Sick of Myself

I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’m sick of myself. If you’ve read a few of my posts you know it’s all the same shit. I pretend to be smarter than everyone else with some stupid lesson and I usually throw in a pop culture reference to get more random search traffic on my site. If I’m sick of it, there’s a good chance the readers are too.

I’m kind of sick of everyone else’s blog. I’m unsubscribing myself from them all. Even though they’re all good. I’ve been following Seth Godin’s blog for almost 3 years. He was sort of the inspiration behind my blog. When I first subscribed, I thought that if I got one tidbit from one of the smartest marketing guys everyday, I’d be kicking some major marketing ass right now.

Don’t get me wrong. These blog entries I speak of are all interesting and make good points. Just not sure if they’re helpful.

I’m kind of sick of my facebook life too. My updates are all the same shit. Now I just post pictures and look at everyone else’s pictures. Other people’s updates are getting stale. Especially stuff like, “Went to Starbucks, watched a movie, dinner at Outback with a good friend—priceless.” I think I fell asleep after the 20th character.

Facebook and Twitter will always listen to what you have to say because they don’t have a choice.

By the way, posting pictures of you and your drunk friends at the beach is better than posting pictures of food you’ve cooked. I’m not ripping social media. Just my social media. Even writing this post is pretty painful.

Funny thing—of all my posts, the one that got the most traffic is the one where I discussed my layoff. Another highly viewed post was the one about Nickelback (I still hate them) and  Bud Light Orange—probably because there’s a lot of demand for an orange flavored beer. The one’s where I subtly rip those who’ve wronged me in the advertising business do well too. Lesson learned: Posts about misery, revenge and crappy bands get lots of attention.

This is my 88th blog post. I know, I should keep going until I reach 100. I don’t think I can. I need to reboot. Not sure how. Until then, I probably won’t be blogging. Maybe just now and then.

Thanks for stopping by. And thanks to Creative Movers. They’re an advertising recruiting service and these posts also contribute to their blog that features all kinds of different ad people. It’s great stuff. Please check it out.

Marketing research is boring and useless

Next time you’re in a presentation and someone says “Our research has shown….”

Look around the room. Notice the eyes glazing over or the people checking their phones or the ones who just leave. Someone is about to bore the crap out of you with useless facts and statistics meant only to comfort the low man on the totem pole.

 

Research is useless once you’ve realized that all people are all pretty much the same.

To quote Whitesnake, “We may be human, but we’re still animals.”

Below are the most conclusive findings about mainstream consumers that you will ever need:

We all want to spend more money while making more money and saving more money to spend later—all in that order.

We all want to eat more food that tastes good while losing weight.

We all want to be loved by others. Do we want to love others? Sometimes.

We all want bigger homes in nice neighborhoods with cool stuff to show our friends. After our friends have seen our stuff, we want them to leave.

We all want cars with more room that take up less space and use less gas while still being considered stylish.

We want bigger boners, bigger boobs and babies.

We want to look more attractive to attract other attractive people to impress the ones we don’t care about.

Did I leave anything out?

As soon as you realize that most of humanity is made up of selfish assholes, it’s much easier to understand them and sell them shit they don’t need.

A big F U to the server

-Could you e-mail that to me?

-Oh, it’s on the server. Great.

-I looked on the server, it’s not there.

-Why would it be in the accounting folder?

-Ok, I’m looking in accounting and I still can’t find it.

-Ok, I’ve found it, but it won’t open.

-I put it on the server. What’s the difference? Then no, I didn’t save it to the server.

-Sorry.

-Because you didn’t tell me to save it.

-Use Time Machine.

-No, I don’t know how it works.

-Yes, I put it on the server.

-It opened on my computer.

-I don’t know, try opening it in Preview.

-No, I’m a writer. I don’t go near anything Adobe.

-The server’s down?

-Sucks to be you.

-The internet’s not down, right?

-Then  calm down.

-I just choose not to believe in the server.

-It’s like a big garbage can. We put shit in there that we never want to deal with again—in a very organized way.

-Is the server up yet?

-Then e-mail it to me.

-Please don’t show me how to use the server again.

-Fuck you, server.

Please offend me.

Please offend me. Or at least try. I’ve lived my whole life without ever being offended. Being offended takes time and energy that I’d rather focus somewhere else.

Which brings me to those Groupon ads. I wasn’t offended by them. They didn’t really say anything bad about Tibet or whales or rain forests. Actually, they might have. I didn’t really get them. Here’s a representation of my brain activity while watching them during the Super Bowl:

-“God, I hate watching football. It’s 4 hours of people standing around and dropping stuff and 10 minutes of people doing something right. Oh good, here’s some commercials. I wish everybody in the bar would shut up so I could hear them. The bartender is cute. I think she likes me. Look, an ad with Timothy Hutton. What has he done since Taps? He must be hurting if he’s doing commercials. What? I need to bring 200 people to a Curry restaurant to save money and what’s going on with Tibet? Ponzi scheme? I think I’ll quit giving a shit now. More beer. I have to pee again.”

The next day, people were making a big deal about them on the Today show because someone got offended.

My Mom didn’t know what a Groupon was before the Super Bowl. I bet she does now. I think their plan worked even though the ads were kind of lame.

Groupon is kind of lame too. I’ve been a subscriber for a while. I’ve never purchased. I’m sure if I used a Groupon, the cashier wouldn’t know what to do with it and would have to get the manager to come up front while a long line of people formed behind me all thinking I’m some kind of asshole for being “that guy who uses Groupon.”

The people who hate change

There are people out there who hate “change.”

They’re called old people.

Old people love to bitch about shit changing while talking about how the old way was so much better. Go out to eat with your parents. They’ve been going to the same restaurant since you were living with them. And that place has not changed a bit.

Change requires adaptability that pushes our brain and forces us to move forward.

It also weeds out the old farts.

Think about that next time you complain about the new Facebook interface or the new Meetup interface—or whatever the hell you kids are into these days.

My Super Bowl Predictions

PREDICTION 1: The game is going to suck. Probably low scoring. Lots of 3 and outs. You’ll lose interest after the halftime show.

PREDICTION 2: The commercials are going to suck. Actually, they’re going to be OK but they won’t blow anybody away.

PREDICTION 3: Your party is going to suck. Here’s why.

PREDICTION 4: You’re going to be cranky on the following Monday after spending all night at a crappy party watching a crappy game with crappy commercials while drinking too much.

BTW, the reason Super Bowl ads suck every year is because they’ve turned into nothing  more than creativity and vanity contests. CEOs love to tell people they have ads on the Super Bowl. It looks good on a resume too. Creativity is great and all, but the reason’s Apple’s 1984, the first Super Bowl ad, was so great was because it changed the equation. It was the first ad to be run only once changing media, production and creative duties for the most WTF value. How many ads will change the equation this year? Probably none.

The objective for a Super Bowl ad is to get everybody talking about the advertised product the next morning.

-What if Las Vegas tourism were to run an ad in the first quarter telling people to tweet the final score. The winner would get a free trip to Vegas immediately after the game. They would show up at the winners house during an ad they would run at the end of the game.

-What if McDonald’s we’re to say their Egg McMuffin is so awesome, it’s better than beer! And, announce they’ll be giving away free Egg McMuffins the next  morning between 6-7am. So don’t drink to much or your hungover ass won’t get out of bed in time to get one.

-What if Bud Light were to donate all their ad time to local cab companies so drunk consumers of their beer will have safe rides home?

But, they won’t change any equations. They’ll just use celebrities, animals and pop cultures references (like Twilight and Jersey Shore) to get a few chuckles instead.

I know, Pepsi tried to change the equation by using last year’s Super Bowl budget to Refresh Everything. But, that was kind of lame.

The Awards I Should Have Won…

They don’t make awards for my proudest advertising accomplishments so I thought I’d give them to myself in a post I like to call The Awards I Should Have Won If Only They Existed.

-The HOUNDY: The award for working at the most agencies in towns most people never visit—like Harrisburg, Knoxville and Tallahassee. You can reach these places easily by Greyhound.

-The RUPTY: For having the most ad agencies on my resume that are currently out of business.

-The BONER: For working on the most pro bono accounts (clients who don’t pay).

-The SOFTY: For losing the most pro bono accounts.

-The HELLO: It’s the award for accumulating the most name tags at local networking events.

-The BLANKY: For seeing the most blank stares on the faces of people I meet at these local networking events when they find out I’m not important enough to talk to and start to scan the room.

-The LAY: For getting laid off twice in 2 years. You know how hard it is to find two agencies that need you one year, but not the next?

-The POWERPOLE: For writing the most PowerPoints and pole signs. You probably don’t even know what a pole sign is, do you? You know those signs in Mom and Pop stores that leave room for the manager to write in his own price with a Sharpie? Yeah, I made those for a while.

-The BEASTIE: For having the most ideas that would have won awards if only my stupid client/boss/art director/creative director/account executive/media planner/family member/producer/receptionist/bartender didn’t do something to sabotage it.

-The WRONG HORSEY: Three years ago we had to choose a celebrity to endorse a beverage marketed to teenagers. We had to choose between Brooke Hogan and Taylor Swift. Guess which one I chose?

-The NEXTY: For hearing “great idea—but we should wait and do it next year” the most.

-The THRIFTY: For doing the most travel by rental car instead of airplane.

-The HUG: This isn’t an award, but after writing all this—I need a freakin’ hug.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 39 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 79 posts. There were 39 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was July 13th with 61 views. The most popular post that day was Getting laid off is like a punch in the face—but in a good way..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, screetus.blogspot.com, evilads.biz, twitter.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for bud light orange, why does bret michaels wear a bandana, nickelback 2010, sandra bullock, and bret michaels 2010.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Getting laid off is like a punch in the face—but in a good way. July 2010
1 comment

2

Bud Light Orange—my creation September 2009
1 comment

3

The people at your agency holiday party December 2010

4

What We Can All Learn from Bret Michaels June 2010

5

I Call it Nickelback Advertising August 2010

The problem with being successful

Let’s say you go to school and make good grades, graduate from college, land a successful job, work your way to the top and retire with your lovely spouse on a yacht and sail around the world when you turn 65. That’s great and all. But, you’re boring as fuck. I wouldn’t want to read your autobiography. Failure is so much more interesting.

Next time failure works it’s way into your life, just think of it as an excellent first page to your upcoming autobiography:

“I just turned 40 and got laid off for the second time in 3 years. Was God trying to tell me something? Maybe, but I chose not to listen…”

You’ve got the next 300 pages to turn it all around.

The people at your agency holiday party

We all know about the drunk people. Here’s a closer look at some of the others we may overlook. OK, we’ll look at a few drunk people too.

1. The Hot Date. Someone will bring a hot date. Someone so hot and way out of his or her league that people will wonder if an escort was hired.

2. The IT Guy Who Comes Out of His Shell. The quiet IT guy will drink some alcohol and start doing all those dances he learned on Dance Dance Revolution.

3. The Dickhead Who is Nice for One Day. There’s one guy at work who everyone hates because he’s such a dick. Well tonight he’s not. You might spark a conversation with him, find out you have a lot in common and go back to hating each other next day.

4. The Safe Friend. You hate all your coworkers except for this person. Home base for when you run out of small talk with important people.

5. The Dancer. There’s always one guy dancing with all the girls. He’s either gay or trying to hook up. Someone should try to get a picture of him grinding on the boss’s wife.

6. The Speechmaker. One of the brass. Talks about how we pulled through because we’re a team. Nothing wrong with that.

7. The Invisible Guest. The next day you ask “Why weren’t you at the party?”. They’ll swear they were there, but you didn’t see them. They show up, eat and get out as soon as it’s technically appropriate.

8. The Awkward Kisser/Hugger. Shake, hug or kiss. This person never knows the answer and will end up inappropriately saying goodbye to someone.

9. The Uneventful Drunk. He gets drunk without making a fool of himself. He says he’s just there for the free booze and he is.

10. The Complainer. “We didn’t get a bonus? The roast beef was horrible. No enough parking. Why did they have it so far away?” That person.

11. The Drunk Date. Someone will bring a date who will get drunk and act all crazy because he or she doesn’t give a shit. “I don’t know these people.” And you’ll all have a good laugh about it at next year’s party.

12. The Girl Who Dresses Too Sexy. Unfortunately it’s not a hot girl. She bought the dress 40 pounds ago and thinks she’s still “got it.” She’s wearing it tonight because it’s the first time she’s been out all year.

13. The Small Talker. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. Oh, that’s right—we’ve met. You having a good time tonight? Now, you work in health care, right? Good field. Especially in this economy.” That person.