"You're not that special and nobody cares." The Nihilist Lesson of Advertising.

Spend enough time in the ad biz and you’ll embrace Nihilism. And that's not a bad thing. It's actually a natural reaction and quite healthy.

“No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.” Walter Sobchak

Part of my upbringing was my father and his ‘always read between the lines’ viewpoint on pretty much everything. I grew up questioning everything including my father which always pissed him off, but inside I felt he got it.

And I grew up questioning all the advertising that constantly surrounds us. And as a general rule of thumb, the more they spend the less you actually need the product.

Cola.

Nobody NEEDS cola. One big cola producer spends over $4,000,000,000.00 a year in advertising.

The Jaded Nihilist Ad Guy says “fuck.”

And what’s the message? Who the hell knows. The more useless the product, the more lofty the advertising.

Bring on The Holidays.

Beautifully produced, drippy eyed commercials that tug at our emotions, making us think about our dead grandparents or long lost puppies and a neat, discrete logo donkey-tailed on the end.

Again, the Jaded Nihilist Ad Guy says “fuck.”

Are you coming along with me yet?

I spent my first few years in the ad biz doing direct mail. As in BRC’s and BRE’s and Johnson Boxes and AB Testing and Control Packages blah, blah, blah.

Before that, I worked in a fancy-ass design studio doing stupid-expensive logos.

I get to the DM agency and the rules of “good design” went out the window and the rules of “good communication” were the thing.

I learned a lot of great little tricks to get people to open the envelope. To catch them, to pull them in and get them to make an order. Typography was designed to be read because “You’re Not That Special and Nobody Cares.”

I learned that winning a design award didn’t mean squat to clients who wanted to sell things.

And I learned that nobody asked for your junk mail so you’ve got to court your prospect, be seductive and empathetic and know how they think.

It was a lot of fun to learn the ropes and learn how to communicate to people who don’t give two shits about you. This adds polish to one’s Jaded Nihilist Ad Guy views.

So what advice do I give those with fewer decades in this soul suckingly wonderful business?

“You’re Not That Special and Nobody Cares.”

Embrace the Jaded Nihilist Ad Guy Mantra.

Embrace it fully and you’ll do better work. Make every brilliant idea leap over that mountainous hurdle. Make every concept ford that moat.

Go build out your ideas, either by yourself or in your teams and fly like eagles. No barriers. No walls to the great heights of creativity. Brainstorm with great gusto. Be utterly unjaded and whatever the phrase would be for the opposite of nihilistic. Passionate maybe, although that's another bullshit word.

Write it all down. It’s solid gold. Revel in your genius and wit.

Then run it through the You’re Not That Special and Nobody Cares Filter. Bring in the Nihilist and see what survives. Whatever comes through is the actual gold and go test it.

This will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do in the creative business. Birth brilliance and drown it in doom. It was the hardest thing I learned and I learned it from fabulous failures and banging my head into lots of rocks. Am I bitter? Hell no. I loved every minute of it. We, as Creatives, have chosen the hard route around the mountain with no map. But if that unknown, uncharted road is the only one the sounds interesting to you, then it’s the only road you CAN take. You’ll never be a CFO. You’re a half feral visionary that sees dead people. Embrace it and love it. Make it your fabulous career.

And eventually you’ll come to the Epiphany of Nihilism and be you’ll be complete and do your best work. 

You’re not that special and nobody cares.

Amen.