Friday, October 7, 2016

"This makes no sense." A tragedy in 75,000 pixels.

The world had flown off its axis last night. Gravitational equilibrium was suspended. The laws of physics abrogated. 

Something was rotten in the state of digital.

The client--three weeks after approving a strong statement in a brief--decided that our 75,000 pixel ads, our 300x250s, were too strong.

It was late.

The writer had left for the day. Something to do with a molar.

I had one foot out the door. My younger daughter was in town and we had tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Beacon.

But.

The great world was spinning to a halt.

The client wanted, no, needed, no, demanded a copy change.

They wanted, no, needed, no, demanded, something weak and feckless that would make it through legal like sauerkraut through an old Galician Jew.

Three people came up.

They looked like they had just learned, god forbid, that they each have a terminal disease.

T  h  i  s      b   a   n  n  e   r    

w   a   s       i   n     

d   a   n   g   e   r      o   f        n   o   t       

r   e   l   e   a   s   i    n    g.


The $100 billion company we labor for--well, it would freeze up like the engine of a 1981 Yugo.

The fifth most valuable brand in the world would...trip, tumble, plummet

d

o

w

n.

But they aren't saying anything, I protested.

Why did they approve the brief, I chastised.

No matter.

Crippled children depended on this. 

The well-being of poor churchgoers.

The thousands of people who toil on the assembly line making the machines.

They all relied on this. This 75,000 pixel ad.

That will likely be blocked.

Let's think, now, for just a moment, about William Carlos Williams. 

And maybe apologize.
__

so much depends 
upon 

a three-hundred by
two-fifty 

glazed with bull
shit

beside the ad

blocker


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