the difference between lawyers and ad execs

May 31, 2005 — Leave a comment

is their publicity.

i was having a conversation this weekend with a judge and he asked me what i did and i flippantly replied that i packaged lies for a living and he replied that it was better than being a lawyer. even lawyers are believing their own bad press.

the only reason that advertising is ahead of the legal profession in terms of respectability is that part of advertising is PR, basically they market the industry better.

advertising is about manipulation, nothing is real.

at my first ad agency job in Trinidad we had one of those multinational fast food chains and a photo shoot of the product would take about half a day. and involved product from at least three different outlets, fake fries, fake ice, Styrofoam and toothpicks; basically the fake fries would be surround by a number of hand picked fries, the bottom of the fry packet, would have a block of Styrofoam with toothpicks upon which the real fries were mounted — bigger looking and fuller bags of fries. after the shoot there would be at least another quarter of a day working on the photos taking out blemishes and making stuff look better. same for models.

i`m not a lawyer, i have no idea what goes on in law offices everyday, but i do know advertising, been doing it for 13 years and i`m good at it, but i also don`t believe the hype. i was cynical enough to believe that i was doing the world a favour. i believe George Orwell said it best: \”Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.\”

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