Trenches.

Almost two years ago, a client friend of mine left the client side of the business and went on to hoity-toity-hood at one of the large advertising trade groups. I won't say which one, but there are only two, so you can probably guess.

I contacted her, I'll call her B, about an idea I had to get their websites some readership, to give their members something of value to read about and to perhaps help make the ad industry (what's left of it) reality-based again.

My idea was pretty simple. And while I would not have charged much, it was well out of B's range. B and her organization are all for providing value to members. Until it costs money. Content doesn't suck because people can't think or write. 99.8-percent of it sucks simply because no one wants to pay for anything. 

(Content runs on the same math as food in coach on an airline. You get the equivalent of half an ounce of pretzels. Usually stale.)

At the end of the day, that's why AI will replace so many of us. It's not because it's any good. It's because the price is right. AI could be the techno-modern set up for the old Borscht Belt joke with the punch line, "the food is terrible and such small portions." With AI it's, "the content is derivative and there's so much of it."

The idea was a blog called "Trenches." This was my pitch deck. The names have been removed to protect the innocent.

My motivation for Trenches was three-fold.

1. I love writing--and Trenches would force me to write more.
2. I thought I could make a couple hundred of bucks a week for doing what I love.
3. I thought it would get me business. My writing on my blog does. I figured this would show my skill to more people.

All this to repeat, Trenches never got off the ground. Or off my keyboard. And I let it drop.

But of late, Ad Aged has been asking FOAA (friends of Ad Aged) if they'd like this space for a post of their own. You can attribute it to the misalignment of the planets or some atmospheric miasma, but the week before Thanksgiving, four "luminaries," sent me posts they had written.

All four of them are fighters. 

All four of them are leaders.

All four of them are teachers.

All four of them believe in our industry and the power we have.

All four of them make their clients happy and their Excel spreadsheets fat.

All four of them, though they occupy the rarefied heights of the ad business, have never left the Trenches. Despite their prominence and their stature, all four still roll up their sleeves, furrow their brows and work to help clients, business, themselves and others.

Ergo, this week on Ad Aged is Trenches week. 

Tomorrow, we'll have a report from Denise Kohnke.

Wednesday, we'll hear from Angus Tucker.

Thursday, my young, old friend Pauline Oudin.

And on Friday, which is generally a low-readership day but better not be this week, my ballast, muse and better-seven-eights, my wife, Laura Tannenbaum.

Like a lot of life, Trenches is an experiment.

Hopefully, you, my readers like the idea. And Ad Aged gets even more than it's typical 80K weekly views. If I'm really lucky, more people will volunteer to write. I hope so.

Thanks, all.

And as always, enjoy the Trenches.

Dig we must.