Miami and Detroit.

Just a little over two years ago I went to a portfolio review in New York sponsored by the Miami Ad School. I was so impressed I offered jobs to five different students. I felt in general the work was refreshing and media agnostic, with a strong under-pinning of strategic insight.

Since then I have participated in two more portfolio reviews sponsored by MAS. Now let me tell in two words you why the work coming out of the school has slid dramatically downhill: It's derivative.

A couple years ago, "environmental" work in books was relatively fresh and unexpected. It was a new way of intruding upon our frontal lobes. So a spec ad for dental floss on subway doors with a line about getting into hard to reach places, was fun, smart and impactful. Plus, the portfolios from a couple years back reflected a diversity of ways to reach people--there were all kinds of "touch-points," including ads that showed the ability to write and think strategically.

Now, every book I see from MAS seems to have a toilet paper logo at the bottom of an escalator with a line like, "never runs out." What's happened is obvious to me and it's the same thing that happens in real life. The MAS students say,"these are the ads that got people jobs, so let's do ads like that." In the industry we do the same thing, "this is the piece of music, or the director, or the cliche or the technique that's getting attention, so let's do it, too." Copying something else is the essence of brain-cell-destroying conservatism.

This is supposed to be a business about originality, not for originality's sake but for impact's sake. Now all those kids are thinking differently exactly the same way.