Today, we found a nifty t-shirt in our corporate mailbox. Who, really, can have too many t-shirts? We were pleased but wondered who had sent this wonderful gift. We looked more closely. This particular t-shirt had a little saying on it that resonated quite nicely with our mindset here at Adrants. It said, “I’m being exploited by an ad agency.” Upon reading that, there was no argument from the rampant cynicism that oozes from the walls of Adrants central.
A letter was enclosed with the t-shirt which read, in part, “After it was printed (the t-shirt), we quickly realized that this shirt didn’t merely convey the whining of a spoiled creative class drunk on carb-free champagne paid for by ripping off old Motown tunes. No, this was bigger than that. We found that we had hit a universal truth, a moment of cultural clarity. Aren’t we all being exploited by advertising agencies? We think so. And we’re not saying it’s a bad thing – it’s actually better than being exploited by cult leaders or record executives or something – just that it’s a true thing.”
It’s not news that ad agencies play their part in the exploitation of consumers. What’s news is that an agency is saying it. In this case, URBANadvertising of New York. Their tagline? “Honest.”
