An A-peeling Job.

It makes sense, even if you're happy doing whatever you're doing for a living, to occasionally open a job listing and see what's what. 

It makes sense to see if the grass really is greener on the other side of the barbed wire (I live in a rough neighborhood). 

It makes sense to see if the new pizza place everyone is talking about is really better than the place you've been going since your were in college. (That's V&T's on 1024 Amsterdam between 110th and 111th. And no, the new place isn't nearly as good and is four times the cost.) It even makes sense to try the new Yogel--the yogurt-flavored bagel that will surely be, at some point during our benighted days, the next next thing.

Back in 1979, you could buy a small pie for $3.50.
Man, I wish I had a Rheingold right now.

All that being said, not too many minutes ago, not having a post for Thursday and not having any ideas for a post, I did what so many do when they need an idea in a jiffy, I procrastinated. 

In other words, I went on LinkedIn (which could be called ThinkNot) where I saw this ad:

Oh, says I.

That job listing looks vaguely interesting.

Publicis has somehow gained the reputation as the "well-run" advertising holding company. At a time when agencies are losing money faster than municipal transit systems, Publicis' numbers look glossy.

Still, somehow I remembered a story from 74 years ago about Marilyn Monroe. Back then, Edith Gwynn, a gossip columnist for the Los Angeles Mirror, criticized the gown Monroe war to the "Photoplay Awards." Gwynn wrote: Monroe's gown was “Ill-fitting and too tight in all the WRONG places. It’s black lace over bright red and has a wide, red silk ruffle…Everyone isn’t born with taste. But surely when ‘a star is born’ her studio should see to it that the public doesn’t see her looking cheap and vulgar."

20th Century Fox, Monroe's studio wrote that Monroe would look good in a potato sack. They promptly had Monroe photographed in one. 

By way of metaphor, I wondered if Publicis was the Marilyn in our "potato sack" of an industry. 

And so, I checked out the Publicis job. 

The Publicis job-listing had all the attractiveness, speaking of potatoes, of a tumor on a tuber. And it was written with the uniqueness of a condolence card in Soviet Russia--just after the 1937 purges.

I'm a fairly experienced, well-read and well-educated person. Still, I don't know what half those bullet-points are asking for.

Nevertheless, as someone with the stamina of Tenzing Norgay, I kept reading. 

Norgay led Edmund Hillary to the summit of Everest.

I wondered how many ducats such a job would earn me? 

That's when I came to this portion of the job description.

BTW, and more to the point, as I've said before in this space, so much of what AI generates is bad. Not just slop bad. Stupid bad. 

So much of AI is insulting to readers, viewers, listeners. So much is so widely and thoroughly wrong that you can only conclude that the company using the AI (in this case Publicis) cares hardly a whit for the people they send messages to.

We all make mistakes, of course. Once, a few dozen years ago, a small typo creeped into Ad Aged. But that's human and not unfair. Errors of the sort I've highlighted above are not borne from human frailty--they come from the worst place errors can come from. In this case, corporate Hubris. 

Hubris because there's been a trillion-dollars worth of marketing-spend force-feeding us the idea that AI produces perfection. That AI can do anything you and I can do. Worse, AI can do anything Spielberg can do, or Amy Sedaris or Van Gogh. Trillions are being spent telling us our government, public health, safety and multi-trillion dollar wars can be run by AI. In most cases, it misses--wide--the most salient information, or ignores the most pressing needs of people.

No matter what business you're in, before you go whole-hog and embrace A.I. make sure you also embrace simple, old-fashioned proof-reading and even more-so, respect for your audience.

The reputation you save may be your own.

(In fairness to Publicis, they've corrected their listing. Someone there must be eating potatoes--brain food.)