July 10, 2004
thoughts on the advertising biz
Just added the following thoughts to The Hughtrain Manifesto:
: Great advertising has far more to do with how great your company is than which ad agency you hire.
: Doc Searls once incisively stated, “There is no market for messages.” Agreed. Which is why TV networks had to create TV programs. So you’d watch them. Otherwise they’d just air the commericals.
: The Cube Dweller’s job is to convince the client that it’s 1990. Middle Management’s job is to convince the client that that it’s 1970. Senior Management’s job is to convince the client that it’s 1950.
: The word “Brand” has so many meanings now, some more whacked-out than others, that using it has ceased to be useful.
: Ad agencies market themselves as lions; in reality they’re more closely related to the hyena.
: The quickest way to lose that corner office is to come up with an original idea.
: Watching the big Madison Avenue agencies trying to get with the program is a bit like watching a middle-aged married man hitting on a co-ed in a bar.
: As long as your marketing remains the domain of your typical suit-wearing marketing jackoff (“Let’s call a meeting at 7.30am and talk about nothing for 3 hours!”), your marketing will be jacked-off accordingly.
: The Customer is a human being. The Consumer is a metaphor.
: The “advertising is an art form” schpiel makes for dreary conversation.
Hughtrain is coming along nicely. The plan is to eventually use it as the basis of a book I want to publish. The thesis of the book is still a secret. No, it’s not just some kind of Cluetrain-inspired book for the ad biz.
I’ve got a much bigger idea than that. Heh.
in that case, perhaps you should register hughtrain.com before someone more opportunistic than i does
That cartoon is really terrible. People who work in advertising = gay? Gay = like totally the worst thing ever? Haha? Are you fourteen?
Taking it up in the ass, as it used here in the adman’s vernacular, has nothing to do with being gay, Stewart. It has to do with being dominated by an evil client…a client one will do anything for, anything at all.