Figuring out what we do.

I have a dread fear of not performing. Of not coming through. Of being unreliable. Or inadequate.

I am someone people--clients and agencies and colleagues--count on. Trust.

I don't want to fall short.

Career-wise, it's a good thing to be neurotic.

It means you are bound to over-deliver. To think things through and derive multiple alternatives.

Even in this blog I don't like not having a post first thing in the morning.

I feel I have an obligation, an intrinsic desire to fulfill. I don't like the idea of letting my few readers down.

It's funny to me how important my readership (my clients) are to me.

And how unimportant customers are to most clients.

They stuff them in too-small seats.

They confuse and addlepate with legal copy.

They seduce with "come-ons" then fail to deliver.

From a CMO point of view, the world should be a fairly simple place.

Figure out what you do and do it unfailingly.

(And if you do fuck up, admit it, apologize and make good.)

As the CMO of Ad Aged my mission is clear.

I try to write something interesting, funny, intelligent or thought-provoking everyday.

That's the job I signed up for when I started doing this.

So, I do it.

When you work in an ad agency, as I have for almost 30 years, you more often than not see a different, more complicated reality.

I suppose because so many people need to earn their keep, we have become complication machines.

There are very few companies or agencies that could answer my brief above: To figure out what you do and do it unfailingly.

100 years ago or more, British Suffragists came out with a great viral campaign. It worked.

I seldom today see anything nearly as clear.

I seldom leave a meeting without saying to my partner or myself: what is it we need to do.

We need to figure out what we do.

The United States of ADD.

As a society, we have ADD. Attention Deficit Disorder.

You've probably left this post already to check an IM, an email, your stocks, the Bruins, or a co-worker.

We cannot concentrate. Or focus. Or find clarity.

We as marketers contribute mightily to this malady.

We shovel it on by the ton.

Sponsored posts, tweets, Facebook messages, spurious sponsorships and more.

It's fucking confusing.

And it's asinine to think that, for instance, a bank has any place giving me tips on summer picnicking. Or cares what my favorite local small business is. Or really wants to know what's the coolest thing your dad ever taught you.

I guess things like the above fall under the category of "engaging in the conversation." But shit. Most people can barely have a conversation with their spouse. Do they really want to have one with an air-freshener?

Back a century or more ago the notable John Wanamaker said "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half."

My guess is that if Wanamaker were alive today he would have upped his percentage to 99.9% wasted.

We talk too much.

We distract too much.

We send out too much stuff.

We do too much to too little effect.

We don't focus on the few things that would have the greatest power. We aren't snipers we are machine gunners.

We don't have singularity of message and clarity of purpose.

In our nation of ADD we are contributors.

Instead of ubiquity and more we should do less, better.

Sir Francis Drake on advertising.

I read a quotation the other day by the English explorer, Sir Francis Drake, the inventor of the Ring Ding and Yodel.

I don't have any particular affinity for Drake but I liked the quotation and think it has a lot of bearing on life and work.

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.” 

Right now, my partner and I are slogging.

Last week we showed our clients a couple of campaigns and the client liked them both. So, to Drake's quotation, we have made a beginning.

And that's good.

But it is the "continuing unto the end" which separates the non-gender-specific men from the non-gender-specific boys.

This continuing will include hundreds of hours, countless dumb meetings, dozens of reversals of fortune, scores of red-herrings and dead-ends and who knows what else.

In other words, there will be tons of shit to do. Dumb, mindless, enervating, I'd rather be doing anything else kind of shit.

But it's the shit you have to do, if you're to achieve any "great" or even not-so-great "matter."

Father's Day with Uncle Slappy.

At least in part thanks to Uncle Slappy, I grew up in a different era than most of my age peers. While they were listening to the Who (which of course Uncle Slappy called "the Whom) Yes, the Grateful Dead and the Moody Blues, I grew up hearing the music of the great Harry Ruby.

Ruby wrote most of the music for the Marx Brothers including "I'm Against It," and "Everyone Says I Love You." He also wrote "I Wanna be Loved by You," which was sung by Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like it Hot" and his biggest hit, "Three Little Words."

Yesterday when I called Uncle Slappy for Father's Day, he immediately delivered some Harry Ruby to me. I've probably called Uncle Slappy for Father's Day 45 times. Each time he's serenaded me with these words:

"Today, Father, is Father's Day

And we're giving you a tie

It's not much we know

It is just our way of showing you

We think you're a regular guy

You say that it was nice of us to bother

But it really was a pleasure to fuss

For according to our mother

You're our father

And that's good enough for us

Yes, that's good enough for us"

"You got the Father's Day gift I sent," I asked in the Yiddish imperative.

I had sent the old man a dozen H&H bagels, a pound of hand-sliced Nova Scotia salmon (which he calls 'lox') and his favorite thing on Earth, a pound of hand-sliced and vacuum-packed sturgeon.

"Yes," Slappy said. "Two months it should last me."

I immediately had the fear all Jewish children have about their aging parents. That they would reduce their daily rations down close to concentration camp portions.  It's not unusual for older Jewish women to take the crackers and bread placed on restaurant tables and keep it in their handbags "for later." Sometimes these "for later" victuals outlive the women carrying them.

"Two months, Uncle Slappy. I sent plenty. But not enough for two months."

"Don't worry about me, boychick. For six weeks I do nothing but smell. Then when the smell is completely in my corpuscles, only then do I eat."

"I see. You have a system."

"And my nieces," he said changing the subject, "they called me today as well. They are nice kinderlach."

"Yes, they are," I agreed. 

"More you couldn't ask for. You're a good man, boychick" Uncle Slappy said hanging up the horn.

More I couldn't ask for.

A Father's Day post.

Down the street from my parents’ house was a vacant lot surrounded by six to ten story buildings on two sides. Those buildings had no windows looking out over the lot because where the lot was now, a building used to be. The lot was square and the city did some work on it, putting down some grass, a backstop and a couple of benches for players and a small section of bleachers for people to watch. A couple of evenings a week in the summertime when it stayed light out till almost nine, a couple dozen neighborhood men would show up there and play baseball.

The games weren’t formal affairs. There was no umpire and no uniforms, just a bunch of older guys in shorts, sneakers and t-shirts drinking beer and playing ball. All the kids in the neighborhood and some of the moms would head over there in the evening to watch the men play. Even though we lived less than five miles from Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees were on TV virtually every night, these games somehow seemed more important than those played by Big Leaguers, at least until it got dark out and the kids would run home to watch the Yankees.

The dimensions of the lot were such that the building that loomed over right field was close to what was designated home plate, maybe 150 feet away. This gave the field a drama that was missing from more traditional fields, like normal school yards. It was like the “short porch” in right in Yankee Stadium that was just 296 feet from home; it was something to aim for and since a ball hit off the wall was ruled as in play, it led to a lot of excitement and even more arguments.

My father never played in these games. They were more the province of the heavily muscled Italian men who lived in the neighborhood and who didn’t work in the city. The neighborhood I grew up in was divided roughly in two. On one side lived the Italians, the people who worked locally and made the town run. They were the carpenters, the shop-owners, the plumbers, the auto repairmen. The mothers often worked too, as nurses or they helped out in the family shop. Some were substitute teachers or worked in the school as cafeteria ladies.

They lived in run-down little houses with fake brick fronts attached with two penny nails and neatly manicured lawns. Or slightly larger houses covered in stucco, with detached garages further back. Or in two-family homes that were symmetrical like a Rorschach blot.

These Italians were tough men who had heavy beards by the time the game started even though they had shaved that morning. They were men who had lived in our neighborhood for generations in houses that were even smaller and more beat up that ours and big families accompanied them to the sandlot. They were the regulars.

On the other side of town lived the Jews. Men like my father who didn’t look at home in a tee-shirt. Not a bit like the Italians with major-league-looking sweat stains under their arms and big, burly forearms like Popeye. My father was a big guy, more or less gone to seed, but over six-feet tall with broad-shoulders and long arms. One night, I suppose one team was short a player, my father was coaxed into playing. It had probably been 20 years since he played a serious game of ball and you could tell he was nervous in front of his children, nervous that he would look uncoordinated or un-athletic or not adequate in the way that the other men were adequate.

A couple innings passed uneventfully. Not a single ball was hit to my father who was manning second base. But in this inning it was my father’s turn to come to the plate. I had never seen my father hit a ball before except for fungo with me and my brother so we could practice our fielding. I wasn’t sure he could do it. The guy on the mound for the other team threw entirely too hard and seemed entirely too cocky.

Nevertheless my father stepped into the box and went through a slightly comical major-league pantomime, rubbing his hands with dirt, tapping the dust off the soles of his sneakers, taking a couple of slow, looping practice cuts and checking down the line with the third base coach for any signs and instructions.

The pitcher wound up and zinged one in and my father let it whiz by for a strike. Because my father wasn’t one of the regulars, the few people rooting for him called him not by name but by “hey, batter.” “Hey batter,” I repeated, cheering my father on.

There were standard baseball insults in those days that didn’t involve either profanity or originality. To a pitcher there was “we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher” and the infinitely wittier “we want a pitcher, not a glass of water.” For guys at the plate there were barbs like “ya swing like a rusty gate” or the slightly cleverer “Aunt Jemima makes a better batter.” I dreaded hearing either of those about my father. I knew, somehow, he was no match for the Italian men, nevertheless I was hoping some muscle memory would allow him to make contact with the ball. My big fear was that he’d swing like a rusty gate. That Aunt Jemima was a better batter.

The second pitch came in high and my father swung hard if a bit late but somehow lined a rocket hard off the close-by rightfield bricks. He hit the ball hard. It resounded off the wall with a crack. This ball clearly would have gone far, but for the wall. On a regular field—or in Yankee Stadium with its short rightfield porch, it might have cleared the fence for a homer.

My father ran toward first, slowly. He was creaky and could hardly move. His body unfolded like an over-starched shirt as he transitioned from hitting to running. He probably hadn’t run for at least as long as he hadn’t hit a ball, twenty years or more. As he slogged toward first, the ball ricocheted fast off the wall and was fielded cleanly by the first baseman on one bounce not far from the first base bag. The first baseman ran quickly over to first and beat my still unfolding father there. My father was out by two steps and a half. It seemed unfair, somehow, to hit one so hard and to put out so easily, but as my father said as he trotted in after making an out, “It’s a game of inches.”

I don’t remember who won or lost the ballgame. Or what my father, or anyone else did after that. I suppose it got too dark to continue playing and we all went home to our little houses or too-small apartments and watched the pros on TV. I don’t remember if my father got up to bat again, or if he had to perform in the field, catching a towering popup or deftly turning a double play.

I just remember that he hit the ball. Hard. And that was good enough.

No country for old copywriters.

Ah.

I had dinner last night with an old friend.

We had worked together at "the mid-sized agency of the year," Rosenfeld and Sirowitz in the 1980s.   We had each hoped to learn from the skill and eclat of two advertising Hall-of-Famers, Ron Rosenfeld (Ron was the first copywriter in the business to earn $100,000) and Len Sirowitz, the art director behind literally hundreds of great ads from DDB.

Alas, Ron and Len had left art behind and we're in full and break-neck pursuit of the crassest of mammon.

I escaped the clutches of the agency in just 20 months--despite them offering to pretty much double my salary. My friend was more tolerant and stayed there for more than a decade before finally landing a job at Ogilvy.

That's where we were re-united, at Ogilvy. And though we were in different groups while there, we had each ascended to pretty lofty titles and had each done work of skill and eclat.

But the industry has changed and fortunes, like the moon, wax and wane.

My friend and I have each--over about the past decade--been wandering Jews. Jumping from one freelance job to the next, with sporadic full-time employment sprinkled here and there.

We spent the evening over taglioni and branzini, crying in our New York tap water.

At one point I told my friend what it was like playing racquet ball with my father. I was sinewy and in shape. My father was dying with his perennial heart attack.

He slaughtered me. Hardly moving from his spot on the court.

I would rocket balls off the walls at impossible angles.

He would shift a centimeter and kill the shot.

I finished our match under buckets of sweat.

He didn't even need a shower.

And this was a man who for all intents and purposes was dead.

It's a funny thing about being in the business for thirty years and near the top for twenty.

You learn the angles.

Advertising. 2013.

There is, near the bar at the Tempus Fugit just one piece of art work besides an old ad for Pike's Ale (the ALE that won for YALE.) It's actually a famous piece of advertising done  many decades ago by the Anheuser Busch Brewing Association. As such, until we entered our present era of pretend political correctness, copies of the lithograph used to hang in hundreds or even thousands of bars across the US.

DIGRESSION: I hate political correctness. People are no more or no less prejudiced than they were in any other era. But today we as a society teach everyone how to hide their hatreds under a phony mask of politesse. I think the world was a better place when the assholes were out in the open with their assholery.  Also, jokes were funnier.

Over the months that I've been going to the Tempus Fugit, I've spent a lot of time looking at the print. It's a pretty vivid and gory affair, complete with comic book cowboys and indians, mutilation valor and more. What's more, the print reminds me of advertising in 2013.

Let me explain.

Let's say it's 1890 and your brief was to do a painting of Custer's last stand that could be hung in bars and saloons that cater primarily to an audience of men of legal drinking age on up.

You take that brief and come back (in three days) with something that looks like the above. Here's how it goes from there.

Oh, and in the spirit of true political correctness, there's this:

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

PERSON 1: I love it.

PERSON 2: Yeah, it looks terrific. I love the colors.

PERSON 3: This is great. 

PERSON 4:  It certainly answers the brief.

PERSON 5: It's great.

PERSON 6: Wow, stunning.

PERSON 7: Great, I love it.

You begin to think, maybe, you're out of the woods. And then it begins.

PERSON  7: I love it, I think now we can really start trying to "push" it.

ME: Push what.

PERSON 8: Well, push the idea. The execution. We should think about it.

PERSON 3: I agree. We need to see how we can push this.

ME: Push it?

PERSON 2: Well, the Indians. Can some of them be space aliens.

PERSON  4: It would be good to have pirates, too. We'll be in some pirate books.

PERSON  5: We're not going to the client until tomorrow at 8:30, we have time to rework this.

ME: Rework it?

PERSON 6: Yeah, I like the pirates and aliens idea. And we can add buccaneers, brigands and blackamoors. And maybe some Hell's Angels(R).

ME: It's supposed to be about Custer. He fought indians.

PERSON 7: Look, you're the ECD, you have to do what you think is right. But I want you to look these things. To push it.

PERSON 3: We're just questioning things to try to make it better.

PERSON 2: It's very violent. What if we're in kids' media?

PERSON  4: Do we need the guns? I like the scalping and the tomahawks.

PERSON  5: I hate the scalping. It's gross.

ME: Scalping is gross. But that's what happened.

PERSON 7: Let's push it a bit and see if we can make it less violent. Like maybe there are balloons.

ME: Balloons.

PERSON 7: You know. I'm trying to make it better. Water balloons.

PERSON  4: I have a question. Which one is Custer?

PERSON 1: Good question. I'm not sure.

PERSON  2: I think he's the indian on the horse waving his arms.

PERSON  6: No way! I thought that, too.

PERSON 1: Can we do something that points to who Custer is? Makes it clearer? Just trying to push it.

PERSON  7: This is a crazy idea. What if Custer were holding soft ice-cream. You know, custard.

PERSON  4: It's like a mnemonic! LOVE IT!

Et ita abscedit.

And so it goes.

How to write good.

Every so often someone asks me for advice on how to become a better writer. My standard response is usually pretty simple and includes three general thoughts.

1. Find writing you like and admire that is considered good. Study that. Imitate that. Copy that style. Until you're confident enough to find a style of your own.

I remember when I was a kid finding in an old record shop an early LP by Ray Charles, who was then as he is now, my favorite musician. This album was old. And on it Ray was singing, but not as Ray. He was imitating Nat "King" Cole.

There's nothing wrong with imitation. Especially while you're finding your voice.

2.  Write everyday. Write long copy ads to get your thinking straight. Write and write and write then write some more. I read somewhere that the great baseball player Ted Williams would take batting practice until his hands bled. If it's good enough for Ted Williams, it's good enough for you.

3.  Read a lot. This is really part of point one. It's about studying and searching until you find a voice of your own.

Those are some broad strokes.

Now here are two specific tricks I learned along the way.

1. When you've written your copy, cross out the first paragraph and start right in on the second. Usually first paragraphs are tip-toey and timid. Get right into your story with vigor and confidence.

2. Re-write your headlines backwards. You'd be surprised how much better things sound when you jumble them up a bit. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but try it. Adidas would have been less successful with the line "nothing is impossible." "Impossible is nothing" is lightyears better.

Finally, thank your reader for reading.

With a nice turn of the phrase or a smile.

If that fails, just say: thanks.

Bad mood Wednesday.

I suck at doing things for the sake of doing them.

I suck at continuing to spin out ideas when I'm sure I have the right one.

I suck at confining my work to someone's asinine strictures.

I suck at taking direction from people who are uninformed. Or scared. Or wholly political.

I suck at lot of things.

Playing the game.

Speaking the newspeak jargon.

Eating shit on command.

Until recently I never really worried about sucking at these things
because I was good at work and was able to find clients that appreciated
my honesty, brains and dedication.

Now I worry that those things are no longer valued.

And we must leave no assed unkissed.

Too much on story-telling.

The alarm rang this morning interrupting a story I was having in my head while I slept. I swept the covers off of me, telling them a story about an angry and restless giant who could be soothed only when covered with a magical blanket. Then I walked the 11 feet to my bathroom, thinking along the way of a story of the road not taken and where unexpected twists and turns could take us. Like what if I turned left into the utility closet or continued straight into the linens? What amazing stories could come from those occurrences.

I ran the water in the sink and thought of the story of where that water came from. How Irish immigrants fleeing famine and persecution came to this country many years ago and built the reservoirs and aqueducts that sustain New York City. I thought of the story of Megan O’Keefe who died from the grippe while caring for nine kids and her husband who would, nonetheless, cuff her around.

I thought of Dr. Washington Sheffield who was first to put dentifrice in collapsible tubes. Thank you, Dr. Sheffield! I imagined a story of Dr. Sheffield presenting his life and accomplishments to St. Peter. What a story it would be. What life! What love! What laughter!

Here it was, I was awake for just six minutes and I had already told four or five stories. Why?

Because, don’t you see, everything is all about story-telling and I’m a fucking story-teller. Everything has a narrative. An arc. A pathway. Everything.

And we are story-tellers.

Finding stories in everything from experience design to SEO.

We will tell these stories and thereby use our finely-tuned story-telling skills to tell the story of our clients’ brands.

Because we are story-tellers.