In any serious field of study there is a healthy tension between what is universal and what is transient. This is true in art, literature, history, architecture, science, and virtually every other discipline.
It would be inconceivable to have a serious contemporary writer who was not familiar with the works of Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce, or Shakespeare. It would be unthinkable to have a consequential contemporary artist who wasn't conversant in the contributions of Rembrandt, Picasso, Da Vinci, Monet, and Van Gogh. It is unimaginable that there would be eminent lawyers who didn't know the thinking of Cicero, Jefferson, or Mandela.
Being good at something requires wisdom. And wisdom requires perspective.
One of the reasons advertising is held in such low esteem by the business community is that there is no canon of wisdom. There is just the present. We shallowly pursue the transient at the expense of understanding the universal.
This pursuit is manifest in our anointing an endless stream of "things that will change everything." The literature on these "things" is dismaying and instructive.
Only someone with no wisdom and no perspective about art would have claimed that a new type of sculpture by Calder, as brilliant as it may have been, would "change everything." Influence some things, yes. Change everything, no.
Only blind fools can't see the connections between things. Only nitwits don't see the interrelationships and the evolution in disciplines.
Today, the ad industry is being overrun with people who have no idea what is universal and what is transient in our business. They are not being taught principles, they are being taught tactics.
To them, Bernbach, Ogilvy and Riney are just names of old dead guys. They never heard of Ally & Gargano or Scali, McCabe, Sloves. They have no idea what these people and organizations did, or stood for, or taught us about advertising.
It's our own fault. No one is willing to take the time to learn the history so he can teach it. Our own industry organizations - particularly the 4A's - are prime culprits. By desperately trying to remain "relevant" they have sounded a constant drumbeat about "digital changing everything" that is not only false, it undermines the importance of young peoples' need to learn the history and principles of our trade.
October 31, 2011
October 27, 2011
Sometimes This Feels Almost Useful
Every now and then I receive an email from someone, particularly a young person, that makes me feel like this blog actually has some value. Here's one from a young man working in Silicon Valley. Name withheld to protect the innocent.
Hi Bob,
I wanted to drop you a quick line to say a sincere thank you for your writing. I came across your blog a couple of months ago and have since been reading every article. I'm now nearly at the very beginning.
I find your blog very important for the very reasons you mention - cutting through the crap. Getting past the stupid babbling and actually selling stuff which is what ad people are supposed to do. I'm in marketing, but am a young one - only graduated about two years ago and I only came into marketing by circumstance, actually. Anyway, I do love it quite a bit, but having been thrown into the field of web marketing, where not only is performance such an issue as you've been reporting in TAC, but where everything is so new (relatively) it's all being made up on the spot, I quickly became very frustrated. The problem I faced was with the CEOs I worked with. They were smart guys, but oh-so-badly wanted the latest and greatest new thing to come out of Silicon Valley that apparently would revolutionize everything. I always saw the problems with the web marketing industry, but being inexperienced and without mentors (I ended up being the one who taught VPs of marketing and CEOs of venture-backed companies what *I* knew about marketing at various points in my career) I always thought the problem was with me.
Only recently have I started to understand that a ton of people around me are just completely full of shit, and that management often has no idea what the hell they actually want even though they're so sure that this latest geolocation-based-silo-busting-mobile-payment-enabled-crowdsourcing-community-building phone app is the way to catapult us into success.
Your writing has helped me get a grasp on these facts, and despite that the industry I've come into seems to be in complete shambles, I think I understand what I have to do to succeed without becoming a platitude-spewing sycophant.
Thank you,
I'll be speaking tonight in Kansas City. If you're in the neighborhood, here are the details.
Hi Bob,
I wanted to drop you a quick line to say a sincere thank you for your writing. I came across your blog a couple of months ago and have since been reading every article. I'm now nearly at the very beginning.
I find your blog very important for the very reasons you mention - cutting through the crap. Getting past the stupid babbling and actually selling stuff which is what ad people are supposed to do. I'm in marketing, but am a young one - only graduated about two years ago and I only came into marketing by circumstance, actually. Anyway, I do love it quite a bit, but having been thrown into the field of web marketing, where not only is performance such an issue as you've been reporting in TAC, but where everything is so new (relatively) it's all being made up on the spot, I quickly became very frustrated. The problem I faced was with the CEOs I worked with. They were smart guys, but oh-so-badly wanted the latest and greatest new thing to come out of Silicon Valley that apparently would revolutionize everything. I always saw the problems with the web marketing industry, but being inexperienced and without mentors (I ended up being the one who taught VPs of marketing and CEOs of venture-backed companies what *I* knew about marketing at various points in my career) I always thought the problem was with me.
Only recently have I started to understand that a ton of people around me are just completely full of shit, and that management often has no idea what the hell they actually want even though they're so sure that this latest geolocation-based-silo-busting-mobile-payment-enabled-crowdsourcing-community-building phone app is the way to catapult us into success.
Your writing has helped me get a grasp on these facts, and despite that the industry I've come into seems to be in complete shambles, I think I understand what I have to do to succeed without becoming a platitude-spewing sycophant.
Thank you,
I'll be speaking tonight in Kansas City. If you're in the neighborhood, here are the details.
October 24, 2011
On The Verge of Convergence?
It's been about 15 years now that we've been waiting for "convergence" -- when the TV and the computer would join hands and walk blissfully down the aisle.
Out chattering digerati keep telling us it's right around the corner, and like much of what they've told us, it's nowhere in sight. Chalk up another loser to knucklehead futurology.
Not only has convergence not occurred, we have experienced enormous divergence.
Whereas we used to have one or two media gadgets, we now have handfuls. Our power strips are so loaded down with plugs I don't know how they don't explode.
It is not unusual these days for someone to have a TV, a desk-top computer, a laptop computer, an iPod, a smart-phone, and a tablet.
Where the convergence prophets have been wrong is in assuming that because companies could make computational devices with multiple uses, we would want to use them that way. In fact, for the most part what has happened is that we have favorite uses for different devices.
We define how we use these gadgets not by what they can do, but by how it's most convenient and how we're most comfortable using them.
According to advanced reports on Walter Isaacson's book about Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs: A Biography) Jobs told him that he had broken the code on convergence and that Apple was working on a new idea for TV.
Thus far convergence has been nothing but chit chat. But if there's any company that can make it happen, my money's on Apple.
I will be speaking on Thursday night in Kansas City. If you're in the area here's some info on the event.
Out chattering digerati keep telling us it's right around the corner, and like much of what they've told us, it's nowhere in sight. Chalk up another loser to knucklehead futurology.
Not only has convergence not occurred, we have experienced enormous divergence.
Whereas we used to have one or two media gadgets, we now have handfuls. Our power strips are so loaded down with plugs I don't know how they don't explode.
It is not unusual these days for someone to have a TV, a desk-top computer, a laptop computer, an iPod, a smart-phone, and a tablet.
Where the convergence prophets have been wrong is in assuming that because companies could make computational devices with multiple uses, we would want to use them that way. In fact, for the most part what has happened is that we have favorite uses for different devices.
We define how we use these gadgets not by what they can do, but by how it's most convenient and how we're most comfortable using them.
According to advanced reports on Walter Isaacson's book about Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs: A Biography) Jobs told him that he had broken the code on convergence and that Apple was working on a new idea for TV.
“It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”I guess we'll see. One report said this device would be ready by the end of 2012.
Thus far convergence has been nothing but chit chat. But if there's any company that can make it happen, my money's on Apple.
I will be speaking on Thursday night in Kansas City. If you're in the area here's some info on the event.
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