apocalypse now?

I feel like a broken record, but advertising has been in trouble for some time now. I knew it was bad in September while I was in New York. I knew it was awful a month ago when I emailed my resume to an agency hours after it announced a new account, only to receive an automated response that their disk crashed. And now there's today's AdAge article by Bob Garfield.

Here's part of Garfield's intro:

Chicken Little, don your hardhat. Nudged by recession, doom has arrived.

The toll will be so vast -- and the institutions of media and marketing are so central to our economy, our culture, our democracy and our very selves -- that it's easy to fantasize about some miraculous preserver of "reach" dangling just out of reach. We need "mass," so mass, therefore, must survive. Alas, economies are unsentimental and denial unproductive. The post-advertising age is under way.

This isn't about the end of commerce or the end of marketing or news or entertainment. All of the above are finding new expressions online, and in time will flourish thanks to the very digital revolution that is now ravaging them. The future is bright. But the present is apocalyptic. Any hope for a seamless transition -- or any transition at all -- from mass media and marketing to micro media and marketing are absurd.

The sky is falling, the frog in the pot has come to a boil and, oh yeah, we are, most of us, exquisitely, irretrievably fucked.

Advertising is infamous for its incessant evolution. Like Garfield, I suppose, my gloom has turned into sheer curiosity: what the hell is going to come out of this mess?

professional what?

There's something odd about this economic downturn - but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read this Wall Street Journal article.

In it, Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn points out that the 64% of Americans who identify themselves as 'professionals' are hit harder than those employed in, say, the fast-food industry.

Bottom line: the stimulus package will create jobs, but not relevant ones for professionals who perhaps need it the most. Penn said it best:

We are totally unprepared for this new phenomenon. We have safety nets for the chronically unemployed, for the fast-food workers let go (oddly they may be the only ones keeping their jobs in this recession), and for the manufacturing plants that have been shuttered. The stimulus will create construction jobs galore. But we have nothing for the tens of thousands of displaced advertising creatives and newspaper writers and editors that are among the newly unemployed. They can't build roads -- all they learned how to do was to write ads and draft editorials.

To reach their target audience, great creatives use ideas to build a bridge.

If push comes to shove, will they trade thinking caps for hard hats?

newsflash: media needs to embrace change

With the topsy-turvy nature of our economy lately, it's no surprise change is finally knocking on the media industry's door. In a Market Watch article today, Jon Friedman explains that another side effect of the times has lead to the decreased value of media celebrity, with CNBC's Jonathan Wald as a cautionary tale.

But what really bothered me was the following logic:

What this means to the public is that journalism quality is going to sink. TV stations will try to hire younger, less experienced, less sophisticated news professionals as a way to keep costs down.

Did Friedman really just say that? Yes, yes he did. An eternal optimist and relentless advocate for giving new talent a chance, I have many qualms with the above paragraph.

• One: Okay, okay - journalism will change because of the influx of novice reporters. But that's a good thing. Journalism has been in dire need of a makeover for some time. We're no longer living in an era of good ole boy newsrooms with reporters old enough to be my grandfather. Somehow, the industry missed that headline.

• Two: Fresh minds mean fresh ideas. For example, maybe we'll see more integration with social media, like Twitter feedback from viewers on the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

Think of how the Bush administration communicated with constituents over the past eight years. Now think about Obama's communication methods during just the first few weeks in office. That's one big breath of fresh air - and one that was long overdue.

• Three: What if Barbara Walters was never given a chance? Even the great Miss O herself was once wet behind the ears. Point is, there are bright, eager journalists out there with brilliant ideas but without a platform from which to execute them.

What it boils down to for me is that being young and inexperienced is not a weakness. It's an opportunity - not only for the new grad entering the workforce, but also for the employer smart enough to hire a change agent when they meet one.

a sign of the times

In response to the unstable economy, automaker Hyundai launched its unusual "Assurance Program" with ads from San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners yesterday.

It's simple: if you buy or lease a new Hyundai and within the next year lose your income due to a job loss, you can return your car for free. Sans penalty.

The tagline: certainty in uncertain times.

I like the idea. Or, at least, I'm trying to like it. It's a great gesture, one along the lines of when the automaker became the first in the U.S. to offer a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty in 1998.

But it feels like the buyer should be knocking on wood before signing on the dotted line. After all, it's hard to be enthusiastic about the prospect of losing your job. You know things are bad when the elephant in the room is not only addressed but also invited to carve the turkey and stay for dinner.

Kudos to Hyundai for making such a bold move. I'm curious, though, how their program will play out with consumers over the next year.