If-Then.

The great scientist and writer Desmond Morris died last week. No one in the entirety of the advertising industry even noticed. No one in the entirety of the advertising industry even knows who he is or why he merited a long obituary in the Times.

You'd think that a scientist who spent his life studying human behavior would be esteemed by our business--a business that purports to leverage knowledge of human behaviors for commercial gain. But Morris was old. Therefore, to our industry, not important. Unlike Dua Lipa, his greatest works came sixty years ago. So, not talking about tweeting, twerking or some-other -ing, Morris became obscure. (It's fine that I an obscure. But Morris wrote "The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal." It sold more than 20 million copies (a lot for a book by a zoologist.) It was translated into 23 languages, and argued that ancient genes, shared with apes, shape human behavior.

I first encountered Morris probably in 1967 when The Naked Ape came out. My father bought the hard-cover and kept it on the table near his reading chair as a coaster. Of course, even as a nine-year-old, I found the title intriguing and it and Dr. Morris' name lodged in my elephantine memory.

45 years later, my esteemed psychiatrist and advisor, Dr. Lewis recommended I read a different book by Morris, "The Nature of Happiness." Look beyond the "cialis-inflected" cover art and you'll find one of the world's most-important books. 

To sum up the above in one sentence, happiness most often comes from the pursuit, rather than the accomplishment of that pursuit. When humans hunted in groups, the teamwork, the divisions of labor, the chase were often more exciting and energizing than the kill, which often left the group a little "triste." Or as one of the world's first doctors, Galen of Pergamum said more than 2000 years ago, "post coitum omne triste est sive gallus et mulier." ie After sexual intercourse every animal is sad except the rooster and the woman.

All this is a long introduction to the short point of today's post. That is advertising is supposed to find its meaning from, in Bernbach's words, "simple, timeless human truths." 

The problem is that 99.89-percent of us are too busy watching "stupid, temporal human trends."

As an industry, we have ignored the fact that there are human desires--the desire for logic, the desire for causality, the desire to turn 'base metal into gold,' that though they're often derided as false, still grip us like gods. Humans will always look for powerful people to guide us. trump is smart enough to play that part and 70,000,000 amerikants buy it. You need only think of those "...is always right hats" to understand what I mean.

Counterpoint.

In advertising, we follow at least two ancient 'default-settings' of being human. Two things humans want to believe in. But really never come to pass.

1. We believe we can future-proof things. (You see this phrase all the time in technology ads.) We don't know what tomorrow will bring, much less next week or year. How could you possibly buy into the notion of future-proofing. 

And worse, while related,

2. We believe there are if-then propositions in the world. Meaning if you do this, then, inviolably, that will happen. Our entire industry has been given over to the notion that we can predict human behavior. 

If we open with a logo, the ad will be more effective.
If we enlarge the 'learn more' button, the ad will be more effective.

If we get $77,000,000 in funding, then we will be successful.
If we are 'digital first', then we will succeed.

As the cult of science has become more and more influential in our industry, the if-then proposition has tightened its grip. When I worked with consultants/scientists/best-practice-ites a couple decades ago, they would bark with fervor about the if-then-ness of marketing.

I would always respond as I respond today.

"You can walk up Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, perhaps the best retail street in the world, and ten-to-fifteen percent of the storefronts are vacant. If it were so simple to be successful, don't you think everyone would do it?"

At that point I usually got a cruddy 360 review from the ELT, disinvited to meetings and found a way to quit.

That's also a simple, timeless human truth.