Ten years ago I started a blog on Wordpress:
I wanted a place to vent
but I bogged down almost with my first Post. It was tedious and I gave up on it almost immediately. Here's an example:
How bad is advertising today?
September 23, 2009
MAYBE I’M JUST AN OLD FART BEFORE MY TIME.
If I look back a ways (long before my 13th reinvention of myself), I had quite a bit of fun working in the advertising and graphic design businesses. Back then, before the ideas came out of the computer or were stolen from MTV, you knew who your clients were, what their products were and could do, and what they wanted from you. I may or may not be more attuned to what I see and hear on TV and in print than you. The older I get, the more I may be ‘out of touch’, but I gotta tell ya, advertising these days just plain sucks.
Let’s start start with what I like to call the ‘chicification’ of marketing. Case in point? Try this on for size and tell me how believable it is… (right click on the link and open in new window to keep this page active)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maMv-t6e9Gc (THIS VIDEO IS GONE, THANK GOD.)
Makes you wanna just RUN down to the store for paint, doesn’t it? You really can’t blame the agency flacks for that – they’re probably all metro’s or gay or dykes anyway, but ya gotta ask: what the fuck was on the mind of the marketing genius at Home Depot approving this? Did their marketing degree expire the day before he/she/it approved this?
JUST CUT MY BALLS OFF AND BE DONE WITH ME.
(right click on the link and open in new window to keep this page active)
As more and more women rise in the ranks of the ad world, I’m noticing a dangerous trend evolve. Call it the ‘demasculinization of all husbands virus’.
It’s most prevelant in retail advertising. Tell me you haven’t seen 20 variations on the following theme: The child-like dolt husband and the aggresive, overbearing, smarmy, marginally attractive wife discuss (read: she talks, he listens) something she wants done. The pussy-whipped husband sits there wagging his head like a little German Shepard toy on the dashboard of your Uncle Mondo’s ’64 Pontiac Chief. The ‘Yes dear, yes dear’ submission of the whimp-assed husband is cloyingly obvious. As she grabs him by the nose ring and drags him off to the Big-box home center, he checks his nuts at the door and dutifully tags along with her as she tells him how inept he really is, and if he’s a REALLY good boy and does everything she demands, she MAY let him look around the tool area while they’re at the store. The poor chump. And poor us – does the advertiser truly believe that delivering this message in this way will get us (men) jumping up and down like a limp-dick poodle in heat to go anywhere with this annoying bitch? Not me. (right click on the link and open in new window to keep this page active)
A variation on my theme, but the point is made – he’s screwed…
YOU CAN DO IT, WE CAN HELP
“THAT HAVING BEEN SAID” (a truly annoying phrase coined and uttered by politicians and pundits to let you know that they are about to contradict themselves), on the flip side of this subject there are still truly great ads out there, and this is one of my all time favorites. ‘Shankopotimus’ indeed… (right click on the link and open in new window to keep this page active)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZetD7cdj7w (THIS VIDEO IS ALSO GONE, THANKFULLY)
AND I’d really like to meet whoever is responsible for the absolutely, gratingly annoying Gieco caveman ads in a bar some night… maybe after I kick all of their asses I could get them to explain how they make that lizard talk, and why he has an Australian accent. Like THAT will make me buy insurance, too..
If you're new to the blog please feel free to scroll backwards (by that I mean just keep scrolling down). There's a lot more to see and you may actually enjoy some of it!
If you're a fellow blogger, please 'borrow' anything you'd like.
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