Bob Garfield is Only 55? Long Live the Ad Blogs

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While reading Bob Garfield’s farewell piece today in Advertising Age, nothing really surprised us. The man said everything we expected him to. He lobbed a few barbs, apologized for a few missteps, trashed ad blogs, pimped his books, reminded us he’s almost always right…and told us he’s 55. Say what? 55? Only 55? Seriously?

OK, that’s just mean and it plays right into Bob’s hatred for the horror we ad blogs purportedly promote: the cheap punchline. To wit, Garfield wrote, “What is paramount is being an honest broker of your own judgments, and never succumbing to the temptation of skewing negative for the sake of a cheap punchline. If you wish to see what happens when this principle is ignored, spend five minutes reading the ad blogs or Gawker. They are intermittently amusing, deliberately mean and ethically bankrupt.”

In a way, he’s right. If Adrants or any other ad blog simply stopped publishing today, it’s highly unlikely the ad industry would crumble, let alone even notice. OK, there might be some joy in knowing AgencySpy wouldn’t airing the industry’s dirty laundry on a daily basis. And there might be some pleasure in not being labeled a fucking BDA douchenozzle by George Parker. There could even be some comfort in knowing Ad Contrarian wouldn’t be around calling the industry on all its bullshit.

But really. Would the industry be any fun? How would one agency be able to revel in the fuckery of another without AgencySpy? How would the industry’s minions take comfort in knowing life really isn’t that great at the top of an agency? And how would we all wallow with gleeful schadenfreude at the ill fortunes of others?

Yes, we need ad blogs. We need them to keep us honest. Right no this industry needs as many checks an balances as it can get, We need as many people as possible poking holes in what we all thought was a glamorous business. We need the attitude, the snark and the outright negative skew “for the sake of a cheap punchline.”

Long live the ad blogs!

(OK, yea. That was pretty self serving but you know we’re right.)

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Steve Hall

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