Terry Levine | Noggin Advertising | Copywriter | Digital + Direct Writer | Blogging | Toronto | Canada

SETH REBLOG: THE CORPORATE CONSCIENCE.

There isn't one. Corporations don't have a conscience, people do. That means that every time you say, "It's just my job," or "My department has a policy," or "All I do is work here," what you've done is abdicated responsibility--to no one. It's convenient and even comfortable to blame the anonymous actions of many working in concert on a evanescent brand or organization, but that starts you on an inevitable race to the bottom. Organizations have more power than ever before. They are better synchronized, faster, and possess more tools to change the economy and the people in it than ever before. And the only option available to the rest of us is for individuals to take responsibility (it's not given) for what they do and how they do it. The very same tools that permit organizations to synchronize their efforts are now available to you and to me. I guess the question is: will we use that power to humanize the systems we've created? PS It's not just about being a good citizen: when bad behavior comes back to hurt the company, it hurts you, too.

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(NO) SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL.

Oh, oh. I'm having another political moment...

Ken Mehlman came out of the closet the other day.

If you don't know who Mehlman is and you're gay, you should. He's one of the reasons gay marriage rights lag behind progressive countries like Canada, Spain, South Africa and Mexico. Yes, now Mexico is more progressive on gay marriage than the US, thanks to guys like Ken Mehlman.

If that sounds like a contradiction -- that someone who worked to undermine the equality rights of gay people turns out to be gay himself -- it is. But it's not uncommon. In fact, there are likely hundreds of closeted politicians, staffers and lobbyists in Washington working everyday against gay rights not because they're truly morally opposed to gay marriage but because they're compensating: they feel they need to prove they can be more homophobic than the people who elected them.

The sad truth is there are countless people denying the sexuality they were born with -- lawyers, doctors, police officers, soldiers, journalists, Hollywood stars. And though I think it's a shame for people to live in the closet, if and when they choose to come out is their business, with one exception: politicians and political operatives who work against equality rights.

When Ken Mehlman -- who everyone knew was gay even back when he was running George W. Bush's campaign and the Republican National Committee -- could have done the right thing, he chose not to. When he was in a position of power and literally had the ear of the President, he did nothing. Actually, he did less than nothing. He used homophobic fearmongering to bring people out to the polls.

We all struggle with the right time to come out publicly, and for that he has my sympathy. But when you're living your private life as a gay man and your public one as a defender of bogus "family values," you're simply a soulless opportunist who can never really be trusted.

And though Mehlman says he regrets some of the things he did, not only is he still defending a political party that's virulently homophobic, he has the gall to wonder why more gay voters aren't Republican because, he says, fundamentalist Islam is "the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now."

That's rich from an apologist for the greatest anti-gay force in the United States right now.

WATCH EGYPT'S (SORT OF) HOMOEROTIC COKE COMMERCIAL.

Via Copyranter comes this Coca-Cola ad from Egypt, highlighting the drink's new screw caps.

This ad crosses some pretty taboo barriers. Writes Copyranter: "Brave of the ad agency, Cairo's Fortune Promoseven, since the country has a de facto ban on homosexuality."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

via www.towleroad.com

Sort of sad that this is considered risqué but better than nothing, I suppose.

SETH REBLOG: BEING THERE FOR TOO LONG.

A newly-retired executive takes a job as an adjunct professor and really shakes things up. Both the school and the students are blown away by her fresh thinking and new approaches.

A forty-year old internet executive who has been running his company for decades misses one new trend after another, because he's still living in 1998.

One thing that happens to management when they get senior is that they get stuck. (As we saw with the new professor, senior isn't about old, it's about how long you've been there).

If you've been doing it forever, you discover (but may not realize) that the things that got you this power are no longer dependable.

Reliance on the tried and true can backfire (Rupert keeps missing one opportunity after another, and keeps misunderstanding the medium he works in) or it can (rarely) pay off (Steve Jobs keeps repeating the same business model again and again--it's not an accident that Apple has no real online or social media footprint. Steve believes in beautifully designed objects, closed systems and evangelizing to developers and creatives).

Worth quoting--one of Arthur C. Clarke's lesser known three laws:  "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."

The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior...

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WHY I MISS PATTY HEWES.

"Character is what you do in the dark." -- Damages

I remember as a kid feeling a sense of loss when I finished certain books -- Pillars of the Earth, Kane and Abel and East of Eden come to mind.  In recent years I've felt it less frequently but no less intensely after finishing Memoirs of a Geisha and The Kite Runner. In every case I had become so attached to the characters, I found myself a little depressed at the prospect of never "spending time" with them again.

I rarely feel that way about TV shows or movies but I am this week, in spades, after downloading and watching all three seasons of Damages. The characters are so well written and acted that, even if they're evil (and in Damages they're all evil), I can't help missing them -- main character Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, most of all. (I wanted to say "protagonist" but that may technically be Ellen Parsons, played by Rose Byrne.)

Martin: If you were a man, I'd kick the living dogshit out of you.
Patty : If you were a man I'd be worried.

The late Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater once said: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And ...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

Patty is the embodiment of that philosophy, though probably not in the way Goldwater intended.

Patty: Did I ever tell you why I became a lawyer, Ray?

Ray: No, you never told me.

Patty: I thought I could change the world. Silly, huh?

Ray: I just liked getting to wear a tie every day.

But even if she does horrible things in the pursuit of justice, I have a soft spot for her mainly because she hates bullies and people who fuck over the powerless. The tension in Damages is always generated by the moral question of whether Patty needs to become a bully to fight them. And how far she should go to do what's right.

How far would you go? And who gets to decide what's right? It makes for great storytelling and one of the few really great shows on TV.

SETH REBLOG: FINDING INSPIRATION INSTEAD OF IT FINDING YOU.

One approach to innovation and brainstorming is to wait for the muse to appear, to hope that it alights on your shoulder, to be ready to write down whatever comes to you.

The other is to seek it out, will it to appear, train it to arrive on time and on command.

The first method plays into our fears. After all, if you're not inspired, it's not your fault if you don't ship, it's not your fault if you don't do anything remarkable--hey, I don't have any good ideas, you can't expect me to speak up if I don't have any good ideas...

The second method challenges the fear and announces that you've abandoned the resistance and instead prepared to ship. Your first idea might not be good, or even your second or your tenth, but once you dedicate yourself to this cycle, yes, in fact, you will ship and make a difference.

Simple example: start a blog and post once a day on how your favorite company can improve its products or its service. Do it every day for a month, one new, actionable idea each and every day. Within a few weeks, you'll notice the change in the way you find, process and ship ideas.

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DOCTA, PLEASE: SHOW SOME RESPECT.

When I was a kid, I remember going to synagogue with my dad early in the morning a couple of times a year to mark the anniversary of the death of each of my grandfathers. I'd watch my father and other adult men carefully wrap black leather tefillin around their arms and heads, light candles, read prayers in Hebrew and then (of course) eat breakfast. It was always a solemn event but one that, in a strange way, gave me a feeling of contentment -- maybe because it connected me to my family and the history of my people.

Jews do a particularly good job of remembering and commemorating and respecting those who came before us. It's kept us united and helped us try to understand the injustices and violence perpetrated against us.

So it bothered me one morning when, after the Yarzheit prayers, I heard an elderly man at the breakfast table go on -- to the rabbi no less -- about "schvartzes." Schvartze literally means "black" in Yiddish but in the context in which the man was using it, he meant something akin to "nigger." Perhaps not as hatefully as a KKK Grand Wizard might use the n-word, but offensive nonetheless.

I couldn't have been more than ten but I was disturbed by this. I wondered how someone who had lived in the time of the Holocaust (and who may have even lost relatives to one of history's greatest atrocities) could utter bigoted words like that. Had he learned nothing about the danger of demonizing and demeaning other groups of people?

I think the same thing every time I hear gay men make derogatory comments about blacks or Asians or Jews when they themselves have been vilified for being gay.

And more recently, when some of my family and friends have come down against Muslims over the non-Ground Zero mosque nontroversy.

And I'm thinking it again this week after radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger's latest comments, this time to an African-American caller uncomfortable with her husband's and his white friends' racially-tinged comments and their use of the word "nigger." I'm not angry because Schlessinger used the n-word herself, although her outburst was disturbing. I sort of understand the context.

What I take issue with was her tone-deafness and inability to understand, as a woman and a Jew, how hurt someone from a minority or persecuted community might feel to hear that word.

Her excuse -- that it's unfair that blacks use the n-word but whites can't -- is even more offensive. First of all, blacks don't really call each other "nigger," they say "nigga" which of course is derived from the n-word but has a whole other connotation. If Schlessinger can't figure this one out, I would remind her of the difference between saying "he's Jewish" and "he Jewed me." Context and common sense are important. But respect is most important of all.

Unfortunately it's a quality for which the "Doctor" has been found wanting over the years.

RESISTING THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR.

My biggest pet peeve in advertising and marketing is assuming your audience needs to be completely spoonfed information in the most pablum, uncreative, unclever way possible. It may make what you're selling simpler to understand but it also makes it so painfully dull your customer is likely to fall asleep.

More than once, I've encountered a client whose first reaction to a creative idea or headline was laughter -- followed by something like "but we can't say that" or "people won't get it." 

Seth Godin has a few words to say about this on his blog today:

"Subtle is a cousin of beautiful.

"Subtle design and messaging challenge the user to make her own connections instead of spelling out every detail. Connections we make are more powerful than connections made for us. If Amazon and Zappos had been called 'reallybigbookstore.com' and 'tonsofshoes.com' it might have made some early investors happy, but they would have built little of value."

I couldn't agree more.

THE THINGS WE KNOW WE DON'T KNOW.

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know." 

-- Donald Rumsfeld

When my creative partner and I present creative concepts or headline options to a client, we're invariably asked for a reco.

We always know this question is coming, which is why before a presentation we usually relook at the brief and concepts and come to an agreement about which idea is strategically and creatively strongest.

I've never tracked our success rate -- the number of times clients actually go with the concepts we've recommended -- but I'm pretty sure it's dismal.

This used to bother me and I'd take it personally, figuring it was some kind of sadistic client/agency game, but not anymore.

The reason is, I've figured out that we don't fail at gauging the client's preferred concept so often because we don't know which is strategically strongest or has the most visual or messaging stopping power. I think we're usually right on the money by these two measures most of the time.

Where we go wrong is in our psychic -- or mind-reading -- ability. (That's not meant to sound sarcastic. I'm serious, here.) To paraphrase the esteemed former US Secretary of Defense, we can't know what we don't know.

We don't know, for instance, if a client once succumbing to Montezuma's revenge in Mexico consciously or subconsciously makes him less inclined to choose a concept featuring a majestic Mayan temple. Or whether using a character named Patti in a TV script will remind him of his first love or his mother-in-law.

Still, no matter how many times clients ignore our recos, they still seem to want to know what they are. Why?

In one of his fascinating TED conference presentations, behavioral economist Dan Ariely discusses the power of default options in unwittingly persuading people. (You can see some of that discussion below, starting at 11:09.) His contention, based on pretty clever experiments, is that we often decide what we like or want based not on what we actually want but on a slew of other factors, including choices that are simply there to point us to another one.

You might say clients don't ask for our recos because they want us to tell them which concept to choose. They ask us so they have a marker from which to make their own decision.

EXPLORATION AND THE RISK OF FAILURE.

People seem to be in one of two categories:

• Those who seek stability, affiliation, work worth doing and the assurance it (whatever it is) will be okay.
• Those who explore, need to know that failure is an option and quest to make a dent in the universe.

You can be in either category, the world needs and rewards both. But pick a brand and a job and a posture that matches your category, or you'll fail, and be miserable until you do.

Hint: there is no category of: "does risky exploration, never fails."

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