Absolutely brilliant, Bob!
A few days ago I was talking to a young friend who has recently attended some “alternative ad school” and he was using all those terms we all love… to death. I could only come to one obvious conclusion: “Honey, the more time you spend among ad professionals, the more stupid you sound. And you even pay for it. Now how clever is that?”
Honestly, I’ll never understand why young people keep paying for these “schools”. Approximately 500 Euros every time, to obtain the right to spend 2-3 weeks working as a volunteer for various ad agencies where some older people distort your vocabulary and asphyxiate your natural instinct that tells you not to slide from basic logic to ridiculous nonsense. Would be more educative and clearly more inspiring (and less stupid) to take a long trip somewhere. Anywhere. The world has never been more rich and more stupid than it is today! That’s a good reason to enjoy this economic crisis – though I’m not sure we don’t need a war.
Im just left wondering what problem you had in college
I nominate Auntie Ruthie for Worldwide Stategic Planning for All of Advertising. Everyone should have this conversation before committing anything to paper.
As Ogilvy said "she's not a consumer, she's your wife" (or words to that effect). Of course back then your wife was the little woman, waiting patiently to prepare her man's martini.
Just like all the other oldest professions on earth, I doubt advertising will ever change all that much. We can make up new words and flaunt our vocabulary and analyze this, that and the other to death, but in the end we're getting a message out to people about some nifty benefits they might enjoy.
The rest is all job security.
Hmm, timely. We met with a client yesterday that had paid a big fancy consultant to come in and do a six month strategy only to receive some boiler-plate, buzz-word laden atrocity. That team had to spend another 3 months rewriting the strategy themselves (after all, they know their business best), and have now been forced into months of "stakeholder consultation" and do you know what the recommendation was? Hire another fancy consultant.
Think of all the real advertising work we could have been doing for them in all that time. It's not rocket science. It's common sense. People aren't users or consumers, they are humans.
Yesterday I learned that the only purpose of fancy strategies and reports was to feed our egos. Maybe we should just start thinking like humans and actually do something.
Five comments in and no one's commented on "How else do you use a pickle?"
Ooops.
Excellent stuff!
And it put me in mind of Dickie Beasley, another great ad agency parody from Viz Comic:
http://www.creativetarget.co.uk/.../blog/
index.php
TAC:
I thought of alternate uses for a pickle as I read but decided that this was a 'family' blog and that your readers might not like the options and that commenting might get you in a pickle with some of them.
j2
(laughs)It's not easy to work in advertising, especially explain what and how we do it, is it!?
Yes ... well ... but ...
About 100 years ago, I was working in an agency with a garden hose account. The client wanted to do some research; to find out how their hoses were being used, etc. "Research!?" hollered the account guy, "I'll stand outside a hardware store on a Saturday morning and ask people how they use their hoses. They'll tell me they water their gardens."
Client prevailed. Turned out men attached sprinklers to their hoses, turned on the tap and then went inside and watched TV. Women attached nozzles to their hoses, turned on the tap and stood in their gardens for hours with dreamy looks on their faces (Simone de Beauvoir had commented on the same thing - but who'd mention her in front of a client?). Women were also 80% of buyers.
well - yes! of course!
As long as your clients are family members.
Otherwise, I'm afraid, you'll need to deal with large corporations.
And they speak in code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus.../
Business_speak
The same holds true for the conflation of 'sales' and 'marketing' - to Aunt Bessie, same thing. To corporations - different depts, functions and budgets.
It's all about knowing your customer, y'see.
FX
I think Dan Brown should give up writing about the Illuminati and the Catholic Church and write about the Agency world. With all your secret codes, adspeak, and disdain for the non-believers...you sure you don't have a secret handshake?
F-in hilarious and all too true!
Or rather, your post over-delivered on expectations and really resonated with me.
Bob,
One of these days I'm going to get kicked out of this building for laughing so hard while reading your posts. (Thanks in advance.)
Poor Ruthie. Stanley will never help her develop a relationship with her consumer.
Regards,
Ack! Where'd my comment go?
Oh, well. Brilliant as usual, Bob.
(Don't worry about not getting the account. If she's anything like my Aunt Ruthie the pay would have been 15
¢ and a nice hot corned beef dinner. Tough to pay the electric with that.)
Until later,
I wish all clients were like Aunt Ruthie. Others, like Pepsi, seem to enjoy the bullshit of Peter Arnell. Beautiful post here. My intern will be reading this one
lol. Have taken the liberty of posting a link to this one on FB 
hehehe... Too good... I applaud.
This reminds me when, a few years ago, I read an interiew of one of the judges of the "Real Academia Espa
ñola" (the Royal Academy of the Spanish language, basically, who admit or reject new words in the dictionary). The man was an authority in linguistics and (Spanish) grammar, but he still managed to say it in the most simple way:
"Those who ruin the language most are not the ignorant, are the professionals!"
L.m.a.o! http://www.andrewdavidson.com/gibberish/
Brilliant!
TAC, brutally funny as usual.
But I have to be the dissenter. Doesn't Robbie have something of a point? I mean Auntie Ruthie's pickles may be "homemade, taste wonderful and use fresh ingredients" but can't any other pickle company make the same claims? Robbie is simply trying to find the "unique selling point", the thing that differentiates Auntie Ruthie from a sea of similar commodity products.
Maybe this whole building relationships thing is taking commodity differentiation to it's most touchy-feely extreme.
Loved it
http://www.cockybox.com
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