Making ads.

If you listen to the news--at least the news on National Public Radio--you realize how little of it is actually news. There are fund-raising messages, those banal human interest stories about the guy who can juggle jello. There are the endless reports on traffic conditions. And a variety of other things that are really small and transitory, rather than important and "newsworthy."

I get much the same feeling when I read Stuart Elliot, ad columnist of "The New York Times." His column today is about Bazooka bubblegum. Hardly important or newsworthy. Likewise, on the blog agencyspy. Most of the posts are about agency Christmas cards or some other horrid self-promotion that turns any self-respecting stomach.

My conclusion in all this is that there's a natural human predilection to disdain what you do every day. I'm sure the cavemen who hunted mammoths 50,000 years ago wish they invented agriculture.

But my point today, if there is one, isn't about the paleolithic or bazooka or jello. It's about life in ad agencies.

In ad agencies it seems to me, about 20% of all work actually involves advertising.

In fact 80% of people in agencies seem to actually hate advertising.

Meetings where work is shown have ideas for flashmobs, Times' Square takeovers, twitter extravaganzas.

Where's the ad?

When I was a kid, my baseball hero was Pete Rose.

Rose wasn't the best player of the day but he did one thing better than anyone else. He consistently led the league in hits. He got more than anyone else.

He defined his baseball job as maybe a baseball job should be defined.

Hit the ball.

I don't know if it was Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill or both who formulated Utilitarianism. That is doing the greatest good for the greatest number.

But that's what we're supposed to do in advertising. Influence the greatest numbers.

Make ads to do so.

Pulling strings.

I am reading a new book by the famous mathematician and scientist Benoit Mandelbroit, it's called "The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick."

I like reading books by and about geniuses. Like reading about sports heroes or generals or notable conquerers of distant lands, it interests me to see the background, the genesis of the mighty and powerful.

This morning I read a simple thought from Mandelbroit about how an idea is found.

I think it makes sense for our industry.

Mandelbroit described finding his Ph.D. topic as pulling at a string.

You pull and pull.

Sometimes the string is played out quickly.

Sometimes it stretches out for a couple inches or a foot and then ends.

Sometimes you can keep pulling.

Sometimes you can't.

Sometimes when you pull, you get to something or someplace that's attached to something else that leads to something more.

Sometimes, as you keep pulling you find something.

This pulling of string is what we do in our business.

And, I'll admit, something you can find string of adequate length quickly.

But more often you have to search, you have to make many stabs, you have to have the time to pull many strings before you find one that leads somewhere.

Cheap is cheap.

Think of what we endure all to get the "lowest price."

Non-existent service.

Nuisance fees.

Horrible products.

No innovation.

Sales help that simply doesn't help.

This is what we get from cable companies (my internet saga continues), telcos, big box retailers, airlines, government agencies and more.

Not surprisingly, this is what clients too often get from ad agencies.

They've so squeezed us so to the bone that we've become adversaries not partners.

What I don't understand is that no one in any industry positions itself as "reassuringly expensive." Or, even slightly more expensive but worth the difference.

Ogilvy used to have the reputation of paying its creative people more. They got better people. And because their salaries were high, they were able to keep them. Clients understood that they were getting a qualitative difference. They were, for years, willing to pay more for that difference.

Today, everything is a race to the bottom. Who can answer the bell cheapest.

So you get cheap people.

Cheap thinking.

Cheap service.

Cheap results.

That's what we're paying for.

Sin.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to do something boring.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to do something trite.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to do something hackneyed.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to do something you've seen before.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to lie.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to steal.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to cheat.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to treat people like shit.

The worst sin you can commit in advertising today is not to be a schmuck.

No, the worst sin you can commit is to show work
to someone's boss before you show it to them.

For whatever reason not going through all 47 "no's" on the way to "yes"
is advertising's biggest sin.

It doesn't matter if what you've shown is good.

Different.

Extra.

Inspired.

What matters is that you follow a process as Kafkaesque as anything the Soviets could ever derive.

Not doing so is the biggest sin of all.

Baffled. And the three types of brands.

Just a couple days ago a Forrester Study was released that rated the "top Customer Engagement Agencies." It rated a dozen or so CEAs (their bullshit to initial ratio was in fine fettle) on a dozen or more categories. You can see two of their ratings charts here:

Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I got old. But I've risen to the top, or nearly so, at every agency I've ever been at: traditional, direct, events, interactive. So, I like to think I have a breadth of hands-on experience that's really second to a few, if not none.

I looked at these charts and wondered.

What the fuck are they rating?

Could someone please, I mean it, explain how the criteria selected by Forrester measures the effectiveness of anything.

Could someone please tell me--or better, show me customer engagement with any product that isn't made by Nike or Apple?

Could someone please explain how "customer metrics and measurement methodologies" sells soap?

We have turned our business over to blowhards.

Plain and simple.

I leave 2/3rds of all meetings not understanding a word of what anyone is saying.

Just yesterday I heard once again how one-million "likes" will blossom into 1.3 billion human billboards.

Oh, fuck me sideways with a rusty iron rod.

I will break this down for you once again:

There are three types of brands.

1. There are the "blands." No one will talk about them, be engaged by them or do anything with them. There may be a "Saran Wrap" page on Facebook, but it is meaningless. Blands can try to up their fucking Twitter fucking footprint, but I gotta tell you. I can't even imagine what a conversation about Airwick Solid would be like. Or a spice like Tumeric.

2. There are "brants." These are the brands people rant about. Telcos. Airlines. ISPs. Cable companies. They don't make any steps that aren't false. People hate them. These brants should stay away from social media.

3. Finally, there are "braves." The few brands people rave about. Usually they've spent billions, like Nike of Apple to make themselves useful and likeable. These braves can use social media, but don't need to because people already talk about them. Brants like "Warby Parker" don't count. Because until further notice, they don't exist outside of Williamsburg. And I would prefer a weekend in  Guantanamo to one in Hipster Heaven.

I don't really know if or how you can take a bland and make it a brave. Or a brant and make it a brave. It's way easier to destroy a brave than build one.

But I can tell you that getting to brave-hood takes years of concerted, consistent effort, money and, yes, bravery.

That's why there are so few.

The future is NOW!!!!!!!

For well-over a decade now we have heard about the one-to-one future. A future in which if I am a left-handed, Republican, scuba-diver who likes vanilla milkshakes and toasted corn muffins I will get communications that speak directly to my preferences.

I have yet to personally experience the one-to-one future. I've yet to get a piece of effective individualized marketing.

However, I've just realized that this sort of communication happens everyday. Targeted communications that speak directly to the consumer--on their terms.

Everyday ad agencies spend countless hours creating work that has an audience of just a few.

We spend, it seems, most of our time creating work that will go no further than our clients' offices.
We shovel on the buzzwords that speak to our clients' obsessions. We speak directly to our clients in language that they--and only they--understand. And no one will ever see this work but them.

This is what our industry has become.

Makers of work for people who have make work jobs.

We create decks.

Videos.

Prototypes.

Widgets.

And other crap that no one but our clients will ever see.

I have seen the future.

And it sucks.

We're all writers.

As a society we have eliminated generalists in favor of people who specialize in a narrow band of "expertise."

We see this most obviously in the medical profession. There are no "general practitioners" anymore. If your left nostril is stuffed, you can probably find an ENT who deals most specifically with that particular orifice.

Specialization has given us permission to be largely dumb.

We don't need to know the fairly basic stuff that previous generations knew. There are specialists for that.

Everyday I run across people who cannot write.

Simple expository writing should not be a specialist skill.

In an era where no one is ever more than an axe's length away from a keyboard, writing skills should be universal.

Last week I was sent copy from a "social media and platform specialist." I received the copy 20 minutes before it was to be presented to the client. The writer's spelling was--there's no other word for it--atrocious.

More words were spelled wrong than were spelled right.

I tried to stop the meeting.

But the work had already been emailed to the client.

I was livid and immediately sent an apology to the client.

It was horrendous.

Of course no one wanted to join me in drumming this so-called writer out of the agency.

Instead she was excused because she is a "social media specialist," not a writer.

I'll make this simple.

If you write, you're a writer.

If you're unfamiliar with a word, look it up. In most cases looking a word up takes less than 30 seconds.

Read your work over before you send it.

Read it backwards if it's going to a client. You notice mistakes easier that way.

If you're worried that you can't write, read a book on how to write.

Verlyn Klinkenborg's "Several Short Sentences" is a good place to start. http://www.amazon.com/Several-Short-Sentences-About-Writing/dp/0307266346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351916407&sr=8-1&keywords=verlyn+klinkenborg

Read good writing. It's the best way to learn to write.

Nike has spent the last 40 years or so telling us we're all athletes.

Even if we do nothing more than an occasional jog around the reservoir we accoutre ourselves with hundreds of dollars of athletic gear.

Well guess what?

We're all writers.

So learn to write well.

You don't have to be a Joseph Mitchell, an A.J. Liebling or a Mike Berger.

But you do need to be able to organize your thoughts and present them in an intelligent manner.

That's called being professional.

Being a grown-up.

Grow up.

The busiest online shopping day of the year.

"I went to the mall," Uncle Slappy began without even saying his customary "Hello, Schmendrick." "I went to the mall," the old man continued. "Sylvie dragged me. She said the sales were not to be missed. So we went on Black Friday to the mall."

"Good morning, Uncle Slappy," I interrupted.

"If you have an enemy, if there's someone you detest, abhor, can't stand, to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving you should send them."

"I'm surprised you actually left the condo, Uncle Slappy. Why didn't you just shop online? I got you the MacBook Air last Hannukah so down to the pool you could bring it. Is there something wrong with your computer."

"No," the Old Man said ruefully, "I misunderstood. The Mac, like a top it runs. But here's what happened."

I interjected a pre-emptive "Oy," and let the Old Man run.

"You remember two years ago the schmuck down three condos said I parked in his space. To the condo board he goes accusing me of trespassing, a Rabbi, trespassing in his exalted parking space."

"I remember," I said, "it was quite a tsimmis."

"Yes, it was a fight with a schmuck by the name of Si Berg. A dermatologist from Hewlett, a pimple-popper, if you will."

"I will," I answered.

"Well all over the radio all weekend long, I hear about some big event honoring Si Berg on Monday."

"And event honoring Si Berg?"

"Yes, every news story I hear has something about Si Berg Monday. How everyone will be shopping on Si Berg Monday. I said to Sylvie, if everyone is honoring that putz Si Berg, if they're naming a day after him, let's go to the mall on Friday and avoid Si Berg on Monday and every other day."

"I see," I responded, my voice barely audible over the shaking of my head.

"Si Berg Monday, my tuchas," Slappy spat.

I thought about trying to explain but I thought better of it.

"So, listen to me, Schmendrick," the old man concluded, "Stay out of the store today. Si Berg don't deserve your money."

I said goodbye. And walked to work feeling like I had gone three rounds peppered with jabs and crosses from a crafty welterweight, bruised and more than a little worse for wear.







 

A problem with my Time-Warner.

Over the years we have all been folded, spindled and mutilated by various marketers. These marketers have set up oxymorons they call "Customer Service Departments." In fact, these departments have nothing to do with customers or service. There's no customer hue and cry because for the most part, there's no one to complain to. Besides, most of the large companies we have in our lives are part of an oligopoly--so even if we could switch, customer service has been a steady race to the bottom. Everyone sucks.

In fact all these companies really do is shuffle you between surly subcontinent representatives and labyrinthine phone trees. We plug in our phone numbers, we're subjected to banal music and sales messages and long wait times. At the end of the morass, there's a 50-50 chance that your original issue was ever resolved.

I have a technique for dealing with ISP issues, or cable issues, or power issues or phone issues. It's wrong, but I do it.

I tell the reps that I have some kind of disfigurement that makes the restoration of the service I am paying for especially indispensable to me.

Just now my internet was working at "American infrastructure" speeds. Something about 50% slower than dial up.

I called Time-Warner. And finally after about twenty minutes of phone tree, I got a "customer service rep," from a land where my last name is considered unpronounceable.

I explained my problem.

And then I hit him right between the eyes.

"I need my service restored quickly," I said. "I have no arms or legs."

There was dead silence on the phone.

"The internet is the only way I stay connected with the world. I can't get food without the internet or communicate."

"Oh, Mr. Tafjwmnwifuuwm3mlkhdy, I am terribly sorry."

Despite their sorrow, they can't get anyone out to my apartment before Tuesday. Even though I am on something they call "Priority Priority."

Bastards.

Jew.