Th*#k you, I know I do laundry and menstruate

I was just on Facebook, and the ads on the side bar are bugging me lately…”42 year old women qualify today for discounted boots!” What? Why? I know how old I am, stop making me remember it.

Which reminds me, on the nights that I decide to watch network television, I get monumentally annoyed with the ads. Especially when I am watching a show that I fit demographically. It really is exhausting. All of the ads to cover my gray, diaper my kids, stop the leakage, prevent pregnancy, and fill in my wrinkles…Oh and Andie MacDowell does not look like that…I know what they do in edit suits.

I’m off topic…my point is, I do not like being so strategically marketed to. Maybe it’s because I married into advertising and my standards are higher, or maybe I just like to complain. But, what bugs me the most is how patronizing it all is. I do not smile with pride as I unload the dishwasher. I do not sniff my dry laundry like Tony Montana. I do dance and dust…

I would like something more complex from advertisers, more abstract, challenge me. Don’t hit me over the head with a can of Pledge. For Christ’s sake, I know Pledge is for dusting. What I am trying to express, is that I like knowing I’m typical just about as much as I like knowing I’m over 40 and my bikini line has crossed the borders.

But ya know, it’s no better for dudes. Especially if you’ve seen the ads they play during golf and 60 Minutes…I’ll take Dove Chocolates over Flomax any day.

Married to it

When I met Erik, I was a PBS junkie with a 13” TV and no cable. I didn’t know anything about advertising before then. Ads? Hrumph. My television was small and my superiority complex huge.

His most brazen act was ordering cable unilaterally. I married into the world of modern media and marketing, sports programming and plasma. Our life was now in dazzling HD. For better or for worse.

It’s been over a decade since he indoctrinated me to all things media. Now I’m an active participant of advertising in all its forms.  Erik’s career is a source of proud achievement and miserable frustration for both of us.  I, too, am part of  the countless, thankless hours.  I feel the admiration and competition for the holy grail awards.  I get crushed when all the hard work is scrapped in the eleventh hour.

In many ways, unemployment has been more manageable for us than employment.

Ads Are Not The Only Ideas
One of the hardest aspects about advertising that I have observed is the combination of creativity and business.  It’s a tough equation to please everyone, be proud of what you do and pay the mortgage.  But when I ask Erik what he loves about such a highly critical and demanding industry, his reply is simple: “Coming up with ideas.”

I can’t argue with that.

Coming up with ideas can take many forms.  Maybe forms that don’t require so much criticism, think-tanking and research.  Maybe something that doesn’t deliver such tactical blows to a creative’s self esteem.  I sure would love that.

Maybe the next form of advertising will be completely different.  Maybe it won’t be a tag line and a picture.  Maybe it will be wide-ranging, networked and evolved.  A shared consciousness on line (is my Star Trek showing?).  Who knows?

So now it seems there are things on the horizon in addition to advertising.  I am perfectly content with that but, my spouse may feel differently.

For now,  I am married to an unemployed ad guy turned blogger who is coming up with ideas.  The future is both cool and uncertain.  For better or for worse.