This morning I ran headlong into an allegory.

I am fifty-one years old and there are days--weeks maybe--when I feel like all my advertising experience, training and expertise are excoriated and dismissed by the poseurs and posturers and the picayuned penised who, like locusts, infest our industry.

This morning, Thursday April 16th, on the street near the gutter I saw a Christmas tree someone had finally gotten rid of almost four-months late.

It had outlived its usefulness. It was no longer needed. I identified with it.

Car wars in Santa Monica.

What's the worst that could happen?

I was on my way to work this morning, fairly brimming with ideas. My fingers ready to dance over the keyboard, spinning out protean quantities of art in the service of commerce.

Another Wednesday in Fun City.

As I walked down the steps to the subway, I almost immediately noticed something was amiss. The platform was bursting to the seams with Somali pirates. They were everywhere, belts of bullets criss-crossing their barrel-chests, parrots fluttering upon their shoulders, hooks glistening in the fluorescence and the unmistakable sound of peglegs on concrete.

Before I could wheel around and look for the M-15 bus, I was taken hostage. Bound and gagged (and not in a good way)and on my way to New Lots Avenue out in Brooklyn.
Fortunately after about an hour I was rescued by a troop of transit cops and I was back on my way to work. No harm done.

Yep, another day, another hostage situation.

Adweek's 2008 Agency Report Cards.

I've been following Adweek's agency report card since they started publishing them some 26 years ago. Maybe it's just my mood, but never before have I seen such disparity between the grades Adweek metes out for "Creative" and the grade they give for "Numbers."

Here's what I mean.
Arnold got a B for creative. A C- for numbers.
BBH, an A- for creative, a D for numbers.
Ogilvy a B+ for creative, an F for numbers.

It occurs to me that these grades are indicative of a cataclysmic problem in our industry. There is a divorce, a chasm, a breach, an abyss between what wins creative accolades and what drives sales--what builds brands.

In other words, so much creative is judged by a false standard of "creativity." Not by the one true standard of efficacy (however you define that.) If creative was working there would be no "A" for creativity and "D" for numbers. Because creativity would drive client results would drive agency growth.

Ok, I'm in a shit-fuck mood. And that's all for now.

The emphatic end of Enfatico.

Enfatico's website is still living though the agency itself is dead. Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, but I took a look at the "Our Team" section of their site, and here's what I saw:

Enfatico

* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Executive Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Operating Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
President, Consumer Solutions
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Financial Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Talent Officer
* Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Digital Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Creative Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Analytics Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Communications Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Media Officer
* Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx,
Chief Technology Officer

10 Chief ____________ Officers and one President, all for an agency with no ostensible business.

I wonder who their Chief Too Many Chiefs Officer is.

Something about which to think.

I just read an obituary of a WWII hero who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for a whole host of heroics before that word was tarnished by politicians and news-mongerers. You can read the obituary here. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/us/10dunham.html?hpw and it's certainly worthwhile.

Here's my point, that is if I have one at all. This guy fought off a trillion Germans, wiped out machine-gun nests singe-handedly and perhaps most amazingly hid from the Nazis in a barrel of sauerkraut (I'm not making this up.)

All we do is create ads that for the most part are either a blight on our culture or fail to sell a product or service.

As I like to say, STFUADYJ.*

*Shut the fuck up and do your job.

(I don't want no) Satisfaction.

I am listening this morning to Jim Press, the President and Vice Chairman of the Chrysler Corporation. He is talking about its proposed merger with the Italian auto-giant FIAT. Based on his language I can only conclude that no matter what infusions of cash, no matter if the merger with FIAT takes, Chrysler as a corporation with fail.

Here's why.

Press talked repeatedly about customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is a term from 50 years ago and in today's world, it is no longer enough. The new "floor" in what you should deliver to your customers should be ebullience, excitement, energy. If your customers are merely satisfied, when it comes time to buy a new product, they will likely include others on their shopping list.

Ask someone how a date went, if they answer, "I was satisfied," chances are it was a pretty lame experience.

My point here is simple. Products and services today must do more than satisfy or they are merely utilities or commodities. The products (and the people) we love do more than satisfy, they turn us into exponents. We embrace them and start relationships with them. Not from companies that merely satisfy.

Is it just me?

Or does the title "Chief Growth Officer" sound like it has something to do with cysts and tumors?

A message to "designers."

When I write copy
and I put a line
break
in the copy,
that is how
you should break the line.

Don't change the meaning of what I write
because
it
looks
better
or because you decide to
arb
it
trar
ily.
o
k
?

Tyranny of timesheets. Continued.

Over the last 48 hours I felt, as an ex-ecd of mine used to exclaim, "fucked with an iron rod."

I've had a single positioning line to write and no time to do it. So, for much of the last two days I've been turning this over in my head and coming up with nothing but blanks.

Blank.
Blank.
Blank.

This morning walking early to the subway I finally had an idea. I ran through every permutation to kill it and couldn't, shared it with my colleague via IM at 8:30 and now we are moving ahead.

How do you put that on a fucking timesheet Mr. C fucking FO?