In “Little Gidding” T.S. Elliott delivers one of poetry’s most evocative stanzas when he writes, “And the end of our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”

Every two years, give or take, America rubs its irritated and bloodshot eyeballs, bracing for another flood of political advertising. Overwhelmingly brownish in taste and texture. Formulaic, repetitive. Uninspiring.

This week, the case for keeping the humanity in advertising got a powerful boost, and/or shot in the arm, and/or kick in the ass.

Based on his consultancy’s 2023 survey, the very credible Jack Meyers reports that of the 10,000 professionals working in agency media departments and similar, only 20% have more than 15 years’ experience. With 65% having less than 8.

When you get right down to it, those squishy bastards “ends” and “means” are tricky taskmasters.

Especially when it comes to the intersecting worlds of creativity, advertising, and production.

And yes, it’s the silliest of advertising seasons. So, sue me. But somehow, it’s managed to get me thinking about the biggest of the big Sunday decisions and what it could mean for advertisers plonking down a reported $6.5 to $7 million on a gone-in-30-seconds grab for brand glory.

And, of course, we should now all be thanking LinkedIn, from the deepest and sincerest cockles of our nary-a-drop-of-irony hearts, for giving us a brand new option when posting thoughts on the site.

And just like that, there I was last Sunday, standing in an Alaska Airlines boarding line. LAX to NYC. Delayed a mere 2 hours because of a “toilet” issue. Sure. The day after their Portland-to-Ontario flight had what Boeing, the aircraft’s manufacturer, now calls a mid-air “mistake.”

On this we should agree: AI is so last year. And so this year. And so on and so forth as we march, Tiktok dance, or leave fingernail scratches on the rocky cliffsides of a progressively less predictable future.

If you’re among the cynical souls harboring doubts that New York is back in full holiday snap, crackle, and pop, consider yourself invited to join the throngs thronging what locals call “CPS” (59th to the unwashed). So many people, so little interest in using the sidewalk to, say, get from point here to point there.

So, here’s the other way it might go down.

Or up.

Or in some generally more interesting direction that the gloom- and doomsaying you generally hear when the advertising chattering class starts vomiting about generative AI.

All kicked off by a thought from the remarkable Bob Brihn, or at least the brilliantly inventive spirit that inhabits his impressively bearded head. His argument, at least as I’d set it up, goes like so:

Jay Pattisall, the Forrester Research advertising analyst is back, and this time with a doozy of a prediction: starting in 2024, the big gun advertising battle will be waged between large agencies, each vying to build brand-proprietary AI platforms for their clients.  

First you hear Noam Chomsky, as reported by the remarkable Ernie Schenk, calling it “high-tech plagiarism. Then you dial in the “godfather” of the technology, Geoffrey Hinton, who warns us of its dangers. All while the entirety of formerly-FAANG-now-MAANG giants are scrambling as fast as their little coding fingers can fly to build the competition-terminators of their dreams. 

In the beginning there were just the three TV networks: Peacock, Tiffany, and Huntley-Brinkley or whatever they called ABC at the time. That is, until Murdoch begat Fox, but that’s a cautionary homily for another time. Anyway, then did the pundits, critics, talking heads, and soothsayers soothsay: “this gonna play hell with theatrical cinema, movie theaters are toast.”

“How about nobody calls Twitter, X, or Facebook, Meta?” he asked. “A rose by any other name…” I mumbled….“…is just a weed,” she said, drilling the pigskin over the uprights.

What makes an ad “great?” Is it a measure of sales value, creative novelty, cultural impact, or historical moment?

Well, maybe not the worst for unerring arbiters like authors Dave Eggers, Emma Specter, and William Gibson; they can do whatever they damned well please. But for those of us who spend our more pedestrian days sweating profusely and pounding keys in the dust, insect, and bone-choked vineyard that is modern advertising, it really touched a nerve.

Tuned into the Zoom seminar late, but not too late to catch this grabber, courtesy of the dept. of choking clouds and silver linings via New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose. Soon, virtually all emails will be written, parsed, and responded to by AI. No sloth-like meatware invited, or required.

In a brilliant Substack post, Reggie James, founder, CEO, and designer at Eternal, goes both long and deep with an article titled “Anticipation is Culture.” In broad strokes, it’s about the nature of a society so bedazzled by the thrill of what’s coming that arrival becomes anticlimactic.

“What’s your first reaction to Twitter’s rebrand to X?” “Possibly, the biggest unforced error in branding history.” And that, of the many available methods, is one way to jump down the rabbit hole of becoming part of the public conversation. The end result of my discussion with the SF Examiner’s stellar reporter, Benjamin Pimentel, is reprinted below, in case you’re interested.