Truth in Advertising Page 0,4

rose on The Bachelor.

Jan remains calm. “Let’s get him a copy. Immerse him in the brand. Perhaps Gwyneth would like to look at it as well.”

I’m sure the Academy Award winner would love nothing more than to review the Snugglies manifesto.

And what is a manifesto, you might ask?

You may have a vague notion from history class that a manifesto once referred to the soul of a revolution: blood, sweat, and tears on paper, codifying women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, economic justice, religious freedom. Today, it’s about diapers. Or cars. Or refrigerators. Or gas grills. Or dental floss. In advertising, a manifesto is something that sums up a brand, one page, maybe two hundred words. Name the product and my people will write the manifesto for it. Superlative claims, a badly skewed world view, sentences like, “Because let’s be honest—what’s more important at the end of your day than your family . . . and their enjoyment of grilled meats?”

The Snugglies manifesto is particularly awful. I know. I wrote it.

I lie and say, “We’ll get copies to Raphael and Gwyneth. Otherwise, though, I think we’re in a good place with the spot.”

Jan says, “It’s real, honest, artful.”

Ian says, “It’s what we wanted.”

Everyone smiles and nods. This is very good. We’re about to turn and go when Jan says, “Except . . . is it too artful, Fin?”

• • •

There are two kinds of creative people in advertising. Those who think they’re smarter than the client and those who are successful. To say that the client is unreasonable is to say that death is unreasonable. Death is. Deal with it. Deal with it by making the client (death) your friend. Respect them, despite what they say. Advertising is a language and they do not speak that language. We say things like “It’s original” or “It’s a big idea.” Wrong. Picasso’s style of painting was original. Penicillin was a big idea. They call us creative. Baloney. The inventor of the corkscrew was creative. The irony of advertising—a communications business—is that we treat words with little respect, often devaluing their meaning. The all-new Ford Taurus. Really? Five wheels this time? Great for any occasion. I saw these words on a large sign in front of a national chain of cupcake shops. Any occasion? Doctor: “Mr. Dolan, the test results are back and I’m afraid you have an inoperable brain tumor. Cupcake?”

I do not think I am smarter than the client. Instead, I simply try to put myself in their sensible shoes, when, say, the long process that is the making of a commercial begins. Watch their furrowed brows and puzzled expressions as they listen to us present ideas. Watch as they sneak a peek at a colleague to see if they understand what the hell we are talking about. Were we working from the same brief?! they wonder. Watch as they listen to the agency reference movies and shots in movies that they, themselves, have never seen nor in some cases even heard of (“We’ll shoot it like that great tracking shot in The Bicycle Thief.”). Song and band references that might as well be in Farsi.

Inside, the client screams, What does any of this have to do with our toothpaste? Outside, they nod, slowly, letting their own insecurities build. I never wanted to be in marketing for a toothpaste/diaper/paper towel/soda manufacturer, they think for the eleven millionth time. A frat buddy/sorority sister/parole officer suggested the job, after a long, pride-deadening search in other fields, a bit lost at age twenty-eight, wondering what to do with my life. I wanted to be a poet/a drummer/a porn star/a machinist.

Give me your tired, your poor, your great teeming masses of middle managers who are unable to move the process forward or make a decision! The Carols and Maries and Trents and Tracys and Carls! Give me your resentful and angry, your worried and deeply frightened, your petrified of the next round of layoffs, of those insufferable human resources women with their easy detachment and heartless smiles. You’re eligible for Cobra and the family plan is just $1800 a month. The afterlife for HR people is a Clockwork Orange–like reel of everyone they’ve ever fired, playing over and over and over.

This is life in advertising and marketing and public relations today, largely superfluous service-sector jobs in the great economic crisis where homes are worth less than we paid for them, job security no longer exists, college tuition is $40 million, and the future is a thing