Oy, branded content.

If you grew up in New York and you grew up Jewish, whether you knew it or not, you grew up with branded content. I'm talking specifically of the Passover Haggadah published and distributed since 1932 by Maxwell House coffee--with the exception of two years during World War II when paper was rationed. In 1923, Maxwell House was the first coffee to be certified Kosher and regards its distribution of Haggadah's (it's given away over 50 million--an average of more than four each to every Jew now on Earth) to be the longest-running promotion in advertising history.

At one time, every Jewish household--and when I was growing up Jews comprised about 25% of New York's population--had a dozen or so of the prayer books. And each of those gratis prayer books had a few pages of ads for Maxwell House coffee. This was no unholy alliance, nor was it a marriage of convenience. It was a service provided by the Maxwell House people and I'm sure it did more than a little to boost Maxwell House's sales in New York in its environs.

Before coffee went upscale, before there were Starbuck's on every corner, coffee was sold pre-ground in tins you picked up at the supermarket. There were literally dozens of brands, like Savarin, Chock Full o' Nuts, President's and the Haggadah gave Maxwell House a leg up.

Yesterday there was an article in the "Times" about the Maxwell House Haggadah, how it's being made over (the English translation, not the Biblical Hebrew) to modernize the language. God is no long "king." God is now a "monarch." And so on. You can read the Times' account here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/nyregion/09haggadah.html?scp=1&sq=maxwell%20house&st=cse

I read the Times' article. I went to the Maxwell House website and though Maxwell House is now owned by a huge multi-national corporation and there's little chance that I'll actually buy any Maxwell House, I requested half a dozen of the Haggadahs. I'll let you know if they arrive.

But despite it all.

Despite it all, I still love advertising.
I love coming up with ideas.
I love great work.
I love taking something complicated and making it simple.
I love moving people.
I love the laughter.
I love the craziness.
I love the brilliant people you often work with.
I love the battles over work.
I love the pressure.
I love the fight.
I love the results.
There are plenty of things to disdain about our business.
Plenty of blowhards and know-it-alls and new-speakers.
Plenty of processes that advance nothing but some needle-dick's agenda.
But it's advertising.
And I love it.

An answer to a question.

For nearly 30 years I've earned a living in advertising. Every once in a while, someone asks me, "how has the business changed." Someone did recently and I've been thinking long and hard about it.

Here's my conclusion in one sentence: "There is no longer any incentive to produce anything."

In fact, expanding that, for many people in the business--on both the agency and the client side, what's important isn't the conclusion--it isn't a campaign, a spot or a program. What's important is that you have work to do tomorrow.

Making meetings is important. Making work isn't. Because producing work actually cuts down on meetings. And making meetings is what's important.

It's not unusual for people to say to me, "I've been here x-months and haven't produced a thing." Today, that seems par for the course.

When agencies were paid commission on media spend, they had to produce or they wouldn't get paid. Agencies also marked up production 17.65%--more incentive to produce. Also, the more work runs, the more they make--an incentive to be constantly selling.

Today this system is gone. You get paid a fee. You put hours against that fee. If an agency comes up with an idea the client buys too quickly, they won't have burned enough hours. The agency will have to refund money to the client. It's like painting a house. If you get paid hourly, you stretch things out. You don't want to finish too fast.

Of course, Clients also have a disincentive to approve work. Approved work makes you accountable. No one in marketing in America gets fired for "looking at myriad creative options." For "research and testing." For "socializing things within the client organization."

In corporate America people get fired only if they actually do something. In agency America, agencies make more money if they produce more decks.

I'm sorry. But that's the way it is.

e.e. cummings.

I was reading this morning on the way to work, my commute takes about 35 minutes and while it involves a fair amount of hurly-burly and the slowest transportation known to man (the crosstown bus) I don't mind my commute. I put Mahler on my iPod, I open my book and I am transported.

This morning I ran across a quotation by e.e. cummings:

"who cares if some oneyed son for a bitch
invents an instrument to measure Spring with?"

It seems to me that a lot of what is wrong with our business and the world is that there is always some oneyed son for a bitch inventing an instrument to measure with.

We have sitcoms and movies that have been measured and researched to the point of garbage. The commercials we show clients--even commercials that evoke a visceral reaction when we present them are, in the words of my ex-boss Ed Butler, "put through the Blanderizer."

Everything we think, say or do is quantified and analyzed and bit and bytified to oblivion.

We are so busy measuring Spring, we forget to soak in the sun.

A "moderne" one-acter.

WE OPEN ON A ALLUVIAL PLAIN IN WHAT IS NOW LOS ANGELES. THE SCENE IS LUSH, CROWDED WITH PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE. A PTERODACTYL SOARS BY AS THE CAMERA CLOSES IN ON TWO APATOSAURUSES, NORM AND FRED. FRED IS WALKING TOWARD A BUBBLING POOL OF MOLTEN TAR.

NORM: Hey, Fred, whatcha' doin'?
FRED: Gonna take a swim in the tar-pit, Norm.
NORM: I'm not sure I'd do that Freddy Boy, it looks kinda sticky in there.
FRED: I think it looks quite blithe and ambient. I think a nice dip is just what the doctorsaurus ordered.
NORM: It smells like tar, Freddy. I'd stay away.
FRED: You're the one who's acting like a stick in the mud, Norm. C'mon in with me.
FRED WADES IN THE TAR PIT. HE BECOMES STUCK
FRED: Hey, Norm, gimme a hand--or a hoof, or a paw here. I seem to be stuck.
THE CURTAIN DROPS TO THE PLEADING OF FRED.

Three wishes.

I've got a big meeting today. It could be the culmination of literally nine months work. Here's to the work going well.

I wish people would stop calling the work "my work." You in account, in planning, in media had every opportunity to influence me and the creative. Calling the work "my work" misses the point of why we supposedly work together. It also puts all the responsibility--which should be shared--only on me.

I wish the client would understand that, too. The work, at this point, is a shared product of outputs and influences.

I wish people would stop asking me if I was going to sell something today. At this point in the work's life-cycle, it should already be sold.

Ambition.

There are all kinds of things being built in New York. Including, apparently, prophets.

A musical interlude.

It seems to me that more and more beige talents are sitting at the top of more and more agencies. In a couple years or a couple months, those same agencies will bring in expensive talent from outside to shake things up then fire them a year later for being disruptive.

And yes, I'm a bit bitter this morning.

With apologies to Samuel Beckett.

She: What time are you leaving tonight?
He: I’ll be a little late I have a seven o’clock meeting.
She: A seven o’clock meeting?
He: Yeah, we’re prepping for tomorrow’s meeting.
She: The big meeting?
He: No, that meeting’s Thursday, this is prepping for that.
She: So you’re meeting to prep for the prepping meeting?
He: Unless we have to make changes in this meeting.
Then we’ll have to meet to make the
changes and go over the changes before the meeting.
She: What time do you think you’ll be home tonight?
He: Actually, I’m leaving now.
They just cancelled the meeting.

Mr. Bockius.

When I was in high school I had this brilliantly crazy teacher called Mr. Bockius. He was always exciting us into reading things we wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to, like Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and GK Chesterton in addition to the more typical Hardy and Dickens.

If we said we liked something we read, even if it were just a single sentence, he would in about three second's time give us eleventeen different books to complement what we said we liked. He also made us write essays on topics that popped into his head, probably when he was on acid. I remember one such topic was titled simply "vacuum cleaners and reality." We were left to make sense of that in 1,000 words or more.

I think about Mr. Bockius this morning because I said aloud that someone was inept. Mr. Bockius' highest praise was this: "That's aptly ept and eptly apt."