• by Jeff Einstein , October 4, 2004

Filmmaker and star Albert Brooks started his storied career as a stand-up comedian. One of his very best routines -- one often replayed on "Best of Carson" reruns -- was when he stood before the studio audience one night and admitted that he had run out of new material to perform for them.

Paraphrased, the routine starts as follows: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Albert Brooks. I'm 26-years-old, at the height of my stand-up career, and can you believe it, I'm fresh out of material."

"Oh, I could make you laugh," he goes on to say. "I could go for the cheap, easy laugh. I could drop my pants to reveal funny faces painted on my knees." Then he drops his pants to reveal -- sure enough -- funny faces painted on his knees.

"But that's not the real me," he cautions. "Or I could have someone rush in from offstage and hit me in the face with a cream pie," followed by the same disclaimer once again, this time delivered with a face covered in whipped cream: "But that's not the real me..."

The entire routine followed the same taxonomy: Set up for the cheap gag, the cheap gag, and disclaimer. I bring it up for two reasons: 1) It's kind of how I feel about my column this week, and 2) It's kind of how I feel about marketing in general nowadays.

"Oh, I could sell you something," I'd say. "I could blast a million e-mails in a matter of minutes." But that's not the real me. Or, "I could hire some struggling actors to sit in a bar and pretend to be something they're not." But that's not the real me either.

Well, on second thought, maybe it is the real me. As a marketer in today's market, the real me usually cares more about the advantage than the truth. The real me doesn't think much one way or the other about my own contribution to the degradation of the marketing ecology (see Matthew Syrett's brilliant "The Tragedy of the Advertising Commons" essay).

The real me would rather leverage my own expertise alongside the ignorance of my client, rather than explore what we have in common. The real me would rather meet my numbers than meet my obligations to the marketing and advertising community at large.

"Oh, I could sell you something," I'd say. But the real me would rather drop my price points -- not to mention my pants -- than walk away from new business on the table. The real me would rather complain about the lack of business ethics to colleagues over drinks than practice what I preach -- all the while invoking the same tired old refrain: "But that's not the real me."

We've moved from the era of the hard sell to the age of the quick sell. In retrospect, I think I prefer the hard sell. At least I could turn it off. By contrast, I can't seem to escape the quick sell. It's like Visa, everywhere I want to be. Either way, there seems to be little room for dissenting, less polluting methodologies.

It's kind of like what happened back in the 70's and 80's during the debate over disposable diapers. Eventually, the environmentalists all but surrendered when it became apparent that washing and re-circulating cloth diapers consumed more resources than their disposable counterparts. Both ways polluted.

Is our contribution as marketers then to be measured in terms of the least damage as opposed to the most good? Your thoughts?

Many thanks, as always, and best to you and yours...

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