I listened to NPR this morning, and scanned "The New York Times" both the paper and the online editions. No news of the three wars we are fighting. It brought this to mind:
From Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction."
In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us.
Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
LeBron vs. Sid.
Uncle Slappy called last night as the Miami Heat-Dallas Mavericks NBA Championship Series was drawing to a close. Like most of America, he was rooting against Miami (despite living in Boca, just a stone's throw from the Heat) and specifically he was rooting against the bombastic LeBron James.
"I want to tell you something about this James LeBron," he parried.
"It's LeBron James, Uncle Slappy."
"LeBron? LeBron is his first name? Not James? Oy, the schvartzas with their ferstunkeneh names. I'll tell you about a basketball player. Sid Tannenbaum."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Slappy, I don't know about him."
"Two times an All-American at NYU. James LeBron couldn't wipe his tuchas."
"Uncle Slappy, no offense, but LeBron James is considered one of the greatest players ever to play the game," I countered.
"You kids today. Sid was like a magician. Hands flew like birds. The best two-handed set shot I've ever seen. There was no defense against it."
"Have you seen LeBron play, Uncle Slappy? The man is unstoppable."
"Yeah, except during big games. Then King James is Schwing James."
With that, the old man hung up and my wife switched the TV to the Tony's.
Angry.
In my agency the ratio of the people who are meant to make sure work is being done to the people who actually create work is about seven to one.
Every morning I receive a host of emails telling me about new processes to discuss and keep track of the work I do. I am charged with going to about four meetings a day to so all those "minders" can find out what work is being done.
There is no advancement of the ball at any of these meetings. Just an acknowledgement that the ball is nigh.
In almost 30 years in the business, I have never failed to get my work done on time. I have created millions of dollars worth of assignments--things I've thought of doing and sold to the client.
I don't know why or how our business has devolved to its current state. Where we are infested with babysitters whose competence is barely above the drool level. These are the people who "run" things today.
Every morning I receive a host of emails telling me about new processes to discuss and keep track of the work I do. I am charged with going to about four meetings a day to so all those "minders" can find out what work is being done.
There is no advancement of the ball at any of these meetings. Just an acknowledgement that the ball is nigh.
In almost 30 years in the business, I have never failed to get my work done on time. I have created millions of dollars worth of assignments--things I've thought of doing and sold to the client.
I don't know why or how our business has devolved to its current state. Where we are infested with babysitters whose competence is barely above the drool level. These are the people who "run" things today.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
LeBron James and advertising.
LeBron James, many people assert, is one of the greatest, if not the greatest basketball player ever to put on a pair of too-long shorts. The man is a physical freak. At 6'8" and 250 pounds, he's often the strongest and the fastest guy on the floor. In the parlance of the game: "He's faster than anyone bigger and bigger than anyone faster."
The fly in James' ointment, is this: he's never won a championship. He seems to disappear at crunch time. In the 4th quarter of the championship series he is now playing in, he has scored few points, garnered few rebounds. And his team now is in a must win situation in the finals, trailing three games to two.
We work with plenty of advertising LeBron Jameses everyday. They are present when the sun is shining and the pressure is off. They are loud, prominent and full of opinions. However when crunch time happens, these people can be found cowering in a corner, absent of ideas.
There are one or two tests of the efficacy of a creative person. 1) Do they have the stamina to outlast a crappy client and not give in? 2) Do they come through when they're on a pitch?
The fly in James' ointment, is this: he's never won a championship. He seems to disappear at crunch time. In the 4th quarter of the championship series he is now playing in, he has scored few points, garnered few rebounds. And his team now is in a must win situation in the finals, trailing three games to two.
We work with plenty of advertising LeBron Jameses everyday. They are present when the sun is shining and the pressure is off. They are loud, prominent and full of opinions. However when crunch time happens, these people can be found cowering in a corner, absent of ideas.
There are one or two tests of the efficacy of a creative person. 1) Do they have the stamina to outlast a crappy client and not give in? 2) Do they come through when they're on a pitch?
Friday, June 10, 2011
Old, new and now.
My father started in the advertising business almost 60 years ago working in-house for RCA. I believe he was the writer on the commercial pasted above.
Today, "The New York Times" has an article called "Old-Time Torture Tests Resurface on YouTube, and Tablets Take a Licking." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/business/media/10adco.html?scp=1&sq=vaughn%20monroe&st=cse The article talks about videos made by a company called Square Trade which sells extended warranties. The videos create torture tests and puts them on YouTube.
I find it instructive to look at old-timey commercials, even those not created by my father. Somehow, despite their crudeness, they were closer to the original purpose of advertising, that is, selling. In many cases, they recreated on film what a door-to-door salesman might do on your stoop.
New media savants, the ones who spout that marketing is dead, don't understand that demonstrations, if they're interesting, truthful and compelling fulfill a basic human need for people to see things with their own eyes. (Chico Marx's line "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" notwithstanding.)
I'd argue that the great work Apple's done in selling through the years is nothing more than modernized versions of what my father did a lifetime ago.
The theory of relativity.
At a dinner party, Einstein famously described his theory of relativity this way: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”
It seems to me we have a serious relativity issue in our business. We don't understand, or recognize, the relative importance and value of the work we create. Depending on where you work, depending on the media in which you work, your agency can spend as many hours and as much people-power discussing the orientation of a scroll bar (should it be horizontal or vertical? I've yet to see a diagonal one) as it will mulling over a national television campaign.
Just as there is very little hierarchy on the web, there is, today, very little hierarchy within agencies. Everything seems equal.
What's really happening within our marketing communications infrastructure is we are having a format civil war, not that much different between the one we had a couple decades ago between VHS and Beta.
Both sides are fighting tooth and nail, propagating the superiority of their world. They disparage the other. They inflate their own importance. There is no honesty, no real sense of relativity.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Sometimes a second takes all day.
Here's something the timesheet police will never understand. It can take hours to take a second out of a script.
We have created in our industry a situation where the people that manage the holding companies have never worked in our business and the people who manage our hours have never created anything but a spreadsheet.
We have created in our industry a situation where the people that manage the holding companies have never worked in our business and the people who manage our hours have never created anything but a spreadsheet.
Toys, old and modern.
There are three things I lately noticed that have made me think about the current condition of advertising.
First, I saw somewhere (I forget where) little magnetic balls--a desk toy selling online for something like $80. Second, some years after all the shoe repair shops, hobby shops and bookstores closed in my neighborhood, to be replaced by over-priced restaurants, nail salons, over-priced restaurants and nail salons, a kids' toy store opened in my neighborhood. Finally, a store called "Burlington Antique Toys," which was housed in the basement of one of New York's last independent bookstores, shut its doors at the end of May. Burlington Antique Toys sold tin and cast iron toys to rich older men reliving the childhood they never had--it specialized in late 19th and early 20th century tin soldiers.
It occurred to me that this confluence of toys has a meaning. One is, we have a need for toys, regardless of our age. Toys stimulate our imagination. They allow us to use our hands in play, not work. They allow us an indirectness. Not every action, not every waking moment must be filled with something that gets us toward a goal.
Toys allow us, in short, psychic and physical downtime. We use them to start a screensaver in the serious lobe of our brains. If you go back into history, toys are ever-present in all societies. They are often the first "tools" people make after bowls, spears and the like.
It occurs to me that as our society and our industry has evolved into a new species (homo technologistus) that we have spent a fair amount of the early years of our macro development creating toys.
I don't just mean "Angry Birds," or "Bedazzled." But things like "Facebook," "Four Square" and the like are essentially toys. That doesn't mean they aren't important or aren't serious. It does mean, in my opinion, that we should think about what they really are and what role they play in our lives before we deem them the engines of marketing nirvana.
Sometimes a toy is just a toy.
First, I saw somewhere (I forget where) little magnetic balls--a desk toy selling online for something like $80. Second, some years after all the shoe repair shops, hobby shops and bookstores closed in my neighborhood, to be replaced by over-priced restaurants, nail salons, over-priced restaurants and nail salons, a kids' toy store opened in my neighborhood. Finally, a store called "Burlington Antique Toys," which was housed in the basement of one of New York's last independent bookstores, shut its doors at the end of May. Burlington Antique Toys sold tin and cast iron toys to rich older men reliving the childhood they never had--it specialized in late 19th and early 20th century tin soldiers.
It occurred to me that this confluence of toys has a meaning. One is, we have a need for toys, regardless of our age. Toys stimulate our imagination. They allow us to use our hands in play, not work. They allow us an indirectness. Not every action, not every waking moment must be filled with something that gets us toward a goal.
Toys allow us, in short, psychic and physical downtime. We use them to start a screensaver in the serious lobe of our brains. If you go back into history, toys are ever-present in all societies. They are often the first "tools" people make after bowls, spears and the like.
It occurs to me that as our society and our industry has evolved into a new species (homo technologistus) that we have spent a fair amount of the early years of our macro development creating toys.
I don't just mean "Angry Birds," or "Bedazzled." But things like "Facebook," "Four Square" and the like are essentially toys. That doesn't mean they aren't important or aren't serious. It does mean, in my opinion, that we should think about what they really are and what role they play in our lives before we deem them the engines of marketing nirvana.
Sometimes a toy is just a toy.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Bad Mood Wednesday.
They talk.
They are semantically precise.
They schedule meetings.
They control costs.
They argue over briefs.
They demand your timesheets.
They pontificate.
They self-promote.
They discuss.
They criticize.
They facebook.
They tweet.
They foursquare.
They do everything.
But actually do work
that helps create value
for brands.
They are semantically precise.
They schedule meetings.
They control costs.
They argue over briefs.
They demand your timesheets.
They pontificate.
They self-promote.
They discuss.
They criticize.
They facebook.
They tweet.
They foursquare.
They do everything.
But actually do work
that helps create value
for brands.
The Strand and the Dentist.
One of the companions of my 53 years is an accumulation of dental issues that require me to visit my dentist many more times than I wish I had to. I am going on my fifth or sixth visit in this round and nearing the end, for now, of this particular hardship.
For me, there's one thing that lessens the discomfort and angst of visiting the dentist. That is his office is just three short blocks from The Strand, one of the great bookstores in all the world. I seldom attend to my mouth without also finding some time to attend to my bookshelves.
The Strand can be an infuriating place. The staff is sallow and arrogant. Though if you have a good eye you can usually pick out someone who can help you. And the Strand is horribly disorganized. Its 18-miles of books are assorted willy-nilly and the great store's aisles are so narrow it's hard to browse without getting buffeted by shoppers who are in more of a hurry than you.
Last night I went twice to the Strand. Once in the six minutes I had before my appointment, and then for an hour after the drilling, scraping, poking and rinsing.
The Strand was important to my career when I was younger. It was just about half a mile from an agency where I worked, and I'd go there at lunchtime and buy every old awards annual I could put my hands on. Last night I saw a mint edition Art Director's annual, in its original box, from 1965. We are currently on annual 89. I think this one was 45, though my math could be wrong. I'd have bought it, but I already have it.
The other interesting thing, or sad thing, I saw at the Strand last night was a table filled with books about to be remaindered. The sign at the table read, forlornly: "Memoirs. $10."
For me, there's one thing that lessens the discomfort and angst of visiting the dentist. That is his office is just three short blocks from The Strand, one of the great bookstores in all the world. I seldom attend to my mouth without also finding some time to attend to my bookshelves.
The Strand can be an infuriating place. The staff is sallow and arrogant. Though if you have a good eye you can usually pick out someone who can help you. And the Strand is horribly disorganized. Its 18-miles of books are assorted willy-nilly and the great store's aisles are so narrow it's hard to browse without getting buffeted by shoppers who are in more of a hurry than you.
Last night I went twice to the Strand. Once in the six minutes I had before my appointment, and then for an hour after the drilling, scraping, poking and rinsing.
The Strand was important to my career when I was younger. It was just about half a mile from an agency where I worked, and I'd go there at lunchtime and buy every old awards annual I could put my hands on. Last night I saw a mint edition Art Director's annual, in its original box, from 1965. We are currently on annual 89. I think this one was 45, though my math could be wrong. I'd have bought it, but I already have it.
The other interesting thing, or sad thing, I saw at the Strand last night was a table filled with books about to be remaindered. The sign at the table read, forlornly: "Memoirs. $10."
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