• by Jack Feuer , July 5, 2007

It's a stay-at-home vacation week, and I can't decide what to do. Spend $600 for a phone I won't be able to activate? Organize a safari to Burbank to find the 7-11 that's been converted to a Kwik E-Mart and look at the dead old guy in the freezer? Check out the movie with the giant robots and count the promotional tie-ins?

I think I'll just watch the cat tear the living crap out of my carpet. More entertaining.

Usually when I'm off duty, I amuse myself by astral ad projection, or AAP. This is where I sample creative and activation executions in as many media as I can and disconnect my emotion button. I just watch the messages fly by -- observing, not reacting -- and grade them on effectiveness.

Astral ad projection is a hoot during the Super Bowl, when I'm also drunk. But it's really fun during the summer, when I can watch during the day and get caught up on the latest breakthroughs in feminine hygiene products. I really like that jelly that warms itself and made a mental note to suggest it to the next woman I chat up in a bar.

Anyway, I went into an AAP trance last night while watching an episode of "The Closer" that contained a Revlon product imbed so obvious -- ergo, useless -- that it made me cackle. I tried it again this morning, as blinking, bleating, rolling, expanding and shrinking ads scrolled across my laptop. I couldn't give a passing grade to a single one.

I was distressed. Has advertising retrograded so badly that I can't even AAP anymore? Apparently. There goes my dream - to be the hero voted onto "Heroes" next season.

Now I realize that communications strategy is not evolving, it's devolving. It's no longer about reaching or motivating or even getting attention. It's about begging. When I AAP these days, I find no persuasion, only pandering. That's why nothing sticks.

It's OK, even essential, to respect your consumer. But marketers today fear their customers. The people are in control. So naturally, consumers are abusing the power and looking for someone to lynch. They want you to beg.

So that's what you do.

It's time to provoke your customers. Maybe even -- blasphemy! -- tell them the truth: It's just colored sugar water, but damn if it doesn't taste good. The Mac has at least as many bugs as the PC, but the Mac will make you feel superior. You'll never be as thin or as pretty as the models in the soap ads, but who aspires to being a dumpy dame in ill-fitting underwear?

Trust me, you'll sell more stuff. And I will again be able to AAP with abandon.