Farting in the elevator

So many pearls of wisdom have been attributed to David Ogilvy that it’s hard to trust the source of the one I’m about to quote.

Not that it really matters. When I first came to McCann in New York

I was a very gullible guy and a very senior and senatorial account man

used to open every presentation with quotes he’d attribute to either the original Mr. McCann or Mr. Erickson or Marion Harper Jr. and for a while I swallowed this shtick whole until he admitted in private that they were all completely bogus. He did it he said to add a degree of gravitas to whatever cornpone he was feeding his clients.

So this Ogilvy gem may be real or totally cubic zirconium.

`Getting attention is easy. Anyone who farts in an elevator gets attention.

Getting attention for the right reason is a more difficult task.’

Whether he said it or not the principle is right. I was reminded of it recently when I saw two commercials. One for Kmart where people use the word `Ship’ as though they are saying `Shit’. For example-`I ship my pants’  ` I ship my bed’ etc.

Another spot I saw was for an on-line travel-booking site called bookit.com and features the use of the word `Booking’ as though it meant `Fucking.’  For example –`Look at the booking room', `the booking view', `we’re so booking happy' and so on.

Is it possible that these campaigns were crowd sourced from a group made up exclusively of boys in first grade? But that only makes sense to me if the clients buying the work were also first graders. Then I could imaging what a laugh riot the presentation was,much rib holding and rolling on the floor ensuing. Alas the folks buying this work are all probably MBA alumni of some prestigious alma mater somewhere.

And their justification is probably that the work `tested through the roof.’

I’ll save my thoughts on testing for another post but I will say that having gone through the roof this work should have continued its trajectory and landed somewhere safely out at sea where it could mingle anonymously with all the other excrement out there.

I have no squeamishness about the use of the words fuck and shit. They are everyday words and in the right context bring authenticity to dialogue. In England where I grew up much coarser words are often used as terms of endearment. It’s the farting in the elevator aspect I don’t like. Yes you got my attention. I can recall it clearly not only because it makes you look stupid but because it assumes I am equally as infantile.

I wonder if in the presentation some slick account dude started off with the famous quote from H.L Mencken `Nobody went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.’

In which case it’s a pity David Ogilvy is in the great boardroom in the sky as he could have piped up `Never insult the customer-she is your wife.’