The layoff tracker.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/17/layoff-tracker-unemployement-lead-cx_kk_1118tracker.html
I found this on Forbes. I wish it were live like the "Viet-Iraq-O-Gate" calculator to the right, but this is the best I can do. The tracker posts the layoffs since Nov. 1, 2008, at America's 500 largest public companies.

Anyone up for doing one for the ad-industry?

Feed me! Feed me! (I'm a typo.)

I walked into the lobby of my apartment house and saw a notice that we were having an owners' meeting for the co-op. It's being held at St. Stephan of Hungry Church.

Story-telling.

Today's client cliche, boys and girls, is the phrase "story-telling," as in "the ad should be story-telling, it should tell a story about our brand."

Of course, when you go to speak to the client they insist on powerpoint, the antithesis of story-telling and they want spider-graphs and inverted pyramids and factored fractorials. They want a linearity which story-telling often avoids. Also, they want no humor, no jokes, no sex, no laughter, no tears, no emotion, no drama, no pace, no crescendo, no build. BUT THEY WANT STORY-TELLING. Of course, they want in in small space, with four products, six lines of legal and the word "new" in bold.

Was it David Ogilvy who said that an ad must be more interesting than the media it's surrounded by? If he didn't he should have.

In any event, here is a link to Maira Kalman's story about the inauguration of Obama.
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/the-inauguration-at-last/

A thing of beauty.

OSOR.

I just came upon this in The New York Times. If you were pondering why our economy is collapsing, why our industry is collapsing, why it seems like our nation is collapsing mull over the data below.

"The income of the 400 wealthiest Americans swelled in 2006, soaring nearly 23 percent from the previous year, to an average of $263 million, according to data released Thursday by the Internal Revenue Service. Since 1996, this group has nearly doubled its share of all income earned in the United States.

The top 400 paid just more than $18 billion in federal income taxes in 2006, or an average of $45 million, on a record $105 billion in total income — the lowest effective tax rate in the 15 years since the agency began releasing such data."

Chances are, if you're reading this post, your federal tax rate is between 33%-38%. Yet the richest 400 Americans paid just 17%.
--
In my agency, I am attempting to implement "The OSOR Program." OSOR is One Set of Rules. In too many businesses, in too many crevices of our country, in too many sectors of our economy, there is "free swim" for too many people. Laying people off while staying at The Four Seasons or speedo-ing it out to Cannes for a week of groping--that's not OSOR, and it's not right.

As Karl Malden, the potato-eater priest in "On the Waterfront" said quoting the Bible, "What happens to the least of us, happens to the best of us." And if you don't believe me, print out this post and toss it into your $1,400 trash can.

The Post Office. And advertising.

My brilliant friend Tore just sent me a note about the Post Office cutting back service (I assume from three days a month to two) due to the recession. That struck Tore, and me, as egregiously counter-intuitive in that inexplicable cost-benefit analysis way that only MBAs can concoct.

Here's what's going to happen if the post office gets its way and cuts back on service. Customers who need the service will find alternatives. Those alternatives will prove effective and more customers will then decide to go with the alternative more often, leading to a further decline in post office business that will necessitate a further cut in service. And so it goes.

Whether you run a post office of an ad agency, the only way to survive a downturn is to provide more service. And perhaps fire your MBAs.

And now a word from Bill Bernbach.

My boss asked me what I want him to get out of a meeting with a high-level client. I thought and thought and then I remembered this.

Rewrite it for your clients and for your agency.
It's nearly 50-years old. But it could have been written yesterday.


Avis Rent A Car Advertising Philosophy
1. Avis will never know as much about advertising as DDB, and DDB will never know as much about the rent a car business as Avis.
2. The purpose of the advertising is to persuade the frequent business renter (whether on a business trip, or renting an extra car at home) to try Avis.
3. A serious attempt will be made to create advertising with five times the effectiveness (see #2 above) of the competition’s advertising.
4. To the end, Avis will approve or disapprove, not try to improve, ads which are submitted. Any changes suggested by Avis must be grounded on a material operating defect (a wrong uniform for example).
5. To this end, DDB will only submit for approval those ads which they as an agency recommend. They will not “see what Avis thinks of that one.”
6. Media selection should be the primary responsibility of DDB. However, DDB is expected to take the initiative to get guidance from Avis in weighing of markets or special situations, particularly in those areas where cold numbers do not indicate the real picture. Media judgments are open to discussion. The conviction should prevail. Compromises should be avoided.

John Updike, 1932-2009.

The great John Updike died yesterday. These are my remembrances from working with "Rabbit," as I dubbed him.

Back during the halcyon days of my career, when I was a bronze-Addy winning ACD on the ever-so-glam Gorton's Fish Sticks account, my partner (Craig--are you out there?) had had quite a run. First, we shot a spot with that rollicking Swede Ingmar Bergman (read about it here: http://adaged.blogspot.com/2007/07/ingmar-and-me.html. We followed that up with another Gorton's spot with the stickiest of all fish stick spokespeople, Bettie Page http://adaged.blogspot.com/2008/12/bettie-page-1923-2008.html.)

Now we were "tasked" (as account people like to say) with introducing a new line of Gourmet Gorton's fish sticks called "Gorton's Signature." I think it was Craig who said it: "Let's get perhaps the most notable literary signature of all. Let's get Updike." And so we did.

Off camera Updike was shy and laconic. But under the lights he was a pro. "Gorton's signature fish sticks," he intoned, "made from select filets of fresh--never frozen--young scrod." Then he signed his name ( in tartar sauce, a bit over-the-the-top for my taste, but that's show-biz) and said, "They're the only fish sticks good enough for Gorton's signature. And mine."

Big guy, rest in peace. You will be missed.

Going to the movies.

I decided to light out of the office at lunch yesterday to take in Hollywood's hottest picture: "Paul Blart Mall Cop." It was sold out so I went to see a porno flick instead. It was called "Stimulus Package."

April is the cruelest moth.

Oh, I could make this post--pursuant to my post yesterday about "boarders" and as The Ad Contrarian pointed out "quantifiable metrics." But I won't. Exacting as I am, I am a lousy proofreader. I do, however, have quite an ear for a mirthful malaprop or even the occasional Spoonerism.

Speaking of Spooner and his isms, my favorite is "he rode down the street on a well-boiled icicle." Here are two others: "Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?"
"The Lord is a shoving leopard."

This isn't a Spoonerism, but to my mind it's even better, since it is attributed to Groucho: "Time flies like and arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

No point in this post.
Except this little one.
I hope I made you laugh.
I could do worse.

PS. I just heard on NPR that companies are cutting jobs via "layoffs and attrition." And I said to my wife, "how else would you cut jobs," and she sagely replied (she is older and wiser than I) "kill people."

Sometimes I just want to scream.

As the creative head of my office, I have been asked by management (whatever that means) to participate in an "Office Evaluation." Here's what said evaluation is meant to do: "The Office Evaluation was established to apply a standard set of quantifiable metrics, consistent with our Agency’s Core Objectives, to executive performance reviews."

Yummy!

Now I turn to criterion 1 and I find this: Become a true global agency that is connected by a common culture and has the ability to work across boarders, disciplines and clients seamlessly.

work across boarders.

Does that mean I have to work across people boarding in my apartment? Or in smaller offices do we actually have people boarding on-site?