Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

Today’s “Huffington Post” has a piece from Arianna, where she goes on about her experiences at the Cannes Festival and her various chats with Madison Avenues Hoi Polloi. Interesting, but as with 95% of the population’s idea of the ad biz, completely wrong. I was driven to write a comment… Here it is

Arianna... You should realize that in common with show biz and the fashion industry, advertising is cyclical. There have been "Creative" revolutions before, particularly in the 60's with wonderful work for VW, Alka-Seltzer, Avis and many others, then as the economy tightened up, advertising went back to the school of "Hard-Sell" with flaming stomachs and hammers in the head. The Ad Agency business is constantly talking about reinventing itself. Unfortunately, it never does. Conglomerate CEO's like Michael Roth of Interpublic, Maurice Levy of Publicis and Sir Martin of WPP are constantly giving speeches at conferences (which are always held in exotic locations) about the need for change, but in common with the captain of the Exxon Valdese, intoxicated with their own self importance they fail to acknowledge, let alone see, that they are in dangerous waters. As for the Creative's now being in charge. They are the guys responsible for one of the big winners at Cannes... The Lynx male body spray campaign featuring lots of semi-naked women throwing themselves at men discerning enough to saturate themselves in the stuff. Not only is it crass, it's also no different from all other after shave and cologne advertising of the last fifty years. Which as one of the judges pointed out is based on the premise... "If you wear Lynx, you'll get laid more." Ah yes, very creative. At least these guys should try to be original. Always remember George Orwell's definition of advertising... "The rattling of a stick in a swill pail!" Having been in the business for many years, I have to say, he certainly hit the nail on the head!

Will it make any impression? As Zippy the Pin-Head would say... Nah!!!

All I can say is...           George Parker is Hot!!!