Steal This Post.

It was both familiar pain and unlooked-for pleasure; the results of a reluctant visit to the vintage car repair shop located on the outskirts of the middling-quaint town of Old Saybrook, CT. Of course, the Reductionist would prefer to pretend he had no clue about what was in store, but truth will out: any visit to a mechanic that involves a 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce is destined for mathematical tragedy.

As it happens, the vehicle that took me there is a vestige of a flush year at the old agency; a then-company car that my business partners grew to loathe. They had cause: she’s a virtual tokamak magnet for rare-parts-finding, contortion-requiring, knuckles-lacerating, wallet-draining repairs. If simplicity is the North Star in reductionist heaven, fixing her takes you straight to the 7th level of hell. 

But along with the near certainty of fiscal despair, this encounter also gave reason for delight. The object of my attentions: a brace of 1960s VW ads in near-mint condition, hanging in the service manager’s office.  One of them, in particular, caught my eye with its headline.

I couldn’t help myself—I laughed out loud, interrupting the sales manager in mid-lip-lick, doubtless contemplating whether my car was good for a larger ski boat, or maybe a devoutly wished-for vacation home. With a small shrug of the shoulders, he ventured a guess: “Let me take a wild shot,” he said, “I bet you’re in advertising. So what draws you into that ad?”

Expecting the expected “always loved the brand” mishigas, my answer veered:  “To me, it’s mostly the copy.”  Which must have rocked his world because, taken aback, he actually set his pencil aside and let his calculator cool down. 

“Really, “ he said, leaning forward and, for the first time, looking me straight in the eyes. “In your line of work, you must be aware that that we live in a post-literary society where nobody reads anything except crinkly and sparkly TikTok graphics.”

“That’s the prevailing wisdom,” I conceded, “but, in fairness, it’s not that people won’t read—witness the importance of words across the internet. It’s more that our industry is dismally short on its end of the bargain in giving the audience something worth the eyestrain. This ad shows the possibilities.”

“So you think people could still be enticed to read an ad? With words?” he asked, turning back to his calculator and punching in another, even longer, string of numbers. “How?”

My answer: “By taking away four critically relevant lessons from this gem. A compelling and unexpected creative framework—call it the narrative premise and throughline.”

“An equal’s respect for the reader’s intelligence and sense of humor. “We were tickled pink to hear that somebody wanted a Volkswagen StationWagon badly enough to go out and steal one. It wasn’t so long ago that we practically couldn’t give them away.”  Who could resist finding out where that led?”

Third, a commitment to craft in the writing with every sentence coming at you fully accelerated and sweeping you along. 

“Last, and maybe most applause-worthy, this ad provides a lovely example what happens when the client allows, maybe even encourages, the writer’s intuitive sense of story, cadence, and flow to take the lead. In a time when everything seems granularized into fine datapoint dust, it’s worth recalling that the best advertising—then and now—builds on connected human interest. That’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve when the creative is micromanaged to the point of mediocrity.”

“But what about the brevity problem?”, the manager challenged, peering up from under his oddly well-manicured eyebrows: “And fragmentation?”

“On the former, people tend to forget that the Google data showed that while shorter meant more completed views, longer meant deeper brand resonance and more memorability. As to fragmentation demolishing efficiency—my answer is that the only way forward is to create more luminous points of attention; expanding your share of the audience by giving them bigger value in the interaction.”

“I’d also argue that short, by itself, doesn’t relax the writer’s obligation to be fascinating. Times critic A.O. Scott, in a recent tour de force author’s retrospective, penned this line: “Gossip is living history. History is petrified gossip.”  And there you have it—two simple sentences, eight medium-length words, and your perspective on a whole field of human endeavor, the interpretation of history, is changed forever.

“So, I take your point, and actually, it’s a lot like what we do around here,”  said the manager with a final glance that took in the all the repair bays, the dozens of antique cars on lifts, and the mechanics busily at work, racking up an enviable amount of billable hours. “You want to mine the past for what’s beautiful and meaningful and make it commercially viable and creatively relevant to today.”

“Maybe so,” I replied, examining the estimate with eyes wide open. “But I think I’m in the wrong end of the game.”