Advertising and The Art of Bullshit

Pat Mellon

Advertising is Pandering spread thin.

I have that stitched on a pillow. My second wife gave it to me when she left in a haze of profanity and insults on a Tuesday in June. I don’t think it was a gift as much as a symbol of shame; one she knew I’d display proudly and not, instead, take as a hint to reassess the choices I’d made to that point in my life. It was sort of a snide twist of the knife. She hated what I was- an advertising executive. She didn’t mind when it paid for nice things like jewelry and cars and vacations and jewelry. But she said the job had changed me and was slowly turning me into an asshole. It was a conversation we’d had a couple of times before, notably when we’d be at a party or at one of her job functions and I’d start working the room, pressing the flesh and meeting new people and pinpointing the advertising needs of every one of them. It was true. I was always ON. I was always looking for the next kill. It’s a sport to me. A challenge. A puzzle. It’s not unlike, I mistakenly explained to her once, how I courted and met and married her. Hunter. Man. Beat chest. Confidence is sexy, right? 

Was she right? Was I flawed beyond repair because of the job?

I told her that it was all an act- that I had to be a bit of an overconfident asshole in order to close deals and make money. It’s the nature of the beast. I can turn it off and on, I explained. I can quit any time I want. I sound like an addict.

I was a monster.

I’m exaggerating, of course, but weirdly, only a little. My dad always used to say, “Bullshit baffles brains” which is endearing if not for its alliterative simplicity, but because, well, it was my Pop. It’s not unlike how if you carry a clipboard, you can BS your way into mischief more easily than you can without one. Admittedly, Salespeople are bullshit artists. We finesse and embellish and twist the truth until it shines like a new penny; a penny you’d pay a dime for. Remember on Mad Men how enchanting it was when an adulterous, alcoholic Don Draper would produce inspirational, poetic verse when he was pitching ad campaigns to clients? How he’d use language and mood to seduce potential customers? By describing the clunky wheel of slides on a projector as “a carousel” of memories? That’s the Magic of Marketing; the Siren of Sales.

There’s no shame in falling for the pitch, though, right? Who can resist the lure of the mighty Clydesdale horses when picking a beer? Who is safe from the subliminal spell that is cast upon us by giant animated candy that talks? Why is Applebee’s using a Smash Mouth song in their ads? I like Smash Mouth so maybe I should like Applebee’s, too.

When searching for evidence of the contempt ad agencies have for you and your memories, you need look no further than Shaquille O’Neal riding in a Ferrari with a cartoon Army General. 

One word: manipulation. When searching for evidence of the contempt ad agencies have for you and your memories, you need look no further than Shaquille O’Neal riding in a Ferrari with a cartoon Army General. The former giant of the NBA and current giant of slinging everything from hand lotion to pizza to cruise lines has appeared in commercials for The General Car Insurance for over 5 years and is now in a spot for the company where other people apologize for mocking the goofiness of the hybrid genre ads the rest of us were originally expected to take seriously.

Want more evidence that advertisers will do anything to relate to a target demographic, including make fun of their own commercials? Paul Marcarelli was a pitchman for Verizon for 13 years until he stopped and became the face of Sprint, Verizon’s nemesis. Same character. It was Paul from Verizon explaining why Verizon was the best, and then Paul from Sprint with a similar claim about Sprint with also an explanation of why he was wrong before but you should really believe him now. That’s sort of a middle finger to consumers. A familiar face with an insincere message beats a new campaign that consumers might reject. Or worse, as with State Farm, the original character is retained but Jake from State Farm went from being a shlubby white guy to a more athletic, somewhat racially ambiguous guy in what can only be explained as a manipulative search for a key demo. But before you cry “racial pandering” (the logic seems to be that the OJ (Original Jake) wasn’t the kind of guy who would seem normal hanging out with Patrick Mahomes or Drake) remember that ultimately you control your own wallet. If you pick State Farm because you’re white and you’re star-struck, or you pick them because you’re black and you align more with their image, you’ve still been had. It’s car insurance. It’s a hole into which you throw money until you need it to fix your car, at which point you are charged to access it. There’s nothing athletic or funny or sexy about it. Besides, Patrick Mahomes just signed a $500 million deal to play football. You think he gives a shit what kind of discount car insurance you have?

 I watched my wife drive over a sprinkler and out of my life. My immediate reaction was embarrassment. Not pain, not frustration. Embarrassment. It was the same raw vulnerability I felt when I’d lose a client. Arguably the biggest pitch I’d ever made: ME, to not-so-arguably the toughest target: a beautiful woman, had fallen apart. Was she right? Was I flawed beyond repair because of the job? Did I blur the line between Romantic Partner and Wily Ad Man so much I wasn’t able to tell the difference?

Maybe. But to fully understand the enemy, you must first smell his breath in the morning. I got that from a fortune cookie at a restaurant in Venice Beach in 2009. And I might be misquoting it. And I’m not positive it applies here. But everybody’s good at something- singing, or soccer, or snow skiing, or skateboarding, or sentences. That’s mine: sentences and words. I learned early on that not only was writing and speaking well empowering, it was also sort of rare. I've gravitated toward jobs that required grammatical precision and maybe even verbal gymnastics. Newspaper reporter. Radio talk show host. And now Advertising and Marketing Executive. The very skills I’d used to become successful are the ones that ultimately led to the demise of my marriage. Casualty of War or Acceptable Loss?

Didn’t matter. She was gone. I took exactly NO time to mourn. I poured myself into the job. Relationships and aggressively-creative promotional commerce do not mix. I had been given a golden opportunity- to break free from the shackles and distractions of intrapersonal communications and focus on the work. Words- good. Love- Bad. The next Wells Fargo: together we’ll go far wasn’t going to write itself. Someone has to rearrange the letters of, and add punctuation to, a company’s name to produce a sappy, somewhat-memorable-if-half-assed tagline for money.

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