Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Things that make me want to kill.

I read one of those articles about the digital world this morning.

I'd be lying if I said I understood a single sentence.

It was kind of like reading Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" while talking to your Aunt Fritzi about her brisket recipe. Bay leaves. They're the secret.

In any event, you can slog through the bullshit here.

What infuriated me was two-fold.

One is the continuing denial of the only thing that works in advertising and the continuing propagation of what doesn't work.

I'll make this simple.

The only thing that works in advertising is creativity. Everything else is a fucking distraction.

Two are statements that are so patently misinformed and so completely unchallenged that, as I said above, they make me want to kill.

Like this one: "After all, before digital advertising, we lived in a linear media world in which marketers and publishers were in control, leading consumers as effectively as the Pied Piper with his magic pipe. That was the pinnacle of analog advertising, a time in which professionals practiced a perfected craft and were richly rewarded for it. Then, the world changed."

Really? Leading consumers as effectively as the Pied Piper?

What fiction has the writer been reading? Give me one example of that consumer behavior: One.

Two, as for consumer control, let's first take a look at consumer spending.

You spend most of your money on housing. That's controlled either by your parents, if you're living at home. Your landlord, if you rent. Or one of three of four "too big to fail" banks if you "own." You are not in control.

You're not in control over the food you eat, either. That's dominated by Big Agriculture. Big Fast Food. Or Big Something else.

Hate your cable company? There's no alternative.

Hate your phone company? There's no alternative.

Hate the airlines you fly? There's no alternative.

Hate the management of the Yankees, Mets and Knicks. There's no alternative.

Hate the lack of economic mobility you have, the draconian hours and the paycheck that's smaller than it was 15 years ago? Again, no alternative.

Tell me, how are you in control.

This kind of bullshit is brain deadening. Is psycho pseudo stupidity, propagated by blowhards for the self-promotion of the in-crowd.

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