Ho-hum.

Some months ago, a guy contacted me on LinkedIn. He wanted to talk to GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company, about helping him launch a vodka with a minor-celebrity's name attached and the minor-celebrity's 45-years-younger-than-he wife as their creative director.

The guy, whom I won't dignify with even an initial (I'll just keep referring to him as 'the guy,') sent me to a site and sent me a powerpoint that showed how much money we could all make when the vodka brand that had no awareness, no distribution and no real differentiation somehow went from selling 2,000 cases a year to 700,000.

I know fuckall about the liquor business, but I'd imagine that everyone who attempts to get into it and launch a new brand has wetdream fantasies about their product becoming Absolut like I dreamed of becoming Willie Mays. 

This guy had convinced himself that he had the next Absolut. All he needed was me to write some ads, like the ads I write for GeorgeCo., and off we'd fly enjoying that "hockey-stick-thing" along the way.

Wow, I said to myself, my bank account, the 529s that I've set up for my two-grandsons, J and R. Wow, I said to H, my long-time friend and Account Director. Wow, I said to L, my wife who cares about me feeling that I'm fruitful, creative and relevant.

We duly met with the minor-celebrity, over zoom, and his shapely amalgamation of silicone, lips and more silicone for good measure. We talked for over an hour. They quizzed me, I answered with my usual perspicacity and humor, we all laughed and slapped each other's virtual backs.

The guy asked for my address and H's, so he could send us some bottles. He asked for a scope, which H sent in fewer than six hours. 

I did what I always do when I get to work. I create a word doc with the client's name and the word "running" next to it and a date. Then, I write down everything I think of for the client and the brand. In a short while I had a dozen lines, with H scowling at me, as she should, about thinking before having a signed scope.

Then.

Nothing.

No bottles. 

Nothing.

Then.

You cost too much.

Then, we cut down the scope.

Then from the guy: "Minor celebrity doesn't want to agree to the scope until he sees the work."

Click.

Last night I saw something from another vodka brand called Neft. I have no real interest in vodka per se. But I thought I'd look at what they're doing. 

Once again, another brand that has all their digital ducks in a row but they've spent no sweat, money or real effort to get known outside of the six-person-reach of their infinitesimal website.

There are about 97,000,654,934,384 brands like this in the tech world. 

About 478,384,038,937 candidates like this in the political world.

 About 344,930,028,080 hamburgers like this in the fast-food world.

About 830,038,112,021 white SUVs like this in the automotive world.

They're all dressed-up,
With no place to go,
They didn't spend the dough,
To let anyone know.
So, they don't grow.
They disappear like August snow.

Maybe the worst offenders of not telling people what they do or why you should buy them are advertising agencies and the holding companies that ate them.

I'm not sure what any of the words above mean. And I'm edumacated. The slogan of my college was NOT "Close Cover Before Striking."

I do know what this means:

Years ago, when I worked on what at the time was a major tech brand and is now a virtual irrelevancy, I would actually spend time reading their annual report to find out what the brand was doing that no one felt was important enough to tell the agency about.

In today's WSJ. The article noted IBM has 270,000 employees. 
In 2010 they had 400,000.

The client and the agency at this point had devolved into full messaging puffery. Never say something strong when you can say something "me too." 

I was trying with ardor NOT to produce another ad anything like this.

I found a fact in the annual report and my partner and I made an ad out of it.

When I presented it to the client they "shit a brick." 

"Where did you get that information," they stammered.

"Well, the 70% fact was in your annual report. Page 7. The 2.3% fact is available to anyone. You can Google it in less than a second. I just put the two together."

"We can't say that." 

"It's in your annual report. Your annual report goes to the Security and Exchange Commission." 

"We can't say that," they repeated. This time in all-caps. 

No one helped me. 

Not planning. Account. Creative colleagues. Not even a client who understood advertising.

If you don't find anything differentiating about your brand or your self, and you don't spend any money making a name for yourself, everything we do, every hour we spend, every dollar we burn is a waste.

Clients have come to realize that advertising in its current form is a waste. A cost center, not a profit driver.

That conclusion leads me to conclude:

Change its current form.