Blame the job stuff: meetings, commercial writing, tweaking, revisions, ,more writing, more tweaking throwing everything out, starting again, presenting again, trying to find the stuff that was thrown out and presenting it again. On and on went the Sisyphean roller coaster that is advertising.
But! Other things happened outside of the advertising bubble (thank goodness!) and so here is a roundup of the month that was November, or, as they say in German, November.
The Underwear Situation
Until now I have visited Canada with enough frequency that my underwear drawer has remained well stocked with good Canadian underpants, like the good ol' Canadian boy I try to be. I am currently in the longest stretch between visits to Canada (18 months) and have stretched my underwear drawer thin.
Instead of turning yesterday's underpants inside out and donning them for a second day, I went underpants shopping in Germany for the first time. It lasted five minutes, cost little, and I was proud until I tried on a pair.
For starters, a German medium is like a Canadian small. The tight elastic bands around my waist were so tight they gave me a muffin top. They also wedgied me and generally constricted everything in uncomfortable ways.
Arguing over the return policy for underpants it didn't seem like a fun way to practice my German, so I went to a fancier store and paid a premium for quality underwear for the German larges. I threw in a pair of loose boxers, just in case.
Voting with hearts, not minds
One thing you learn in advertising is that successful brands don't make a rational argument to get you to buy their product – they make an emotional argument.
Think you're aware of what they're doing and all your purchase decisions are based on rational thought? Wrong! Studies show people are great at rationalizing their emotions in order to validate their purchase decisions.
The same can be applied to voting. My favourite example is Barack Obama, who ran on hope and won. Canada's new PM ran on "Sunny Ways" against a grumpy, cynical rival and also won.
This year we saw the other, darker side of emotional positioning in politics.
Voters in Britain were told their country no longer belongs to them and were invited to take it back, despite the political and economic consequences. The Donald in America, appealed to a fearful, frustrated white working class with nostalgia, bigotry, sexism, and vague promises of prosperity to win the presidency.
Of course, great advertising can't save a lousy product, so both of those emotional propositions were buttressed with lies, half-truths, and obfuscations.
Next month, Italy holds a referendum on constitutional reforms that could decide the fate of the current centrist government. Austria has the run-off vote for its presidency this Sunday. French presidential elections are next spring. German federal elections are in the autumn.
Emotional messages around the nation work, especially when supported with falsehoods.
If the current Powers That Be wish to remain in power, they will have to find similarly strong emotional messaging for voters – dismissing anyone outside the centre as racist or radical doesn't count. And they shouldn't feel like they have to lie, they're selling a great product: Democracy.
iPhone ergo iMarshall
I have joined the 2010s! I still type like one thumb, I haven't joined the Snapchat, and I still miss the simplicity of a flip phone or my old Blackberry's keypad, but I'm adjusting.
My last phone for the last two years was a Windows phone, which had a nice interface and was easy to use by Luddite standards. Now, I am easing myself into a new operating system, with new swipes and taps and icons and actions, and a daunting new world of apps.
It also comes with a cool camera, so as I adjust to the 2010s, I will take some pretty pictures along the way.
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| The era of the iPhone Photos in Strange Places has begun! |