It Just Never Stops

The thing that makes advertising so great is that the bullshit is never-ending. There's always something alarmingly stupid to write about.

My favorite article of last week appeared in Ad Age and was entitled "Beverage Ads Not Fueling Enough Word Of Mouth."

"In 47% of conversations about brands in general, marketing or advertising is mentioned as a source of information. But only 38% of conversations about beverages include a mention of marketing or advertising."

You see, these people know precisely - to the nearest percent - what is discussed in every conversation in this great land of ours. There's no hedging -- no "about" or "as far as we can tell" or "our research indicates." They know that marketing and advertising is discussed in 47% of conversations about brands.

In my experience -- eavesdropping in public rest rooms and bugging my neighbors' telephones -- here's what I've found. I've transcribed one here for you:

Todd: Dude, what up?
Jason: Nada.
Todd: Any thoughts about like brands?
Jason: Like, brands in general or, like, beverage brands?
Todd: Uh...like...
Jason: Yeah, like, dude, Cool Ranch Doritos has this awesome like social media site except nobody knows it's like their stealth site and everyone thinks it's like so cool...
Todd: Awesome. Is that like a beverage, or what?

In my conversations about beverages, mentions of marketing and advertising occur 0% of the time. 100% of the time the conversation is..."make it a double."