Daily dumbness update.

Just ran across this ad in The New York Times online.

Let's count the inanities in this 2"x2" space. The incidents that betray the fact that General Motors refuses to treat the customer like anything but an imbecile.

1. The Total Confidence logo is completely un-done by the line "get program details & limitations." It's Total Confidence, I guess, with limitations.
2. The use of the word "unprecedented." As in "buying a car from a company going out of business is virtually unprecedented."
3. They never say the name of the car.

Lost and found.

70 years ago a Robert Capa lost of a cache of negatives that came to be called "The Mexican Suitcase." These were recently found--and found to be in "remarkably good condition." You can read the story and see a dozen or so photos here. It's worth the trip. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/arts/design/30capa.html?ref=arts

Clever retail ad.

No, that's not an oxymoron. Or at least it shouldn't be.
http://doihavepigflu.com/

Lest we forget.

Jean Halliday of Advertising Age has an article today that chronicles the soon-to-be-defunct (or defuct) Pontiac's advertising through the years. You can read the article here http://adage.com/article?article_id=136319 and see images of the ads here http://adage.com/images/random/0409/pontiac042709/

Amid all the reasons for Pontiac's demise, let's not forget this one. Their advertising has always been full of bombast and bluster. It was never consistent from year to year. It reflects that they never knew who they were as a company or brand.

Boys and girls, advertising does make a difference. It won't stop a bad brand from dying. But bad, bland advertising doesn't help anything.

The value of advertising agency holding companies.

The holding company for which I work lost over three score and ten million dollars last quarter. But fear not, we still employ a Chief Risk Officer. And from that Chief Risk Officer, I just received an email about Swine Flu.

I've quoted my favorite part of the memo below.

The following methods can reduce your chances of contracting swine flu:

* Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, ideally with a tissue.

Thank you. I never knew that.

Advertising today.

"Man, my swine flu is killing me," I said to my art director.

The phone crackled "huh, we must have a bad connection I can hardly hear you."

Naturally, my art director wasn't in my office with me. He was working out of our Bangalore office--cheaper that way. We could pay him in potato skins and grapefruit rinds.

"I said, my swine flu is killing me" still trying to make conversation but thinking I'd be better off washing my hands for the fourth time since I arrived at work two hours earlier.

"You'll have to speak up," he responded. "The ice-cap has melted and the office is under four-feet of water."

"Forget it. Enough dilly-dallying. We have to concept on a brand spot for a Fortune 50 client. But our budget is only $30K because they are getting TARP funding and don't want to look profligate."

"Why don't we use stock photos," he parried. "Kind of a Ken Burns' thing."

"Great idea," I conceded.

At that moment, an account guy darkened my doorway and I gracefully got off the phone promising to continue our brainstorming later.

"Forget about that spot," the suit intoned. "The client just went into chapter 11. Their market cap is less than the cost of a Bud at the Tip Top Tap."

"Dead?"

"Dead," he answered.

"Does that mean there's no job number to bill my time against?" I inquired.

"Can't help you with that one, big guy. You're on your own with finance." Account people. They're not worth the ice in a dry martini.

As if on cue, finance was on the line. It seems I had had twelve minutes of downtime the previous week and they wanted to know what was up.

"Mexican food," I explained.

"We've already warned you about that. The optimum diet for maximum billability is white bread, yogurt with inactive cultures and unripe bananas."

"Got it," I said. Making a mental note of it. "I won't let it happen again."

My assistant then poked her head in, "You're two minutes late for your 'Respect in the Workplace Training.'

As Sartre wrote: "Everything began to spin and I found myself sitting on the ground: I laughed so hard I cried"

Bye, bye Miss American Pie.

It seems that Pontiac along with over 20,000 GM workers are being cashiered. I use the word "cashiered" because most of those workers will likely wind up with nothing better than cashiering jobs at fast-food restaurants.

Does it feel like it's the opposite of Morning Again in America? That the whole country is in financial, spiritual, and medical arrears?

Our hospitals don't work. We have little industrial base left. Our public schools are failing. Our cities and infrastructure are in decay. Even our military--recipient of over $600 billion/yr. in expenditures is over-stretched.

It's Monday Again in America.

Yesterday morning in New York.

As I walked down the subway steps at W. 86th Street, alongside a 30-something blonde, a small Norwegian gray rat scampered up. The blonde exclaimed in an English accent, "what is a possum doing in the subway." "Lady, that's a rat," was my laconic reply.

Worry Chic.

I remembered this article from 21 1/2 years ago from The New York Times, and I happened to be able to find it online.

For whatever reason, it's helped me this afternoon.

Published: Thursday, January 7, 1988

Don't relax. There's always something to worry about. Herpes, crack and nuclear holocaust have not gone away but have become passe worries. A trendy era obeys fashion even in its fretting. Here are some worries that have already infected 1988.

There may be urethane in the wine.

There may be parasites in the sushi.

Radon, an insidious, invisible, radioactive gas, could be seeping into your basement.

There is too much ozone in the air you breathe, which damages the lungs.

There is too little ozone in the stratosphere, which lets in ultraviolet rays that burn the skin.

The world may get too warm, because sunlight is being trapped, as in a greenhouse, by the growing veil of gases spewed out by burning coal.

The world will get too cold if the next ice age arrives before the greenhouse effect does.

The dollar may make a strong recovery, ruinously reversing improvements in the balance of trade.

You may suffer a heart attack if you exercise too little.

You may suffer a heart attack if you exercise too much.

Even if the wine has no urethane, it probably contains sulfites. Or the beer may. And in any case, both are laden with a more pernicious chemical -alcohol.

Does all this mean that modern life is burdening Americans with more and more worries? No -just different ones. Worries grow stale and need to be changed. It's the disposition to worry that endures.

Pursuant to my last post.

There's another way to look at advertising and efficacy. It is also simple. Advertising that works has news value that allows it to breakthrough.

I just came across the news that BMW's Mini Cooper is building a car called the Mini Chameleon. Not because it will continue to live if its tail falls off, but because it changes color with the weather.

We've had cars for 120 years.
This is a first.
This is news.
This car--whether it sells in profitable quantities or not, will allow Mini to stay cool, stay newsworthy and create buzz.

There's even some functionality involved. The car's color brightens in low-visibility rainy weather.

But of course, that's not the point.
The point is Mini are getting noticed.
That's the point.
That's advertising.