I don't approve.

I'm thinking this morning about perfection (and no, I haven't been spending time in front of the mirror, my chiseled abs glistening with sweat from my morning workout.) The sort of perfection I'm thinking of is different. It is perfection that has as its opposite experimentation.

Here's the struggle we are confronting now with our "stimulus package" and with most of the advertising we attempt to create, sell and produce.

If you think about it we literally go through months of agony making an ad campaign (or even a single ad) perfect. Some of this is the anal-ness of agencies. Some of it is the anal-ness of clients. After we have an idea we revise, revise, revise. We address concerns, concerns, concerns. We include this scintilla of information that was missing. We make it perfect, then subject it to focus groups and perfect it some more.

This is why it takes us so long to actually get work in the market. At which point it's so perfect is sucks.

The other way is to try something. To capitalize on what's in the news. To exploit a quick hit. To be extemporaneous and topical.

A decade and a half ago I got fired from FCB. Even though I probably produced more work (and more good work) than anyone else in the network. Here's why I got fired (besides being "insubordinate" according to HR.) I got fired because when you make something people can sit in judgment of it--they can shoot at it. If all you do is talk about what you're going to do, or supervise work, you are unassailable. The same holds true in clientville.

Doing equals screwing.
Inaction is job satisfaction.

Work is never perfect. You can't step into the same river twice. But it is always better to do something than to do nothing.

GEIFY.

GEIFY stands for George Explains It For You.

1002 posts ago, on June 4, 2007, Ad Aged premiered, if I may use that pompous word to describe my first post. Mostly I intended to wrestle with this question: will the advertising industry make itself obsolete as the American auto industry has?

Back then, the world was a different place. A trifle of research revealed that the Dow hit an all-time high on June 4th. It closed at 13,679.57. No, that is not a typo.
Today the Dow is 5,500 points lower and Detroit is announcing its worst January in 27 years, with sales down something like 50%.

The parallels to the ad industry are self-evident. I could pull in twenty unemployed creatives today and from a sheer talent perspective we could compete if not pale the likes of a Goodby. Meanwhile the hemorrhaging continues and no staunch is in sight.

Here's the GEIFY part. Governments, societies, families and ad agencies must must must operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. Our economy crashed not on account of housing or anything like that. We crashed because we cut taxes while spending $600 billion on a war. The ad industry is crashing because we provide services and then are timorous about charging for them. Or has focused on awards when we should have focused on sales.

I suppose if I were Greek I would say that Hubris is what's done us in. And no, hu-bris has nothing to do with Jewish circumcision and every thing to arrogance in the face of whatever god you believe in--it's what leads to the fall of men, governments and empires.

Hubris. The death of Detroit. The come-uppance of Madison Avenue--and a reckoning around the world.

Here's a novel idea.

It is an emanation devoutly to be wished that somebody smarter than I, or more famous than I, or smarter about getting himself PR than I, will Christen the era I believe we're about to enter "The Back to Basics Era."

We have for so long sold sizzle instead of hormone-enhanced steak. We have for so long judged people according to the size of their bank accounts or the decibel level of their bluster. We have for so long prized bombast over logic.

"A url in the spot will ruin it."
"That's too 'selly.'"
"It's not subtle enough."

Right now in the ad industry, there is (I am speaking broadly here) a lacuna between work that wins awards and work that drives revenue and builds brands. Salient product features, permissions to believe, unique selling propositions are, at least to awards show judges and the agencies that kowtow to those judges, passe. No one seems to care that a Bud ad could be Miller ad, the fucking horse ones notwithstanding.

My guess is that the commercial here will win all sorts of awards. It will earn its creators all sorts of plaudits and they will get fat new titles, fat new jobs and maybe skinny new wives. But this spot could be about any product. There is no innate-ness in it. Therefore, it sucks. Eyebrows my arse.

My idea here is simple, and something I stole from an agency I worked at twenty years ago, "Impart useful consumer information in an executionally brilliant way." That is communication. Most of what we see is communturbation.

Look at the two spots embedded here. Which works? Which is about the brand? Taking out age-bias, which would get you a job today?

Honeyshed, We Hardly Knew Ye.

As a matter of fact, Honeyshed, we didn't know thee.

OK, a bit of background for those readers over 25 in chronological age or under 25 in IQ. Honeyshed, a product of either David Droga's genius or hubris was hailed, when it soft-launched back in November, 2007, in a well inserted press release in business week as "a combination of MTV and QVC." On their site they claim to be "reinventing shopping for the digital generation."

In point of fact there was no there there. Cleavage hawking products. Or gangstas hawking products. Coupled with oh-so-clever language like "fun shit," in a strained effort to show young people how terribly hip Honeyshed was/is. Reportedly Publicis sunk $25 million of its shareholders' dough into the star-crossed jerk-off but despite the charisma of Droga and the money of Levy, they built it and customers, as Yogi might have said, stayed away in droves.

I never saw the point to Honeyshed. The products looked like they came from a shit shed and watching illiterates talk about crap never appealed to me.

BTW, the Ad Contrarian http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/one-last-super-bowl-thought.html pointed this out in reference to the Stupor Bowl: "Seventy-seven percent of the wealth in America is controlled by people over 50. Exactly which Super Bowl spots did America's marketing geniuses direct at these people?" The same can be asked about Honeyshed. Meaning, why spend so much dough selling to people without it?

My issue is simpler. Once again in a blatant act of pandering to new technology, people felt the need to reinvent a basic human act:shopping. Shopping is shopping. It needn't be reinvented. It hasn't changed since we traded lice-picking for bananas.

Maybe the issue with Honeyshed lies with its name.
It should have been called Moneyshed.

I just got an email auto-reply.

That said:

"For Monday, 2/2, I will be out of the office but checking email frequently. If your matter is urgent and/or timely, please indicate by using "URGENT" in the subject line. Thank you."

Reading this I wondered what you should put in the subject line if your matter is NOT urgent and/or timely. Right now I'm going with "Time Suck." Later on in the day I might change that to "Utterly Superfluous."

Advertising and 14-year-old Toyota Camrys.

There's a 14-year-old dark green Toyota Camry in my neighborhood with a "For Sale" sign in its rear window. When I saw it I immediately asked myself, "who would buy a 14-year-old Camry?" and that got me thinking.

Camrys are good cars. And this particular Camry is in mighty good condition. There isn't a dent on it and not a single spot of rust. The shape of the car itself isn't bad either--the car doesn't look half-bad.

Now hold onto your hat and fasten your three-point seat-belt, here's what all this has to do with the advertising industry. nine-tenths of all advertising agencies, it seems to me, are 14-year-old Camrys. There's nothing wrong with them, per se but despite all the innovations in the world--air bags, anti-lock brakes, mp3 hookups, run-flat tires, etc. these cars just hasn't kept up. They will still get you from point "A" to point "B" but there are other ways to travel that distance that are faster, safer, more ecological and requiring less maintenance.

If you run an agency, think of your agency as a car. The world changes almost completely roughly every three years. So you should look at your agency every three years or so, and make sure it's still up to snuff. Otherwise you'll be left with a 14-year-old Toyota.

12 hours later.

I hardly remember a single spot I saw. Ed MacMahon, cars.com, that's about it.

You?

XXV years of Super Bowl commercials.

The New York Times has a feature today of some of the top Super Bowl commercials of the last 25 years. They also have data--ads by category, what percentage feature celebrities, animals and animal celebrities.

You can view it here. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/01/30/business/20080131_SUPERBOWLADS_GRAPHIC.html?hp

Unfortunately, my big Super Bowl spot came early in my career, back in 1983--a more innocent time. The jingle I wrote for a fast-food chain called Mr. Veal Chop went something like this:

"Grab a satchel of veal-chops,
They're so nice and lean,
Mr. Veal Chop's got 'em,
Oh, you know what I mean.

Have a bucket of brussel sprouts,
They're the perfect side-dish,
Only at Mr. Veal Chop,
Scratch your gourmet itch!

Mr. Veal Chop is open,
Twenty-four and seven,
Mr. Veal Chop's veal chop,
They're a small chop of heaven."

Depression 2.0.

This morning, finishing up a run in Central Park, I looked around at all the people carrying paper cups of $4 coffee, I watched a parade of expensive German cars drive through the transverses and I saw logo-adorned-tourist after logo-adorned-tourist traipse by wielding expensive Japanese equipment. I wondered what would happen if we have a real live depression.

When I came to Manhattan 30 years ago to attend Columbia University, the island was a different place. There were Greek coffee shops on about every fourth corner that were reasonably-priced. You could get a decent cup of Joe for about 35 cents. There were also Army/Navy stores where the merchandise didn't have to be periodically marked down 70%. There were bakeries, not bake shops, and newsstands and hamburger places that weren't parts of multi-national chains. There were places you could get service, like independent bookstores. Places you could get things repaired. And movie theaters that would have Charlie Chaplin festivals with one $5 ticket getting you in for a whole day's worth of films.

I suppose this is the nostalgia of an old man. I remember when you could by a Park Avenue co-op for 85 cents and an Oldsmobile for under a quarter. But really my nostalgia isn't for lower prices, it's for simpler merchandise. For sneakers without irony. For tee shirts that didn't need faux-witty sayings. For glasses that were just glasses, not an advertisement for Dolce & Gabbana. My nostalgia is for a time when conspicuous consumption was derogated not applauded.

I don't want anyone to lose their home or their job. But you know what, I think we'd all be better off if some of our greedy chickens came home to roost.

Reporting from Davos.

Finding things on Madison Avenue a bit slow, I decided to take the Ad Aged corporate jet and fly to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum and maybe indulge in my favorite meal: Swiss steak topped with Swiss cheese.

Not much news to report from Davos. But I did hear one good, dark joke:

"What is the capital of Iceland?"
"$25."