Is this really the best we can do?

I think a lot of people looked at that debate the other night and asked, “is this the best we can do?” Fair point, and I won’t belabor it here. 

But it got me thinking about the ad biz. Look around, the world is filled with ads. It should our industry’s finest moment—the fruits of our labor have infiltrated every corner of the world. We did it!!

But this is far from our finest moment. And I truly hope it's not he best we can do.

If we take a step back from the curated award show fodder that many of us see in our feeds, and just experience advertising in its native state, it’s a fucking shitshow.

Look at what passes for an ad these days. Pesky pixels that pop up at the bottom of our phones, posts that try to trick us into buying instead of treating us like human beings, influencer riddled drivel, and the most horrible of all horribleness—the text message ad. 

They say that advertising is the world’s 2nd oldest profession. You’d think with all that time, we could have come up with something better. 

People hate it because it has no damn respect for humanity. To be fair, it never really has, but at least the old-school formats (Print, TV, Radio, even billboards) gave us a fighting chance to build something people might enjoy looking at or listening to. 

Now, we’ve created a digital ecosystem that feels like a vaudevillian freak show, filled with grifters and ne'er-do-wells. What does success even look like in this world? 

Perhaps Martin Sorrell was right? Creative doesn’t matter—it’s just about building the data machine and letting it feast upon our increasingly addled minds. 

I’m not ready to accept that yet though. Because even though my mind may be in shambles, my soul is fighting for its life. And it, and all of us, deserve something better.