Passing the Torch

For me, it was the handwriting.  

Kids figure it out lots of different ways, but for me, it was the handwriting. You know that note that Santa leaves, the one you find when you run downstairs on Christmas morning, screaming HE WAS HERE HE WAS HERE OH MY GOD SANTA WAS HERE!!!, the one that says "Thanks for the milk and cookies and Merry Christmas?"

Well, unless Santa Claus attended The South Philadelphia High School for Girls to learn his beautiful penmanship, that note was written by one person and one person only.  

My mom. 

I know I must have called her out on it a time or two, and she probably had some glib answer... maybe the first time it was "Oh no dear, Santa definitely wrote that note." Maybe the next year, "Well, Santa's really busy and he asked me to write the note for him." Stuff like that. Stuff a three or four or five year old kid would buy, because he wanted to.  

Because Santa's real. He has to be, right?

Eventually I grew out of Santa Claus and we were all set to go about our merry way. I'm Santa, you're Santa, ha ha ha, Merry Christmas. But then my parents went and had another kid. I don't think anyone was really expecting that, but oops. Suddenly there was someone else in the house who one day would be looking forward to Santa's visit. And one day would also start asking questions.

So the first year my little sister was was old enough to get it, maybe three years old, I said to my mom, "Hey, let me write the note this year." I'm eleven, and this would be fun, a real goof. So I got my pen and some paper, and I wrote the note. It was a little more elaborate than "Thanks for the milk and cookies," and included some personal details about our family that would absolutely prove that Santa had been monitoring our naughty vs. nice quotient all year.  

But most of all, the handwriting looked nothing like the cursive of anyone in our home. I created a Santa script, a tightly cribbed and shaky style full of crazy ascenders and descenders and curliques, the handwriting of a man hundreds of years old. It actually hurt my hand to write it.

But it worked. And while the other kids were asking their parents, "Well how does he get down the chimney when we don't even have a fireplace," and the other common Kringle busters, my little sis was calm and assured that there was in fact a Santa. He was watching, and he left a note.

I don't remember when I stopped writing the notes, but years later, when I had a kid of my own and she was two or three, I knew it was time to start again. But now as a somewhat better art director I really started to go all out. I'd find some nice paper and age it up. Crumple it, flatten it out, burn the edges to give it that pirate treasure map look. I've even soaked it in coffe and baked it in the oven.

I don't know why I feel that Santa's paper has to be really old. Shit, he can bring you a new spiral notebook; there must be some new paper at the North Pole. But nonetheless, I really feel that this document has to look as old as the fucking Declaration of Independence. So every year at 3AM, when the presents are finally wrapped and my wife's gone up to bed, like the ultimate document forger I set to work. It's something that I really enjoy, the process and the ritual and getting it just right. Over time the thoughts and themes in the text have become deeper, and much more personal to me. And although I no longer labor over the Santa script quite as much as I used to, there's a lot more of my heart in there than "Rudolph enjoyed the carrots, Merry Xmas."

This past Christmas, my older daughter finally decided that there is no Santa Claus. We knew this was coming. She's almost eleven. There'd been lot of questions the past couple of years and you know, kids talk. And I guess when kids finally make this decision, they want everyone to know that they know.  So she started talking some smack around our younger daughter, who's only four. At four years old she's still so innocent and wide eyed and believing, I couldn't let anyone take Santa away from her. Not now. Not so soon.

So I talked to my oldest, and she's cool. She's got an artistic bent, so I told her about the note, about how I started writing it, the paper, what kind of pen I used. I gave up some of my secrets.

Some, but not all.

Because I'm passing the mantle to her. And it's something we'll do together. And one day, maybe this year, maybe next, she'll write the note for her little sister. And one day she'll write the note for her kids, and her little sister will do the same.

Because as long as there's always a note, there will always be a Santa.  

Right?

Give a girl a camera...

"Daddy, can I play with your phone?"

When I let my 4 year old play with the phone, it usually comes back with a lot of games I've never heard of, and a lot of pictures I didn't take.

This last time it came back with 180 pictures I didn't take. I thought it would be fun to watch them like this...

If You're Going to Blackmail Somebody, Do it Properly

You... no you!

At my current company we use IBM Lotus Notes for email. If you've ever used it, you'll know that Lotus Notes does not like to be in the background. When you open it, first the startup window, then the log in window, then the home screen and finally the mailbox continue to pop up and jump in front of whatever it is you're working on until Notes is fully launched and happy.

It's like "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!"

Like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, it is not going to be ignored.

Donald Trump is a lot like Lotus Notes. Just when you've forgotten all about him, he jumps out of the woodwork with one ridiculous stunt or the other. LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!

Donald, too, is not going to be ignored.

Now, I don't think Donald Trump is a stupid guy. I just think he does particularly stupid things, and today's pronouncement is no exception.

I don't think Barack Obama or anyone in his organization is going to take this seriously, or even address it. It's likely they'll ignore it, or laugh it off. In any event, in a week's time it will probably be forgotten.

This isn't really blackmail. It's more like coercion. But whatever you call it, if you're going to attempt to coerce somebody, you really have to think it through, from motivation all the way through accountability. And there's a gaping hole in this plan that even the Donald should have been sharp enough to catch.

The fatal flaw in this plan is that he's left the choice of the charities up to Barack Obama.

If Trump was smart, he would have promised the money to a specific charity when he threw down the gauntlet. There's no shortage of worthy causes, organizations that no American would take issue with. So unless Trump is a moron of the highest order, he could easily have picked one or two or five organizations to whom he would donate this $5 million dollars.

For arguments sake, let's say that Trump promised the money to the American Cancer Society. "If Barack Obama releases these records, I will give 5 million dollars to the American Cancer Society." Now, this is a sticky wicket for Barack. If he does nothing, in essence he's witholding 5 million dollars of funding from the ACS, preventing them from using this money to continue researching a cure for cancer. It's almost like he's saying, "Too bad all you people with cancer, anyone who might get cancer, and your families. I don't care enough about you to let you have this 5 million dollars."

This is an uncomfortable position to be in.

But by leaving the choice to Obama, it's not like anyone is really losing the money because Obama will never play the game. Maybe the American Cancer Society is losing it. Maybe it's AMFAR. Maybe the Red Cross. Who knows? Since the money is not promised to any specific organization, no one can get really upset when they don't receive it.

So in actuality, Trump has concocted this elaborate scheme designed to "out" the President, while at the same time handing Obama a huge "out" from the scheme itself.

What a putz.

My 4 Year Old Rhymes Better Than This

Regardless of whether you like this ad or not (meh, in my book), how is it possible to fuck this rhyme up so bad? 

Seamless Web, do you really think the general subway riding public is so stupid that:

a) we won't understand that this is supposed to be like the "Roses are red" nursery rhyme, and

b) we're so doltish that unless we see "have your cake and eat it too" written out exactly like that we won't understand that reference either?

No, it's much better to add a line in the middle that doesn't rhyme with anything and completely fucks up the meter of the original nursery rhyme.  Now you've almost guaranteed that half the people won't get the joke.

Try this on:

Landlines are dead,

the Hudson is blue,

order your cake online

and eat it too.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

Sears, Where Strippers Shop

I posted a link to an AdRants posting yesterday about a nipple slip in the "Exotic Apparel" section of the Sears website.  Made the requisite Mom jeans joke and got the expected Craftsman, etc. comments.

My curiosity piqued, I later went to Sears.com and typed "Exotic Apparel" into the search bar.

Holy crap.

There's 10 pages of this stuff.  Apparently, if you're a stripper, Sears is where you shop.

Middle America, get your freak on.

Now You Don't See Me, Now You Do?

Like Peeta Mellark camouflaged as a river rock, it seems the latest trend in broadcast advertising is hiding actors in plain sight against various architecture and terrain, then 'gasp' they step out of the background and reveal themselves.

I first noticed this device last year in this National Highway Traffic Safety Administration PSA about drunk driving.

This spot's been around for a while; the thing that struck me about it was the creepy mannequin-like stiffness of the police, and the fact that you can easily see them if you're looking. Which I suppose a drunk person wouldn't be doing. What bothers me though, is that even though the guy and girl are obviously drunk the cops let them get in the car and drive around for a while before pulling them over, just to make sure, I guess. Bad on you NHTSA. But overall, a good idea, I thought.

So people coming out of the woodwork, I get it. Then last week while on vacation in North Carolina, I caught these two spots in the same commercial break during some show or other. OK, OK, it was Real Housewives of NY (you know, the one where they go to St. Barts and LuAnn sleeps with that Tomas guy) but it was my wife watching, not me, I swear!

The IAVA spot addresses a real problem for returning veterans, letting them know that they're not alone, and they've got support. Kudos. But I can tell you, if I was sitting in a coffee shop minding my own business and saw this parade of painted zombies shambling toward me I'd probably assume I was having some sort of post traumatic stress hallucination, and get the hell out of there as fast as my Army boots could carry me.

The CTU ad depicts a dystopian future in which picking the wrong school dooms you to a either a job or a lecture hall that are both so stupefyingly boring that you    cannot      even      move.

Oh, and here's a Sprite spot this year out of BBH Singapore... same thing.

Well, not exactly the same; the Sprite spot features a hot girl in her underwear, which is never a terrible thing in a commercial if you ask me.

I'm thinking that all these spots, especially the CTU spot could have benefited from a hot girl in her underwear. It would certainly make that office and lecture hall more exciting. Certainly that soldier wouldn't be feeling so all alone if a mob of beautiful, lingerie clad women was closing in on him... but then that would be an Axe commercial. And I'm certain that guy in the NHTSA spot was drunk driving his girlfriend toward their own personal "underwear encounter" until he got pulled over by that cock blocking state trooper. Nice hat though. I'd like to get me one of those.

So four different agencies, four different directors*** and one overwhelmingly similar idea.

Advertising and entertainment and pop culture are all rolled up in one big ball of borrowed interest. We know this, and I've referred to it several times in this blog. But while commercials and ideas are often similar to one another, they are not usually exactly the same.

Yet these four spots feature the exact same execution.

Yes, one can argue that concept behind the ads is different in two of the four. IAVA is about not being alone, and NHTSA delivers an uncomfortable "Big Brother is watching" message. But that still leaves Sprite and CTU in which the idea, "don't blend in, stand out," is the same.

Regardless of the concept and the message though, it is the the execution that is my biggest issue here because is exactly the same. And it makes me wonder, with all the creative brainpower at these four ad shops, with all the skills that these four directors bring to the table, with all the knowledge of everything that has come before, could no one have figured out how to execute this idea even the teensy weensy littlest bit differently?

(I mean OK, Sprite, the underwear thing, points for that)

***NHTSA "Camouflage/Invisible Cops" directed by David Slade@Anonymous Content (2008), for The Tombras Group.  
       IAVA "Camouflage" directed by jacobsbriere@HELLO!(2009) for Saatchi NY
       CTU "Stand Out" directed by Steve Reeves@TWC (2012) for Ogilvy NY
       Sprite "Camouflage" directed by Peter Thwaites@Unit + Sofa(2012) for BBH&BBH/Shanghai

Finally, Mom's a dork

After years of enduring the doofus Dad in advertising, it is refreshing to finally see a commercial where Mom's the butt of the joke.

Granted, she's still a fantastic Mom because she makes sure the kids get a nutritious breakfast, but still...