Douglas Holt and James Twitchell
Editor's Note: This entry was received last night.
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StumbleUponWell, Jim,
I tried to force out something minimally savvy to say about these vodka ads of yours. You know, an olive branch, so that you could feel at one with advertising when you awoke tomorrow. (I imagine you with a shower stall decoupaged with Crest ads.) But ... well ... this is dumb. I don't even like to read my own ad analyses, must less hoist them in front of strangers. This exercise is starting to make me feel queasy.
Why? Well, for starters, if witty analyses of ads are your idea of leisure, then there are plenty of fine resources out there: Leslie Savan, Naomi Klein, the Adbusters folks, Barbara Lippert in Adweek's "Good for the Inside View," Robert Goldman does a great job if you like the academic thing, the Adcritic.com fans even write some zingers while waiting for those damn ads to download. In fact, ironically enough, business schools are the last place you go if you want to dig deep into what makes an ad tick. The Harvard Business School is no exception. Fact is, I could pick out a dozen underemployed acquaintances still trying to turn humanities into supper who could interpret circles around me. When I taught at Penn State, I found it downright intimidating to hang around with young turk English profs (the ones you love to hate) who'd riff on brands, crocked out of their minds, producing spin-art ideas worth more than many a big bucks analysis from a high-powered consultancy.
So why is it that the biggest and best marketing firms seem to have black-balled these film studies/comp lit/theatre/history/art types--the very best interlocutors of brands and ads? Sure there's the credentials thing. And there's politics. But if the market works--and I trust that you, Jim, believe in the invisible hand--then there should be a gaggle of disheveled art history dropouts who call the branding shots at Miller and P&G and GM. Business schools should by now have started a master's in business arts.
Ducking the right jab,
Doug
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Reader Comments From The Fray
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Let's talk about coffee. Joseph Britt., below, was just one of many--follow the thread, and consider the question of tipping the barista. He still had time to discuss milk, here, too. And Brendan Herlihy took on ice-cream here. Neill Hamilton is looking for more "dissent, anger, blood feuds... I want the people writing in the Breakfast Table to open up life long vendettas" here (he always is, he's the Breakfast Table's official trouble-maker), but Richard Walrath enjoyed the banter: "it's almost like being there with the third cup of coffee."]
We're really talking about two different things here, aren't we? Coffee, and then all the froofy coffee-influenced liquid dessert-style beverages that take up most of the space on coffee house menus. I have nothing against the latter (because making fun of them is always a good time), but coffee is a really serious subject. If you're going to drink something nearly every day, it might as well be good. This is why I've never understood all the sneering condescension directed at Starbucks. Pre-Starbucks, most coffee served in public places was awful--you were ahead of the game if you ordered came out hot, caffeinated and with no taste at all. OK, most coffee served in public places is still awful, but with Starbucks you at least have the choice of having a good cup of coffee.
I confess I think Starbucks is slipping, based on extensive research I've done at the Minneapolis Airport. They used to offer a rotation of different coffees--Sumatra, Mocha Java, even New Guinea--but now seem to mostly serve up a couple of blends with names like "European" and "Christmas." Talk about your brand marketing. Also they routinely serve the coffee so hot you wonder if there is something wrong with the water they're using.
--Joseph Britt
(To reply, click here.)
Maybe the students in Mr. Twitchell's anecdote couldn't tell good poetry from bad without guidance, but this doesn't strike me as being universally true. Poetry isn't my thing, but music is, and I have no trouble separating the good from the bad using only my own ears. If there wasn't something intrinsic in good art, we wouldn't, over time, have come to a general agreement about the relative worth of, say, Mozart vs. Salieri.
--Chloe Pajerek
(To reply, click here.)
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