Death And Advertising

As all ad contras know, the best way for a loudmouth meatball to grab some cheap headlines is to declare something "dead." The more absurd the claim, the better.

So if you want to be on the cover of Banker's Weekly, just make a speech declaring that money is dead. If you want to be published in Dairy World, write an article asserting that milk is dead. It doesn't matter that you have no facts and that everything you say is just made-up bullshit. You'll grab some headlines, and moron journalists will line up for interviews.

Here at The Ad Contrarian World Headquarters, we have created a whole department devoted to documenting and archiving all the things related to advertising that are now supposed to be dead.

Today, I am happy to report, we have a new all-time champion in the Department of Dopey Declarations of Death. It is the ceo of a very famous agency. In one fell swoop (by the way, what the hell is a fell swoop?) our new titleholder has declared the following things dead:

• Strategy
• Big Ideas
• Management
• Marketing

It's not really clear from the article what killed all these poor babies, but my money's on social media. Apparently, there is nothing in the galaxy that can survive the deadly power of social media.

Of course, we've heard most of this nonsense a thousand times before so there's really nothing new here. The thing that makes it curious, though, is that it comes from the ceo of an ad agency. As the ceo of an agency myself, I have always foolishly believed that what we overfed ad honchos are getting paid for is...

• Strategy
• Big Ideas
• Management
• Marketing

Boy, am I a schmuck.

Why the hell am I busting my ass here trying to give my clients all this stuff? This guy's rolling in dough and all he's doing is prancing around making speeches saying it's all dead.

So I've got a new strategy...oops, sorry, it's not a strategy...that died...it's a...a "conversation" or a "shared value" or something...

Anyway, I'm going to take a page out of this guy's book, and I'm officially finished worrying about all this dead crap. If there is an agency out there who needs a ceo with no interest in strategy, ideas, management or marketing, I'm your man. And I'll do it for half what you're paying that other guy.