humans are funny

Category: advertising

  • Love! Love! Love!

    Sometimes I’m on the fence about whether real love truly exists.
    I mean, it must. That’s why there are lots of chocolates and cards sold today.

    Because people are in love.

    I’m also on the fence about whether or not I’ve ever felt this love stuff. I mean, when I’m in it, I believe that I’m in it. But when I’m not in it, I don’t have a clue if I was really in it. You get me?

    Either way, I definitely know that I want it. And in that spirit, The Huffington Post has published the piece I wrote about just that a few months ago right here. It all starts here on this blog that still nobody really reads. Except you. YOU! I love you. You, I am sure I love. You are the one.

    Here’s a dose of sappy love on your Monday of San Valentin:

    You Can’t Buy Love at the Drive-Thru

  • I’ll take three cheeseburgers, a Coke, and a large love


    I’ve spent my career convincing people to buy things they don’t need. And in order to do this, I’ve lied. I’ve made teenagers think they had to have video games. And when I wasn’t sure if my lies would really ring true to them, I surveyed their peers and conned them into telling me what tricks I could use. Before that, I made men and women ages 18-45 believe that they could really benefit from eating tacos and ice cream from Jack-in-the-Box. And when I wasn’t sure that they’d fall for it, I spent days making those tacos and ice cream look so absurdly delicious that they had to say it: I want that.

    Many advertisers will tell you that they’re simply helping their clients get the word out about their products. Or that they’re creating art that people want to see and pass to their friends. But I think those people also believe that you can’t get a girl pregnant if you hold your breath while ejaculating. Because the amount of inventing and manipulating that goes on before a campaign hits popular culture is pretty ridiculous. And the amount of money spent on getting these campaigns to market is even more so. We could probably end world poverty for the price of two Nike spots.

    We spend months at our stale desks deciding what a brand’s stance should be. Most of the time, we make up everything or we make a huge deal about the tiniest bit of info. Volvos aren’t really safer. Proactiv doesn’t really work. And McDonald’s surely isn’t healthy all of a sudden just because it added salads to the menu.

    I’ve always felt uneasy about making this my career. Ok, more than uneasy– more like a douche bag full of puss, which is way grosser than a regular old douche bag. The yucky feeling crescendoed until I popped and left town for most of 2009. I took off and didn’t watch one commercial or even TV (except when I was lonely in Vietnam and saw Dreamgirls and an American Idol from 2005).

    But now I’m back and things are askew. This time advertising has manipulated me.

    I’m working on an account that shall remain nameless. This mysterious account won’t allow lies in its advertising. And it holds tight to the rule that every couple featured in its ads must be deeply in love. At first I scoffed. Then I laughed. Then I paced around in circles. What? This goes against everything. I was ready to jump back in and invent more lies like the one about how cows in California produce better cheese.

    But no! Instead, this client spent its ad money to fly real couples to LA for the shoot. They put them all up in hotels and even gave them care packages! These couples got the royal wardrobe treatment and took to the sets like movie stars. But they were REAL. And in LOVE. And I was shocked.

    We filmed for eight days. Eight extra long days of watching pairs and pairs of happy soul mates traipse around Los Angeles. Normally, when happy soul mates vacation in front of you, it’s maddening. I take comfort in my single bitterness. I’m just fine alone in my endeavor to spend my life with the option to rub my naked ass on the couch whenever I want and never ever clean my shower if I don’t feel like it. Single! Independent. Don’t need me no nobody.

    But that’s before I was surrounded by 52 couples who can’t live without each other. That’s 104 hearts filled with emotion and love and compassion for that perfect person who isn’t a dream but a real match who feels the same way back.

    And so I realized: I want that.

    I knew I wanted that before, of course. But now I really want it. Because I’ve seen the commercials. And because it might be nice if there was somebody to pull my socks off when I’m too tired or tell me the funny things about his day or help me cheat at Skee-ball or hold my hand until we fall asleep.

    The karma bell has rung. Making these ads has manipulated me into wanting something I don’t have. And this is much worse than all the manipulation I’ve ever created. Because you can’t buy love at a drive-thru.

    I’ve spent my career convincing people to buy into advertising. And now advertising has convinced me to buy into love.

    I hate you, Advertising. I always have.

  • Talking to yourself out loud is better than talking to someone else in a cafe about Les Miserables.


    I’m sitting in a cafe right now among laptops and half-finished screenplays and an unemployed man who just said,“It’s a Republican system of laws that puts you in jail after 3 strikes. It means you could get life for stealing a piece of pizza. It’s as if the Republicans have never seen Les Miserables.”

    It’s awesome. I fit in. I’ve got my laptop and my intense grin that says, “I’m a writer. I’m writing right now.”

    It’s day two of amusing unemployment, and so far so good. Last week, the ad agency where I was working told me that I should start looking for other jobs, as they were feeling antsy and might want to try out other people. Then on Friday they told me to never come back. Via email. The job wasn’t permanent in the first place. And it’s not like I leaped out of bed each morning and ran there with glee. So this whole firing thing is really no big deal.

    But it hurt. I started thinking I wasn’t good enough.

    And I realized: Rejection is the pits. I knew it before. I mean, I’ve been rejected a gazillion times, the most memorable from:

    *Duke University.

    *Plenty of guys in high school (several of them calling me a lesbian).

    *Popular girls in elementary school. Once in 1st grade, these older girls (at least fifth graders!) befriended me on the playground and hung out with me for a whole week! I finally felt the joy of having sisters. And when they found out I wasn’t Nina Schrilla, the chick from a few houses down, they never talked to me again.

    *A recent date. We met in a bar and ran into my friend from high school. He went home with her.

    So, it’s not like I’m a stranger to rejection. I’ve thought a lot about this little demon and have boiled it down to a few hard facts. Not really. Just one: Our egos want everybody to think we are perfect in every way. And when I say ‘we,’ I’m speaking for ‘most people,’ and when I say ‘most people’ I mean me, Laurenne. Because how do I know what other people’s egos are saying?

    My ego, Lawrence, is an evil bastard, and he insists that everyone think I’m the funniest, most intelligent and most beautiful girl in the world. He also wants twenty-year-olds to think I’m their age, Benicio del Toro to think I’m marriage material, and people at make-up counters to step back when they see me and, instead of try to sell me something, say ‘Oh, you don’t need any of the stuff we sell here.’ So even when middle management at a job I don’t really love tells me they’d like to try other people, Lawrence gets pissed and convinces me that I’m no good, ugly, and fat. That’s just what egos do– cause unnecessary pain.

    For example, I just had a hard time spelling ‘unnecessary’ right there and Lawrence told me I must be stupid. Argh, Lawrence! Stop saying that. I’m smart. See… that’s how you kill an ego. You have to not listen to him, and he will eventually lose his voice forever. Start by saying the opposite of what he says. For example, Lawrence will say ‘Why am I a male ego? You’re really a man trapped in a woman’s body that’s not even that womanly because your cup size is A. You should be more feminine so that people don’t start a betting pool to see when you’ll go in for your gender reassignment surgery.’

    Then I should respond, “You know what, Lawrence? I am beautiful and feminine when I want to be. And I choose to never file my nails because I would rather spend my time downloading illegal episodes of 30 Rock. It’s a choice, and I’m sticking to it. And dog gone it, people like me.”

    Soon these comebacks will come more naturally, and Lawrence will die forever. Until then, I will occasionally doubt my sanity and my self-worth. But that’s okay. It’s what we humans do.

  • Pepperoni will prevail!

    I know I just stated that I’m finally at peace with advertising. But I wanted to illustrate what a huge leap I’ve made by getting here. You see, when your work is making ads, life often gets pushed out of the way to make room for pitches and presentations about the next best product. And there are always emergencies. A client’s wife mentions something about not liking the color of someone’s hair in the commercial, and you’re canceling your road trip to Big Sur to watch a colorist charge thirty grand to go in and cover up the blond’s roots.

    Advertising stops for no one: birthdays, vacations, weddings, psycho killers hiding out in your yard. What? Psycho killers? No, you say. Nobody would be thinking about their upcoming pizza commercials with a psycho killer on the loose. You’re wrong, my friends. Here’s proof that even in distress, the pepperoni will prevail (Actual conversation from my friend Ron V):

  • Nothing is permanent. Especially cubicles.

    It’s official. I’m an employee again.

    Making ads just like I was when I realized I hated cubicles and took to the skies. Just like I was when I decided that I would NEVER do this again: Hurried lunches at my desk, REALLY IMPORTANT meetings about things that really aren’t important, inventing more and more ways to annoy the general public with polished product info. It’s much better than picking poo off the floor of a video store, that’s for sure. But it’s not saving lives. It’s not teaching something useful or helping to change the world. Instead, it’s convincing innocent citizens to eat burgers they don’t really want and drive cars that may or may not fall apart after a year. This hurts because it goes against all my beliefs.

    Just when i was feeling despair and failure about landing back in this same exact place… just when it was getting more and more difficult to get out of bed in the morning, I got an email from my friend Pete, the photographer I met in India, who snapped this one.
    He sent me some shots from his time in Indonesia:

    The dude went swimming with a monkey. SWIMMING WITH A MONKEY. You might think I’m about to complain about the amazing adventures this man is having while I’m stuck between cardboard walls arguing the uses of a semi-colon. But, no! I am again revitalized. There are millions of adventures to be had in life. And whether they come in the form of monkeys doing breast stroke or huts in Papua New Guinea or walking to the beach from my apartment, I will have them. Because I want to.

    And this little advertising stint is what’s going to catapult me there. It’s just for now. And for now is going to get me to later. So, I no longer hate advertising. It’s my friend, my catapulter. My ticket to a slightly older swimming monkey. Although it takes away from my blog time and inflicts tiny bursts of internal conflict several times a day, I’m at peace with it. Phew. It feels good.
    I hope all those who aren’t too thrilled with their current careers arrive at such a point. As long as you have faith that there’s a way out and that the present will lead to this way, those meetings about meetings and conversations about kids you don’t know and hastily written Excel documents all seem kinda worth it.