmation" from that watch telling me "way to go!" or "keep it up!" or "you're doing great!" I don't remember them exactly because these statements are so insipid that they fairly turn my duodenum. They seem to light the way for our world today. [cf. big beautiful bill.]

My wife, my Simca and me during better times.
When we dressed well and drove on the beach.
Also, I had a jawline.

The time I drove the Simca into the forest to learn more about ursines.

If you don't have a red interior, you don't have a car.

Though I drive a 1966 Simca 1500 with over 427,000 miles on it, I would love a new car. However, I am the child of Depression (and depressing) parents. In the parlance of Iowa hog farmers, I was brought up to "use every part of the pig but the squeal." In other words, as much as I'd like a new car, I ain't getting one till the Simca gives up whatever snail-eating French ghost put it together back when Napoleon was still languishing on St. Helena.

No, that's not me on the Gingham Coast longing for Chinese food.
It's Napoleon longing for some V.S.O.P.

Like many old men in love with an older woman, I often cast my eyes toward a younger and satisfyingly well-turned ankle. That might not pass muster in some circles, but there's a reason there are nearly nine-billion people on our dying planet.

As such, I often go to bmwusa.com or even bmw.de and digitally build myself a new BMW. I did so last night. That led to this blogpost--and this bit of ontology.

To "build" my $65,000 car, I am asked to make some simple choices. 

• Model.
  
• Engine size.
• Drive train.
• Sport or standard.
• Color.
• Upholstery.
  
• Wheels.
• Options.
  

With each one of these choices, the car, nominally digitally reconfigures itself so I can see what it might look like. And with each step along the way--mind you, I'm spec-ing a car that costs more than most people make in a year--I get a second-grader's bullshit pablum encouragement the sort you'd get from a $12/hour soccer coach.

I get pandered to.

Does anyone anywhere really think anyone anywhere needs glad-handing like this? Is this what the technologists who ruined modern communications mean when they spout "using data to serve customers better?" Do this typographic wet-farts serve any purpose except making some client marketing person feel like they peed in your swimming pool? Does anyone anywhere believe such imperatives are leading me down the purchase funnel? That they make me feel "special"?

Mind you, BMW was a brand built on the understanding of its customer. BMW, at least in the US, had a tough, brusque, challenging voice. A voice of authority, integrity and teutonic toughness. 

They never pandered or talked down to people. They never said how "smart" you are. Yet their ads made you feel "in-the-know."

Maybe this is a leap and I've put too much brown-sugar in my oatmeal this morning, but those blue and white spiritual pukettes above remind me of advertising's "awards-industrial-complex."

That complex is propagated, promulgated and promoted by people who need shiny affirmations (that they've paid for) to reassure them that their work is good.

You wasted your clients money. You rock!

Way to go!

That trophy will cover our $7B drop in revenue!

They don't find that assurance from their agency, from their client, from their industry, and they don't find it from a resultant sales-gains or upsurge in brand reputation. 

It's yahoos in sports arenas (usually 45-pounds overweight) wearing face-paint, over-priced team regalia and shouting "we're #1." They're not athletes but they're quick to say, "we won." No, you sat on the vinylette sofa guzzling suds.

If, as a profession, advertising is ever-again to have viability and a soupçon of respectability, maybe we need to actually start appreciating the actuality of what we do. Or what we're supposed to do: Have a positive material effect on the fortunes of the brands who pays us. 

As they used to say at Ogilvy, back when it was a credible and viable agency, the goal is "to be most valued by those who most value brands."

That syllogism is lost today.

We're too busy self-applauding and trophy-izing. Rather than being cold and hard and demanding in what we expect from ourselves, we seek only praise. 

There were thousands of trophies handed out at Cannes. And I've never seen any of the work that won any of those trophies on my TV set or any site I visit or any billboard I drive by or any installation that beckons me.

Yet we live for trophies. Better, maybe we're dying for trophies.

They're like the affirmation socks you can find online.

And we need this, apparently, right down to our toes.

If Cannes trophies were foot ware.