Be Leave.

I had a client meeting last last week that was refractory.

It hurts me when things don't go well. I believe it's my fault and I take it personally. Not only did I feel I let my clients down--they pay me a lot and they rely on me--I let my team of art directors and an account person down.

But then, just now, three days later, up at 6:30 AM on a Saturday, and walking Sparkle, our eleven month old golden retriever, I had an epiphanette. (A small epiphany.)

The problem wasn't the work. The problem was that my team believed in the client and the power of the work, and the client themselves don't believe in who they are and what they do.

The client didn't believe in the client.

Quickly, that thought rattled through what's left of my brain. 

The problem with the ad industry itself, is that the ad industry no longer believes in advertising.

Think of how many times you've heard:

All products are the same.
No one believes advertising.
No one watches TV anymore.
No one reads.
People don't like facts.
People don't have attention spans.
Advertising doesn't reach people anymore.

The list is nearly endless. And why we've looked for salvation via data, AI, and a thousand other appurtenances to advertising. Everything but advertising itself and the hard thinking/crafting work it demands. We search for panaceas while abandoning the perennial quest for simple, timeless human truth.

Advertising for the last thirty years or so has believed in everything but advertising. Clicking. Interactivity. Conversations. Influencers. Personalization. Turning straw into gold.

Everything but ideas and execution.

Quickly, that thought rattled through what's left of my brain. 

And it led to an even darker thought.

About trump, Harris, America and the Manichean battle being waged for the future of the nation.

Nearly fifty-percent of our nation doesn't believe in our nation anymore. 
For all its flaws, its arc that bends toward justice.
The sanctity of elections, voting and the transfer of power.
One person, one vote.
No one above the law and equal justice.
The American dream.
All that jazz.

Nearly fifty-percent of our nation doesn't believe in our nation anymore.

I'm not a pollyanna. I know America is flawed and always will be. That ain't the point. For all America's original and persistent sins, people came here with nothing and grew. Their children grew. 

That's something to believe in.

On Sunday, August 18th, this article appeared in the New York Times.

It turns out that the 47-seconds referenced in the headline above included thirty-seconds of a TV spot. The one that according to the article, saved Kamala Harris' political career and, yes, could potentially change the course of world history.

Harris was running for California Attorney General, and she was getting her ass kicked by a better known, "he-looks-the-part" tea party candidate, Steve Cooley. Forty-five minutes into their hour-long debate, according to the Times, "Mr. Cooley gave an answer that was frank, fateful and foolish." 

LA Times reporter Jack Leonard asked Cooley if he would continue to collect his state pension if he was elected Attorney General. Cooley said, honestly, "Yes, I do. I earned it." I can't seem to download the spot, but you can view it here. 

Harris' ad person had this to say:

The election wasn't decided until three weeks after the polls closed. Cooley had been leading the whole way, and actually had declared victory.

He lost.

And she won.

About thirty-five years ago, I worked for ad legend and creative Hall-of-Famer Mike Tesch. I never spoke to him much. He was too high-falutin' for me and I was too intimidated by him. But I remember reading an article about him that had a quotation in it. A quotation I've remembered for all that time.

"Tesch believes there's no marketing problem so big that a great 30-second spot can't solve it."

Of all the people reading that sentence, half will shake their heads and decry the simplicity and naiveté of Tesch. A man who wrote the commercials that made FedEx a multi-billion dollar brand. Who in a headline or two destroyed DDB's Avis' "We Try Harder" campaign.

I don't think Tesch was naive.

I believe.

I believe in the power of what we do. And the tools and reach we have at our disposal. I believe that agencies that are growing, GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company, Mischief, maybe there's another one somewhere, believe in that too. And we've somehow persuaded our clients and prospective clients to believe the same. 

A big part of our job is to back up belief with ideas and work and facts and emotions that make a difference to people.

I believe I can do that job.

Do you believe we are fated to just produce shit that annoys people that has no effect on markets, brands and the economy.

Or do you believe as Churchill said about the brave, out-numbered and out-gunner pilots of the Royal Air Force who vanquished the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in 1940, thus saving the world.

This is my agency belief system, my American belief system, my love thy neighbor belief system.

I don't know any other belief system.