Categories: advertising

The Short Happy Ad Career of Ernest Hemingway

The man looks at the blank page. It is the first page of a short story. But there is nothing on it. The man doesn’t know what to write. He wishes he did not have to write anything at all. But he is a writer. He is paid to write stories. And he needs the money.More >>

Striving for the Great American 30 Second Spot

A guy writing a book for aspiring writers recently asked me this question: “Did your experience in advertising benefit your (fiction) writing in any way?”More >>

Just Do Good

I always cringe when I hear business people say, "Why do we support charities? Because it’s good for business!”More >>

Blood, Sweat and Tier Pages

On the bulletin board in my office is the internal phone list, a bunch of receipts skewered by a push pin, several pictures of my wife and son, and the famous Karsh portrait of Winston Churchill. As the only person I know who has actually read History of the English Speaking Peoples, as well as the complete War Memoirs (the series that earned Churchill the Nobel Prize for Literature, no less), I’m clearly an unabashed admirer. So when I say that Churchill would have made a lousy creative director, I do so advisably. More >>

The shape of things to come.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only force in the universe you can absolutely depend upon is in direct conflict with basic human nature. The force is cyclicality and the human behavior is best summed up by my friend Bob Willemin’s line: “People have a tendency to take current circumstances and extrapolate them indefinitely into the future.” More >>

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