Banned in Boston

If it’s been banned in Boston, it must be good. While many have told me how fun and progressive a city Boston is, I have to wonder sometimes. My guess is that they must have some of the most boring advertising and bookstores around due to their pension for banning anything remotely interesting. In fact, as one article illustrates, they’re perfectly happy to ban something that hasn’t garnered any public complaints or broken any rules. It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to start a Banned in Boston list that serves as a guide to help people find really good, fun innovative stuff. Who knows, maybe it’s already been done. For now, my apologies to any Bostonians I may have offended, I hope you don’t ban me for it. I hear you have a lovely city, though it seems you have to enjoy much of it in hiding.

Making the Smart Car Look Stupid

When the Smart Car came to the U.S., I was elated. I’m a huge fan of things that genuinely contribute to environmental sustainability, cut out the fat and get more efficient and things that save space. Naturally, the Smart Car looked like a Mecca at first glance. However, checking it out online, I discovered that while it did cut out the two back seats that rarely any of us without kids ever need, that was about it. It doesn’t get much better gas mileage than my Corolla, which has considerably more interior space, and it’s not much cheaper either. I thought it was supposed to be a bare bones vehicle that did everything smart, not a fashion accessory. If I can pay the same and get a roomier vehicle with the same gas mileage, there’s no reason to foot for the Smart Car than to LOOK smarter to the uneducated, or if you genuinely want to save the room, which the car does wonderfully. It kind of reminds me of those pseudo-intellectuals I knew in college who knew less but pretended to know more. In short, I’m at a loss for what’s so smart about the Smart Car. Moreover, when it comes to affordable cars, they’re taking the cake in India. The Tata Nano is set to retail for $2,500 in India once it rolls of the assembly lines. It’s got room for four, too. Now, that’s smart.

How Kelly Ripa Sent the Women’s Movement Back 50 Years

It’s hard enough to justify our profession to the general public sometimes when some polls show people trust us less than lawyers and doctors. I try hard to explain to people the benefits of advertising, while that conceding a host of factors often lead to bad ads and practices that are hard for a single person to control. However, companies like Electrolux don’t make that job any easier. In their latest ads for new Electrolux appliances, Kelly Ripa is depicted as an updated version of the 50s supermom. She works a full-time job, takes impeccable care of the kids, take impeccable care of her appearance, is a perfect hostess who tends to everyone’s needs before they realize they have them, and the icing on the cake- she loves doing every bit of it. Many of us know that one of the dilemmas for the modern women is the expectation to be both career woman and career homemaker and do both flawlessly. People have been working hard to dispel this expectation, as it’s almost impossible. The new supermom image, build much, I’m afraid, on the shoulders of advertising also says this woman does all of this work while looking strikingly beautiful and poised in designer clothing, and probably most detrimentally, that she should enjoy everything about her 120 hour weeks. Kelly has certainly done her job in furthering the unachievable image of the supermom. And just in case there was any doubt about Electrolux’s intentions, the entire ad is set to a subtle soundtrack of nostalgic 50s music. I love retro touches as much as the next guy. In fact I think the kitschy Enzyte ads do a great job of using retro satirically to take some of the discomfort out of a touchy subject. But Electrolux’s most recent ads are clearly an effort to put women back “in their place,” as some of the older generation would say, with the added twist of the modern supermom’s responsibility to hold full-time employment. Women, good luck, and my sympathies.

Will One Misfit Be Conspicuously Missing?

It was released today that Verizon is buying Alltel, a deal which will make it the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. I’ve got a few questions though. First, is Alltel keeping its name or simply having its resources folded in under the Verizon name. That question is mostly important to me because it leads to my other queries. If the Alltel brand remains, will it continue to run its wannabe Mac vs. PC style commercials? And if so, will the crazy cat playing the Verizon guy be gone, leaving a conspicuous absence? Or perhaps, they’ll have the Verizon guy join ol’ Chad (the super cool, all-knowing Alltel guy from the spots). Naturally, if the Alltel brand disappears, this is a moot points, but if it remains, I’m curious to see which way it goes.

P.S. This assumes Verizon is planning on retaining its name. While I don’t see the Verizon name going bye-bye anytime soon, a well- known competitor ditched a more lucrative name in a merger that ended up doing it great damage with the younger demographic and sealing its image as a dust-and-cobwebs icon of big business.

Why Some Creatives Don’t Trust Account Service People

While I’m glad to say that this is not the case at the agency where I currently work, I have encountered places in the past with this very problem. I’m glad to say that the account service people I work with now are extremely capable, insightful, trusted partners. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. However, if you’re curious, there are some good insights into why this is the case, of course barring cases where creatives are just whining…which I admit, do happen from time to time (check the last paragraph).

Quote of the somethingorother

Don’t let the excitement ruin your grammar.

Is a legitimate language being bastardized or a bastard language being legitimized?

The younger generation, in informal speech, often makes up words like “awesomer,” most often in jest of the understandable but grammatically incorrect words. The use of these in some cases becomes so pervasive as to work itself into niche journalism and advertising, spurring a backlash (that often hits advertising, who also loves to make up new words or misspell old ones) touting the breakdown of the English language. Some would debate whether the English language ever had particular status to claim a breakdown, considering it’s basically a hackneyed puzzle of borrowed words from scores of languages.

However, one must consider the basic formation of these grammatically incorrect words and put them in context. In most cases, the formers of these words take regular conjugations (or suffixes, etc.) and apply them to irregular words, of which there are far too many in English. If you then consider that, applied broadly, these changes would actually regularize and simplify our language into a learnable, user-friendly language instead of the eternally expanding enigma we now have, it seems these word pioneers are doing more to further the legitimization of a language formed by stealing bits from other languages a few at a time, giving it a distinct and consistent set of rules and sounds, making it more its own.

However, this will never happen for several reasons- first, the regular influx of new words that people bring into the language from elsewhere is a never ending stream, second, our language would begin to resemble its European counterparts and be laughed out of existence for its idiosyncratic sound and supposed over simplicity, thirdly, because English snobs would no longer have their tightly held arcane knowledge of the minutia of the language to hold over others and finally, because an entire industry of English teachers, text book makers, proofreaders and more would be out of jobs.