Bubble Babble.

I remember reading Jerry Della Femina's great book on advertising, the one with the title you couldn't use today, "From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought you Pearl Harbor, Front Line Dispatches from the Advertising War." It told a story of how he and his partners, after just opening their agency hadn't attracted a single client.

Sixty years ago when Jerry opened his agency, you needed a lot more capital than I did when I opened GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company six-and-a-half years ago. I had no overhead save a Mac, an internet connection, my huge network of people I've worked with in the past and my compendious experience. Della Femina needed a physical office--well-decorated (people cared in those days), he needed staff, a Xerox machine, phone systems, magic markers, pads, typewriters and more.

In any event the story goes that after six months in business Della Femina et al hadn't attracted a single client. They were down to their last $5000 (say $50,000 today) and despondent. Instead of closing up doors and getting another job (there were jobs in those days) Della Femina et al decided to throw the most lavish Christmas party Madison Avenue had ever seen and invite what was then a considerable contingent of trade-press.

Though they were failing, they decided to exude the idea that they were wildly successful. They were attractive, cool, fun and glam.

To hear Jerry tell it, it worked. In short order Della Femina et al was a hot agency. (By the time I met Jerry, he had sold his agency so many times, he wasn't even allowed to use his name anymore. His last agency, if I remember right was called something like Jerry and Friends.)

In any event, Jerry's tactic of 'fake it to you make' it is nothing new. Spiffy restaurants hire models to sit at tables near the plate glass. They hire "extras" to wait on line to get it. There are rumors that political parties do the same with paid shills at rallies and protests. The allusion of success often generates real success. 

There's nothing wrong with selling the sizzle not the steak. But sooner or later you have to put meat on the plate.

Just yesterday, I read this opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. It was written by someone whose writing we might want to think about.

It's rare to see an article in the Journal that questions the hype around run-away market success. But this one does, claiming that the giant AI companies are doing a bit of what Della Femina did back in 1970. Selling an illusion, not a reality.

The first few paragraphs here make me wonder. For years--since I worked on IBM Watson in 2014, I've been suspicious of the real-world utility of artificial intelligence. I've seen the cost-savings. I haven't seen the value of the work it purportedly does. It seems to me like an electric car that has a one-thousand mile range when it's parked. Maybe that's why so many AI companies are paying people to use it.

Two more bits that might, if you're part of the reality-based community, give you pause.

Back to my domain for a moment. Back to advertising.

For about the last year, the "word" on the street (not verified but probably more valid than the mere boosterism and PR-regurgitation of today's trade-press) is that the one advertising holding company that doesn't look like the advertising equivalent of Spirit Air, Publicis, give its creative away to clients and compensates by charging for media. 

WPP, whose market cap in ten-years has free-falled from $32,000,000,000 to about 3,200,000,000 (missing zeroes add up) and who have gone from 203,000 employees in 2017 to just over 90,000 today appears to be doing the same. They'll do anything, it seems, to make it seem that they are still in business.

All of the above, of course, is scurrilous on my part. As Pozen's op-ed is scurrilous on his. 

I know nothing about the inner workings and finances of any of the companies mentioned. I may well be completely wrong.

But I do know that paying people to "like" you is not a long-term strategy. 

In this famous ad from DDB back around 1970, there's a line toward the end of the copy that we might want to think about.

No donkey chases the carrot forever. He catches on. And quits.

That's the lesson to remember.

Unless we do, we die.

Ouch.

Saturday was one of those days people with incipient arthritis dread. 

I have the ailment in my lower back, my right hip and my left shoulder. There are days when it hides like a guerrilla fighter. There are days like Saturday, cold and raw--what Melville called "a damp drizzly November in my soul," when the disease is like the Cong during the Tet Offensive. No mercy. No turning the other cheek. And no prisoners taken.

On top of the aches listed above, my "good" shoulder, my right, has a torn rotator cuff. While I have rehabbed it to the point of tolerability, on bad days it is not so good. Sometimes it locks and I wonder if I'll be able to move it at all, or if I'll spend the rest of my days 'hailing a cab.'

Saturday I was also visited by my elder daughter S, her husband R, her Boston Terrier, T, and my two grandsons, J, 3.5 years old and Ri, 1 year old.

For whatever reason and without complaint, when I'm with my grandsons, I am the Santa float in the Macy's parade. They know a soft touch when they see one. 

And they can't get enough of me.

There are electrons in nuclear molecules that, on Saturday were up and down and in and out and spinning around less than I.

When my aches of time and tide finally started over-taking me about five years ago, I concocted a fantasy. I would check myself into the Mayo Clinic out in Rochester, Minnesota, a town I visited once because IBM had a server factory out there.

The Mayo Clinic. Home of the TBR.

The Eero Saarinen-designed IBM factory.

I would check in and demand and operation I made up. A TBR.

I told my wife, who barely tolerates me, I am going to the Mayo Clinic for a TBR.

L looked at me dripping like a carwash not with suds but with disdain.

"A TBR?" she humored.

"A Total Bone Replacement. They tie a string to your toe bone and the other end to a door. Then they slam fast the door and your bones come out at if you're a well-cooked haddock in the hands of a skilled maitre d'.

"Then they replace the aching bones with uncooked pasta."

Last night, as I so often do, I lay in bed and took a quick 12-point inventory of my corpus. 

1, 2: Ankles. Pain.
3, 4: Knees. Pain.
5, 6: Hips. Pain.
7: Lower back. Pain.
8, 9: Wrists. Pain.
10, 11: Shoulders. Pain.
12: Neck. Pain.

If I were an Oldsmobile I would have failed inspection and badly.

The author in automotive guise.

For a moment, from sea-side Connecticut, I was transported 3,000 miles and 51 years to Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. 

I am laying in my single bed, alone. Sisto is out somewhere. The A/C was taking the summer off and the ceiling fan mocked me with its languor. It spun as slowly as time passes when you're waiting for a local train in a piss scented subway station.

We had played, in 92-degree heat, 12 games in nine-nights. Two games extra innings. Traveling by bus on long rides when we should have been in feather beds. Eating street enchiladas and churros instead of food.

12 games. 114 innings. 

Grounders in your groin and Adam's apple. Your left elbow hit by a pitch. Twice a ball fouled into your front foot. An abdominal muscle strained. A shoulder thrown out trying to throw someone out. Putative dysentery.

I have felt pain in my time.

Who hasn't.

Life is sweat and pain and tears and more sweat and pain and tear.

You lay awake.

You aspirin.

You turn and change positions and hope there's relief in something new but there never is.

The ceiling fan spins like Tycho Brahe's planets mocking the pre-destined fate on an old fat man with more ambition to play with his grand kids than common sense.

There no hope but this:

TBR.

To go with TSR.

Total soul replacement.

Word Imperfect.

There was a book review in The Wall Street Journal not too terribly long ago about "amerikan" accents and why we speak the way we speak. Why do some Bostonians, for instance, drop "Rs"? Why do some southerners say "y'all"?

You can read the review here, (if you can still read.) These few sentences, however, were the ones that sent me scrambling to my old Smith-Corona to write this post. (12 wpm when I'm typing downhill.) In them, I noticed a point-counterpoint in modren amerikkka.

I began seeing what I would consider a phenomenon--or a "potent new dynamic" back more than a decade-and-a-half ago when I worked for the self-anointed "digital agency of the decade," or the "agency for the digital age." 

Certain words would sweep the agency like the Black Death galloped through 14th Century Europe. Suddenly, everything was "curated." Suddenly, we were no longer in advertising, we were "brand story-tellers." Suddenly we no longer told people what a product of service did and why they needed it, we were instead, "having conversations about brands." 

Even our posture changed. Suddenly, we were "leaning in." We weren't expressing opinions or thoughts anymore, we were finding "insights." The list goes on and on and continues to this day.

Google Ngram is a blunt-instrument of a tool and not very often updated but it often serves my purpose. It measures the prevalence of a word or term within a corpus of texts with a defined date range. A few examples follow:

I asked myself at the time what I think is the question we have to ask ourselves more often. "I've gone my entire life without hearing about "curation" or "story-telling" or "marbling in steak." I'm not a young man and these things which I seem to hear 50-100 times a day are all things I never heard before.

What's happened that this is happening?
What does this mean?

If you've read Victor Klemperer, author of "The Language of the Third Reich," or even have a smattering of knowledge of George Orwell, you'd realized that language often has a political agenda. Simply put, it's used to sell something: an idea, a product, a person or a cult. [By the way, for $23, including shipping, you can buy this book. You'll be glad you did.]

When all of a sudden you hear dozens of times a day, or more, something that you've never heard before, it's your responsibility, if you're a thoughtful human being, to pay attention to how you might possibly be being manipulated.

Looking at the paper and the "comedy/tragedy" "news"-shows of late, I realized another one of these charged words. (By "charged," I mean words we'll eventually be charged for and wind-up paying for something that will make someone else rich.)

I am 68-years old, almost 68.5.
I realized the only time I ever heard the word "ballroom" was when I watched the Disney movie Cinderella with my daughters.

Now ballroom (a synonym for 'architectural scrotum') seems to be every third word you hear from the plutocrats and malefactors of great wealth who are reverse robin-hooding the entire world. That is stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

Personally, I couldn't give a rat's ass about the architectural scrotum tump will foist on the nation. But I do care about how an entire nation is being force-fed a spurious idea to enrich someone else--either through money or ego.

You have to wonder why this is so important.
You have to wonder what is really happening.
You have to wonder what bill of goods we're being sold.

Language, despite how it's so often mis-used, does not lie.  That's a quote from Dr. Klemperer. How we use language, how we speak, how the brands and corporate hegemons we work for speak has within the meaning of the words a larger meaning, perhaps one that's harder to veil.

Responsible people question.
They don't accept words--they examine them.
They reveal actions.

That's what we should all be doing.

The Common Cult.

There are many people who believe that amerika is, and has been for centuries, under the thrall of a "cult of science" or "the cult of technology." 

There's a reason for this belief, of course. amerika is the richest country the world has ever seen (not the fairest, but the richest) because since its inception, amerikans have believed ingenuity and cheap labor will carry the day. 

That's why amerika dominated the world in so many industrial outputs. From cotton, to steel, to coal to more modern times embracing cars, planes, refrigerators and TV sets. Today, the output of amerika's belief in its own superiority are algorithms, computers, chips, AI, and likely quantum computing.

But there are side-effects that cascade from being a believer in the cult of science. 

1. We usually ignore the unintended consequences aka human consequences, of science. In the 1790s, slavery was all-but dying. Eli Whitney's technological breakthrough separated cotton seeds from cotton fibers with great efficiency. He didn't invent the machine to revitalize and spread slavery, but that was the effect. Likewise, kerosene then gasoline, were superior alternatives to whale oil. They weren't advanced to pollute the air, choke our cities and cause catastrophic climate change. But that's what happened.

2. We almost always think of a technology advance as an endpoint, not a jumping off point. By that I mean, you'd think once you had a TV, you'd be done. But technology begets technology, and that usually created more jobs and more demand. Before long we were making bigger sets, remote controls, color sets, flat screens, etc. etc. Technology generally speaking creates more work than it eliminates.

3. The human brain is plastic. Plastic--meaning adaptable, not a forever petrochemical. It adjusts to new and thinks and thinks and thinks to create a new new. That's how the world turns. Socrates thought writing and the new Phoenician alphabet would destroy the human ability to remember. Just like people today think google has done the same. And just like we perseverate about AI killing every human faculty worth keeping.

The human brain is infinitely more complex than anything humankind can create. According to Matthew Cobb the human brain, has 90 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses and its billions of glia (these figures are all guesstimates). We have much more skill, imagination and drive than the most highly-touted AI system.

Remember, the sam altmans of the world are leveraging amerika's "cult of science" to raise capital. The only value OpenAI or any other AI have created is the individual net worth of people like sam altman. Purportedly OpenAI is worth $852 billion dollars. Which would mean it's worth roughly 3% of amerika's $33 trillion economy, or it's worth one dollar out of every eleven.

4. Hot companies come and go, tulips are forever. In Holland in the early part of the 17th century, they had AI stocks, too. They were called tulips. Many people regard "tulip-mania" as the first nationwide speculative bubble. A single tulip bulb was priced at between ten times and twelve times the annual salary of a skilled artisan. For some context, if a Fred Smith Manhattan plumber makes $400,000/year (a low-estimate) that would put a single tulip bulb at a cost of between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000. Today, of course, tulips are a dime a dozen. What's more, you can get them for free at any graveyard.

The point in all this is embrace the value of your humanness with the same fervor that you embrace the value of tech or a hot stock or the latest trend.

They won't last long.

You might.

If-Then.

The great scientist and writer Desmond Morris died last week. No one in the entirety of the advertising industry even noticed. No one in the entirety of the advertising industry even knows who he is or why he merited a long obituary in the Times.

You'd think that a scientist who spent his life studying human behavior would be esteemed by our business--a business that purports to leverage knowledge of human behaviors for commercial gain. But Morris was old. Therefore, to our industry, not important. Unlike Dua Lipa, his greatest works came sixty years ago. So, not talking about tweeting, twerking or some-other -ing, Morris became obscure. (It's fine that I an obscure. But Morris wrote "The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal." It sold more than 20 million copies (a lot for a book by a zoologist.) It was translated into 23 languages, and argued that ancient genes, shared with apes, shape human behavior.

I first encountered Morris probably in 1967 when The Naked Ape came out. My father bought the hard-cover and kept it on the table near his reading chair as a coaster. Of course, even as a nine-year-old, I found the title intriguing and it and Dr. Morris' name lodged in my elephantine memory.

45 years later, my esteemed psychiatrist and advisor, Dr. Lewis recommended I read a different book by Morris, "The Nature of Happiness." Look beyond the "cialis-inflected" cover art and you'll find one of the world's most-important books. 

To sum up the above in one sentence, happiness most often comes from the pursuit, rather than the accomplishment of that pursuit. When humans hunted in groups, the teamwork, the divisions of labor, the chase were often more exciting and energizing than the kill, which often left the group a little "triste." Or as one of the world's first doctors, Galen of Pergamum said more than 2000 years ago, "post coitum omne triste est sive gallus et mulier." ie After sexual intercourse every animal is sad except the rooster and the woman.

All this is a long introduction to the short point of today's post. That is advertising is supposed to find its meaning from, in Bernbach's words, "simple, timeless human truths." 

The problem is that 99.89-percent of us are too busy watching "stupid, temporal human trends."

As an industry, we have ignored the fact that there are human desires--the desire for logic, the desire for causality, the desire to turn 'base metal into gold,' that though they're often derided as false, still grip us like gods. Humans will always look for powerful people to guide us. trump is smart enough to play that part and 70,000,000 amerikants buy it. You need only think of those "...is always right hats" to understand what I mean.

Counterpoint.

In advertising, we follow at least two ancient 'default-settings' of being human. Two things humans want to believe in. But really never come to pass.

1. We believe we can future-proof things. (You see this phrase all the time in technology ads.) We don't know what tomorrow will bring, much less next week or year. How could you possibly buy into the notion of future-proofing. 

And worse, while related,

2. We believe there are if-then propositions in the world. Meaning if you do this, then, inviolably, that will happen. Our entire industry has been given over to the notion that we can predict human behavior. 

If we open with a logo, the ad will be more effective.
If we enlarge the 'learn more' button, the ad will be more effective.

If we get $77,000,000 in funding, then we will be successful.
If we are 'digital first', then we will succeed.

As the cult of science has become more and more influential in our industry, the if-then proposition has tightened its grip. When I worked with consultants/scientists/best-practice-ites a couple decades ago, they would bark with fervor about the if-then-ness of marketing.

I would always respond as I respond today.

"You can walk up Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, perhaps the best retail street in the world, and ten-to-fifteen percent of the storefronts are vacant. If it were so simple to be successful, don't you think everyone would do it?"

At that point I usually got a cruddy 360 review from the ELT, disinvited to meetings and found a way to quit.

That's also a simple, timeless human truth.

Work is Working.

I wonder how many people reading this right now have heard of Gary Hart.

Or Howard Dean.

Or Walter Hickel.

Or Spiro Agnew.

Or even Sarah Palin.

I wonder how many people reading this right now have heard of Robin Roberts.

Or Wilbur Wood.

Or Johnny Callison.

Or even Frank Howard.

In politics and baseball, these people were household names--appearing dozens of times a week on TV and in newspapers when I was a boy growing up.

I wonder how many people reading this right now have heard of 
Scali McCabe Sloves.

Hal Riney.

Needham Harper and Steers.

Erwin Wasey.

Or even D'Arcy.

In the ad industry, not all that long ago, these were big names. They were mighty agencies that worked with Fortune 50 brands and multi-million dollar budgets.

I wonder how many people reading this right now have heard of
Excedrin aspirin.

Comet powder.

Janitor in a drum.

Buitoni pasta.

PanAm airlines.

These were all big brands, not all that long ago. They had huge marketshare and tremendous brand valuations.

On Friday, which already seems a decade ago in the "weeks that feel like centuries whirlwind" that tump has created, I read an article in The Economist, as I so often do.

The Economist and The Wall Street Journal are vital if you're in the ad business. Reading them, you'll likely know more about business, including your clients' business than anyone else in your agency and even your client. Knowledge offers you a leg up. Yet most people accept their legs down.

Of all the destructive effects of "O tempora, O mores" (oh the times, oh the customs) on the advertising business, the most pernicious is the most widespread. 

The idea (I live this about 99 times/client) that advertising is a "one-and-done," not a "we have to do it all the time." You can see this with the rampant stuntification of advertising. Some all-but-inconsequential brand will come up with a mustard-flavored toothpaste, or ice cream or running shoe. They'll get a one-second chuckle from some smarmy "news" coverage they get. Some CMO will post that his brand valuation went up 408%. He'll parlay that free wank into a new job and think he knows what he's doing.

Brands used to be built to endure.

Which means, like if you own a house, a car or have a dog or children in you care, you have to "maintain" them. You have to fix cracks in the concrete. You have to change the oil. You have to exercise them. And make sure they eat right.

This is not a one-week/year commitment.

This is every day.

The current thinking of the MBAniacs is that pulse matters and to hell with sustain. 

We treat brands today like we treat most things.

There's no routine maintenance. There are no repair shops. When they get creaky or long in the tooth, we take them to the curb and dispose of them like a floating gold fish.

That's what Omnicant has done to DDBuried. FCByebye. And who knows what else. It's what WhyPayPeople has done to Y&R, JWT, and just about every agency they own. 

No maintenance. No caring. No longevity.

Value is not permanent any more than asphalt paving is. 

And there are no short-cuts to creating and maintaining it. There's no magic "tweet" formula or "viral" stunt that will implant a brand in your cerrebellum.

It takes constant.

It takes building blocks.
It takes methodical-ness.
It takes every day.
It takes dedication and commitment.

It takes money.

Brands are not wet-t-shirt contests.

They are not meant to create a stir for 12 seconds then disappear.

I refuse to believe that.

I believe they're built on

definition: who they are/how they behave.
differentiation: why you should choose them.
demonstration: showing, not telling.

dollars: putting your money where your mouth is.

Your advertising work isn't done when you run a campaign.
It's never done.

It's not a done, it's a doing.