Barry Becher died at the end of June, an adman of the sort we in the industry seldom if ever herald. You can read his "New York Times" obituary here. It's the least you can do for a guy who, very likely, kept you amused. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/media/barry-becher-a-creator-of-ginsu-knife-commercials-dies-at-71.html?hpw
Becher was the writer of the original Ginsu steak knife commercial. The one that opens with this seminal line of copy: "In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife." This is said as a wooden board is karate chopped in half. "But this method doesn't work with a tomato." At this point a hand karates into mush a plump tomato.
Becher and his partners invented, pretty much, the modern infommerical. Complete with "order now," "but wait, there's more" and "operators are standing by."
It's easy to criticize Becher. His work was dreck. Crass. Tasteless. Ugly.
But it sold product.
He sold $30 million's worth of Ginsu knives alone. And then his company was acquired by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway.
Here's something for the effete in our industry to think about. Someone once asked Becher what "Ginsu" meant in English. He replied, "it means I never have to work again."
Monday, July 9, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
I don't know how they do it.
I'm not one of those, and never will be, who say that customer service "is the new marketing." There's more to marketing, of course, than customer service. And, after all, if no one knows your name, customer service doesn't mean a thing.
That said, I went to the Apple store at 6:20 this morning.
Something had happened to my four-year-old MacBook Pro. I was getting a file with a question mark on it when I tried to re-boot. This, I feared, was the end.
I was doubly afraid because I had opened up my MacBook on my own back in March, when I maxed out the RAM and put in a new, larger solid-state hard drive. For sure, I thought, they'll yell at me.
I was met by a lovely lady as I walked into the store. "We're going to get you in early," she assured me, batting her limpid iEyes at me.
In a moment or two a "genius" took my machine. He plugged in some plugs. I confessed my indiscretions, which he laughed off. He ran some diagnostics. "You have a cable that's gone out," he said. "It's about the easiest thing in the world to fix. It will cost you $17."
"I have Apple Care," I replied. "I shouldn't have to pay."
"It expired, actually, yesterday. But that's ok. It's free."
In about ten minutes he came geniusing back with my Mac. All spruced up and ready to go.
I really don't know how Apple does it. They pay these people like shit. But somehow they are attentive, intelligent and eager.
What's more, when I said to him I use my MacBook solely for email, Word and web-browsing, he told me there was no need to upgrade to the new retina display machines. That is, he didn't even try to sell me.
There was more good attitude in the Apple Store than you'd find in a dozen Williamsburgs.
Again, I don't know how they do it.
That said, I went to the Apple store at 6:20 this morning.
Something had happened to my four-year-old MacBook Pro. I was getting a file with a question mark on it when I tried to re-boot. This, I feared, was the end.
I was doubly afraid because I had opened up my MacBook on my own back in March, when I maxed out the RAM and put in a new, larger solid-state hard drive. For sure, I thought, they'll yell at me.
I was met by a lovely lady as I walked into the store. "We're going to get you in early," she assured me, batting her limpid iEyes at me.
In a moment or two a "genius" took my machine. He plugged in some plugs. I confessed my indiscretions, which he laughed off. He ran some diagnostics. "You have a cable that's gone out," he said. "It's about the easiest thing in the world to fix. It will cost you $17."
"I have Apple Care," I replied. "I shouldn't have to pay."
"It expired, actually, yesterday. But that's ok. It's free."
In about ten minutes he came geniusing back with my Mac. All spruced up and ready to go.
I really don't know how Apple does it. They pay these people like shit. But somehow they are attentive, intelligent and eager.
What's more, when I said to him I use my MacBook solely for email, Word and web-browsing, he told me there was no need to upgrade to the new retina display machines. That is, he didn't even try to sell me.
There was more good attitude in the Apple Store than you'd find in a dozen Williamsburgs.
Again, I don't know how they do it.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The 22 most influential advertising bloggers.
This has just come to my attention. And I must say I'm surprised and maybe even a little befuddled. A magazine called "Business Insider," has just named me among the world's "22 most influential advertising bloggers." You can scan the article here: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-influential-advertising-blogs-and-bloggers-2012-7
Naturally, I have never heard of "Business Insider." For all I know its readership may be even less than mine. However, as my old man used to say, "it's better than a poke in the eye with an account guy's elbow."
Naturally, I have never heard of "Business Insider." For all I know its readership may be even less than mine. However, as my old man used to say, "it's better than a poke in the eye with an account guy's elbow."
Working out with Uncle Slappy.
It was too hot to work out outdoors (it's supposed to go up to 97-degrees this afternoon) so Uncle Slappy and I headed to our basement health club for our 45-minute workout. As usual Uncle Slappy was in rare form. Perhaps rarer form than usual.
There are two exercise bikes in the gym. I got on one and Uncle Slappy mounted the other. He doesn't do a whole lot of revolutions per minute, but I give the old man credit, he keeps pedaling for the full 45, wise-cracking the entire time.
About 12 minutes into our workout, a sylph-like young woman entered the club and climbed onto the elliptical trainer, which Uncle Slappy insists on calling the epileptical. She began to exercise but the machine made a harsh clanking sound. Something was clearly broken.
Uncle Slappy reassured her this way. "It must be because you're so heavy." She probably tipped the scale at 110 pounds. She smiled at Slappy, not knowing how else to react and shifted her activity to the adjacent elliptical.
After our workout was done, Slappy got off his bike and shuffled into the mens' locker-room where he weighed himself on the scale.
He came out a minute later and announced "167. If I were corned beef, your Aunt Sylvie would be a rich woman."
There are two exercise bikes in the gym. I got on one and Uncle Slappy mounted the other. He doesn't do a whole lot of revolutions per minute, but I give the old man credit, he keeps pedaling for the full 45, wise-cracking the entire time.
About 12 minutes into our workout, a sylph-like young woman entered the club and climbed onto the elliptical trainer, which Uncle Slappy insists on calling the epileptical. She began to exercise but the machine made a harsh clanking sound. Something was clearly broken.
Uncle Slappy reassured her this way. "It must be because you're so heavy." She probably tipped the scale at 110 pounds. She smiled at Slappy, not knowing how else to react and shifted her activity to the adjacent elliptical.
After our workout was done, Slappy got off his bike and shuffled into the mens' locker-room where he weighed himself on the scale.
He came out a minute later and announced "167. If I were corned beef, your Aunt Sylvie would be a rich woman."
Friday, July 6, 2012
Knuckle under. Or not.
From the moment you're born, attempts are made to get you to knuckle under.
You're meant to be well-behaved.
Obedient.
Clean your room.
You're meant to speak when spoken to.
You're meant to be obeisant to people bigger than you.
Or people wearing blue blazers.
Or people in uniform.
You're meant to believe what you're told.
That it's you they're thinking about.
Your future.
Your happiness.
You get this from your parents, the cool kids at school, your teachers and those sadists who make you feel if you can't climb a thick rope hanging down from the ceiling that something is wrong with you.
You're meant to knuckle under.
To believe they know and you don't.
That they're right and you're wrong.
Knuckle under.
Then you get into a job.
A job that's hard to get.
Where you see it's people who toe the line who get ahead.
The toads.
The ass suckers.
The brown-noses.
And you're stuck making shit because you're not one of the guys.
You're not knuckling under.
Somehow you progress anyway.
You earn a title.
Then maybe you get a client that's as blind as shit is brown.
They're after you too.
To make you knuckle under.
Life would be so much easier if you just would.
And about twelve people know the difference anyway.
Knuckle under.
It's there every day.
Knuckle under.
What do you do?
You're meant to be well-behaved.
Obedient.
Clean your room.
You're meant to speak when spoken to.
You're meant to be obeisant to people bigger than you.
Or people wearing blue blazers.
Or people in uniform.
You're meant to believe what you're told.
That it's you they're thinking about.
Your future.
Your happiness.
You get this from your parents, the cool kids at school, your teachers and those sadists who make you feel if you can't climb a thick rope hanging down from the ceiling that something is wrong with you.
You're meant to knuckle under.
To believe they know and you don't.
That they're right and you're wrong.
Knuckle under.
Then you get into a job.
A job that's hard to get.
Where you see it's people who toe the line who get ahead.
The toads.
The ass suckers.
The brown-noses.
And you're stuck making shit because you're not one of the guys.
You're not knuckling under.
Somehow you progress anyway.
You earn a title.
Then maybe you get a client that's as blind as shit is brown.
They're after you too.
To make you knuckle under.
Life would be so much easier if you just would.
And about twelve people know the difference anyway.
Knuckle under.
It's there every day.
Knuckle under.
What do you do?
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Uncle Slappy sees Max Blitz.
Uncle Slappy and Aunt Sylvie arrived--by plane--from Boca yesterday morning to spend some time with us and to escape the south Florida heat. Unfortunately, the heat and humidity in New York have been every bit as oppressive as what's in Florida. Nevertheless, Slappy and Sylvie are here and we'll make the most of it.
I turned the A/C up in the third bedroom hoping to make the place comfortable for them. The first thing Uncle Slappy did was turn it off.
"You shouldn't, Mr. Big Schott, send all your salary to the Consolidated Edison company. Save some for your will."
"Uncle Slappy," I explained for about the two-hundredth time, "the A/C is in the building. We don't pay extra for it. You should be comfortable."
"I saw the Con-Ed men digging in the street on Independence Day," Slappy shot back, "with their union making sure they're getting double-triple overtime for the holiday. That's you that's paying them."
The old man wouldn't relent. He refused to turn on the A/C.
Just before lunch Aunt Sylvie needed to lie down, so Uncle Slappy, my wife and I went for a walk to the CVS drug store on 82nd and 1st, just a few block from my apartment. They sell Pinaud's "Lilac Vegetal" aftershave there, probably the last place in America that does. Slappy's been using the stuff for about 70 years and he stocks up when he is here.
As we were leaving the store, Slappy ran into another alte kocker, Max Blitz, 91, who Uncle Slappy has known since Roosevelt (Franklin, not Teddy) was in office.
"Blitzy," Uncle Slappy started. "What brings you out today?"
Mr. Blitz mumbled something about his wife, Blooma, needing Poligrip. "They have tons of Poligrip in the store," Blitz continued, "But only one of the shelf. You can't keep your teeth in with the Poligrip in the basement."
Slappy nodded knowingly in assent. "The kids. They empty boxes like glaciers. You don't need it in a box, you need it on the shelf."
Mr. Blitz now turned his attention away from Uncle Slappy and myself and onto my wife. He had the twinkle in his eyes of an inveterate flirt.
"You should give me a call," Blitz said. "But if a woman answers, hang up."
I turned the A/C up in the third bedroom hoping to make the place comfortable for them. The first thing Uncle Slappy did was turn it off.
"You shouldn't, Mr. Big Schott, send all your salary to the Consolidated Edison company. Save some for your will."
"Uncle Slappy," I explained for about the two-hundredth time, "the A/C is in the building. We don't pay extra for it. You should be comfortable."
"I saw the Con-Ed men digging in the street on Independence Day," Slappy shot back, "with their union making sure they're getting double-triple overtime for the holiday. That's you that's paying them."
The old man wouldn't relent. He refused to turn on the A/C.
Just before lunch Aunt Sylvie needed to lie down, so Uncle Slappy, my wife and I went for a walk to the CVS drug store on 82nd and 1st, just a few block from my apartment. They sell Pinaud's "Lilac Vegetal" aftershave there, probably the last place in America that does. Slappy's been using the stuff for about 70 years and he stocks up when he is here.As we were leaving the store, Slappy ran into another alte kocker, Max Blitz, 91, who Uncle Slappy has known since Roosevelt (Franklin, not Teddy) was in office.
"Blitzy," Uncle Slappy started. "What brings you out today?"
Mr. Blitz mumbled something about his wife, Blooma, needing Poligrip. "They have tons of Poligrip in the store," Blitz continued, "But only one of the shelf. You can't keep your teeth in with the Poligrip in the basement."
Slappy nodded knowingly in assent. "The kids. They empty boxes like glaciers. You don't need it in a box, you need it on the shelf."
Mr. Blitz now turned his attention away from Uncle Slappy and myself and onto my wife. He had the twinkle in his eyes of an inveterate flirt.
"You should give me a call," Blitz said. "But if a woman answers, hang up."
The God particle.
It appears that physicists working with the large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland have discovered something they've been looking for for a long time: the Higgs boson, or the God particle. The Higgs boson imbues things with mass, which, I suppose, is what makes them things in the first place, that is the possession of mass.
I can't say, not even for a minute, that I understand any of this, any more than I can understand why a TV show like "Jersey Shore," is interesting. But nonetheless, the incipient breakthrough discovery got me thinking. Does advertising have a God particle?
That is, is there something, perhaps something elusive and mysterious and hidden, that imbues an ad (or to be politically correct, a marketing communication with "mass.") Or, more specifically, what is it, what piece of God makes a communication worth noticing, acting upon, remembering or passing along.
Of course, the advertising industry does not have a 17-miles-long Large Hadron Collider to help us unravel such mysteries. And even if we do have 17-miles of empty holding-company desks filled with highly-paid holding company suits who have never written an ad, they do nothing, it seems, to help us.
The only thing they accelerate is their own ambitions, and the collisions they set into motion lead not to breakthroughs but to downfalls.
There may be a God particle in advertising.
It may be interest.
It may be humor.
It may be intelligence or empathy.
It may be a razor-thin slice of humanity and truth in a world that prefers to revel in bombast and cliche.
Maybe one day someone brilliant, a latter-day Bill Bernbach will re-emerge and show us again the way.
Until then we will keep searching.
That is, is there something, perhaps something elusive and mysterious and hidden, that imbues an ad (or to be politically correct, a marketing communication with "mass.") Or, more specifically, what is it, what piece of God makes a communication worth noticing, acting upon, remembering or passing along.
Of course, the advertising industry does not have a 17-miles-long Large Hadron Collider to help us unravel such mysteries. And even if we do have 17-miles of empty holding-company desks filled with highly-paid holding company suits who have never written an ad, they do nothing, it seems, to help us.
The only thing they accelerate is their own ambitions, and the collisions they set into motion lead not to breakthroughs but to downfalls.
There may be a God particle in advertising.
It may be interest.
It may be humor.
It may be intelligence or empathy.
It may be a razor-thin slice of humanity and truth in a world that prefers to revel in bombast and cliche.
Maybe one day someone brilliant, a latter-day Bill Bernbach will re-emerge and show us again the way.
Until then we will keep searching.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Basics.
Yesterday I participated in an online symposium which allowed college advertising students to ask agency veterans like myself some questions about the industry, about getting started and about whatever else was on was on their minds.
One thing really stood out more than anything else: Basics matter.
The symposium employed google+ technology. 40 of the scheduled 60 minutes were marred by technical difficulties. The basics weren't right. (By the way, in America, roughly 125 years after electricity was adapted for home use, millions of people from Ohio to Virginia are without power. For nearly a week. All due to a minor storm.) The basics aren't right.
Toward the end of the question and answer sessions, the panelists were asked "with all the technology in the world, with the changing media landscape etc. what will be the biggest change in advertising over the next 20 years."
I answered first. And I think definitively.
I believe that 99% of all clients don't know or can't articulate what it is they sell or what they do. Regardless of channel, regardless of bits and bytes, our job is to clarify and organize a client's reason for being. To say what they do, why they do it and why it is important.
There are all kinds of "likes" we can attempt to garner. We can put them on the latest, greatest and coolest. That's all fine.
But none of it makes a difference if you don't get the basics right.
--
Right now I am listening to the news on an L.A. station of National Public Radio, so I get in addition to national and world news, local California news.
California is in the throes of a $17 billion state budget deficit. And there is a story about the state banning foie gras unless it can be produced cruelty-free. I don't hate animals. But it would seem to me the state may have bigger things to worry about than the livers of geese.
Again. Basics.
One thing really stood out more than anything else: Basics matter.
The symposium employed google+ technology. 40 of the scheduled 60 minutes were marred by technical difficulties. The basics weren't right. (By the way, in America, roughly 125 years after electricity was adapted for home use, millions of people from Ohio to Virginia are without power. For nearly a week. All due to a minor storm.) The basics aren't right.
Toward the end of the question and answer sessions, the panelists were asked "with all the technology in the world, with the changing media landscape etc. what will be the biggest change in advertising over the next 20 years."
I answered first. And I think definitively.
I believe that 99% of all clients don't know or can't articulate what it is they sell or what they do. Regardless of channel, regardless of bits and bytes, our job is to clarify and organize a client's reason for being. To say what they do, why they do it and why it is important.
There are all kinds of "likes" we can attempt to garner. We can put them on the latest, greatest and coolest. That's all fine.
But none of it makes a difference if you don't get the basics right.
--
Right now I am listening to the news on an L.A. station of National Public Radio, so I get in addition to national and world news, local California news.
California is in the throes of a $17 billion state budget deficit. And there is a story about the state banning foie gras unless it can be produced cruelty-free. I don't hate animals. But it would seem to me the state may have bigger things to worry about than the livers of geese.
Again. Basics.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Throwing you a curve.
If the curve above represents brains, bad agencies hire less brainy people. Most agencies hire average intelligence. And a few agencies hire on the positive downslope of the curve.
The curve can also represent ambition or integrity.
It makes sense to look around you, to look critically at the people you work with and for.
Where does your agency sit on the bell curve?
Monday, July 2, 2012
Thoughts of a short week.
Secretary of Labor: The Department of Labor wishes to note that the workers of Freedonia are demanding shorter hours.
Rufus T. Firefly: Very well, we'll give them shorter hours. We'll start by cutting their lunch hour to 20 minutes.
One of the many lunacies of our business--especially the creative end of it, is the constant imprecation to be billable, accountable and to have no downtime. It's a ludicrous notion to think that ideas can be regularized and "clocked" like cleaning a drain or mowing a lawn.
The great French director Jean Renoir once said "The foundation of all civilization is loitering." But in the world of agencies, the holding company vise says NO.
Tim Kreider had this to say in this Sunday's "Times."
"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.... It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking."
That's all for now.
I'm too busy to think.
Rufus T. Firefly: Very well, we'll give them shorter hours. We'll start by cutting their lunch hour to 20 minutes.
One of the many lunacies of our business--especially the creative end of it, is the constant imprecation to be billable, accountable and to have no downtime. It's a ludicrous notion to think that ideas can be regularized and "clocked" like cleaning a drain or mowing a lawn.
The great French director Jean Renoir once said "The foundation of all civilization is loitering." But in the world of agencies, the holding company vise says NO.
Tim Kreider had this to say in this Sunday's "Times."
"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.... It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking."
That's all for now.
I'm too busy to think.
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