Monday, November 16, 2009
Nothing changes.
Today's NY Times has a business piece titled: "In Detroit, agencies compete to sell city as a creative haven". I was in that story over 40 years ago when I wrote the same campaigns. I won the right to advertise Detroit by doing a United Way campaign that used Peanuts characters for the very first time in advertising. My line was: "Don't turn down Charlie Brown". But for the City of Detroit I wanted to go one step farther since I knew the sociology of the place extended far beyond by office at Campbell-Ewald (who is in today's competition). I did a campaign based on the youth of the city (mostly black) called "Detroit is getting well". My bosses turned it down flat as too controversial. And it probably was since the place went up in flames a year later. I did get a kick out of a recent episode of Mad Men where the creative team was trying to come up with a proposition for Western Union. After some false starts Peggy the copywriter said something like, "A telegram is cheaper than a phone call and makes the sentiment last longer". My very first assignment at Campbell-Ewald was for FTD and the headline was: "Flowers last longer than a phone call, smell better than a card and look better than a telegram." Can history repeat itself? Of course it can Old Sport. Dear Old Detroit, please come up with a winner.
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Your post about Detroit reminds me of The Plague by Albert Camus. The novel describes citizens of Oran, a fictitious French colony, who become prisoners of the plague when their city falls under total quarantine. In the early days of the epidemic, people are indifferent to one another's suffering. As the plague gains strength, there is much prayer, prophesying and calls for divine deliverance. When the epidemic wears on for months, many of Oran's citizens create purpose and meaning in their lives by joining anti-plague efforts. Aren't we all under the similar death sentence of mortality? Camus appears to say that struggle is meaningful and noble, even if it means facing never-ending defeat. Man, alone, creates meaning in life. Similarly, Detroit is suffering an economic plague. There is no use waiting for bail-out money. The citizens of Detroit, alone, have to create economic meaning. Buddha described the human condition as being much like that of a man who has been shot with an arrow. That is, the condition is both painful and urgent. We can say the same for Detroit.
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