Noses Off.
If you’re in the mood for a slice of wry with plenty of mustard, it would be hard to top this 2021 gem from New York Times op-ed writer, Peter Coy: “One of the approximately 700 things that make climate change a knotty problem is that fighting it requires people living today to do things for the benefit of future generations. And, you know, what have future generations ever done for us?”
Not a goddamn thing, buddy. Now, pass the ocean-polluting plastic beverage bottle along with that methane-emitting all beef hotdog; lock and load the semi-auto; take off your itchy mask, just say hell no to vaccination, and shut the fuck up.
Or not. Because, giving credit where due, Mr. Coy has, with an admirable economy of words, managed to distill much of what’s dragging all of us crosswise and in the wrong directions. It’s as if Alexis de Tocqueville’s revolutionary era observation that the strength of American democracy is “self-interest, rightly perceived” has mutated into a horrific case of short-sightedness, blindly maintained.
Either that, or we’ve lost the ability think further than the tips of our noses. Those, we’re more than ready to bite off, just to avoid the necessity.
I wish we could pretend that advertising—you knew I’d get here—was a beacon shining through the paralytic fog. After all, effective strategy, “a plan to achieve an objective,” has been oxygen to our endeavors since long before the likes of Rosser Reeves, Leo Burnett, Ray Rubicon, and their left-brain-leaning ilk.
Sadly, it just ain’t so. In fact, from the substitution of proven skills and experience on agency teams with younger and cheaper, to award shows mostly honoring one-off ephemera, to all that digital snake oil slithering around, the industry, on a very fundamental level, is now about as far from being truly “strategic” as we are from, well, the right-brain years of Bernbach, Gossage and Ogilvy.
What’s discouraging is that there’s never been a greater need for powerful strategies in persuading people persuade people to do difficult things. As the pandemic keeps on proving, those great big policy initiatives can only take us so far; to go the distance we’ll have to motivate millions, make that billions, of people to countenance small but essential changes in their daily lives.
Having danced this dance on subjects like energy conservation, teen pregnancy, gun control, and vaccine acceptance, yours truly can attest to three things: the cliff is high, the path is steep, and the climb is long. It wasn’t easy before the media conspired to undermine our consensus understanding of words like “truth” and “fact”; today the degree of difficulty is 11, even if the scale only goes to 10.
But it can be done. If, you start with clever strategy that translates into unexpected and resonant creative. And, most especially if you have the resources and the patience to give your messaging the time it takes to make a difference more meaningful than a public service silver in your local Addy awards.
On that score, you may be wondering if all this is a bit negative, especially since The Reductionist made such a big deal in a previous post about starting 2022 with a brighter, smilier outlook. Two things on that: first, this could be the start of something uplifting, especially if you happen to know of any good causes run by nice people who could use a little give-back help. Just point ‘em our way.
Failing that, there’s also the latest entry from the pantheon of weekly pithyisms we put out there because we can:
Slice of wry, anyone?