I’ve heard more than once how certain esteemed business schools have their students read books such as Art of War (<–click for gayness) and The Book of Five Rings (<– psst!  More gayness!) so as to learn how to properly vanquish their future business rivals.  I’m sure Miyamoto and Sun would have a good laugh at this notion, were they alive today.  For on the continuum of courage/honor/manliness, “bushido warrior” and “Harvard Business School graduate” are pretty close to defining the opposing endpoints.  But alas, every person or group seeks to validate itself by any means necessary.  In other words, Harvard profs are spreading on the bullshit.  Thick.  Perhaps they should also be handing out the “philosophical treatise”, On Bullshit by Harry D. Frankfurt.

Business schools are full of shit, but generally possess no self-awareness of that fact.  We of the marketing industry, however, we know better!  Say it proud!  “We are full of shit!”  That may have a negative connotation to many, but I don’t mean to speak of it in that manner.  Let’s face it, our 4th grade social studies teachers taught us that all humans need are food, clothing, and shelter.  And in certain climates (or in nudist colonies), one could even make the case that all we need is food.  So where does that leave the advertiser who’s trying to boost sales of his clients’ hi-def televisions, GPS maps, and Elmo dolls?  Why, spreading on the bullshit, of course.

On Bullshit is brilliant in its autology - not only is it on the subject of bullshit, it is bullshit.  In the book, Dr. Frankfurt (yeah, he’s an actual Doctor of Philosophy) is doing what the Brits refer to as “taking a piss”:  relaying information that borders on the credible, in hopes that wankers like the aforementioned business school students and this reviewer actually believe it, thus making for a great joke for the rest of us.  From the review:

Having a bachelors degree in philosophy [ed: read, “I am a bullshit artist”] I was intrigued…  this is a work of philosophy and as such has a degree of intellectual humor. Some of the observations and comments are funny but overall this is not a joke book, rather it is designed with a specific philosophical purpose… (he’s an “ivy league” Philosophy Professor and published by Princeton)
-Pedram Agharokh

Gotcha, bitch!

I’m starting to ramble as usual, so I’ll sum this up.  The world is simply full of bullshit.  Everyone’s guilty.  And nowhere moreso than in business and marketing.  I still remember conference calls from my ad agency days, being on the phone with an irate client over some minor website problem.  And all I wanted to say was, “Dude, get ahold of yourself.  You sell burgers.“  Dr. Frankfurt’s book is a good read in that, although it’s not “real”, it nevertheless drives home some very real points, and between the lines seems to question the reader, “Hey, are you aware that you and I are both full of it?”  I mean, how awesome is this (from the book):  “I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.”  Total bullshit.  Brilliant.

So, to marketers:  read the book.  Keep some perspective and have a laugh.  To Pedram Agharokh and the graduating class of Harvard Business School:  I wish you a successful and fulfilling career in the burger industry.

  Can you say, “Management Material”?

I think I may have found the book version of this site (probably with more content though).  It’s called Marketing in the In-Between: A Post-Modern Turn on Madison Avenue by Len Ellis. 

My optical illusion is way cooler than Mr. Ellis’s! Who’s the woman now! If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one color, pink. If you stare at the black + in the center, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black + in the center of the picture. After a short period of time, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will realize that you are a grown man/woman, staring like a dumb animal at your computer screen getting all excited over pink dots that disappear. What the hell are you doing with your life, man? Is this what it has been reduced to? Exactly when was it that your dream dried up and disappeared, like those little pink dots? Ahh, I’m just fucking with ya! Enjoy the dots. (image source)

From what I’ve gathered from excerpts and reviews, it’s an analysis of big-picture marketing trends in the 21st century - AdChops is more about all the small trends, so I guess really we’re more a companion to the book as opposed to the web version of it…  I’m sure Len covers this relationship in his chapter, “Gender: How a Website is Like a Woman” (I shit you not).  So I guess Len is calling me a bitch. :)  Of course, since I’m just putting myself out there to the public I guess I’m actually a slut…  I digress.

The book shows quite a bit of erudition, covering marketing from an almost philosophical perspective.  Ellis blends commentary on the data-analysis and customer loyalty trends of modern marketing with concepts of great thinkers of the last century - from Marxists and their bourgeois v. proletariat to Francois Lyotard’s arguments that data would make humans “subject to the rule of the machine” (he went on in later works to claim that humanity could only be saved through the creation, distribution, and donning of skin-tight, one-piece garments that cover torso and body but leave the legs free, but these works went largely unpublished.  Your dream lives on, sweet Francois).

Francois’s story is for another day.  Ellis’s book seems to be getting some good reviews:

It packs so many clusters of thought, ideas, revelations and connections on every page…It challenges readers to truly ponder and to question the basic precepts and practices upon which marketing is based.

For you marketing folks out there, this book might just give you some fresh insights into your industry (or at the very least, give you some big words to throw around at your next meeting).  And be sure to check back to this site, where I’ll go into more about this book and others like it in my next post, titled “Gender: How Books Are Like Transsexual, Pre-Op Gay Men”.  Check and Mate, Mr. Ellis.