My friend Bob Hoffman of Hoffman/Lewis in San Francisco decided to have some fun with the 4As recent call to converse (that Danny G. mentioned a few days ago).
Hoffman decided he didn’t need a conversation–a word he hates to hear in the context of marketing–to transform the business. Instead, he offers up his very own list of actions to be taken at once.
10 Ideas For Transforming Advertising
1. No cranberry bagels at meetings. No exceptions.
2. While on duty, copywriters required to wear those Norwegian knit hats with the funny earflaps.
3. Reinstatement of the three martini lunch. After a 6-month trial period, optional upgrade to four.
4. Confiscate all computers and baseball caps from art directors.
5. Use of the following terms considered justifiable cause for termination: ecosystem, conversation, engagement, branding, quirky, landscape, seared ahi tuna and dashboard.
6. When making presentations, account planners must dress up as pirates and hop around on one foot.
7. Breakthrough idea for tv spots: Animals that talk!
8. Criminalize all products containing pomegranates or acai berries.
9. Increase touch points from 360 degrees to 380 degrees.
10. Require Sir Martin Sorrell to walk around with his weenie out.
Some good ideas here, for sure, but I don’t like costumes.
As an addendum to Hoffman’s list, here are a few of my own (totally serious) ideas:
11. Make all members of the agency team walk a mile in the client’s shoes–if the client bakes bread, then the agency needs to spend some time literally baking bread.
12. Pay the people with consistently great ideas extremely well, regardless of their position on the org chart.
13. Never hire an account person without first seeing the quality of work said person has sold.
Radical change, even when it’s for the better, is rarely a welcome visitor. But in the spirit of reform, I am willing to get drunk at noon while wearing a funny hat. Taxi!
