Okay, so where am I?

I sitting in my hotel room staring at a keyboard that doesn’t move and won’t move as a wrestle with my inadequacies that only copy can deliver to an imperfect mind. It both frightening and paralyzing. I have four books in print, countless commercials still on air, and a straight from Korean theater to DVD movie I’ve penned and yet, one client shakes her head at some ad copy and I freeze up.

But why?

Digging around the mind of anyone in this odd cricket-herd we call advertising and marketing is a virtuous way to see some bizarre and dreadful things. So, to poke a manicured finger into the hornet’s nest that is your own professional essence is less the subject of a quirky column and more the act of a dodgy madcap.

Nevertheless, the psychosomatic makeup of the regular Joe copywriter comprises the kind of struggle, hallucination, and outright hysteria that coerces us to peel away the aluminum foil helmet and renders the delirious truth. (I’ll warn you though, this column contains a daring amount of wild generality and no trivial degree of hypocrisy).

In most copywriters there exists an abnormal sense of privilege. Not that we demand a powder blue dressing room filled with green M&Ms, pricey writing instruments, and precisely-chilled Perrier, but more a obligation to be listened to. The very nature of the job is to be, not the loudest voice, but the most gripping – to say something predictable and common in a way that feels extraordinary and compulsory. How often have you seen a copywriter punctured by a message that, within the promotional vortex, whines timidly to be noticed?

We’re also guilty of a festering exasperation, a moral disrespect for those who believe that anyone with fingers, eyes and direct access to ink or Microsoft Word is capable of writing serious prose. And, we see these characters everywhere, even prowling in the shadows of our finest and most fruitful client relationships.

A sentiment that our contribution isn’t quite as valued by some as we know it should be is perhaps the energy fueling another common apprehension: a compulsive, crippling, infuriating conscientiousness. Leave some copywriters alone with a flawlessly erected headline and they will rip it to shreds, splattering the walls with a spray of progressively unsatisfying substitutes. I’ve met many a writer chase down a final draft on its way out of the door, paralyzed by a fear that there may be not enough, or indeed too many, commas.

Your typical, well-fed copywriter is also unsettlingly contented with their own professional schizophrenia. We are personas with endless voices and takes clattering around in our minds, with the aptitude to debate for, and against, any exact point with identical persuasion. And yet, while we’re capable of nurturing all kinds of dissimilar voices, we never truly release our own. Even in that 2200-word manual for a digital camera, our own unique style clicks quietly around the onscreen shutter speed menu.

We are, I suppose, beasts of inspiration trussed inescapably to authenticity. We define success by artistic genius, knowing ultimately it is only properly defined by commercial performance. And amongst all this, we bungee jump in and out of an offbeat state of absorption – spellbound by a brief about insect repellant, or chewing gum, or coffee drinks all the time knowing that none of it really exists. Writing, like advertising, is the art of sculpting fog.

That’s just a few of the phobias and idiosyncrasies I can identify in myself and other writers with whom I’ve interacted. There are some of us who share these, just as there are some with no recognition at all, for this somewhat lumbering picture of our vocation. There are some, I’m quite sure, with an even more complex relationship with the job.

Whether it’s the foundation of abnormality that the job that sends our way, or whether it’s our inherent foibles that direct us to this weird working life, I’m unsure.

Ink on the page, ink on our hands and, without doubt, ink on the soul.


AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
The Olivetti girl


Advertising legend George Lois crafted the “Olivetti girl” ad for electric Olivetti typewriter in the mid 1960s. But just who is the Olivetti girl? (From the George Lois website:)

WE HAD TO MAKE THE OLIVETTI TYPEWRITER FAMOUS FOR SECRETARIES TO ACCEPT IT.

Olivetti, the great ltalian typewriter, had been advertised in America with a primary emphasis on the beauty of its design. Among industrial design cognoscenti, Olivetti was always synonymous with beauty, but most people wouldn’t recognize good design if they tripped over it. Sales of Olivetti’s splendid line of electric typewriters had gone stagnant while mighty IBM had the market locked up. IBM was so dominant that purchasing agents of large corporations would rarely even consider buying another brand. We had to breakthrough the IBM barrier. To plot our strategy, Jim Callaway interviewed many key buyers and found that while they regarded Olivetti as a top-notch typewriter, their hands were tied. Secretaries, they explained to Jim, felt that IBM gave them status. So we conceived the Olivetti Girl, who would out-status everyone. We told secretaries that Olivetti was the typewriter to type on. And we were putting across a message that was being seen by her boss, her girl friends, and all those reluctant purchasing agents. We produced six ads and nine TV spots that showed the Olivetti Girl as the star performer in her office, as the secretary who typed faster, neater, sharper, as the girl most I likely to succeed. (One of our headlines summed it up: “When you want to do something right, give it to the Olivetti Girl!”) In a few weeks, brand awareness of Olivetti leaped, and sales of Olivetti typewriters went through the roof.

THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN VS. BROADWAY JOE NAMATH

Believe it or not, these ads were the genesis of the first #TimesUp movement.  The Olivetti campaign burst on the scene in 1972, just as the National Organization for Women was flexing its muscles. NOW attacked the campaign for stereotyping women as underlings (they were furious that only men were shown as bosses while only women were shown as secretaries), and they called me a male chauvinist pig.

They picketed the Olivetti building on Park Avenue and sent hecklers up to my office to un-n-n-nerve me. Something had to be done. Who can fight a woman’s fury? I capitulated. I would do an ad and a TV spot, with a woman executive giving orders to a male secretary. I cast an actual woman exec (not an actress) as the boss. I cast Jets great Joe Namath as the secretary (because he could type).

Lois invited the women of NOW to view the spot, but when they saw the boss ask her secretary for a date at the conclusion of the spot, they were aghast. (You do very good work, Joseph. By the way, what are you doing for dinner tonight?) “It’s an old story,” I said. “The boss always tries to make the secretary.” They cursed Lois, walked out, and never bothered that male chauvinist pig again.

From “Rebel Secretaries,” Time magazine, March 20, 1972:

“This infuriated a group of New York City secretaries, backed by members of the National Organization of Women, a feminist organization, which picketed Olivetti’s headquarters. The 2,000,000 U.S. secretaries —nearly all women, many underutilized and underpaid—would seem to be ideal recruits for Women’s Liberation. Yet few so far have joined the cause. Nevertheless, with new pages being turned almost everywhere else, some are being flipped over in shorthand notebooks too.

Last week, responding to complaints from employees, the U.S. State Department ordered its executives to stop treating secretaries as “char help,” to show a little more diplomacy toward them and to encourage independent secretarial decision making.”

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First Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK, First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, and Father of Dragons (I made that last one up!) Kim Jong-un has outlawed sarcasm, a method of satirical wit that has long plagued the esteemed workers of the great North Korea.

He really did ban it, reportedly because he was getting sick of people agreeing with him “ironically.” The Twitterverse was aglow with this unexpected gift from our friend in Asia, my favorite being:

On a related noted, there’s apparently some truth that the paranoid leader plans to call The Simpsons to enforce his well-thought ban with this little baby:

The ban makes me wonder if this tourism ad is real or a the actual hoax that spurred Kim to consider if his people take him seriously:

Dear Kim Jong-un…you might want to click away from this column because it’s all sarcasm, all of the time from here on out as I look at some of the tourism ads I’ve stumbled across recently.

It’s a pretty sad lot. I am sure you will agree. (And to the folks at Emirates Airlines, I didn’t touch one of your ming-boggling advertisements!) So, like I did last week, let’s jump into some of the ads and see what’s game-changing and what’s not…

REACTION: It’s not so much that Mary and her little lamb have been oddly-Photoshopped into this ad with a passenger train roaring toward her that bothers me. What strikes me as as truly odd is that if children walking around the Himalayas is a thing in North India, the ad agency could have hired an actual girl for a few rupees. And what of the poorly-worded slogan? I don’t want to typo-shame anyone (goodness knows I need 10 proofreads and there are still mistakes in my writing) but “A new surprises at every step” is an automatic hall of shame inductee. Skip the five-year waiting period. You’re in!

REACTION: That’s not creepy or anything. All that’s missing is the call to the BAU Unit in Criminal Minds in the next scene. Aside from that, I really don’t know about sleeping in a room where the headboard table lamps are an inch away from the ceiling. Note to Swiss Deluxe Hotels: We don’t want creepers stowing away in our freshly cleaned rooms and ceilings lower than seven feet. Check and check.

REACTION: Why doesn’t the ad just say, “Let it burn Mr. Fireman!” Meanwhile the old guy with the dog is on fire, the little girl’s hair is on fire, and the guy in the Dodgers hat is also on fire. All I can think of is the stupidity of the people who conceived this one. If Donald Trump were evaluating this ad in The Apprentice boardroom he’d be screaming “You’re Fired!” until his face turned purple.

REACTION: I looked at this ad maybe 101 times and I have nothing. Not a word speechless. I am completely clueless on what’s going on in the Swiss Alps with a guy and his tools and a line of cows.

REACTION: Simply the most racist ad I’ve ever seen.

REACTION: I thought sexist airline ads were a thing of the past. Last year when Nikki Minaj took my seat in business class, I covered a bunch of misogynistic ads from days past. It seems that one of those Mad Men can muster up some SMH ad concepts when this one hit the travel magazine pages. Based on what I see, the Firefly flight attendant’s derrière is half off. Is that before you land or after? Needless to say, I’m not the only one who was offended. Facing mounting pressure, Firefly deleted the ads from its Facebook page and made a public apology:

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The Super Bowl with its 100 million plus viewers is around the corner. The recent deflated football scandal from last week’s conference championship game brought to light that personal brand is the ultimate selling point. Sal Paolantonio, reporter for ESPN, aka the Worldwide Leader in Sports, theorized that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, aka the best looking guy in sport and hubby of mega model Gisele Bündchen held a press conference yesterday to protect his brand. He reported that Brady was motivated to speak out of a carefully plotted plan to get back to pitching girly UGG Boots.

“Women don’t like cheaters,” said Paolantonio. “What’s the number one demographic that Tom Brady tries to sell Ugg boots to? Women. Guys are not going into the mall [and being like] ‘Let me get a pair of Uggs.’ No, guys don’t go into the mall for a pair of Uggs. Women do. This was clearly motivated because Tom Brady knows that his brand is damaged by this — not only on the football field, but what he sells off the football field.”

Moral of the story. Keep your balls firm when you’re playing the branding game.

Speaking of brand, most celebrity endorsements seem rather obvious — or at least uninteresting and lacking inspiration. In the age of the second screen and on-demand information, when advertising is everywhere we look, it takes a lot more than Michael Jordan hawking his latest line of Nikes to get our attention. Advertising campaigns are at their most fun when we see something (or someone) out-of-the-box. When Wheaties recently put Madeleine Albright on the cover of their box, it prompted us to think of other unexpected brand representatives from recent (and not-so-recent) years.

Madeleine Albright
Wheaties

No, she was never an Olympic medalist or World Series winner, but former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is no less a champion — at least, according to Wheaties, who are attempting to redefine the term by awarding the diplomat the box-cover placement usually reserved for sports figures. And who are we to disagree? The former Representative to the United Nations has as many accomplishments in her field as star athletes have in theirs, making her as worthy of admiration as any Super Bowl MVP.

Joe Namath
Hanes Beautymist

Joe Namath was the ultimate counter-culture athlete at a time when America was questioning its identity. He grew his hair long, wore full-length fur coats on the sidelines, and famously backed up his guarantee of winning Super Bowl III. But he also had a charm and sense of humor that endeared him as a cultural icon, as he proved in this clever 1970s commercial for Hanes Beautymist pantyhose, which tricked many viewers into thinking they were admiring a woman’s legs. Sports have always been saturated with machismo, but only Broadway Joe was cool enough to pull off wearing women’s garments for millions to see.

Ron Burgundy
Dodge Durango

Okay, we’re cheating here, since Ron Burgundy is more of a fictional celebrity. But the real fun was how the Will Ferrell character touted the most basic features of the Dodge Durango, even going as far as appearing on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show to call it “a terrible car.” Proving that there’s no such thing as bad advertising, the ads helped push a 59% sales increase for the Durango. Perhaps more importantly, the 70 clips produced for this campaign provided enough content to tide Ferrell’s fans over until the next Anchorman sequel.

Terry Quattro (Jeff Goldblum)
General Electric

Jeff Goldblum is also merely playing a so-called “famous person” here, but it’s too inventive to overlook. Directed by Tim and Eric, Goldblum’s “Terry Quattro” is only interested in how lighting can serve his vanity. Weird enough to be memorable and funny enough to be quotable, it’s also clever enough to use all these devices to effectively explain the advantages of General Electric’s new technology.

Tom Brady
UGG for Men

Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, and is also lucky enough to have the All-American good looks many advertisers covet. But what makes him an interesting spokesman is how he compares to other athletes that are much more approachable, like fellow MVP quarterback Peyton Manning. While Manning uses his affable personality and charm to endorse everyday products aimed at more mainstream consumers, Brady has been speaking for brands like UGG and Movado. These ads aren’t clever or funny or even relatable — but they establish a vision of class and luxury befitting someone who has led his team to five Super Bowls and married a supermodel.

Penelope Cruz
Nintendo

From Coca-Cola to L’Oreal, Penelope Cruz has done plenty of the kind of advertising you’d expect from a popular Oscar-winning actress — so it was a surprise to see her in ads for a product usually marketed to gamers and kids. Nintendo hired Cruz to appear in commercials for the Nintendo 3DS XL in 2012, in which she loses a bet to her sister over a game of the New Super Mario Bros. 2. Her debt? She had to dress up like the iconic plumber, complete with mustache. In doing so, Cruz delivered a performance that easily beats Bob Hoskins and Captain Lou Albano as the Best Super Mario tribute ever.

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