I cry a tear. I cry a torrent.

I think we need to decide, as individuals and as an industry, if we are serious or not.

By serious, I don't mean grave and unsmiling.

I mean that we help clients solve serious business issues in measurable and material ways. Or, put another way, we impart useful information in an executionally brilliant way.

Most businesses, imho, don't really know what they sell, what they do, or why they deserve to be part of people's lives.

Our job, I believe, is to get deep inside companies, to understand their soul, if they have one, and create a soul, if they don't.

Spectacles and stunts and, frankly, one-offs don't accomplish those august tasks.

I'm pissed this morning.

Not an unusual state of mind for me.

Perhaps the greatest agency that ever was has produced this ostensibly in service of their brand.

In one or two generations we have gone from this ad to a drunken shit show that disparages or ignores what had once made an agency or industry vital and important.
Sir John Hegarty wrote that "advertising has retreated to the fringes."

Yes, it has.

And not just geographically.

We are no longer important enough to be on Madison Avenue, Michigan Avenue, Park Avenue.

We're only five years from re-lo-ing to Queens, I bet.

We are about stunts, drunks, and spectacles.

And then we seek personal publicity and award ourselves for it.