Work it Out.

Early on in my career I had a bit of an epiphany.

Call it an epiphanette.

Often, I realized, advertising is like a kids' party game.

You, or a group of kids, are given a bunch of fragments and you have to make something palatable out of all the ingredients. 

My kids used to watch Project Runway and Top Chef on television. Usually the contestants were given a string of beads, some sequins and a small bit of velvet and they had to make a  pair of jodhpurs with it. Or a can of sardines and two cloves of nutmeg and they have to make a dinner for six. 

In other words, in advertising as in life, you get dealt a bunch of cards, and you have to learn to work with the hand you're holding.

Sometimes--often--in advertising you get a bunch of strange buts.

"We need something about our new _____ but we have no shots, no samples and we can't talk about its features."

Or "we already have music and on-camera talent locked-in, but we don't have an idea or a script or a director and we have an air-date in two weeks."

There might be a few of you reading this and smiling. Or at least smirking. As Hank Williams used to yodel, "You've been down that road before." And, likely, you'll be down that road again.

As I near my fourth year running GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company, assignments haven't grown any easier or less encumbered with cosmic, industry-wide mishigoss. In fact, many assignments that come to me seem like they were invented by Alan Funt in the old Candid Camera tv show.

There, Funt would set up a situation and keep building it to the point of baffling hilarity.

That's what seems to happen when clients call me.

"George, can you write a manifesto in cretic anacrusis?"

"George, the CEO's wife wants to use Nipsey Russell as a spokesperson."

"George, is it possible to do an ad on the GoodYear blimp, but long copy?"

I've gotten four decades of requests like these over the last four years. My hair was already fast galloping to grey on its own. These "asks" from clients have turned my greys into Secretariat.

A lot of requests, in fact, from a lot of people are a lot like those above. Someone wants the cucumber salad without cucumbers. Or wants to know if the fish is fishy. Or wants to make it to work in twenty minutes when its a 40-minute drive and they're leaving at the height of rush hour. Sometimes if you still go to the movies, you'll see someone walk into a packed theater four minutes before the movie is meant to begin, and they spend their time looking for seats that are seventh row, center.

Wanting unreasonable things is part of the human condition.

It'll be Christmas in a couple months. Listen to all the people singing about peace on earth, for instance.

There's only one way to deal with unreasonable requests from clients. 

Say, yes. Ok. I'm on it.

Then work your ass off.

Though clients often want you to make base metal into gold, and that's impossible, say "sure" anyway.

What they're really requesting is that you hear them. That you understand them. That you'd run through hell in a gasoline suit for them.

Then it's up to you to figure something out. My usual response is, "I'll work something out." Then I get to it.

It's really the same with creative partners. Someone has a thought, a feeling, a silliness. Your approach should be to work something out. To try to make it work.

For a long time, I would berate people who worked for me and remind them that there's a difference between doing an assignment and doing the job. Most people and agencies focus on small assignments when there's a bigger job to be done. 

Usually that bigger job involves listening and caring.

It seldom involves yet another tranche of bland banner ads.

A Week of Ouch.

Last week.

What a fucking week. 

There's nothing more apt to make you feel like a modern human than a world gone mad. A world where the great forces of evil and intolerance seem arrayed against you--and you can do nothing to push back.

I'm reading Edith Wilson's great new translation of The Iliad. She is one of the great intellects and classicists of our time and she talks about a problem translating Homer's Greek to our modern idiom.

Homer had a dozen words for spear. So when the word spear appeared in a stanza or two, Homer could shake things up a bit. We don't have that semantic breadth. Missile to us means a flying bomb. Dart is a pub game. And javelin is an occasional Olympic event. So those are all out.

That's how I feel with actual weapons. I can't fight Hamas or anyone else. I am, rare for Amerika, gunless. I'm also nearing 66 years of age. And also, I should add, gutless. So I can be angry at a world gone mad, but I can't really fight back except with a blogpost or a joke. 

Paging Rich Siegel...Help!

I know how King Canute felt trying to hold back the sea. Words are futile when you'd prefer to sock someone in the kisser.

However, on Saturday, in the rain, we went up to Connecticut to see the progress on our seaside cottage which has for the past year or so been in the process of being unramshackled. The cottage was supposed to be done at the start of the summer, four months ago, and will likely be finished only six months late, which in the parlance of well-heeled contractors means three months early.

That's modern math. Nothing adds up and you pay through the schnozz for it.

The best thing about visiting my income in Connecticut after this crazy week was the drive up there and back.

Harrowing.

But harrowing in a good way. 

Too many cars on too few roads. But for a lifelong New Yorker with anger-management issues, the stress of 220 miles of urbanized highway driving is exactly what I needed.

In New York, they don't measure cars by miles per gallon. Rather, it's middle-fingers per mile. And mine is no economy model.

There were a dozen lane mergers where I refused to let last-minute assholes in. There were two-dozen stretches of open road where I let my 1966 Simca 1600 with a 200,000-miled BMW 2.8 liter straight six engine inside air it out a bit. And most satisfyingly there were red lights.

I've learned along the way that the official and correct definition of a "New York Minute," is the length of time it takes a New York taxi driver to blow his horn at the car in front of him after the stoplight turns green. 

Following that lead, and getting the duration from light-change to honk down to a nano-second is about as satisfying a foray into assholery as I'm going to get in a world where I'm too old, feeble and fat to get into a fistfight anymore.

So, honk I must.

Raising the bar on New York minutes. And lowering the bar on good old-fashioned civility.

I know acting this way ain't right. It's mean. And not the way to make the world better.

But sometimes a man has to do what a man shouldn't do.

I even very nearly stopped for a slice at Bruckner New York Style Pizza. I thought very seriously about crusting myself to death. A sort of New York Seppuku. But my breathtakingly level-headed spouse demurred and persuaded me that I had so much to live for. Like perpetual change-orders in our Connecticut home.

Preston Sturges once wrote, "A man works his whole life in a glass factory, one day he picks up a hammer."

Sorry, I picked up a hammer.

Sorry to everyone I honked at.

I should have had one small slice.

Cowardice.

There's been a lot in the news lately about "Junk Fees." That's the practice of tacking on additional mandatory charges for services people may or may not get. Or want. Or need.

If you go to a resort hotel, in addition to your room charge, you probably have to pay a daily resort fee. That fee--which is required--allows you to use the pool, walk by the tennis court and take a kayak out. You pay whether or not you use these resort appurtenances.

Every company seems to add these fees. If you ever are brave enough to face your cable or ISP fee, you'll probably see that you pay $3 a month for a remote control that costs the cable company less than $3 to make. But you can't buy it. That's a junk fee. 

I suppose junk fee is a modern way of saying "fuck the customer." Either they don't notice or we have them over a monopoly-controlled barrel.

Above is the listing of the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission's fees for getting into a yellow cab. You think $3/mile. In reality, with all the added fees, it's more like $8/mile.

I suppose agencies tack on junk fees to their clients, too. They bill for hours not spent. They pitch with seniors and staff with juniors. They recycle work till it sells. And more.

Back when I was at Ogilvy working on IBM I said to management that it was time we recommended to the client that they stop retargeting people with our ads. My logic was pretty simple. People hate being re-targeted. Eventually, they'll wind up hating those doing hateful things. Besides, it would have been newsworthy and valuable to IBM to take the moral high-road.

I was told, "We get a seven-percent lift from re-targeting."

I responded: "We get two clicks per 10,000 impressions. A seven-percent lift gives us 2.014 clicks per 10,000. Is that worth it?" Of course, I was brushed away.

But here's the point.

And it's about choosing cowardice over bravery. Because it's short-term more profitable and almost always easier. It's the way of Amerika and the ad industry today.

I would like to see someone run something like this today. I'd likely be a customer for life.

Let's say Verizon, which today runs generic undifferentiated price advertising, decided to say, "Under the aegis of our claim of being the 'most reliable network,' we're going to eliminate junk fees, mouse type and deceptive practices from our services. That's real reliability--believing what we say.” No. Easier to do bad spots of smirking low-grade comedians.  

Scali, McCabe, Sloves and Volvo ran this exalted ad long before 91-percent of my readers were born.

In other words, couldn't "honesty" be a unique selling proposition? An edge over competitors who won't or can't follow. Also, first mover advantage?

Back in the 1990s, when I worked at Ally & Gargano on Dunkin' Donuts, their coffee competitors were the local Greek diners who had those giant Bunn coffee machines. They sold coffee for fifty-cents a cup and it was as bi-polar as my mother. You never knew what you were going to get.

Dunkin' and Ally saw that as a competitive advantage for them. So they advertised that they poured out their coffee every eighteen minutes and made a fresh-pot. Wow. Fresh coffee. 

Of such practices, brands and brand loyalty is built.

Yet today, though people hate these deceptive marketing practices, the ad industry, in its rampant pusillanimity, does nothing, says nothing and smiles along the way to its own irrelevance. 

One of the many reasons advertising sucks is that it's easier to say nothing than it is to say something. It's easier to be told what's important to the client than to find out what's important to people. It's easier to be cowardly and do the same as everyone else than it is to be brave and do something different. It's easier to talk than to do. It's easier to hide than to show up. It's easier to go-along than to speak up.

It's easier to talk about how you're trying to be brave and improve the world than it is to actually do something material that exists outside of the purview of an awards show or fictional case-study that consumed more hours of billable time to produce than the work it purports to speak about.

No wonder all advertising today looks the same. 

All companies act the same.

And all of those self-proclaimed "brave" advertisers and agencies have exactly the same spinal cord.

EXCLUSIVE: A Conversation with the Five Holding Company CEOs.

AD AGED:
Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. It's not every day you get the five titans of advertising, none of whom have ever created an ad, together in one place to discuss events in the world and the industry itself.

TITANS:

AD AGED:
Let's jump right in. Why no "not behind the paywall" statements about the slaughter perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Israelis. The rapes. The beheadings. The hostage-takings. The slaughter?

TITANS:

AD AGED:
You seem very vocal when other groups are concerned. Silent when it involves Jews. Jews, who by the way, comprise less than one-percent of the world's population but whom you don't consider a minority. Why?

TITANS:

AD AGED:
Thank you for that. Let's switch gears. Not long ago each of you spoke about eliminating, or at least combatting 'systemic racism' in the ad industry. You pledged a lot of money. How about a progress report? How is the industry doing? How about some statistics on hiring--and systemic changes you've made to combat systemic racism? 

TITANS:

AD AGED:
For instance, how much money do you spend on awards shows and self-promotion as opposed to ameliorating systemic racism?

How many people of color have you hired?

And more personally, though they represent roughly 20-percent of the world's population, why are people 50 and older so scarce within the ad industry--except perhaps among this esteemed panel itself?

TITANS:

AD AGED:
In the industry, we talk a lot about 'transparency' and 'accountability,' how about it?

Yesterday, after writing a piece on the silence of the industry vis a vis Hamas' terrorism and slaughter in Israel, this blog got over 40,000 views, which in a small industry is a lot. Yet, you, the ostensible leaders of the industry, remained as silent as Mt. Rushmore. Do you care now to say something?

TITANS:

AD AGED:
I see, thank you.

Let's switch gears. In the last ten years, the largest of the holding companies has shed roughly half of its employees--you've gone from 200,000 FTEs to about 115,000. Do you care to comment on the long-term viability of your conglomerate and the industry itself?

TITANS:

AD AGED:
That's all we have time for this morning.

I thank you--the people who work for you thank you--for your openness, honesty and candor.

I'll see you at Cannes.

Angry.

I've pre-empted the post I had planned to post this morning.

I'll save it for a later date.

I couldn't sleep last night. 

Not the usual insomnia.

Anger.

Anger at the silence. 

Anger at the smiling, smirking, self-promoting business as usual.

Anger at how, to my very wide field of vision, I've seen nothing from what we used to call the ad industry about the sadness, the pain, the horror, the multi-generational PTSD so many Jewish people are feeling right now.

Over the past few years, I've seen the industry issue statements against all kinds of hate, violence, racism, prejudice and more. I've seen corporate logos be adapted in all kinds places to reflect, at least semiotically, concern.

I've seen it. 

You've seen it.

We'll see it again.

What I haven't seen is it expressed by agencies or holding companies with regard to what's happening right now to Jewish people in Israel. 

Murder. Beheadings. Rape. Unspeakableness and hate.

I haven't seen an expression of concern from agencies and holding companies for Jewish people. Around the world. In America. In Israel. Captive in Gaza. 

Maybe it's my myopia. And I missed it.

But I haven't seen kindness.

I haven't seen anything.

In America, Jews make up less than two-percent of the population and are on the receiving end of fifty-four percent of the hate crimes.

Jews are less than one-percent of the world's population. We've been kept or quota'd our of colleges, schools, neighborhoods, country-clubs, professions and more. Not long ago, not in the past. In the now.

We are not far away from the killing of half of all Jews.

We see Hitler being lionized. 

We hear people shouting 'Gas the Jews.' Or 'Finish the Job.'

Yet.

Nothing from the agencies and holding companies.

Maybe it's me.

And I just haven't noticed.

But I've made a pretty good living being a professional noticer. So I'd be surprised if I missed it. From hundreds of agencies and the five major holding companies.

A lot of people have sent me notes.

Kind notes.

A lot of Jews are scared. In disbelief. Numbed. Worried.

We have no place on earth.

Jews were essentially exiled from every country in Arabian world. Slaughtered in Europe. Increasingly under threat in America, even in New York.

Again, maybe I'm wrong.

But does any other religion need metal detectors and concrete barriers and armed guards at its holy places--at its temples, at its schools?

We accept that unnormality as normal.

Silence.

Where can we go to live in peace?

Where can we go where people judge us not by some affinity, however intense or slight we may have to our god and our culture, but by the contents of our hearts.

I listened to this last night. 

You should listen too.

By a Hamas leader.

Maybe you'll understand a bit more.

But I doubt it.

I'm angry.

I'm scared.

Almost paralyzed.

Hurt.

Crying.

Silence.

--

By Holocaust survivor and author, Primo Levi.

Defining and Finding Lesly Pyle. And Her Memories.

My friend, whom I've never met, Lesly Pyle is a great copywriter and, maybe, even a better writer writer. Back in January, Lesly wrote a guest post for Ad Aged, which you can read here. She's back today because she's conceived, compiled and written a book. 

It's a fund-raiser for Dementia research. 

And it's a helluva lot more.

It's also reached #9 on Amazon's list of best-selling humor books.

Because I have a "thing" for Lesly, I'd like to see it get to #1. So do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor. Do Lesly a favor. And buy "Pyle of Memories."

Afterward, you'll probably have a thing for Lesly, too.

P.S. Lesly, I have one tip. It's a universal tip. By way of Curtis Mayfield. Here.

Defining the Never Before

Lesly Pyle

·

5 min read

George Tannenbaum is so right.

Defining what a company is — and what makes it different — is one of the most important things a brand can do.

I recently realized just how difficult this is. And this time, I was working on a brand that hits very close to home. One that has my name on it.

Pyle of Memories is a new type of book. What makes it different is the easy part. As far as I know, there is no other title that features 36 kind-hearted co-authors writing personal memories to raise money for dementia research.

But what about the defining part?

That presents a whole other pile of problems.

But before I go deeper into the difficulties of defining a brand that I’m admittedly too close to, here’s a little backstory on how this passion project came to be.

Cut to 2014.

My grandmother asked me to write a memory about her. A few minutes later. Poof. She had forgotten asking for it. She had dementia. And she was losing her memories. Her request opened the floodgates to so many things I never would have written down if she hadn’t given me the spark. She’s the reason I started a social media series of short stories for dementia awareness called “#PyleOfMemories.” It serves as a reminder to write the good stuff down before it’s lost forever.

Cut to 2021.

My friends asked me to turn the social media series into a book. But I realized that aside from the handful of, dare I say, “fans,” the book would have no chance in the mass market if it just came from me. Plus, if I was going to invest the time and effort, it needed a greater purpose than awareness alone. It needed to be a fundraiser. So, I asked the best storytellers I know — mostly big names from the advertising world — to write memories of their own.

I started with someone I know personally. Someone whose heart I respect even more than his writing. And his writing is what got me into advertising in the first place. He wrote two little words that made a big impact on me. Not to mention the rest of the world. Those two words?

“got milk?”

When a talent like Jeff Goodby believes enough in an idea to put his name on it, I knew I was onto something. Jeff’s endorsement led to more big ad names signing on: Jamie Barrett, Gerry Graf, Luke Sullivan, and the host of this blog, George Tannenbaum, to name-drop a few.

Cut to 2023.

Our 224-page magnum opus, Pyle of Memories, was finally done.

Now came the hard part.

How in the holy hell do you market it?

When I hit “publish” on Amazon, I knew we had some embedded sales. With big names in advertising came access to big social networks. Ad people would buy the book simply because their heroes wrote a chapter. And, of course, because it was for a good cause.

But what about anyone outside of advertising’s sphere where people undoubtedly know the famous ad campaigns, but may be less familiar with the people who created them? And they sure as heck don’t know me.

We have to speak to these people differently. This is challenging because anyone I’m connected to directly has learned what this project is over the past nine years. They’ve been hit over the head with my voice, my tone and my signature adnerd cue that always begins with “Cut to …”

But if you’re coming in blind, and all you know is that Pyle of Memories is a fundraiser for dementia research, then the book must about dementia, right?

Nope.

Sure, some of our short stories mention dementia. Exactly seven of the 43 chapters. That’s only 16.279% of the book. And only two chapters go deeply into the respective author’s personal experience with the disease. One such chapter, penned by a best-selling author named Suzanne Finnamore, was originally printed in the New York Times. It contains one of my favorite lines in the whole book. It requires context so I won’t spoil it for you. But if you read her chapter, please breathe in every word slowly. It’s a masterpiece.

So if our book is not about dementia, what exactly is it about?

I suppose Seinfeld had the same uphill battle trying to sell a “show about nothing.” Our book really isn’t about any one thing. Our memories are simply slices of our lives that we never want to forget. And, if we did our job right, they fill a book that readers would never want to put down. As the Comedy and Tragedy-themed cover suggests, some of our stories will make you cry, but most will do the opposite.

Wait.

What?!?

Yes.

Surprise!

Pyle of Memories is a comedy.

In fact, on October 6th, just 2.5 weeks after publication, our book hit #9 on Amazon’s Best Seller list in the Humor/Essays category. We were sitting among Tina Fey’s Bossypants, Nick Offerman’s Paddle Your Own Canoe, and Bill Bryson’s A Walk In The Woods.

Wait.

What?!?

Yes.

I had trouble believing it myself.

Especially since Bill Bryson wrote my favorite book of all time: A Short History of Nearly Everything which is about the history of science. Most people would think that’s a snoozefest. But it’s absolutely hilarious. Bryson proved that a serious subject, if treated just so, has the potential for making you laugh out loud.

Seth Rogen and his wife had the same realization. They started “Hilarity for Charity,” a foundation that donates funds to help current dementia patients — and to help find a cure. They also believe in the healing power of laughter. This is such a close tie to the Pyle of Memories mission. My hope is to partner closely with this organization. (If anyone knows anyone there, please hit me up. This could be huge for both of our fundraising efforts.)

As you can see, the task of defining something that seems to be one thing, but really isn’t, has not been easy. So, I’ve been leaning on my marketing training to figure it out:

A little bit of iteration.

And a lot of medication.

Phase 1: Pop anti-anxiety pill. Then tell advertising people that their favorite advertising people were involved in an ambitious fundraising project that they’ll love to read. (Early feedback says our hypothesis was right. People seem to dig it.)

Phase 2: Pop another pill. Then explain an entirely new concept to the world at large.

I’m still working out phase 2.

George, any tips?

To read the first chapter and pick up a copy for yourself, see PyleOfMemories.com.

For a beta-blocker prescription, see your doctor.

Hoeing Your Row

There's been a wave over the last two years of companies trying to blankwash their way into our hearts, and more directly our wallets.

Coffee places we're supposed to like because they promise to get rid of plastic lids, straws, stirrers and baristas by the year 2092. 

Hamburger places that plant a weed for every sesame-seed bun they drop on the floor and then sell.

Shoe companies that claim to give one pair of shoes to the needy for every pair of shoes they overcharge you for. 

Ice cream companies that boycott Israel. Candy companies that buy only fair-trade chocolate. Cosmetic companies who have--after centuries--given back to indigenous populations the million-acre palm-oil plantations they stole during the present colonial era.

Then there are the trillion-dollar petrochemical terrorists we're supposed to love because they've spent $52,345 on environmental research. Or trillion-dollar financial institutions that raped people out of their life savings, destroyed broad swaths of the world economy, but since they're sponsoring a local marimba band, we should be thankful for their presence.

Not too many years ago, agencies large, small and dishonest took to buying for themselves a B-corp Certification. I know there are some agencies, like Oberland, who truly abide by the lofty standards of the certification. But for too many others, B-corp status is just another "pay-to-play" award, like one of the thousands of thousands of Cannes trophies (last year and laughably, there were 27 Grand Prix winners alone. That's proof that today, you can have multiple Ne Plus Ultrae) or J.D. Power awards for "best left-handed dry-cleaner, waistcoat division."

A few weeks ago, a dot org called Clean Creatives circulated a piece about all the giant agencies working with petrochemical companies--climate liars and environmental terrorists who brook enormous planetary destruction and then spend liberally to cover up their crimes. You can see their entire "F-List" here.

Some of the agencies on the F-List (there are literally hundreds) spent thousands, maybe millions, of dollars for B-Corp. certification, their way of showing the world that they're holier than thou. They can afford those fees because of the vast sums they earn from filthy and deceptive environmental violence.

It reminds me of the Persilschein process during the so-called de-Nazification years in West Germany. Then and there, billionaires and their giant corporations, like IG Farben (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa), the Quandts (BMW), Krupp (Steel), Pieche (Porsche and VW), paid for whitewashing affidavits (Persil is an European laundry soap) to cleanse their genocidal pasts of Nazism.

Today the agencies we work for are effecting similar moral sleight-of-hand through both their public efforts to show the world how much they care and dubious and for-sale designations like B-Corp.

It's not really my business to judge what people do. You make your bed, you lie in it. We're all here to make money and do what we can to live in a corrupt world dominated by a few malefactors of great wealth.  (A phrase coined by repubican president Theodore Roosevelt.)

In my view however there's one thing worse than being one of those malefactors. It's being one and pretending you're clean.