A speech to graduates. And then some.

A couple of things happened to me on the way to this blog post. First, some young friends and some old ones called me. The old ones were fired. The young ones were treated more brutally. They were furloughed.

I always thought of employment status as fairly binary. You’re working or not working. Furlough-ship is some sort of usability purgatory. We want to pay you but not so much that it costs us money.

Along with upsets of this personal order comes some macro bullshit that rubs my goat the wrong way. The PR items from various CEOs and their cronies within the ad industry and outside who are proclaiming to the world how noble they are for deferring their salaries. One guy, a guy I actually know, probably has investable assets on the order of $50 million. He makes something like eight-million a year. He’s deferring 30% of his pay through September.

It reminds me of John D. Rockefeller giving away dimes to orphans. Rockefeller’s net worth in the 1920s was roughly equivalent to 2.5% of GDP. Today that would translate into about $500 billion. If my math is right, that would make him worth three times what Jeff Bezos is worth and four times Bill Gates.

He gave away dimes.

What I haven’t seen from our leaders—at least the leaders in our industry is something very simple: Leadership.

Just now I stumbled upon an opinion piece in the neo-fascist Murdoch-owned “Wall Street Journal.” It’s by the senior senator of Ohio, Sherrod Brown. It’s in a special section of the Journal, addressed to college students graduating in 2020. You know, the hordes of bright young people commencing into a world of 30% unemployment and pandemic societal division and disfunction. (BTW, it wouldn’t entirely shock me if Brown, or Andrew Cuomo became the democratic presidential candidate. Brown’s op-ed seems to perhaps anticipate that.)

Because the Wall Street Journal has a strict paywall, I’ve pasted Brown’s piece at the end of my post. But first, I’m going to pretend I lead an agency or a holding company. Here's how I’d repurpose Brown’s op-ed for my company.

I welcome calls from Messrs Reed, Wren, Roth and Sadoun.

The Generation that Will Change Advertising.

Today’s graduates have a rare chance to create a more just, fair and diverse advertising industry than the one we had before the virus.

The old folks in advertising may brag to you about the good old days: DDB, Carl Ally, George Lois. And people slightly younger than those old-timers may tell you that your generation is apathetic and self-centered. 

You spend your days and nights on social, have no attention span. And wouldn’t know a concept if it hit you in the kishkas. But I know something different. You are the most activist generation in decades.

Of course, none of you thought you would enter into this industry the way it is today. The “grown ups,” the vulture-capitalists, the C-suite, have left us with an industry in shambles, in large part because we’ve forgotten what we do. 

The pandemic has laid bare our industry’s faults and taught us much about ourselves. You now see a business with gaping holes where we should be providing leadership; we have management that knows how to take—but not how to give. That knows how to say ‘be loyal’ but gives neither security or growth in return. We have soaring income and ballooning wealth for the tiny sliver of people at the top, alongside declining opportunity and stagnant wages for the vast middle class and those who aspire to the middle class.

Luckily, your generation has never been very good at quietly accepting the hand you’ve been dealt. Through all the pain and death and shrunken wealth and lost jobs for millions brought on by this pandemic, I see a glimmer of hope—an opportunity for a new start for our industry, brought on by the leadership of your generation. You have a chance to build a new industry out of the failures of this one.

You could be recognized as the generation that tackled the existential issue of the evil of unbridled capitalism.

If you accept that chance, decades from now, American history students will study how the Class of 2020 and your brothers and sisters of Generation Z created a fairer, more just and more diverse society than existed before the pandemic. 

Future generations will learn how you led this great industry and our powerful economy out of the worst recession in 90 years. You did it not with small-space ads and small ideas. But through challenging the dominant complacency, fighting timidity and group-think, battling boredom and calling out the dangers of “safe.”

You thought big. You fought big. And you taught big.

It is creativity and accountability and bravery and honesty and fairness that will lead us out of the morass our current generations have created. A simple belief that the greatest risk is not taking one and that failure is a necessary pre-requisite for success.

Your generation hates the insipid. Despises pandering. And wants to treat all people with dignity and respect and as intelligent and equal human beings. When we understand that again, and make the work we do paramount again—not the pseudo-science of data-alchemists--then you will lead our industry back.

Don’t applaud the concocted Cannes winners and the fake-ad finaglers. Don’t model your careers after them. Fight for the dignity and the integrity of real work. Real work that makes a difference to the business of brands. Real work that builds companies and wealth—not for some but for all. Real work for real clients for real rewards. That we as an industry can charge real prices for. That’s how we bring this industry back. 

Take your newly acquired skills to help us remake and rebuild the kind of economy that you want, with the values of inclusion, fair play and honesty that your generation already represents.

As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us, “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.” It’s up to us. Graduates, it’s up to you.

--

From The Wall Street Journal

The Generation of Progressive Change

Today’s graduates have a rare chance to create a more just, fair and diverse America than we had before the virus

 

By 

Sherrod Brown

Updated April 30, 2020 5:42 pm ET

Your grandparents may brag to you about the good old days, and your parents may tell you that your generation is apathetic and self-centered. But I’ve seen something different. You are the most activist generation in decades.

Of course, none of you thought you would graduate into this world. Now, baby boomers have left you with an economy in shambles, in large part because we allowed the best public health system in the world to atrophy. The pandemic has laid bare our country’s faults and taught us much about ourselves. You now see a country with gaping holes in the public-safety net; an excellent education system for the most affluent but an inadequate one for so many others; soaring income and ballooning wealth for the tiny sliver of people at the top, alongside declining opportunity and stagnant wages for the vast middle class and those who aspire to the middle class.

Luckily, your generation has never been very good at quietly accepting the hand you’ve been dealt. Through all the pain and death and shrunken wealth and lost jobs for millions brought on by this pandemic, I see a glimmer of hope—an opportunity for a new start for our country, brought on by the leadership of your generation. You have a chance to build a new society out of the failures of this one.

If you accept that chance, decades from now, American history students will study how the Class of 2020 and your brothers and sisters of Generation Z created a fairer, more just and more diverse society than existed before the pandemic. Future generations will learn how you led this great country out of the worst recession in 90 years and built a public health system that proclaims to the world, never again. They will recognize you as the generation that tackled the existential issue of our times, climate change. Your grandchildren will remember how you met the challenges of economic justice. And they will be inspired by the new, diverse, competent leaders you elected.

Your generation believes in science, and you’re the most pro-union generation since the New Deal. You understand a concept—long cherished by our brothers and sisters in the labor movement—that has become a matter of life and death during this pandemic: solidarity.

Don’t just applaud workers in grocery stores and nursing homes and Amazon warehouses—fight for the dignity of their work. Join AmeriCorps and work with other public health workers to combat this pandemic and prevent the next one. And then become the nurses and doctors and community health workers who build a health system for all, erasing the huge gaps and health disparities we have allowed to fester. Use science to help us meet the challenges of climate change. Take your newly acquired skills to help us remake and rebuild the kind of economy that you want, with the values of inclusion and fair play that your generation already represents.

As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us, “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.” It’s up to us. Graduates, it’s up to you.

—Mr. Brown is the senior U.S. senator from Ohio and the author of “Desk 88: Eight Progressive Senators Who Changed America.”