About 100 years ago, when I was trying to find my mentor-less way in the business, I got myself a large corrugated moving box.
Every time I found an ad I liked in a newspaper or magazine, I would tear it out and place it in the box. At the end of the year, I could gauge how my judgment compared to that of award-show-judges. Did the selections in my box align with the selections in awards books?
Today, in our post-watching-tv, post-reading-magazines-and-newspaper, ad-blocking-age, I barely see ads at all. In fact, I see most of the TV ads I see on adweek.com, adage.com, and agency spy.
What shocks me about most of the commercials trumpeted on these sites--with credits--is how absolutely tone-deaf and bad they are.
Yesterday alone, I saw a dreadful hipster coven pontificating for Volvo by Grey and a depressingly ugly unfunny, totally self-conscious Green Giant for frozen faux-vegetables by Deutsch.
Huh?
Worse than doing bad work is doing bad work and not realizing that it's bad.
Or, more simply, doing bad work and thinking it's noteworthy, fun or worth sharing.
Maybe I'm sour because today's my first day back in the office since December 16th.
Maybe it's because we as an industry seem to have completely lost our standards and our way.
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