Naïveté.

I read something the other day in a pretty heady book I just finished reading. 

I had always--perhaps ignorantly--assumed that a community's population would be maintained if each two people had two children. Two people have children, two people die, it all evens out. At least that's what I assumed.

However, according to David Miles in "The Tale of the Axe: How the Neolithic Revolution Transformed Britain," reproduction rates of about 2.2–2.3 children are required to keep the population steady. That's because along the way, about ten-percent (the .2 to .3) of children die before they reproduce.

Of course that makes sense. There are diseases, accidents, violence. All kinds of things happen to us. Speaking both colloquially and ontologically, as far as life goes, "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip." i.e. shit happens. Or as Moby Dick said so many voyages ago, shit harpoons.

In other words, life is hard. 

And no one gets out of it alive. 

As Paul Simon wrote in his great song, "An American Tune,"

I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
We’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong

Like Mr. Simon, I don't know a soul who ain't been battered. I scarcely know anyone who hasn't suffered some terrible hurt along the way--hurts that don't rectify themselves via Hallmark cards and sappy LinkedIn imprecations and banal homilies about picking ourselves up.

Yet, in advertising the world we depict in our spots could hardly be more removed from the reality of the world we live in. You need only look at a car commercial--any car commercial--to see what I mean. Life in car commercials is driving on traffic-less roads or off-roading on an empty beach while lip synching to some classic rock anthem. 

According to our industry, the biggest problem amerikans face is who gets the last nacho chip. About 93% of amerikan commercials beckon you to ask your doctor, when the fact is 93% of amerikans can no long afford to even see a doctor.

I schtumbled across this long article the other day. I'm not sure how it found me, or I found it, but here we are. 

It's not hard to proffer another of Gioia's triptych's for the ad industry.

From long copy print ads, to :30s, to :06s.

From here's how we can help you, to we'll make you happy, to what a celebrity thinks.

As an industry, as a society, I worry that we've forgotten. We've forgotten that we're not just to be selling and yelling, we're supposed to be helping people improve their lives through our clients' products.

Maybe this is childish on my part. Naive.

But the best advertising has always helped people. 

As Carl Ally once said, "Advertising should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted."

That sounds right to me.

And I'm going to keep trying.

--

PS. Ad Aged is on vacation this week.
Posting but later than usual.