Whereas I cannot find someone to pay me just over minimum wage to teach 18-year-olds how to use semicolons, someone got paid to come up with a car that does this.

You may say spending $25k on a skin moisturizer is ridiculous, but then I guess you don’t care about your skin very much, do you?

Think about it–you’re working out at the gym and you want to bring a couple Big Macs with you. Now, you have to bring them in a cumbersome Big Mac carrying pouch, but what if you could just crack open a cold, frothy can of hamburger and enjoy?  So refreshing!

While the idea may seem far-fetched, the actual, I swear I’m not making this up, introduction of Sandwich in a Can means the possibility of one day chugging a bottle of Fish Filet is all too real.

One thing I will argue without reservation: If you have a favorite ad, there is a deeper problem that needs addressing.

If people really liked or wanted to see ads (as ad critics assume), advertisers wouldn’t have to pay you to watch them.

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Goodby and Silverstein, before they got interested in selling milk

GOODBY, SILVERSTEIN, AND PARTNERS

In Short: A San Francisco-based institution that created such memorable campaigns as the Got Milk? ads and those Budweiser reptiles that were so popular for a short period of time.  For a while, Goodby was one of the last remaining independent shops, but eventually they got bought up by Ominicom, at which point they had to get rid of some of there more “quirky” agency policies such as paying employees with “Goodby Bucks” instead of legitimate currency.  The agency itself is very brightly colored and filled with trophies which are displayed quite prominently throughout, making it almost impossible to walk through the agency without feeling deep, seething resentment for everyone that works there.

Are the people who work their crazy: Yes, and not just because they drink gallons of milk every day.  For other reasons too.

Policy on drinking beer at the agency: Yes.

Agency Nickname: Chiat-Day.

If you want a job there: Bring your own trophy to the interview.

Fun fact: Their agency philosophy is “Art Serving Capitalism,” which is an ironic play on the 1931 Soviet propaganda slogan, “Art Serving Dead Capitalists with a Side of Proletariat Justice.”  The homage is not accidental as most of the leadership at the agency at one time or another held prominent roles in the Gorbachev administration. Sometimes, for fun, they bring out a wax statue of Gorbachev and bathe it in milk.

Absolutely True Story: I interviewed here for an internship which I did not get back in college. The interview consisted of me sitting at a table with five Goodby employees who were all eating cereal. I did not speak during this interview, mostly because they didn’t ask me any questions. They spent the whole time talking about themselves in a language I could not decipher.  I’m not really sure they even noticed when I left, and needless to say, I didn’t get the internship. The head of HR called me to let me know this saying, “the team thought you had tremendous promise, but there were so many qualified applicants.”

If it’s all the same, why not just NOT ADVERTISE in the first place?  If the ad drives equal traffic to you and your competitor (which is the logical take-away from the ad if one considers it, which hopefully no one but me will), what’s the damn point?  I mean, is being clever really worth the millions of dollars cleverness costs?

Well, yes, if you’re an ad agency looking to win an award.  It must be CLIO season already.

What does this lion have to do with draftfcb? The answer will disturb you.

DRAFTFCB

In Short: If you liked Foote, Cone & Belding, one of the oldest ad agencies in the United States, with its roots stretching all the way back to 1873, you’ll absolutely love Draftfcb, formed by merging Foote, Cone & Belding with Draft, an agency that no one had ever heard of.  For years, Foote, Cone & Belding hung its hat on the Levis account—an account they held from approximately 300 BC to around 1998.  The post-Levis world has been a strange place for FCB, and led to some interesting moments, such as the vastly unpopular decision to eliminate free sodas from the agency soda machine, and the curious creation of a self-promotional ad that features lions fucking.  They still do those Dockers ads though.  You remember Dockers right?

Are the people who work their crazy: You read that thing about the lions fucking above right? Because that really happened.

Policy on drinking beer at the agency: Yes, but no free soda. Sorry.

Agency Nickname: Those Guys

If you want a job there: Remember, if you’re not wearing Dockers, you’re just wearing pants.  Which is better than not wearing pants at all.  Bottom line: wear pants to the interview.

Fun fact: The merger with Draft confused many until you consider that it brilliantly allowed FCB to bypass both Fallon and Deutsch on the list of TOP ADVERTISING AGENCIES AS LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER LIST, published in 2007.

Absolutely True Story: I had my very first internship in advertising here. My first day was largely prophetic–my boss took me to my cubicle on the 2nd floor of the SF FCB’s 7-story office, dropped me off and abandoned me there for the entire day.  Too scared to leave my desk, uncertain what the rules of lunch were, and afraid of using the internet, I did nothing for 8 hours. It was torture. I was supposed to be working on the Amazon.com account, and before he abandoned me my boss said I could go check out the site, so the only thing I did all day was browse around Amazon.com and write reviews of books, movies, and CDs. This was right when Amazon first launched selling music and movies, so there weren’t many reviews. For about a month, I had written almost every non-book review on Amazon, most under aliases.  That was my 15 minutes, and it was amazing.  The internship, on the other hand, sucked.

Potential Weiden employees after looking Dan Weiden in the eyes.

WEIDEN AND KENNEDY

In short: Perhaps the last, great independent agency, Weiden & Kennedy may be the most revered creative shop in the world. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and famous for their Nike work, including the famous Just Do It campaign, the agency was founded by two former opium-dealers, Dan Weiden and David Kennedy.  Legend holds  that when Dan Weiden and David Kennedy die, the agency will burst into bright orange flames, then disappear into a plume of yellow smoke, killing everyone who works there.  That’s only part of what makes working there challenging.

Are the people who work their crazy: Oh yes.

Policy on drinking beer in the office: Always.

Agency nickname: Achoo! (it’s an inside joke that only the copywriters who work there get)

If you want a job there: Do not, under any circumstances, look Dan Weiden in the eyes. You will turn to stone and also not get the job.

Fun fact: The agency was the focus of an, at times, unflattering book, Where the Suckers Moon, which shows the agency’s failed relationship with Subaru.  When the book first came out, Dan Weiden took it in stride saying it was a “cute read,” but later, when everyone had forgotten about it, Weiden had the book’s author, Randall Rothenberg, shot and stuffed. His head now sits on a mantle in the sitting room of one of Weiden’s country homes and visitors are encouraged to rub it for good luck.

Absolutely True Story: While I’ve never worked there, this agency more than any other is responsible for my ill-fated flirtation with advertising. When I was in college, planning on a life as a newspaper reporter, a copywriter from Weiden And Kennedy came to our class and told us about his job.  He lived in Amsterdam and, according to him, spent his days drinking beer, smoking pot, and dreaming up crazy ad ideas for the best brands in the world. In short, he assured us, it was the most awesome thing ever.  Upon hearing this, I set my heart on working in advertising.  I would only learn later that this copywriter was in fact a cyborg created with the sole purpose of duping young people like me into working in advertising.  I should have known because he demonstrated some key cyborg traits such as not understanding human emotions and occasionally shooting people with his laser eyes (though all Weiden employees get laser eyes after the first year, so this in itself, is not a reliable cyborg-predictor).