Of bananas and Butlers.

More years ago than I care to remember, way back when intelligence mattered, the climate was considerably cooler and before muffins had become fetishized, I had a boss by the name of Ed Butler.

Ed was an extraordinary talent and an extraordinarily nice person. He hired me based on a marker comp I had had in my portfolio. (I was just about five years in the business at that point.) It was an ad I wrote for the New York Police Department and the topic was police suicide.

The headline read, "Last year in New York, ten cops were killed. 7 did it themselves."

The ad never ran. A lot of politics got involved. A lot of police brass thought it made the force look weak. The force has a suicide problem to this day. This year, to be clear, ten NYPD cops killed themselves. Cops' suicide rate is more than twice as high as the general public. They have guns, after all, always at the ready. Even though it's been over 30 years since I wrote the ad, I still think it should have run.

Ed was a funny guy. A raconteur of sorts. You could get stuck in his office for hours if you weren't careful. Talking about advertising, the Knicks, the time he sat next to Jacqueline Susann while flying out to LA, or was it Erica Jong? It doesn't much matter.

Back in those days, I'd spend hours in Ed's office--usually just me and him. The situation reminded me a bit of Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," where the old man doesn't want to go home and a young waiter does.

"It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him...." 

"We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. 

"It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe." 

"Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long." 

"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves." 

"Good night," said the younger waiter."

All these years later, thinking about Ed (he died of cancer at a very-much-too-young age) I castigate myself for being too eager to leave his office and do my work, or hang out with people my own age, or go home. 

I was too much Hemingway's young waiter. 

I didn't know any better.

Until you're old yourself, you never really know what it's like to be old. And how much it means to old people to pass something along. Of course, a lot of what old people try to pass along is like an old treasure map, or something scratched out in cuneiform. It takes a special skill to know how to use it. Most people, and most every agency, simply do not have the patience to give people the time. 

Most people, and most every agency, look at the few old people they have around like the last banana in the fruit bowl. The one they've kept in the kitchen for one day or two too long. That banana probably still tastes good, but nobody wants it around. Maybe it's a reminder that everything goes bad after a while. Like Neil Young once said, "Rust never sleeps." 

Way back when, in Ed's office, when I wished I were somewhere else, he started talking about a Country-Western song he was writing. He had done the hard part, according to his mind, he had written a really stellar title:

"Chalk Lines on a Prison Wall in Tulsa."

I'm not sure if anything came of Ed's song. I was promoted and moved into his job when he died and I still feel the repercussions of guilt so many years later. The last I saw of him was at Frank E. Campbell, the Funeral Parlor on 81st and Madison, where he lay with a small impish smile in an open casket. It was the same impish smile I had seen so often when we would chat.

When I was younger and quippier, I might have ended this post with one of my many throw-away lines. I am the Fresh Kills Landfill of quasi-witty throw-aways, I might have said, "Time and Tide wait for Norman."

And maybe that would weave this whole thing together. Because Norman, like Tulsa, is also a city in Oklahoma.

But this post has no end line.

Just chalk lines.

Truth and advertising.

If I were a big cheese in the advertising industry, instead of basically the employment equivalent of cheese in a can, I’d be thinking about things I’m not sure anyone is thinking about.

I’d be thinking about truth.

I’d be thinking about truth and how to tell it.

I’d be thinking about truth and how to tell it after truth, integrity and honesty have been eviscerated. I’d be thinking about facts and if they have any longer any value. Or if the very words facts has become as obsolete as a velocipede.

Over the course of my 35 years in advertising, I have often butted heads with fellow creatives, planners and clients. The au courant way of doing advertising for the last 20 or 25 years is to try to create with the consumer an emotional connection to a brand.

Some years ago, Kevin Roberts, former Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, coined the phrase “Lovemarks.” He said, “Highly-evolved brands that are dedicated to engaging emotionally, rather than the table stakes of rational benefits and attributes….

“The role of the CMO is not to target audiences but to create movements of people who are loyal beyond reason. I’m not sure ‘chief movement officer’ is the right job title, but the idea of it conveys the intention.”

Call me a cynic. The only “movements of people who are loyal beyond reason” in my mind are Trump supporters. Manicheans, who see the world in binary terms, as a battle between darkness and light. Such zeal is, fortunately, rare.

We might have a Civil War in this country pitting Trump supporters versus Trump opponents. We might already be having one. But I don’t imagine we’ll ever have one between “Glad Wrap-istas” and “Saran-ists.” I think there are very few brands people care so much about that they will be “loyal beyond reason.”

Most people, if their brand were missing, would say what I say: "Whatevs."

Besides, “loyal beyond reason” essentially means loyal beyond truth. When I was a kid, people loved their VW Beetles. But when Toyota, Nissan and Honda came in with a better product, cheaper, their loyalty disappeared. It seems to me that a lot of brands ride a high for a year or two—everything they do seems right—and their zealots are loyal, for a time, beyond reason. But sooner or later, something better comes along, or they screw up, or reason intervenes somehow. In fact, I would guess that a good portion of marriages start out with loyalty beyond reason, but as of 2012, between 40% and 50% of marriages end in divorce.

I can’t think of a single brand I’m loyal to beyond reason.

That’s why I retreat to facts. To truth.

Here, I begin to quote from the Gospel of Trott. That’s Trott as in Dave Trott. As in the one person left in advertising who knows how advertising actually works. In a not-so-recent post in his “Campaign” magazine blog, Trott says,

“In advertising, we assume the only way to get an emotional response is with an emotional appeal.

“But Bill Bernbach knew that isn’t true.

“Look at the history of Volkswagen advertising.

“For 50 years, it did product demonstrations.

“And it built a brand that has a massive emotional appeal.

“Ask anyone about VW and they’ll say ‘reliable’.

“That’s an emotional response based on rational advertising.

“Because a rational demonstration can have a more powerful
emotional effect than something vacuous designed purely to appeal to the feelings.

“Done properly, reason is emotion.”

Not long ago, another Dave from England, Dave Dye of Stuff from the Loft-fame recently sent me a link with about 1,000 ads created by Ed McCabe. Though, sadly, very few people in advertising today have even heard of Ed McCabe. He was the Babe Ruth of copywriting. He was in the copywriter’s Hall of Fame at the age of 34. (ASIDE: How is it possible that people don’t know him?)

I’m pasting a few McCabe ads below.

Whether you’re in the business or not, whether you’re a writer or not, you should read them. Reading McCabe ads was my advertising education in the days before people went to ad school.

You'll see facts in them. Not brand-non-ownable notions of love, joy, fun. Those are things you hope for from your dearest friends. Not soda pop.

Next time a brand or a politician or a news broadcast tries to persuade you of something, think about the sort of truths that used to be the currency of our business.

Are you being sold on false emotions? On hype and bullshit? On empty promises?

Or are you being told something that matters?

I think the truth matters.

And we in advertising should get back to the truth business.

Things I have learned from having written 1,000,000 words blogging.

Since I started Ad Aged at the behest of my friend and erstwhile partner, Tore Claesson, I've learned a few things. Most of those things can be applied to advertising. But, actually--and maybe with a small soupcon of arrogance--I think they can also be applied to life.

I began Ad Aged 150 months ago. About 650 weeks ago. About 6000 posts ago. About one-million words ago. Here are some thoughts on what I've learned.

1. There's too much talking and no enough doing. The only way to write a blog is to write a blog. And the only way to write is to write.

Every day, as I'm running from meetings, flagellations, castigations, excoriations and more meetings, I see clumps of people ensconced in conference rooms hour after hour talking talking talking. 

Stop talking about what you're going to create. Instead, create it. Then put it aside and create another one. And another. As someone once said somewhere, "Just Do It." 

If you're a writer, write write and write some more. Write something funny. Write something sad. Write something long. Write something short. Write something dumb. Write something smart. But write. Use the power of what you can do to help your clients. Do it and do it again. Walk away for a moment or twelve, then do it again.

Same if you're an art director. Do layouts. Fuck with type. Try things upside down. 

I read somewhere that novelist Jonathan Franzen spent four years writing blindfolded and with ear plugs in. Don't edit yourself while you're working. Just work. There will never be a shortage of people ready to tell you something sucks. Just work. Worry about judgment later.

2. Develop your peripheral vision. In other words, broaden your ability to see. Read. Watch. Learn.

Talk to cab drivers and strangers. Listen. Walk with your head up, like an old waiter.

Doing this won't necessarily make you the smartest person in the room. But seeing things, knowing things, reading things, hearing things others don't, can't possibly hurt. The more interesting you are as a person, the more interesting your work stands a chance of being.

I'm not sure I'd like to take a 14-hour bus-ride seated next to Franz Kafka--that might be gloomy--but I bet I'd learn something by the time we reached Poughkeepsie.

3. Give yourself a deadline. I write this blog every morning. So I have a built in deadline. Deadlines work.

In the parlance of the soon-to-be-executed, 'nothing focuses your attention like having a gun aimed at you.' 

Pressure is a part of this business. For most people in this business, it's a part of our cosmological make up. So, embrace it. Learn to use it to get the job done.

One final thing about deadlines. If account says "I need it by 12 on Tuesday," deliver two hours early, or half a day early. Push yourself to get the job done. And being ready ahead of time says semiotically that you care--about your account partners and your work.

Also, if you're asked for "x," deliver "y" as well. Doing more than you're asked is good for business. 

4. There's no phoning it in. This blog is my commitment to myself and my readers. I don't get paid. I don't make any money. And a lot of times it gets me into trouble. 

But, it's what I do. People expect it of me. I expect it of myself. So, even when my back hurts or I've been working late at work, my work is my work. It doesn't do to let people or, especially, yourself down.

5. Everything is practice. Every email you write, every post, every post that doesn't work out, every ad, every deck, every vacation memo. Everything matters and everything is a practice at doing something better than you've done before. Do that in everything you do.

6. Ultimately, you have an audience of one. The best way to displease yourself is working to please others. Nothing wrong with pleasing others--as long as you genuinely like what you're doing.

I don't have any secrets, except I try to write--no matter who I'm writing for--like I'm writing to a friend. I don't talk down to my readers. I don't bullshit. I describe the world as I see it. If I like what I write, that's good enough--my friends, real or virtual, met or as yet un-met will like it too.

7. Your audience will find you. Do what you do. People will either find it or they won't. It will either grow or it won't. But eventually you'll find an audience that likes what you do, respects you and wants more.

8. Don't be afraid to be silly. That is, don't be afraid to be yourself, and sometimes yourself is silly. While brands have a "voice," most people I know have many. 

9. Be hard on yourself, but go easy on yourself. Don't beat yourself up to the point where you become paralyzed. The main thing I've repeated to myself through these million words and almost 35 years in the ad business is this: my good is other people's great. After one-million words, I earned that.

The relentless pursuit of irrelevancy.

As the world gets more and more complicated and the choices we make more and more expensive (and therefore it’s more important to get things right) I wonder if those of us in advertising need to do something different.

Explain how things work.

Not only so people understand things.

But also so that they want to learn about what you’re selling. Because you’re doing something important for them. Helping them be smart.

Robert Caro is America’s greatest historian. 

He’s won three National Book Awards and two Pulitzer Prizes.

He defines the serious writer’s role this way:  find out how things work and then explain them to people.

I suppose that sounds obvious. But it’s not.

Most people, clients among them, don’t know how things work, or why. Like everybody else we deal with today, they’re always rushing from meeting-to-meeting, always nine steps behind, always afraid they’re about to be fired, and always fearful to say “I don’t understand.”

I realize I’m hopelessly archaic.

I think people want to understand.

They want to understand what makes a $70,000 car better than a $20,000 car. Or, conversely, why a $20,000 car is every bit as good as a $70,000 car. They want to know how to “move their business to the cloud.” Or if automation/machine learning/ai is friend or foe.

As you may or may not have read, the minority-popular-vote-elected president of the United States is, as I type this, being impeached. 

This isn’t simple to understand. It’s hard to find out what’s going on, who’s who, what’s the timetable and so on.

With the kids screaming, the dog needing a walk, a bill that needs paying, a vacation that needs taking and 97 work emails waiting for you when you get home, who has the time to dig in? We barely have a moment to heat up a can of beans for dinner.

Yet, we want to know.

Just like I want to know about the car I might buy, the resort where I might spend a few nights, the new flatscreen on which I might watch the Knicks lose. 

Forget about not going gentle into that good night. 

I don’t want to go blind into that next big purchase.

I can’t be the only one.

But as an industry we seem to have abdicated from holding a functional role in helping people make purchase decisions, in helping them understand the reasons why they might prefer x over y.

There are about 219,000 rationales for this. 

Someone, somewhere mapped people’s brains, or plugged electrodes into their nether regions and then claimed that people’s decisions are based predominately on emotional grounds. Others anecdotally assert that no one reads anymore—even though the hoary New York Times has 4.8 million digital subscribers.

One bit both of these key rationales have in common is this: I think they basically hold people—that’s you and me—in very low regard. 

They posit that every purchase is based on impulse. And that no one cares enough about what they spend their money on to learn. And that people don’t have the intellectual wherewithal or motivation to read a reasoned argument.

I just don’t believe that.

And never will.

I think it’s our fault. Our industry's. Our agency's. 

We’ve stopped finding out how things work and explaining them to people. In a simple way. In an interesting and involving way. And yes, in an emotional way.

Almost five years ago, the New York Times took something very complicated and did something very creative with it.

Maybe it wouldn't cut it at Cannes. It’s too good for Cannes.

But to my mind, you couldn’t help but read it. Especially since it was topical. And scary. The Iran Nuclear Deal in 200 Words. (An average reader can read about 200 words in a minute.)

Yesterday, with the impeachment hearings in full-fury, the Times published “A Third Grader’s Guide to the Impeachment Hearings”. Helpful. Simple. Informative. Pass-along-able

How's this?

"200 words about brakes that could save your life."

"Quantum computing for third graders."

You wouldn’t care?

Our job is not to concede to normative thinking. To lowest-common-denominator-ize our work.

Our job isn’t to succumb to the dominant complacency. Our job is to shatter complacency.

Our job isn't just to capitalize and "leverage" and "amplify" things people already care about. 

Our job is to find interesting, truthful things to make people care.

But first, we have to care.