• by Jack Feuer , August 15, 2007

My apartment complex installed washers and dryers in every unit, and mine is alive. If I put too many clothes in the dryer, it keeps spinning until they're dry, regardless of what time I set. A smaller load, it shuts itself off when they're ready. And when it's done, it plays a little jig.

I think my dryer's Irish.

That right there is a media idea. If the damn thing can turn itself on and off and play a tune, it ought to be able to tell me when there's a sale on detergent at my local Albertson's as well.

Creatives are masterful at stealing good ideas from areas not even remotely related to advertising, but so far, most media executives don't seem to have that gene. Yet the truth is way out there.

You can find inspiration for planning, investment or strategic breakthroughs in the oddest places. For example, the Los Angeles Times this week ran a story on how the Motion Picture Association of America describes why it assigns certain films certain ratings, and the parallels to the media business were uncanny.

One flick, for example, got an R for "graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language -- all involving puppets." As apt a description of an upfront party as I've ever heard. Another R was given to a movie for "zombie-related violence." Nielsen in a nutshell.

And a third received a PG-13 for "intense depiction of very bad weather," which, of course, is a kinder, gentler, way of characterizing the pitiful, mewling thing that is newspapers.

And since the 4As wouldn't be able to charge you a small fortune to attend its conferences without some looming apocalypse that threatens Your Very Survival, I found a New York Times piece that fits the current shivering state of anxiety about digital technology like a glove.

The piece is about Dr. Nick Bostrom, who heads -- I am not making this up -- the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. He believes "it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else's computer simulation." Intelligent design: just another communications channel.

So where are these flights of fanciful inquiry at the 4As Media Conference? Why are all the speakers from media or marketing? I'll tell you why. Because you are herd animals. The ideas that become consensus are generated by a handful of leading companies, client superstars and agency heroes who are part of the media industry machine. Everybody else follows.

Look beyond your own borders. You'll be amazed at what you'll find. And as always, I'm here to help. I tender an open invitation to every agency type and client to put down Verklin's book, come over to my place, and check out my dryer. You'll get brainstorms.

And maybe, if we're lucky, some graphic crude and sexual humor involving puppets.