The Unicorn Symbolizes The Never-Ending Quest For Digital Mastery

February 4, 2013 1:43 PM

Agency Wank highlighted the funniest, most pretentious ad agency slogans.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants (57 comments total)

James' killer sense of design and sharp eye allow him to seamlessly leap from client to client, project to project, and media to media in a manor reminiscent of a panther formally trained as a ballerino.
posted by scody at 1:47 PM on February 4 [10 favorites]

I once encountered, back before the first dot com bust, a internet design agency whose mission statement was:

The Incomprehensible / Strategy + Creativity = Digital Perception

To this day I marvel at how effectively they crafted a senseless, substanceless... equation.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:49 PM on February 4 [6 favorites]

Ugh I'm physically ill.
posted by Mister_A at 1:51 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure a MeFite is behind this but I can't prove it.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:51 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Is their unerring sense of apex predation?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:59 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

The Incomprehensible / Strategy + Creativity = Digital Perception

Putting Strategy in the denominator was genius.
posted by b1tr0t at 2:00 PM on February 4 [6 favorites]

Agency Wank
Dear loyal wankers.

Thank you so much for the unbelievable support this tumblr has had. I've been blown away by the number of views and shares over the past week.

However not everyone has taken it so well and unfortunately I've had to go into hiding.

It appears I've been targeted by a very angry irishman.

http://theescapepod.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/agencywank-moi-surely-not/

Do not worry though, for one day I will return to clean the wank from our industry for good.

Until that day arrives, remember this...

As a man, I’m flesh & blood; I can be ignored, destroyed. But as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.

Yours,

Agency Wank


So wait they had to shut this blog down because an agency guy threatened to kick the shit out of him/her? That sucks.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:02 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

Yes, divided by strategy. That is brilliant.
posted by Mister_A at 2:02 PM on February 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjY0784vHN8

Perfect Curve.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:05 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

That's bullcrap, if it was nothing more than a vague internet tough guy pseudo-threat, I don't know why the dude would kill the tumblr. Unless maybe there was a C&D or some other thing that laughably threatening overblown stereotype of an ersatz Irishman failed to mention in his semi-literate screed.
posted by Mister_A at 2:07 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

Oh my god, they just. don't. stop.
posted by Think_Long at 2:07 PM on February 4

The Incomprehensible / Strategy + Creativity = Digital Perception

?DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR.

posted by JHarris at 2:08 PM on February 4 [9 favorites]

I used to write stuff like this for a PR agency. People would employ us. I would always wonder why.
posted by Summer at 2:21 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Ugh I'm physically ill.

Best. Slogan. Ever.
posted by Nomyte at 2:23 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

Correction: Vinny Warren is not an ersatz Irishman; he was born in Galway. Usually people who go on so much about their macho Irishness are not really all that Irish. I stand corrected.
posted by Mister_A at 2:27 PM on February 4

"James' killer sense of design and sharp eye for aesthetics allow him to seamlessly leap from client to client, project to project, and media to media in a manor reminiscent of a panther formally trained as a ballerino."

He works in Rod Stewart's house?
posted by Kabanos at 2:28 PM on February 4

I used to write stuff like this for a PR agency. People would employ us. I would always wonder why.

I can write insubstantial, portentous-sounding fluff copy! My Metafilter history provides ample evidence. Hire me!

(I have to admit, it seems like it'd be cool to work in a place with a huge winding aquarium with three sharks swimming all over the place, but that thing has got to be a serious money drain.)
posted by JHarris at 2:28 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Is the guy even really Irish, as in from Ireland, or is he just some insecure asshole from Chicago?

Edit: I guess he is from the land of Ire. Still, internet tough guy bullshit, regardless of where he's from.
posted by Redfield at 2:28 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]

Haha - my agency's 'slogan' is on there (part of it, anyway).

Yay! We're famous!
posted by Pecinpah at 2:31 PM on February 4

NATHAN BARLEY LIVES
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:32 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Oh, god. This is visual ipecac.

Which is the name of my design consultancy.
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:33 PM on February 4 [10 favorites]

I once encountered, back before the first dot com bust, a internet design agency whose mission statement was:

The Incomprehensible / Strategy + Creativity = Digital Perception


My one design job during the web bubble was for a company whose logo was "Just Another Visual Attitude!"

As far as I know they never decided what sort of product or service to offer. The one thing my boss was sure she wanted was an animated gif she had found of a Macintosh computer and a Windows computer sword fighting.
I designed a few front pages, but none of them had enough visual attitude, after they fired me they redid the whole thing in flash with animated nike swooshes. and that gif at the bottom.

After that I went back to digging holes for a living.
posted by St. Sorryass at 2:34 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

The only thing more stomach-churning than these statements, is working with the people who are actually, truly, honestly inspired by them.

Scary fuckers, those.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:39 PM on February 4 [10 favorites]

James' killer sense of design and sharp eye allow him to seamlessly leap from client to client, project to project, and media to media in a manor reminiscent of a panther formally trained as a ballerino.

Oh man the first time I read this I missed the misspelling and now I'm picturing James. James has a killer sense of design and a sharp eye. These provide him the ticket he needs to enter the Manor. Inside the Manor he will leap seamlessly from client to client, project to project, and media to media, never touching the floor, which might actually be made of lava. But this is no ordinary stately home -- the Manor is reminiscent of a panther formally trained as a ballerino.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 2:40 PM on February 4 [11 favorites]

Of course, if agencies wanted to be honest their tag line would be: 'The same overworked, under experienced graduates as the last place (literally)'
posted by Summer at 2:42 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

"We'll correct most of your spelling errors. Thanks for the check."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:51 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Hey, I sometimes design adverts for local businesses. My most successful slogan is:

"Free."
posted by Jehan at 2:51 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]

"We'll make you look at least as trendy as your competition without correcting your inferior business model, sorry."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:53 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

"Our boss worked for someone you've heard of once so we can charge you his prices even though I went to a state school and don't understand fractions."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:56 PM on February 4

HELVETICA.
posted by Redfield at 3:01 PM on February 4

An agency that named itself after the "morning after pill." Brilliant.

"Plan B: You'll want to dispose of our pitches when they're still only a single cell."
posted by 1adam12 at 3:06 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Are these ads or pick up lines?
posted by azpenguin at 3:23 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

"We blew a dude to get a Clio AND IT WAS WORTH IT."
posted by klangklangston at 3:28 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

I thought about sending this to my creative director, but couldn't decide if they would:

a) Laugh their head off;
b) Immediately try to use some of the slogans;
c) Both of the above;

So I'm just gonna keep this all to myself.
posted by Phire at 3:33 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]

"On The Razor's Edge Between The Banal And The Pernicious"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:43 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]

As a copywriter who is having a tough week at the office, I would like to thank you for my new cubicle decorations. (The unicorn one in particular is ~*magic*~.)
posted by jess at 3:47 PM on February 4

So I'm just gonna keep this all to myself.

Ah. The in-house version of "Never show the client anything you don't want to do"?
posted by Thorzdad at 3:57 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

I don't think "ballerino" was supposed to be a misspelling. I think they were trying to be funny by using the -o masculine ending, instead of -a.
posted by Falconetti at 5:15 PM on February 4

No, but "manor" is a misspelling.
posted by me & my monkey at 5:20 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

"Insufferalicious," the adman said.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:42 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

I don't mean to alarm you but there may be two guys named James, one Australian and one American, who both can leap from project to project in the manor of a panther formally trained as a ballerino.

What would happen if these antipodean catmen met? Will they quarrel like two ornery bobcats who have been snarled into a morning rush-hour fender-bender? Or will they become fast friends like a pear of lion huntresses who both kept hearing "you've just GOT to meet one another" and "you've got SO MUCH in common" from all their mutual friends and acquaintances and even the baristo at the coffee place they both go to (since they even have that in common) that when they eventually do end up meeting there's this immediate funny icebreaker that arises naturally between them about how much they've already heard about one another and how weird it is that so much time has passed before finally formally running into the other [lion]?
posted by metaman livingblog at 8:26 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]

Sparxoo?

Really? Sparxoo?

The meeting where they agreed to that name would have been terrifying.
posted by Relay at 9:45 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

This kind of stuff is basically why I can never return to an agency environment. I'm not saying all agencies are so willfully idiotic as what's being demonstrated here. But there are so many people in the industry charmed by a delusional sense of how exceptionally talented they are when the reality is they really aren't exceptional at all. They're just average. And they try to compensate for this averageness by trying to hook you with a "gotcha" tagline. This type of approach maybe worked in the Mad Men era, but agencies that publish this dreck are trapped in a way of thinking that is completely non-innovative. It's like the world is moving on but many ad agencies want it to be the same, always and forever, by communicating with you like you're an acquired target rather than an actual human being.
posted by quadog at 10:06 PM on February 4

from the abovelinked a response

So we were a bit taken aback to see The Escape Pod’s self-description included in the pantheon of bullshit.

Surely ADVERTISING AGENCY OF THE PRESENT, our positioning, is beyond reproach.

We indisputably are an ADVERTISING AGENCY. And it is undeniably THE PRESENT.

Well, that's... logical. Unfortunately the three examples he gives of their stuff is from '07, '08 and '10, years which are, in fact, in the past.
posted by delmoi at 10:29 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

But there are so many people in the industry charmed by a delusional sense of how exceptionally talented they are when the reality is they really aren't exceptional at all. They're just average. And they try to compensate for this averageness by trying to hook you with a "gotcha" tagline. This type of approach maybe worked in the Mad Men era, but agencies that publish this dreck are trapped in a way of thinking that is completely non-innovative. It's like the world is moving on but many ad agencies want it to be the same, always and forever, by communicating with you like you're an acquired target rather than an actual human being.

Well, the product they are selling is their ability to do exactly that on their clients behalf. Their ability to pass off mediocrity as excellence is what people hire them to do.
posted by delmoi at 10:41 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

oO
posted by Sparx at 10:44 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

These are so, so painful to read. I just imagine all these horrible futures. The client visits. The brainstorming meetings. The late-night concepting. Then the pitches. Oh, god, the dreadful pitches...
posted by iamkimiam at 11:34 PM on February 4

Way to tell everyone your mom was alcoholic.
posted by clarknova at 11:48 PM on February 4

The Adman Of The Future!
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:08 AM on February 5

These bring back too many fly-on-the-wall moments from my stint as one-half the IT dept. at a San Francisco agency. The comic relief of our dumb-as-mud 3-hour-lunches managing director (a real-life Dilbert pointy-haired boss) wasn't enough to compensate. (Nor was the pay.)
posted by Philofacts at 2:15 AM on February 5

Well, that's... logical. Unfortunately the three examples he gives of their stuff is from '07, '08 and '10, years which are, in fact, in the past.

The other thing there is the description of Twitter in 2010 as "nascent". If, as an agency, you were treating Twitter as nascent in 2010 you might not want to promote that fact too heavily...
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:48 AM on February 5

As a creative director who has worked at some huge-ass agencies (I now have my own small agency and we don't have a slogan), I will chime in for the CD's of the world and say that these are awesome.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:48 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Wow, Escape Pod dude uses both "Oh yeah? let's see you do better" and "I'll kick your ass!" in his response article.

And then this gem from the comments:

Jacob, most people who know me would probably tell you I have a good sense of humor and am quite secure about my abilities. But I take my family and my work very, very, seriously. And if people have a problem with that then it’s entirely their problem, because I really and sincerely don’t care.

Whenever I see this sort of thing, I almost feel bad for such people; they try to rationalize away their insecurity and people getting to them by, instead of just coming out and admitting their precious feelings are hurt, trying to claim that 99% they're the picture of logic, poise, confidence, and rationale, but not THIS time. It's like when shitty dog owners try and claim their dog is a perfect angel "unless you provoke him!" wherein "provoking" means talking, sudden movements, laughter, physical contact, breathing, presence, etc.

This is contradictory fantasy that insecure dicks like this guy always try to sell: I'm awesome, and any time I'm not, it's someone else's fault, and people just need to put up with my inability to handle conflict. The "I'm gonna beat you up, no just kidding, but seriously I'm Irish, just saying" is the most pathetic form of bet-hedging, especially in blog-form, and it's a moving goalpost anyway: If it turns out that Quentin "Rampage" Jackson or someone was running that tumblr and DID show up to whatever living room "ad agency" in Galway, the internet bravado would give way to "GOD it was a JOKE, let's be MATURE jeez" and hollow brags of physical prowess would give way to hollow brags of a crack special-forces grade legal team.

Fucking dicks with egos the size of planets with the fragility of eggs. Can we somehow spray for these kinds of people?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:00 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]

Uther, reading what you wrote there made me realize that Vinny Warren of Galway and lately of Escape Pod is actually the secret alter-ego of another thin-skinned Chicago area internet-tough superhero, the banally nefarious Richard Marx! Same town! Same attitude! Same language! Same dude!
posted by Mister_A at 9:21 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]

From now on, I am going to assume that Rampage Jackson is running all single-topic Tumblrs.
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:28 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]

From now on, I am going to assume that Rampage Jackson is running all single-topic Tumblrs.

Pretty sure he's booked up ghost-writing for Camille Paglia.
posted by mph at 8:46 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]

(Randy Couture actually sounds kind of like a Camille Paglia book title, but I suspect "UFC fighter or Gender Theory text" would have a fairly short lease as an online quiz...)
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:14 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]