The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix""
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
The Value Of A Paying Pustomer.
Emergence Of the "Empire of One".
All customers Are Created Equal
Playing God An Other Atrocities
the
City That Spawned
The Age Of Advertising..
Fear And Self Loathing In Advertising.
The Greatest Success Metric Is Sales.
Foot In (Word Of) Mouth Disease
In the Begining, There Was The End.
The Rise And Fall
Of The Creative Class
What's Love Got To Do With It?
Champagne Brand
Beer Marketing Budget
Amtrak: Third World Nation On Wheels.
New Music Means
New Marketing.
Automotive Advertising Hits A Dead End.
Has Advertising Lost Control Of The
Creative Process?
If AdvertisingIs Meaningless,
What Comes Next?
What Could Make A Grown Man Cry?
I Have Seen The Future And It Doesn't Work.
This Column Is About Absolutely Nothing.
American Business Is In Need Of An Extreme Makeover...Now.
Advertising Immunity. Can It Be Cured In Our Lifetime?
Do You Have The Right
To Sing The Blues.
The Best Place I Never Worked At .
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The Creeping Influence Of Everything Emo. I remember when the best ideas came from the unfettered minds of the youngest of our species. I recall flashes of brilliance in the work of novice filmmakers. I can recollect amazing insight from the scrawls emblazoned on the 8 th Street bridge in Pittsburgh from the Carnegie-Mellon undergrads who used to cross back and forth each day. "Fuck Art. Let's Skank," was one of my faves. I can still feel the chill up my spine when this 19-year-old kid from Minneapolis walked into Sound Palace Studio across from the old Studio 54 in New York with a Ryder truck full of equipment, set it up and played all of it for Sydney Pink's now classic Prince Audition 13 tapes. I remember when the new came from the new. |
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Now the new is far less interesting than the old. Now creativity is in regression mode. Innovation has taken a holiday and imitation is the sincerest form of originality. Gen Y has decided, "why bother?" Coming up with the next new thing is all hard and stuff. More and more kids would rather go Emo. |
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If everything is so negative in this business, what makes you get up in the morning? -Jose. D, San Juan, PR H – hw |
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Metrosexual is so Emo. Boy singers who sound like eunichs are so very Emo. Deadpan stares into oncoming traffic-very Emo. Falling backward into an empty swimming pool. Totally Emo. Stoic laughter. All the way Emo. Emo is shorthand for "emotional" and originally described a genre of music that is somewhere south of punk and north of pop. Certain films like "Napolean Dynamite" are virtually Emo manifestos. Not because of what they say, but because of what they don't say. Long, unbeareable stretches of deadpan stares into space, punctuated by the random belch. Masterpieces of cinematic underachievement. But now a music genre and a cinema sensibility have given rise to an entire behavioral pattern among young people. Originally symbolized by the muted battlecry, "Whatever," Emo life has given form to the adolescent angst that is the result of feeling powerless in the face of big everything but you. Breathing is not enough of an excuse for depleting the oxygen supply. Millions of wannabe whiners are out there right now lamenting that the $1.8 million dollar house they live in at the end of some cul-de-sac is 20 minutes away from their high school, which makes life so unfair because they have to take the school bus which is yellow. And yellow is so not Emo. This trend sweeping today's young people is all about manifesting extreme emotional depression over the most trivial issues imaginable. That, and a guy's ability to wear nail polish and mascara and make a fashion statement by being a geek. Many of you may be scratching your heads right now wondering what the hell I'm talking about. This trend of behavior flies largely under the radar, specifically because it is devoted to being recessive. Emo kids work hard not to stand out in any way. They dress out of the local thrift shop and they do their hair by wiping it out of their face in the morning. So many of them are the "pod people" who tune out to society by tuning into the 3418 songs on their iPods, to the exclusion of any other form of human interaction. If you encounter an Emo-influenced waitress in a restaurant, she will be the one staring into space because she hasn't noticed you and your family sitting in that booth for the past 20 minutes. But don't get me wrong. Emo isn't all bad. It's done wonders for the obscure t-shirt industry. And what exactly does this mega trend have to do with advertising? This is our prospective talent pool, boys and girls. This is the generation we are counting on to bring the new. Our morally and creatively bankrupt excuse for an industry, which is in the midst of a boredom epidemic, has these pukes to count on for salvation. Fortune five hundies are begging for fresh thinking from Madison Avenue. But this swamp fog of dullards is dropping out of school because their pencil sharpeners broke and they don't know how they can ever carry on. Advertising is in danger of becoming infected by these under thinkers and none of us have any ideas how to stamp them out before they bring down the herd. If you thought about these people as the harbingers of the lowest common denominator, you wouldn't be that far off. If you have young people working for you who are into this nonsense , light a fire under them. Life has too many issues to solve. Society has too many ills to address. If these dorks can't find the testosterone to step up and make a stand, I say let them walk into the kitchen and suck off the gas pipe. They won't be missed if they were never here to begin with.
Stay tuned.
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