It’s 7 am and I’d rather not be writing this.

But the car service had to come when it came.  And the drive to JFK had to take what it took.

And sleep deficit or not, Alaska Airlines flight 33, right coast to left, had to take off when it took off.

In between yawns, I nervously eye the cabin panels, wondering if there’s a hidden door buried somewhere in there, barely held in place by duct tape and a few corroded bolts.

Thus does the odd thought flitter. The clouds outside look like whipped cream.

To business, and since that’s the reason for the early rise, I might as well take this meander in some useful direction.

As it happens, while waiting for the plane to button up, I clicked on Michael Farmer’s interview with an anonymous former agency ECD turned client-side brand consultant.  

The question on the table was whether digital and social media dominance has resulted in a decline in advertising creative quality.  

The succinct answer was “Yes, absolutely.”  

The reason: “the sheer volume and speed with which these adaptations (from traditional media) had to be produced for digital consumption was staggering.”  

Followed by; “This often left little room for the deep reflection and strategizing that traditionally fueled high-quality creative output.”

Once more, with feeling: “Yes, absolutely.”

But there’s something else I think they could add into the mix, call it the serpent in the tree or the skunk at the picnic.

Along with the what Farmer’s guy called “the shift toward quantity over quality,” we’ve also embraced a crack-like addiction to data that promises we can turn persuasion into paint-by-numbers.

All of which puts me in mind of a corollary to Peter Drucker’s famous “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” homily: as the decline in creative quality shows, just because you can manage the damned thing, doesn’t mean you can make it any better.

Or, if recent advertising effectiveness studies are to be believed, even work all that well.

Alright, so here I am sailing, make that flying, off on the bitter boat. But having cranked this far down the screen, I’m thinking there’s a message the people I’m seeing on this side of the flyover states really should hear.

Either let advertising have the time to do the proper creative job. Or give us the people who can do a proper job with the time you make available.

Interested in a list?