Bloody Brilliant

Response to Bloody Brilliant

I'm not much of a television watcher anymore, due in large part to the fact that I do not have cable.  Of course, due to the wonders of modern technology, that needn't be much of a hinderance to the situation.  I did really get into Mad Men.  The first season blew me away, but the second season, while good, was not nearly as impactful to me.  If I remember right, it was the final episode of the third season that recaptured the love I had for the show.  I didn't much care for all of the personal drama in the show, but I loved the business aspect of it.

I had once, many a year ago, imagined myself starting up an ad agency, but my lack of creativity got in the way.  I always figured advertising must be one of the most sound businesses to get into.  I really don't know the success rate of individual companies, but as a whole, advertising is not going anywhere.  It has been said that money makes the world go 'round, but I have believed, since a little over half way through my high school years, that advertising, in fact, makes the world go 'round.  Advertising is anywhere and everywhere we look or listen.  Everything is an advertisement in some fashion or another.  My stereo, largley purchased from my dad when I moved out, 30+ years old, still shouts to the world "I'm a Marantz", or at least to everyone who enters my apartment.  Watching my kidletts' DVDs, I can't count the amount of times I see Disney or Pixar displayed before I see the movie.  The declaration of Independence is an advertisement for freedom.  The pictures on my wall are an advertisement for a happy life.  In the movie They Live, once you don a specific type of lens over your eyes, you see in black and white how everything is an advertisement and how you are intended to react to it.  Money may be power, but effective advertising is the greatest means to that power.

Whether you are on the good or evil side of any spectrum, or in any grey area as well, advertising is absolutely important, and as a whole, I don't see anything wrong with it.  But it is such a powerful tool that in the wrong hands we get things like Hitler.  Look at all of the architecture in the third reich, it advertised to the world the power that is Germany.  Is there any difference in the architectural advertising in Washington, D.C.?  The buildings, the flags, the warships in our various harbors.  My dad once had a saying to help me along in my business ventures:"90% show, 10% go".  It is very true.  And scary.