Three brave souls have volunteered for Dr.A's Get-Happy Diet. They are Dotcalm, The Professor, and Uncle Susie.
They'll be dropping out of pop culture for two weeks and reporting to us on how it's affecting them. The hypothesis is that they'll be less stressed and less anxious. We'll see.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN
August 31, 2007
August 27, 2007
Dr. A's Get-Happy Diet
Last week, Dr. Adcontrarian explained (uh...declared, proclaimed, popped-off?) about how unprotected media exposure makes us unfortunate ad people unhappy.
Today I unveil Dr. A's Get-Happy Diet. The good part is, you can eat all you want. The bad part is, you're going to drop out of pop culture for a few weeks. It will not only make you happier, it will make you realize how addicted you are to anxiety and stress. Here are the rules:
1. Almost no TV. The only viewing allowed is baseball games and those past-their-sell-by-date rock band concerts on PBS. Okay, you can also check the Weather Channel.
2. Almost no movies. Juvenile comedies only.
3. Almost no newspapers. You can read the sports section, skim the business section, and do the Sudoku. No front page, no international news, no national or local news.
4. No magazines at all.
5. No websites with news or pop culture.
6. No news or talk radio.
What are you going to do? You are going to relax, maybe read a book or two, maybe enjoy longer dinners, have an extra glass of wine, spend time with your friends... in other words, it's gonna be hell.
But you're going to come out of it happier, less tense, and less anxious.
Now the important part. We still have a few openings for on-line guides (sounds so much better than guinea pigs.). Your only commitment is to follow the diet for 2 weeks and send us a few lines each day about how you're doing. If you're shy or wanted by the feds for interstate dog-fighting, you can be anonymous. Send an email to adcontrarian@gmail.com, or press "Comments" below and we'll set you up.
We start on Friday.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN
Today I unveil Dr. A's Get-Happy Diet. The good part is, you can eat all you want. The bad part is, you're going to drop out of pop culture for a few weeks. It will not only make you happier, it will make you realize how addicted you are to anxiety and stress. Here are the rules:
1. Almost no TV. The only viewing allowed is baseball games and those past-their-sell-by-date rock band concerts on PBS. Okay, you can also check the Weather Channel.
2. Almost no movies. Juvenile comedies only.
3. Almost no newspapers. You can read the sports section, skim the business section, and do the Sudoku. No front page, no international news, no national or local news.
4. No magazines at all.
5. No websites with news or pop culture.
6. No news or talk radio.
What are you going to do? You are going to relax, maybe read a book or two, maybe enjoy longer dinners, have an extra glass of wine, spend time with your friends... in other words, it's gonna be hell.
But you're going to come out of it happier, less tense, and less anxious.
Now the important part. We still have a few openings for on-line guides (sounds so much better than guinea pigs.). Your only commitment is to follow the diet for 2 weeks and send us a few lines each day about how you're doing. If you're shy or wanted by the feds for interstate dog-fighting, you can be anonymous. Send an email to adcontrarian@gmail.com, or press "Comments" below and we'll set you up.
We start on Friday.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN
August 24, 2007
How to Be Happy in Advertising
Dr. Adcontrarian is on duty today to help you be a happier ad person. Please have a seat.
It's not easy being happy in advertising. It's a frustrating business. Modern life is filled with many horrors -- war, husbands, pizza with chicken on it. And we ad people are closely aligned with something uniquely anxiety-producing -- pop culture.
Advertising used to be about discovering what consumers wanted and creating messages that addressed those interests. Now it's about pretending to find out what consumers want but really trying to figure out what the next hot cultural thing is going to be and jumping on it under the pretext of understanding consumer interests. Call me cynical.
Paying such close attention to pop culture causes great anxiety. It is non-stop slime bucket stimulation . We secretly enjoy pop culture because it keeps us on edge and anxious. This works its way through our back-office computers to stimulate us consciously and make us miserable unconsciously (full disclosure - I have no idea what I'm talking about but, admit it, if your shrink said this you'd nod your head.)
Anyway, I was on vacation not long ago. I was out-of-the-loop for a while -- off-the-grid, so to speak. I came back 50% happier than I left. After thinking about it, I realized that I was so much less tense and anxious because I hadn't watched a tv show, or read a newspaper, or visited a pop culture website, or watched a news broadcast for weeks. (You may be thinking that ignoring the news is not conducive to good citizenship, and this may very well be true, but it is not the subject of today's session, so quit whining.)
Now, here's where you come in. We're going to have the very first on-line reality show right here at The Ad Contrarian blog. Dr. A will be looking for 5 volunteers to spend the next 2 weeks getting happier by dropping out of pop culture. We'll be following them on the world famous TAC blog. More about this on Monday.
(If you'd like to sign-up now to be a drop-out-of-pop-culture-for 2-weeks volunteer, send me an email at adcontrarian@gmail.com or press "Comment" below. If you're shy or running from the law, you can volunteer anonymously.)
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN
It's not easy being happy in advertising. It's a frustrating business. Modern life is filled with many horrors -- war, husbands, pizza with chicken on it. And we ad people are closely aligned with something uniquely anxiety-producing -- pop culture.
Advertising used to be about discovering what consumers wanted and creating messages that addressed those interests. Now it's about pretending to find out what consumers want but really trying to figure out what the next hot cultural thing is going to be and jumping on it under the pretext of understanding consumer interests. Call me cynical.
Paying such close attention to pop culture causes great anxiety. It is non-stop slime bucket stimulation . We secretly enjoy pop culture because it keeps us on edge and anxious. This works its way through our back-office computers to stimulate us consciously and make us miserable unconsciously (full disclosure - I have no idea what I'm talking about but, admit it, if your shrink said this you'd nod your head.)
Anyway, I was on vacation not long ago. I was out-of-the-loop for a while -- off-the-grid, so to speak. I came back 50% happier than I left. After thinking about it, I realized that I was so much less tense and anxious because I hadn't watched a tv show, or read a newspaper, or visited a pop culture website, or watched a news broadcast for weeks. (You may be thinking that ignoring the news is not conducive to good citizenship, and this may very well be true, but it is not the subject of today's session, so quit whining.)
Now, here's where you come in. We're going to have the very first on-line reality show right here at The Ad Contrarian blog. Dr. A will be looking for 5 volunteers to spend the next 2 weeks getting happier by dropping out of pop culture. We'll be following them on the world famous TAC blog. More about this on Monday.
(If you'd like to sign-up now to be a drop-out-of-pop-culture-for 2-weeks volunteer, send me an email at adcontrarian@gmail.com or press "Comment" below. If you're shy or running from the law, you can volunteer anonymously.)
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
