OMG! The System is Corrupt!

I woke up this morning with this urgent message screaming in my head. I was writing copy as I stretched. Must blog. Must lash out the only way I know how. Must do something about our broken political system. Yeah, as if I can. As if any of us can. I stopped trying to do that when I switched majors in college at 18 years of age. A degree in political science wouldn't do it. Even then, I saw the brokenness of our country, our world. And my inability to change it.

And so I gave up and became an advertising major. I can control what people like and dislike, I figured. I'm good at persuasive writing, creating interesting, fun ads and news stories that move products and services. In particular, I know how to entertain through advertising. And then I became disillusioned with that, as the conglomerates bought up everything media and the whole ad game changed, not for the better.

And always, I meditated and mostly pretended to live a Zen existence, as if it didn't matter what the idiots in Washington or the monsters in Bahrain did. But even with meditation today, I find I'm compelled to speak out, call out the idiots in Washington. And the monsters among us.

It's a broken system. People, we need to start screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." People are losing their homes to banks while bankers claim $9 million bonuses. Each. Each year. From tax dollars we've given them, because they were "too big to fail." And we continue to foster the "trickle down theory" of giving tax breaks to the top 2%, the Kochs and the GEs. While the silent majority (yes, we've become those fools again) eats it. And pays for it. Find the error in that picture without being an economist. It's not hard.

We continue to war when in 2011, we've had a long enough history on this planet, for even the dimmest witted of us to see that war only begets more war, more awfulness.

The mean, greedy bastards who make millions sucking off the American political system want to cut "Obamacare" and Medicare and everything else that even halfway portends to good social services for our citizenry. While we pour trillions into a war machine that only cripples our young who serve and those upon whom we wage this incessant madness.

We are a corrupt government. We are no better than Egypt. In fact, the economic disparities and social inequalities are scary similar. And I'm afraid that economically, we're closer to Greece. Or Rome, when Nero fiddled. Arrogance is going to do us in.

I think I understand why Americans are so fat. We overeat because we're trying to escape this crude, unequal system under which we live where the middle class is taxed to death. Where we borrow to the hilt from those to whom we give aid, like China. While the Cheneys and the Department of Defense contractors continue to profit on war that only destroys everything.

I'm mad as hell. I'm going to meditate now.

Chrysler, Audi & "Badvertising"

I'm watching auto companies waste even more money. This time, on "badvertising": Advertising that misses the mark, that's not consistent from medium to medium, that's created by a handful of agencies. Splintered messages. Nothing focused. Nothing that's going to move a lot of product.

From the flap with @ChryslerAutos dropping the F bomb on Twitter, after the (I think) brilliant use of Eminem's brand to relaunch Chrysler during the Super Bowl, I'm amazed at how many snafus and guffaws the advertising industry makes today. Methinks it's because the big agencies are too big. Purchased by conglomerates, like all media related industries today. And thinking social media too small to fight for, to keep it under their roof. Wieden & Kennedy does brilliant TV for Chrysler, but some obviously clueless company is tweeting? And tweeting poorly. W&K should be handling the entire account. That's the way ad agencies used to work. And we'd fight to keep all the biz under our one roof. So everything matched.

No so, today. Social media has gotten away from the good, creative agencies. They either don't understand it or they think it's insignificant. It's not. It's imperative. And it needs to be wrapped into the overall branding efforts, along with the TV, print, online, out-of-home, etc.

Audi's recent big deal at the Super Bowl, where they were going to make a huge statement with social media, was a disaster. And they didn't. I retweeted our Hawaii blogger who was in their social media contest and never once looked at the Audi advertising. Didn't even know it was for Audi, really, as the hashtag was something really stupid like #ProgressIs. Had not a clue what it was even about. And Audi's tweets are boring, product placement only. So I unfollowed them.

Ad agencies need to get their acts together and be the full service marketing arms they once were. The creative and the clients are suffering.