The Ludicrous Side of Advertising

Every business has it's share of inanities. Advertising is no exception...

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Chemo

Yup, it's one of the necessary evils when you are diagnosed with cancer and the surgery does not completely remove it. On October 5 of last year, I had 10 inches of my colon removed and spent 5 of my 7 days in the hospital with a tube stuck down my throat to suck my stomach out while the surgery healed. As I told my friend the night before I went in for surgery, "I have to get my ass cut"

I don't think morphine is all it's cracked up to be. It freaks you out, makes your delerious, and gives you bad dreams. Well, at least for me it did. After two days, I said, get me off this stuff, I'll deal with the pain and you know what? It wasn't that bad. Of course, I wasn't going to be doing sit ups anytime soon but then again, I never do them anyway.

The stomach tube was the worst. Hard to talk. You always feel it there....a constant annoyance. I couldn't do much but lay there and wait for my intestines to back into the swing of things and let one rip. Yup, that's the scientific method of knowing when things are all connected down there...a big fart! In this day of all ouor technology, you have to fart to get a stomach tube out. Who knew?

But cancer isn't the taboo, scary thing that they make it out to be in movies and on TV. Sure, you can die from it. But the vast majority survive if you catch it in time. I am hoping I did just that. I'm optimistic that everything will be fine and it will turn into an old memory that I can think back on ever so affectionately.

I have a friend and former co-worker, Doug Geer, who makes a habit of creating top ten lists for whatever seems to be happening at the current time which he then share on an advertising related community site we created after all being layed off from the same company. It has some inside jokes you won't get but it had me laughing for hours and certainly gave me a very optimistic feeling going into surgery:

10. "Paging Dr. Santy, Dr. Santy to O.R. #3" (former weirdo co-worker)

9. Remember to claim any income you get from the Colon Fairy to Unemployment ( we were all unemployed at the time)

8. Coincidentally "8 Inches of Colon" is also the name of a bar in Provincetown

7. The lead role in the Steve Hall movie will be played by actor Kevin Polyp

6. Request that doctor place piece of colon in zip lock bag. Place zip lock bag in 9x12" white envelope and mail to (former employer whose name shall remain a mystery)

5. Gives new meaning to the term "TFA Survivor" (the name of our community site)

4. While in hospital, Steve comes up with innovative viral marketing idea for bedpans and catheters (see...I am in advertising!)

3. Request that doctor place piece of colon in zip lock bag. Place zip lock bag in 9x12" white envelope and mail to (another former employer)

2. Surgery happens to be on Colonbus Day

1. Oxycontin Perscription = Six Figure Income

And....another humorous list:

10. Chief Sitting Steve

9. Ass Hall

8. Osama Bin Limpin'

7. Monty Hole

6. Detective Colonbo

5. Recthall

4.Cornhallio

3. Preparation H-all

2. King of Plop

1. CE-Ow!

So you see, there has to be humor and optimism when these serious life issue rear up and kick you in the ass (pun intended, I guess)

Later
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Around the World

You just never realize what you are missing until your friends decide to take a six month journey around the world. A lot of manoey and staying in hotels? Not for these two. It's a backpack, learn the culture trip for these two. Dave and Marile set out in late November to conquer the world. Not the typical world you think a U.S. citizen would see.

Starting with the Cook islands, they moved on to New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, Kenya, anf other non-typicla travel destinations. To me, it's a very interesting way to see the world.

See for yourself at the Bordens Hit the Road web site where you can see their Itinerary, photos and comment from the road, and even a packing list and photos of the backpack prep for those who are interested.

This is one trip I would love to take but I am taking it vicariously through their very detailed accounts of their web site. The reading is great. It's not just about the usual we say this, we saw that. Dave and Marile really get into the culture and the politics of each place they visit. You really feel like you have a grasp of what it's like to be there. It's one of the greatest vicarious experiences out there.
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Hello, my name is...

Yes, 62 phone calls today and yesterday trying to drum up business from companies that I Know don't yet have budget to spend. But, you gotta stay in front of them. You gotta be eager. You gotta be selling. You gotta be pushing startegy. You gotta be following up. You gotta act on every industry newsbit. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta.

That's what I tell myself after the 20th caller saying, "Thank you for the information you sent and thank you for the call but we really don't have any activity right now. We are doing everything in-house. I guess they haven't heard that that we are out of the recession and the market has turned around! Hello! Let's be a market leader here. Not a follower that always ends up being a loser!

I mean come on!! I got bills to pay! :-)
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Meetings

You'd think that a church committee meeting would be free of all the politics and procedures, processes and beaurecratic crap. Well, no. Went to my monthly meeting tonight and we got so hung up on the development of policies and procedures for various other committees that it became insane.

I'm like, this is church, right. Not business. Love one another no matter what? Well, we do love each other. Don't worry about that and we ended the meeting very positively but I mean COME ON!

The simplist things turned into nightmarish details. Someone wants to donate money to the church to buy new robes for the choir. They can't even do it because it goes against the "by-laws" and there is no place to record it in the budget. How god like is that?

We did figure it out after a while.
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New Business Calls

Now, that's the very highbrow way of classifiying what is really known as telemarketing. (Yea, yea, you new business types...I do actually create some value-added unsolicited proposal from time to time) As I wake up and stare at my list of 50 companies I need to follow up one today after having sent out the world's greatest direct mail piece, the excitement sets in: "Hello Bill, this is Steve from X company following up on the brochure we sent you last week that I am sure you just tossed in the trash with all the other pontificating crap you get in the mail everyday from the likes of us. Can we come in and meet?"

OK, well, it's not exactly like that.

Some of the reponses I get are truly enlightening. After calling the president of a high tech start up, I get this:

"I don't accept telemarketing calls!" And I'm thinking as I hear this, "Well then why the hell did your assistent actually pas the call on to you then??"

So I try in my best soft sell voice, "Sir, this is not a telemarketing call, I am simply following up on some information I sent to you last week on our firm.", all while trying to convince myself that my call is something higher and more worthy then the freakin auto-bot credit card messages you get at dinner time.

He finishes by putting me in my place: "That IS telemarketing!" click.

And, as I listen to the dial tone, the voice in my head says, "You fuckin asshole!" But the voice also says, "you are fuckin right, I telemarketed your ass"

Now I know what it's like for the lowly telemarketer when I hang up on those auto dialer bots or click off on some poor sucker trying to read a script when they haven't even come close to mastering the English language.

Isn't it fun to get them off-script. To get them to say anything other then the boring lame ass inhuman copy that they have in front of them? They can't fuckin think beyonfd that piece of paper....I love it.

Anyway, time to go do some "high-brow" stuff like craft the "brand essence and positioning" for some other small company who has no idea of the value of a brand or the effort and time it takes to build one.
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HTML

It's awful. It's frustrating. It should not be used after midnight!
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Dirty Dancing

Haven't seen this movie in years but to see Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey (with her real and much better looking nose) kick it up seductively on the dance floor makes all the so called love story movies since then fall flat. Just pure clean fun.
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Advertising

First off, don't get the wrong idea about this site. I love the ad business....and every wonderful, crazy, stupid, idiotic thing that goes along with it. If you are in the business, you know what I mean. It was the ad industry that introduced us all to the nightly automated phone call that we all hang up on every night. It was the ad industry that created breaks during television shows so that we could all get up and go to the kitchen or to the bathroom and ignore whatever inanity was on our screens before we could get back to what we turned on the televion set for in the first place. It's why Tivo and Replay have a business plan...not to mention XM and Sirius radio. More thoughts on that later. It was the ad industry that introduced us all to those friendly and ever so present web banners and pop up and under windows that the porn industry has, of course, magnified to the extreme! Try getting away from one of those sites once you enter withouth turning your computer off! Oh, and that's not even mentioning Shoshkeles.
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