Advertising Ignorance

Lucky me. At 48, I still have a bit of time to be beloved by Madison Avenue.

The bulk of advertising is targeted to the 18-49 demographic. Conventional wisdom says after 50, people are set in their ways. They've picked their toothpaste, and by golly, nothing's going to change their minds. The flip side of that thinking is the belief that before 50, people can be converted to a particular brand for life.

The largest single demographic in the history of the world is well on its way to 50, if not there already. For boomers, cool is the watchword of a lifetime. This generation is well on its way to making old age as cool as youth was 30 years ago. How often have we heard that 50 is the new 40, or 60 is the new 50? As long as there's an appetite for cool, there's a twin appetite for new. And "new" may have little to do with brand loyalty.

Sure, youth is wasted on the young. The old rejoiner to that is that money is wasted on the old. But not anymore. Boomers consume like no other generation in history. Targeting 18-49ers and figuring you'll get the over-50 crowd, too, is short sighted.

With Gen Xers actively resisting Madison Avenue's traditional efforts along with the entire notion of brand loyalty, old school loses its wisdom.

The single largest trend in successful marketing has been targeted marketing. With so many media outlets, targeting is more viable now because there are so many more outlets. The closer the message gets to speaking to the individual, the more effective it becomes.

For more on the 18-49 phenomena, check out yesterday's L.A. Times', "Over 50 and Out of Favor.

David Sedaris

I have a few favorite writers I can depend on to thoroughly entertain me. Davis Sedaris is one of them. I'm not sure if this is a memoir or a short story, but it's classic Sedaris:

My mother and I were at the dry cleaner’s, standing behind a woman we had never seen. “A nice-looking woman,” my mother would later say. “Well put together. Classy.” The woman was dressed for the season in a light cotton shift patterned with oversize daisies. Her shoes matched the petals and her purse, which was black-and-yellow striped, hung over her shoulder, buzzing the flowers like a lazy bumblebee. She handed in her claim check, accepted her garments, and then expressed gratitude for what she considered to be fast and efficient service. “You know,” she said, “people talk about Raleigh but it isn’t really true, is it?”

The Korean man nodded, the way you do when you’re a foreigner and understand that someone has finished a sentence. He wasn’t the owner, just a helper who’d stepped in from the back, and it was clear he had no idea what she was saying.

“My sister and I are visiting from out of town,” the woman said, a little louder now, and again the man nodded. “I’d love to stay awhile longer and explore, but my home, well, one of my homes is on the garden tour, so I’ve got to get back to Williamsburg.”

I was eleven years old, yet still the statement seemed strange to me. If she’d hoped to impress the Korean, the woman had obviously wasted her breath, so who was this information for?

“My home, well, one of my homes”; by the end of the day my mother and I had repeated this line no less than fifty times. The garden tour was unimportant, but the first part of her sentence brought us great pleasure. There was, as indicated by the comma, a pause between the words “home” and “well,” a brief moment in which she’d decided, Oh, why not? The following word— “one”—had blown from her mouth as if propelled by a gentle breeze, and this was the difficult part. You had to get it just right or else the sentence lost its power. Falling somewhere between a self-conscious laugh and a sigh of happy confusion, the “one” afforded her statement a double meaning. To her peers it meant, “Look at me, I catch myself coming and going!” and to the less fortunate it was a way of saying, “Don’t kid yourself, it’s a lot of work having more than one house.”

Read the rest here.

A Humanist Code of Ethics

Humanism gets a bad rap for being a godless, atheistic and morally relative set of values that has invaded our society, especially our schools. Some People are really exercised about it. I don't understand why anyone would object to morality. Morality is good, regardless of the tradition from which it springs. I wouldn't mind living in a world where people adhered to the code of ethics outlined below.

From Ian Zatlin's bar mitzvah program via Jonathan:.

A Humanist Code of Ethics

Do no harm to the earth, she is your mother.
Being is more important than having.
Never promote yourself at another's expense.
Hold life sacred; treat it with reverence.
Allow each person the dignity of his or her labor.
Open your home to the wayfarer.
Be ready to receive your deepest dreams;
Sometimes they are the speech of unblighted conscience.
Always make restitutions to the ones you have harmed.
Never think less of yourself than you are.
Never think that you are more than another.

Arthur Dobrin

Thirsk Scrapbook Page

Thirsk Scrapbook Page, originally uploaded by Jill.

PhotoFiltre is great for reworking images, but for doing photo montages. PagePlus SE is the best I've worked with. It's easy, and best of all, it's free.

PhotoFiltre in Action

Yorkminster Nave, before and after, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

I chose my parents quite well. Not only are they great fun to be around, but they're enormously generous and adventuresome. For their 50th anniversary, they put the whole family (kids, grandkids, spouses, an uncle, a cousin) on a plane to spend two weeks in Yorkshire to celebrate.

That's how I came by a picture of Yorkminster that I deviated with the digital editing software, PhotoFiltre. While Photoshop is great, Photofiltre is free.

Overheard in New York

From Overheard in New York:

Tween chick #1: So when we went to Canada, we had deer.
Tween chick #2: Really? Doesn't it have a special name too?
Tween chick #1: Yeah. Verizon, like the phones.

Woman: Every time I try to explain it to you, you don't understand--
Man: I'm killing your dreams?

Little girl: My birthday is next week.
Woman: Oh? What sign are you?
Little girl: I'm Italian and Jewish.

Girl #1: Sorry I'm late! Brian and I were discussing the logistics of turning my Statue of Liberty figurine into a bong.
Girl #2: It's always something with you.

Guy: So in your fantasy life you're a scholar? That's ridiculous!

Chick: I got a washing machine at home but it don't fit. I got too many clothes.
Guy: Ain't you never heard of loads?
Chick: What you mean?
Guy: Doing it once at a time.
Chick: Shoot, I be doing clothes forever if I do that shit.

Black guy on cell: Yeah, it was actually all right. We were both circumcised.

Receptionist: Do you have an appointment here?
Guy: Yes, I'm the 3:35.
Receptionist: No, you're not.
Guy: Oh yes I am.
Receptionist: This is gynecology.
Guy: Ah.

Girl #1: I have no idea what happened, but when I woke up my bed was full of clam chowder.
Girl #2: Really?
Girl #1: Really!

A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still Be An Ad Agency

In my first post, I explained our name. In short, in botany, the cambium is the layer of cells between the bark and wood that grows. Each year's cambium cells become another ring of growth. Since our job is making things grow, it's an apt concept. But there are other reasons a botanical term is particularly appropriate for us.

Hard as it is to believe, people weren't knocking down doors to offer me writing jobs after I got my English degree. I dithered around for a while, and even became an assistant vice president for a commercial mortgage lender. The turning point came when I was asked to interview at an agency with a horticultural client. Did I mention my dusty degree in horticulture?

That was Brighton Agency, and at the time, their biggest accounts were Valent U.S.A. and later Sandoz (later bought by BASF).

Jonathan and I were a team at Osborn and Barr, working on Merck Crop Protection and Monsanto. We do know our way around a soybean brochure.

What's more, Jonathan is the original Earth Father, a naturalist by avocation and a conservationist in practice, with long-standing ties to that movement. My heart is with him, but I haven't logged the hours to earn that distinction.

Choosing Cambium Creative as our corporate moniker was a natural extension of the most general purpose of marketing, while also serving as an apt allusion to our photosynthetic backgrounds.

That said, I want to make it clear that our experience goes far beyond agriculture, but that's another discussion. Read all about it when our website, www.cambiumcreative.com, goes live in the near future.

Cambium Creative Stationery & Business Cards

Cambium Creative Stationery & Business Cards, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

Jonathan is the art guy and I'm the writer, but I had started fooling around with PhotoFiltre, a free photoshop-like digital editing software and came up with the tree round showing the rings (remember, it's the cambium that creates those growth rings) and added a halo of branching limbs.

The circle within a square is a nice design element, but it's also a mandala, a symbol found in religious artwork in virtually every tradition. Jung says it's one of those symbols that resonates in the collective unconscious. In Hindu and Buddhist meditation, it's a "sacred circle" used to raise consciousness that represents the merging of male and female forces. Mandalas are found all over Europe in rose windows, labyrinths and mosaics. Can't hurt, now can it.

So while I designed the logo, Jonathan cleaned it all up and made it into what you see here. A lot of art directors would feel territorial, but Jonathan was as gracious and encouraging as he could be.

The back of the business cards read:

cam'-bi-um, n.
in botany, the layer
of tissue between
the bark and wood
in higher plant life
that is the source
of new growth.

cam'-bi-um cre-a'-tive, n.
in marketing, award-
winning strategic
thinking and creative
implementation with
a proven track record
of creating growth.

We like it, but what do you think? Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Passion Mind Map

Along with a gazillion other people, I've been reading The Purpose Driven. I couldn't finish it for personal reasons. But his premise is that without a well-defined purpose, life is meaningless and needlessly difficult. He urges his readers to discover their passion and develop a community to help feed keep passion alive.

Warren's book is too Christian for this Unitarian, but I could appreciate it's initial thesis, that passion demands spirit, and spirit feeds passion.

Our tagline at Cambium Creative is "Spirit. Imagination. Growth." We could just as well have separated the words with arrows instead of periods, because that's the process. One of the best things about having your own company is the ability to create a culture that celebrates passion, creativity and integrity.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about mind mapping as a freeform tool that gets your thinking out of your head and onto paper. Since I've been reading so much about passion, I mapped out my thinking as posted below.

Passion MInd Map, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

Tuesday Feels Like Monday

I'm having a Monday kind of Tuesday, but I've promised myself to be faithful about posting, and this early into it is no time to give myself a break. So, I'm taking Anne Lamott's writing advice and writing a shitty first draft. Of course, she follows that advice with edit, edit, edit.

That's good advice. The hardest thing about being creative for a living is the terror of continually facing down the blank page. No one knows where creativity comes from, or how to dependably access it. Thankfully, over the years I've developed a library of tricks, tools and mind games to help me past that initial abyss. For instance:

• Start the software. That sounds really elementary, but waiting for Word to boot up can waylay one who is not hot on the trail of a good story to begin with.
• Just write and see what happens. I eventually figure out what I'm writing about, and may actually have something worth salvaging.
• Mind map. There are fancy software programs to do this, but I like a big blank sketch pad and colored markers. I write my central theme in the center, and brainstorm outward from the center. A trick to engage the right side of the brain is to doodle and use color. In the end, I wind up with a rather random outline. Thoughts get organized, and more often than not, I'm ready to write.
• Take a walk.
• Scrub the tub, empty the dishwasher, pick things up--anything to get moving for a short period of time. The key is to make it something that doesn't take long, but gets me in a constructive mind set.
• Read Bartlett's.
• Set the timer for ten minutes and surf the web for inspiration. I especially like to look at really great photo sites like Clandestina, Caedes and Daily Dose of Imagery, to name just a few. It's like taking a virtual vacation, and I can return to work feeling refreshed.

From Daily Dose of Imagery

From Daily Dose of Imagery, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

KRE-8-F-A-T ROX DOOD

Hugh Macleod of The Gaping Void explains why the age of the alpha bean counter is coming to an end. And not a minute too soon. How much were we supposed to take anyway? Groupthink has poisoned us beyond our capacity to bounce back. Ground water, birth defects, corporate welfare, ketchup as a vegetable, it's enough to put you off your feed.

But what if, and I hate this word, but what if the paradigm shifted? What if creativity, individuality, integrity, authenticity, and all those things your better people have been about all along; what if those became the undisputed valued commodities?

There is hope.

From Gaping Void:


Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the "Team Player."

Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that's why they did it.

There's only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own. They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.

So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.

"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do you think?"

And so on.

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that's exactly what's been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?

The ecology dies.

If you're creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn't the case.

So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.

However if you're not paricularly creative, then you're in real trouble. And there's no buzzword or "new paradigm" that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but... people like watching dinosaurs die.

Bad Words Must Die

"We utilize our core competencies to deliver value-added, client-focused, win-win synergies to leverage a total quality paradigm yackity yadda blah blah blah."

I wrote this about five years ago for a company website where I was creative director. It almost didn't make the cut because of the sacred cows involved. But it flew, the site won awards, and there was holy beef for dinner.

Nice story, isn't it?

Much of what passes for business writing falls into that godawful category of corporate-speak. Much ado for not much. The fact is, if more people wrote like they speak, more people would be better writers. Heaven help you if you actually talk like that.

Lingo is only appropriate when a regular word won't work. For instance, "fungible" is a lawyer word. It means a commodity, something innately replaceable, without individual characteristics. That's a good word. Three syllables pack a wallop.

But unless it passes that acid test, it's pretentious and needlessly difficult, even if your audience speaks lingonese. No one sounds smarter because of it. A fussy style will never make up for substance.

That said, I will fall on my sword for a rich vocabulary and colorful language. There's beauty in that.

For instance, a word I heard for the first time a few months ago is "bespoke." As in Savile Row bespoke suits. Prince Charles wears bespoke suits. There are bespoke tailors. It's a wonderful word. It's poetic. As if quality could speak its name. Bespoke. That meets the acid test. It is the perfect word for tailor-made.

It's human to love language. Everyone loves a catchy phrase. Witness your more interesting country music lyrics. There's a twist. Don't it make your brown eyes blue? That works. Doesn't it make your dominant ocular genetics sink into clinical depression? That doesn't.

The right words are like a breath of ozone, washing away the cobwebs and increasing visibility.

George Bernard Shaw

Most mission statements are meaningless bits of corporate-speak.

George Bernard Shaw didn't call this brilliant bit of writing a mission statement, but it is. We spend so much energy searching for happiness. Mr. Shaw knew where it was:

This is the true joy in life . . . being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one . . . being a force of nature instead of a feverish little cloud of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy . . . . I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I life, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it to future generations.

Tromp l'oeil sidewalks

This is incredible.

Malaysian Woman Breastfeeds Tiger Cubs

breastfedcubs, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

Awwww. If this warms your cockles, one must wonder at your cockles.

Rumi, the Sufi mystical poet, wrote of spiritual joy enrapturing women and filling them to bursting, so much so that they invited neighborhood puppies to nurse. I thought that was a metaphor, made profound by its ridiculosity (It's my blog and I'll make up words if I want to).

But I ask you. Does this woman look filled with exuberant joy? Or does she look rather put upon and weary from nursing her own child and kittens as well? Good night.

High Fashion Scrubbing Pad Headwear

Phillip Treacle Brillo Hat, originally uploaded by Jill.y.

Clever Marketing Ploy.


How much do you suppose the Brillo company paid Phillip Treacle to feature their product so prominently on one of his haute couture hats? Phillip Treacle is much-loved by the upper crust in England for his flights of fancy that perch atop one's skull. In fact, he designed Camilla's chapeau for her recent wedding to that wacky chap Chas.

As an ugly American who recently visited Britain, I noted how uniformly conservative most people dressed. Albeit, we were in rural Yorkshire for the most part, but even in York, you didn't see as much personal expression as is fairly common here, even in the Midwest.

That said, explain to me these fantasmagoric hats Englishwomen are so fond of? They are independent of gravity, reminding one of a flock of seaguls taking flight as they are chased by a pack of rabid sheepdogs.

Does it make you want to scrub pots with your head? Me too.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

I did say this site was going to be about advertising and marketing, writing, etc. This falls under the writing category, but not the advertising and marketing variety. This is a very high brow sports article from one of the better collections of literary essays I've seen in oh, at least three to six months. They may make a Norton Anthology of it one of these days.

From: "Lisa"
Subject: Hi Dr.!

Hi, I am medical and I am wondering why the stomach secretes acid. Can you help?

My dear Lisa,

I am sorry to report that stomachs do not secrete acid, rather they secret (no "e") it. Stomachs are very shy, and they secret away many, many things. Explore the hidden folds and cul de sacs of any stomach, and you'll be surprised at what it's been hiding from you. Acid, yes, but also tinfoil balls and shopping lists, romantic candles and remote controls.

I suggest you try typing more carefully next time. And check your teeth ... what is that, a poppyseed?

With insurmountable fondness,
Doris

As reported in Haggis-On-Whey. I kid you not.

Introducing Cambium Creative

Weird name, isn't it? When Jonathan and I decided to do this thing together, we thought up all kinds of names, and shot them all down. We're a marketing/advertising/pr/etc. company, and cambium is that thin layer of cells between the bark and wood that creates new growth. Aha, we thought. That's our business, growing things: sales, awareness, better things for everyone. So there. That's Cambium Creative in a nutshell. More to come.