We sell. Or else... and JWT learns the hard way

A colleague of ours noted the closing of JWT's Chicago office with this comment: "It's a sad day for advertising and for agencies in general."

For those of you who aren't aware, JWT, formerly J. Walter Thompson, is one of the formerly great advertising agencies of the 20th century, and it announced on Friday that its Chicago office, a shadow of its once great self, would be shuttered in the near future, with their clients being afforded the "opportunity" to work with the New York office where the strategy of ruining the agency is masterminded.

A sad day? We disagree. The industry in general, and JWT in particular, is reaping what they have sown. The industry failed to follow its own advice or to stand for the values and business goals it espoused, to wit:

• Building strong brands: J. Walter Thompson becomes JWT. Ogilvy & Mather becomes Ogilvy. BBDO Chicago becomes "Energy." Needham Harper & Steers and countless others go away entirely. Agency networks create "conflict agencies" with new names -- effectively admitting that their brands are meaningless, and rendering the differentiation between and among the original agencies irrelevant.
  
• Entitling clients to charge a premium price for an otherwise parity product: The industry ate itself with a de facto price war that followed the M&A boom of the 1980s and 1990s, so anxious to find or keep new business (and service its debt) that it devalued its own product and destroyed its own economic model.
• Hiring smart people who could help the client's business: The upshot of the price war was an end to the ability to attract or retain smart people. The agencies of today have a group of retreads at the top and a group of bouncy 25 year-olds who "like to work with people" working for them. The era of David Ogilvy's "gentlemen with brains" is long past.
• Keeping up with new trends: Big agencies today are still wed to :30 and :15 television and full page spread print. They are fabulously weak in emerging media, web and interactive, and the other media trends that are rendering television and magazines (and especially newspapers) largely obsolete. They continue to focus on what they know rather than what their clients want and need.
  

Have a look at Ogilvy & Mather, in our opinion the best of the old line agencies (full disclosure: we worked there for seven years) and what it stood for and examine where they are today. Had they stuck to "We sell. Or else." as a real philosophy, they'd be the biggest, most successful, and most relevant agency in the world right now. They'd have evolved into a powerhouse of sales generation, measurement and accountability -- which is precisely what Chief Marketing Officers require of their partners.

Ogilvy's website has no traces of the old line Ogilvy beyond their trademark red. No cash register. No commitment to sales. In fact, their What We Do section notes "We work not for ourselves, not for the company, not even for the client. We work for Brands."

Hogwash.

Agencies work for clients who need profitable sales to survive. Strong brands are necessary but not sufficient. Ogilvy used to stand for making the cash register ring. Their mandate should be building brands and SELLING PRODUCT. Someone forgot about that part.

The self-indulgent "creative" shitheads at the top have forgotten that advertising is about commerce, not art, and have rendered most of the old line agencies, once giants, shadows of themselves, and likely on the same path as JWT Chicago.

Mismanaged businesses and industries don't deserve to survive. No tears should be shed for stupidity, intellectual sloppiness, and the fallout thereof.

"We sell. Or else." was a brilliant reminder of what agencies should stand for. We see now what "Or else." really means.

'08, '09, and '010 (!?)

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday.

He was appropriately circumspect about the market's most recent reactions to his proclamations, having been humbled by seeing the Dow tumble some 400 points while he was speaking.

As is his way, Mr. Stephanopoulos was trying to put words into Mr. Geithner's mouth about when things would get better, how much they'd get better, how much it would cost, and so on.

Mr. Geithner succesfully redirected. That's what the PR types call it when you dodge a direct question and segue into a way to reinforce your message. Those dodges often start with things like "That's not what the American people want to know, George...what this administration is trying to do is..." and so on. We think most people do want to know the answer to precisely what was being asked, and can spot a redirect a mile away. You can tell when a politician is doing that. His or her lips are moving.

That's not our point.

During the conversation, Mr. Geithner referred to this year as "oh-nine" as so many of us do.

Brace yourselves, please.

He then made a bit of speculation about the following year. "Oh-ten" he called it.

To be sure, we've had nine consecutive years of single digit years, so one might be inclined to forgive such as slip.

We're not, though, since (1) we hear it so frequently that it's like nails on our chalkboard calendar and (2) this is a man of numbers -- we're more than a little disappointed that his oral comments suggest he doesn't understand the number of digits in the base of our counting system.

Gives you confidence that the growth, revenue, spending, and (gulp) deficit projections are right, though, doesn't it?

We suspect, given the way things are moving, that "oh-ten" will be just as good a year for the current administration as "oh-six" and "oh-eight" were for the last one.

Crybabies, Petards, and Chilly Revenge

Jake DeSantis's public resignation letter from AIG is old news by now. Even so, it merits some comment, both on its petulance and its elegance.

The content of Mr. DeSantis's letter is spot on.

He's right that Edward Liddy sold his colleagues and him out. He's right that only a few of the people at AIG caused the problems, and that the public outrage at the ones who were left shouldn't have prevented them from getting paid. He's right to have chosen to give the money away (if not back) as an honorable move -- we have offered our comments on the team nature of corporations already.

He's right that the likes of Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd are flaming hypocrites (at least in one case), even though he didn't mention them by name.

Whose interests were truly served, though, by Mr. DeSantis airing his grievances in the "paper of record" (or Daily Worker, depending upon how you consider the shamelessly left-leaning grey lady)? The letter made AIG look bad and made the government look bad.

We don't mind either of those, their having done good jobs of it themselves.

Our beef is that Mr. DeSantis, by going public, looks like the whining-millionaire-who-is-sufficiently-rich-that-he-can-publicly-turn-down-a-cool-million-less-taxes that he apparently is.

He had lousy PR counsel in this regard. He's made a fool of himself nationally even if he's made a folk hero of himself at the local too-expensive-for-the-rest-of-us country club. We think the trade off is a poor one, and toss an idiot flag in his direction for this form of crybaby publicity.

We do admire one thing he did, though. He noted, correctly, in his criticism of the chief legal thugs of the states of New York and Connecticut, that the correct plural form of "attorney general" is "attorneys general," not "attorney generals" as we so frequently see written by the lunkheads who often pass for reporters these days.

On the topic of attorneys general, Messrs. Cumo and Blumenthal, who have both rattled their legal sabers at the unrepentant bonus recipients at AIG, are wise to consider the way in which other attorneys general (and former attorneys general) have been hoisted on their own petards (viz. Messrs. Dann (OH) and Spitzer (NY); we have the "privilege" of sharing alma maters with both of them). Sanctimony is a dangerous business, and one is ill advised to make rich enemies.

But back to our first point, Mr. DeSantis might consider the old French proverb: "La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid."

Or, as The Godfather offered it up in 1969: "Revenge is a dish best served cold."

A rule we like, like

One of our former colleagues and friends shared a story over Thai food yesterday that merits the attention of our younger readers.

(Are you paying attention? Did you catch us in our deliberately ambiguous modifier? He is still our friend in case you’re concerned.)

Turns out that when a certain local office of a certain bullish-on-America brokerage house hires interns for the summer, the hiring executives offer them many useful tips for how to adapt to the real world: things like "dress like an adult," "accept responsibility for your mistakes," "be on time" and other bits of advice that are likely needed for kids these days. We can only hope they are heeded.

The bigwigs admonish the interns to use the word “like” only in one of two ways: either a direct comparison (i.e., this bond is like that bond) or as a description of preference (i.e., I like this stock). Other more common, colloquial, and annoying usage (i.e., my Bloomberg is, like, totally not working; the ladies room is like, totally disgusting) result in a modest monetary fine.

We say, like, bravo.

AIG, AIU, IOU, and Taking One for the Team

It appears we're supposed to look the other way while AIG, the insurance behemoth that's generating that giant sucking sound within the government, changes its name to AIU (n.b., a memo we received today would have used "it's" there...something we'll address when we have time to be outraged about grammatical idiocy once again).

P.T. Barnum may have suggested that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people (many think it was Baltimore's H.L. Mencken who said it). Whomever said it was apparently wrong. AIG won't get a free pass simply by changing its name.

People remain honked, and while it has turned into a witch hunt, we don't blame them.

We're not holding a grudge about those AIG employees who had contracts to receive bonuses, although we question whether a contractual bonus is, in fact, a bonus for performance rather than a clever way of structuring compensation.

No, in fact, we agree with the United States Constitution's "contracts clause:"

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

We do, though, applaud those AIG executives -- including at least one with whom we went to college -- who did the honorable thing and gave their bonuses back.

This is called taking one for the team.

Corporations are teams. They succeed or fail together. The notion that one didn't play a part in the credit blowup at AIG, so one is entitled to one's bonus is patently absurd. A baseball player can hit home runs, but if his team doesn't win the World Series, he is not a champion. Same for goes any sport.

The corporate collective is typically aligned through the granting of stock options. We would not have objected had the team at AIG, AIU, IOU, or whatever they're called agreed to forgo bonuses and, instead, earned a portion of the value they created for stockholders (including the unlucky suckers who pay taxes and now own a majority of the company). That would reward those who fixed the mess, irrespective of whether they caused it.

We applaud those proud few who volunteered to say no. Bravo. Now go get the rest of the team.

Back to the Constitution...might they re-think the part on titles of nobility?

Emanuel vs. Immanuel

Another of our readers correctly criticizes us for misspelling the Chief of Staff's last name. We have since corrected the mistake.

For the record, his name is spelled "Emanuel," not "Immanuel," although one could scarcely fault us for mistaking him for a Kant.

IdiotFlags regrets the error.

No Problem and Emanuel's Middle Finger

It was a simple enough request.

We were out at our traditional Sunday morning breakfast (and in this case, "we" as in three of us rather than the "royal we" for which we are sometimes criticized). "May we have some more napkins?" we asked (the royal we). It seems our sons had spilled chocolate milk, as they are apt to do.

"Sure," the server responded. That he didn't offer a simple "yes" or "yes, sir" is only the beginning of the problem.

When he delivered the napkins, the three of us all said "thank you." Even the four-year-old. We thank his mother for such excellent training.

This is where the real problem begins, and dear readers, it's sufficiently widespread as to qualify as an epidemic.

"No problem," responded the server.

We did not think that a simple request for napkins could even be construed as a problem. We did not think that such a trivial act as delivering napkins -- a clear part of the server's profession -- could possibly be an imposition...nor could the delivery of hot sauce, syrup, more decaf, or even the check. We would expect that the server would perform these parts of his job with great pride.

Yet, after we asked for each of these, after each was delivered, and we thanked the server, we received the same response.

"No problem."

That the response isn't "you're welcome" or as the high standard of service Ritz-Carlton staff is trained to respond, "it's my pleasure" is, in fact, the problem.

We're not advocating unnecessary formality. Just a little bit of etiquette. Thank you for using it. And you're welcome for having us point it out to add one more little thing to your "things that annoy me even though I hadn't noticed before" list.

On an entirely unrelated topic, we read in a recent issue of The New Yorker (as we noted before, just because we disagree with Hendrick Hertzberg doesn't mean we don't read him, although we note with open-minded horror that some of our friends who tilt left refuse to read those with whom they might disagree -- who's closed-minded now?) that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel lost part of his middle finger in a childhood accident. President Obama noted in a roast of Emanuel that the accident "rendered Emanuel nearly mute."

We are still trying to get the coffee out of our sinuses from the laugh we had over that one.