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.”

But then you have to wonder—what if you arrive with a nauseous and stumbling hangover back at the same red-tagged, mold- and maggot-infested deathtrap, only to find nothing changed but the colonies of feral rats navigating sheets of sticky cobwebs and feasting off the desiccated remains of decades old feces floating in rusty and stained toilet bowls with a lump of petrified Cheese Whiz for dessert?

Yeah, it’s been that kind of week. And, yeah, I admit to being more than a shade green at the “Meanwhile” riffs Stephen Colbert delivers on his better shows. If you haven’t seen one of these tours de farce, give your funny bone some respect with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIK4UTTmEYA

Now back to business. Let me shorthand:

For the first time in forever, we got a print ad assignment. A newspaper ad campaign. A-gobsmacked-be-me-full-page-not-digital-newspaper ad campaign.

Will wonders never cease?

I can recall a terrifically award-winning thing we did with long copy posters for the amazing Long Now Foundation, circa 2008. But the last actual full page newspaper assignment? Lost in the mists of time.

Then again, as we say after every new business win, the euphoria lasts just long enough for the panic to set in. Especially when given a whole 6 hours to gin up the core idea.

But that wasn’t the disappointment. That landed with a squishy sound while rediscovering that feedback now is no better than feedback then. In truth, people on both sides of the client/agency teeter-totter still have no clue about how to get what they need—an ad that captures attention, imagination, and motivation.

I’m not going to bore you with the paint-by-numbers approach on this. Although I will say that David Ogilvy’s, “don’t hire a dog, and then bark for yourself” is the heart of the thing.

Particularly, if you aren’t great at stringing together a cogent sentence. Or understanding how to construct an ad that stops the reader and keeps the eyes tracking in the right direction.

The idea is to start with, focus on, and stick with the objective. When you say, “our goal is X, and this isn’t getting there because of Y” you give your team something to work with. When you give them a poorly rewritten headline or a lame “because this” visual as a “suggestion,” you undermine the enterprise and yourself.

Damn, I think we had this conversation back in the 90s, when we used to do full page print ads on the regular.

Maybe Thomas Wolfe is right when he tells us “You Can’t Go Home Again.” But what if you can and still find yourself discouraged that, after so many years, so little has changed?