The not entirely accurate guide for New Yorkers who somehow end up living in Minneapolis.

• A quick wit polarizes Minnesotans. They find it either distasteful or delightful and nothing in between.

• Minnesotans work hard from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is work time. Non-work time is time when you do not work. If work time somehow encroaches on non-work time, then it’s because someone didn't follow the procedure.

• Minnesotans love procedure. Procedure is the way things need to be done. If something doesn't get done or done right, BUT it was done according to procedure, then it is still okay because everyone (thankfully) followed procedure. 

• Every Minnesotan has a cabin. They will occasionally say “We should have you up to the cabin sometime.” Rest assured, you will never go “Up to the cabin.” This is a generalized statement of situational approval and not an invitation. It's just to let you know that they like you well enough to tell you they have a cabin that you won’t ever go to.

• 87.3% of Minnesotans have boats. They will, if you are lucky, invite you out on their boat. You will need to accept this invitation if offered. Cancel surgeries, and postpone Bar Mitzvahs. Once an invitation to “Go out on the boat,” has been declined you will not receive another. Ever.

• Under no circumstances should you get you’re own boat. You’re just going to hit other boats, run over swimmers, accidentally set fire to yourself and others, and sink your car in the lake trying to get it in and out. 

• The biggest lake closest to you is always referred to as “The Lake.”

• Every home decorations store has an endless supply of “lake house” throw pillows, candles, wine glasses, and faux weathered signs that say things like “Eat. Pray. Lake.” 

• Minnesotans use “nice” like how New Yorkers use sarcasm. It's for bonding, shaming, judging, sharing information, and bullying. Ironically, New Yorkers are 100% immune to all the negative forms of “Minnesota Nice” but are utterly helpless against the actual “nice” uses of nice.

• Minnesotans make excellent meat and cheese things. Curds are like mozzarella sticks if mozzarella sticks weren’t a consistently disappointing horror show. Yes, most of the cheese in Minnesota comes from Wisconsin, but Minnesotans talk unsurprisingly little about this.

• Wisconsin is Minnesotas New Jersey. Lower taxes, flagrant political corruption, firearms everywhere, lower gas prices, and a rampant spirit of near lawlessness in every interaction. Iowa is Minnesotas Pennsylvania, except that there are no big cities. Iowans get fairly upset when you tell them that Des Moines is a lovely place, but it’s not really a city. 

• There are no bagels here. Locals will say that there are. But there aren’t. Yes, there are a couple of places that make almost bagels. This is also true for pizza. There is very little NY-style pizza here. There are places that serve delicious things they say is pizza. You’ll have to enjoy these instead. 

• Minnesotans love sauces. Don't be surprised if you get a burger that has 11 sauces on it. There’s cheese sauce, six forms of BBQ, a spicy tomato chutney, a cool ranch dill, and on and on. Seriously, if you just want a cheeseburger that's just a really good cheeseburger, without applewood smoked bacon, pork rinds, avocado, chimichurri, pickled onions, and cheesy mayo, then yeah, it's a struggle. 

• Good luck my vegan friends. Even the vegetarian burgers come with cheese and bacon.

• Minnesotans don't want any new friends. New Yorkers are used to people dropping in and out of our lives. Minnesotans are not. They have the same friends since they were in the womb and don't have time for anyone else. So if you’re looking to make friends, find other transplants.

• Minnesotans have consistently good, but not championship sports teams. These are teams that regularly get into the playoffs and then blow it in the first or second round. The moaning and grousing of Vikings and Twins fans is insufferable to the ears of a Jets and Mets fan. If you won almost as many games as you lost, then you’re doing great and we don’t want to hear about it.

• Minnesotans don’t give a shit how cold it is, they’re going outside. When it’s cold for like 9 months of the year, you can’t hide indoors. You will literally go insane. Outside there’s lake hockey, skiing, ice fishing, show-shoeing, weird Nordic bocce-like games that usually involve drinking, and fire pits that also involve drinking. All of these are great fun. It's not like that one day it snows in NYC and everyone stays home except for some ridiculous jerkoff who shows up for the NY1 TV cameras in his late 90’s cross-country outfit and treks across Sheep Meadow on barely an inch of snow. 

• You're going to need more coats. You’ll need a big coat for -20F weather. A slightly less big, but still warm coat for most of the winter and a couple of “jackets,” that are only for days when it is below 29F but above 17F.

• Yes, the winter is colder than Chicago. But there is less wind and way more sunshine, like almost California levels of sunshine. 

• It’s nice here. Ha. Do I miss New York? Fuck yes. I miss the energy, the potential, and the ambition of New York. I miss the food and the diversity. I miss feeling a city alive around me. But there are lovely people here, who will get you drunk on Glühwein and wave at you when you’re clearing snow. There are nice houses you can afford. And schools that don’t require you to win the lottery to get a good education. I walk to the lake every day and sometimes swim in it. If I wanted to fish I could fish. If I wanted to kayak I could kayakak. Sometimes I go to Prince's house and think about how he and Cher got all their furniture from the same Everything Purple store. It’s good here. And if through glorious opportunity, or regrettable decision-making, you end up here, you’ll probably like it too.

The Marginally Accurate Glossary of Vague Creative Direction

Creative Directors often give advice that is both incredibly insightful and completely nebulous.

After a few years of both getting and giving wooly direction, I thought we could all start on a glossary of amorphous terms and what they probably mean.

“Have fun with it”

The basic insight and premise are good but the execution doesn’t feel rewarding/entertaining/enjoyable enough to capture much interest.

“Keep Going”

The basic insight, premise or execution seem under-developed or too obvious. This vague direction is about looking for alternate (meaning new) ways of thinking about and presenting the problem and/or the solution.

“Meh”

This idea is probably isn’t worth exploring further, and maybe not even spending much time discussing. Let’s move on.

“I don’t love it”

Some part of the execution or premise is off-putting, wrong-footed, or fails to meet the brief.

“I don’t hate it”

I like it, let me think about how we can move this through the gauntlet of approvals while keeping most of the fun stuff still intact.

“It feels familiar”

I just saw this idea/execution/line/design at an awards show 3 years ago.

Or, this reminds me of something my ex-partner and I did, and since we’re not speaking to each other, I can’t do anything even remotely similar, even though it was your idea.

“Needs to turn the corner”

Get to the RTB or CTA faster.

“Too straight/right up the middle”

A solution that is just a straightforward explanation of the product and what it does.

“A lucky-strike extra”

Describing a magnificently great idea that is off brief but would be hugely successful, and will probably never get made but is too good to just leave on the table.

“Don’t fuck it up.”

I’m trusting you to not fuck this up.

“Tasty”

I like it a lot and I think other people will too.

“Make it sticky”

Some line, phrase or title that sums up the idea like a trend, making it easy and inviting to remember for the client, award show judges and consumer (maybe).

“I’m a little underwhelmed.”

I’m not seeing the effort that will make the most of this opportunity - can refer to the volume of ideas or their impact.

“Make it look more premium”

Use darker. Shades of browns and reds with serif fonts, metallic gradients, filigree elements, leather/polished wood textures and photography with a chiaroscuro use of light and shadows. Basically, if an expensive cognac brand made a luxury car out of an Italian leather shoe.

“Make it look more modern/clean”

Clean white backgrounds, sanserif fonts, minimal shadows on product, memorable lifestyle photography with interesting humans, like Apple, or Google or Samsung or anyone else obsessed with “simple” or “clean” messaging.

“Make it look more iconic/hipper”

Wes Anderson style color pallets, chunky and flow-y fonts, tinted amateurish photos, flat graphic/playful elements.

“Let’s back-pocket this”

I like this but

A) we already have enough ideas and this one isn’t as developed as others.

Or B) I know you have a lot of heart for this idea and it is really good, but other people in the organization hate is a seething gangrenous hate.

Or C) I can’t sell this to the client right now because our current relationship is too new/guarded/ tenuous /mismanaged/ acrimonious.

“Genius”

I wish I had thought of it. Fuck you for being more talented than me.

Your hot take on AI doesn’t matter. Mine neither.

It doesn’t matter a tinker’s cuss if I love the idea of AI creating advertising or hate it.

All our well-considered and sage opinions are tragically unimportant because the real value of AI isn’t about expanding creative opportunities. It’s about the money.

Well, money and being at the forefront of a very enticing tech trend. Not that there is anything wrong with that, no one wants to seem like an advertising codger, metaphorically smelling of urine and menthol cigarettes, leaning on a walker, shouting at teenagers about how the music these days isn’t like how it was at Lollapalooza.

For better or for worse, advertising is married to tech. Not that new tech always brings that much to the table and is most often used to annoy consumers in places they’ve never been annoyed before.

The unspoken truth about new technology is that most consumers don’t use it.

In most cases, innovation just isn’t all that personally relevant to most people. UNLESS it is used to enhance a customer’s experience. Remember Adam Berg’s wonderful 2009 film for Phillips Carousel, or CP+B’s super fun Subservient Chicken? All good stuff, that captured the imaginations and interest of consumers using new techniques and new tech. Delighting audiences by creating more enjoyable and memorable ad experiences is the best use of new technology in advertising, and that’s why we love it.

The problem is that AI isn’t going to go big because it offers consumers something that they’ve never seen before. The real reason AI will be adopted by almost every ad agency is because AI supports three dominant trends in our industry:

Modest budgets
Tiny timelines
Smaller expressions

AI will be adopted because it isn’t a person. It doesn’t push back on crazy deadlines. It doesn't expect pay raises for doing amazing work. It doesn’t take PTO or ask about maternity leave. AI works overnight, on weekends, and on every holiday. It doesn’t mind creating 287 rounds of a single banner; or a digital anthem film that is exactly like every other digital anthem film. It doesn’t push back on random subjectivity with years of experience. It just does whatever you ask it to do because it’s a machine. It has no sense of taste, no drive to originality, and no mandate to innovate.

AI is the creative vending machine that so many people have wanted for so many years. Is it innovative? Procedurally. Is it focused on enhancing the consumer experience? No. Will it create lasting brands and unforgettable work? There's no evidence of this. Will it create cultural moments that live rent-free in consumers’ minds for decades? You bet it will… JK, fuck no, in fact it’s by function guaranteed to be repetitive and derivative to the point of violating IP. But will it make money? Hell yeah baby, it will print it. All those salaries that went to human hands can now be distributed to share-holders.

So, when we talk about AI, keep in mind the drivers of the conversation. Will AI create opportunities? A few. But it’s not really about more memorable and unique consumer experiences and it’s not about building culturally influential brands. It's about fulfilling an advertising work order as quickly and cheaply as possible.

The Incomplete and Eternal Rules of Advertising.

In all our delightful and never anxiety-producing discussions of AI argle-bargle, SEO shenanigans, performance poppycock, and programmatic bafflegab, the most basic laws of advertising physics get forgotten. Executions, trends, and tech all change, and that's truly the fun part. But every new rocket ever built had to start with a clear understanding of gravity.

No one wants advertising

Let’s start with the most obvious rule ever, the one that we completely forget 100% of the time. Advertising isn’t something anyone is excitedly anticipating. No one breathlessly waits for another HubSpot or Panda Copy ad to appear in their feed, during a video, outside the window, or above the urinal. We forget that just because we make something, doesn’t mean anyone wants it.

Seriously, no one fucking wants advertising

If we’re really honest, and why not, social media is the ideal self-indulgent venue for warts-and-all honestly, the consumer attitude toward advertising isn’t just disinterested apathy. It’s more like an active annoyance to persistent acrimony. Consumers find advertising, intrusive, unrewarding, pedantic, misleading, patronizing, repetitive, and boring. And that's when they bother to notice it. It's super important for each one of us to accept that the starting point for any ad experience isn’t a neutral audience. It’s a passively negative one, at the very least. And yes, this is even true with targeted ads.

If you can be ignored you will be

Consumers only see what they care about. Everything that isn’t immediately interesting, entertaining, or relevant is quickly dismissed. And why the assballs shouldn’t it be? Everyone has something else more fun to listen to, read, or watch than another ad. Attention is earned, not paid for. Advertising doesn't compete with other advertising for consumer attention. It competes with everything else in the world that’s more interesting.

If you’re not always asking “Why would I give a fuck about this ad,” nobody else will either

People aren’t looking for reasons to look at your ad, they're looking for reasons not to. Don’t give them one.

Being irrelevant is easy, just talk about yourself

I was in a meeting last week where I had the opportunity to present my observations, informed by my 20+ years of advertising expertise, that resulted in my best-in-class decision-making process, and why the fuck would you read any further? We’re all so scared of not being valued that we gleefully waste everyone’s time talking about how valuable we are. If you want to be valued, make something that your audience will value.

Consumers don’t care how any of the c-suite stakeholders feel about the brand positioning initiatives outlined in the 2024-26 planning session

Unless every decision starts with “Because the consumer feels X,” then the message will get lost. Consumers are engorged with self-interest. They don’t care about the recent merger resulting in the misalignment of key marketing objectives. They only care how they feel about the world they work and live in. And that's it. They want their fears, ambitions, and problems honestly and uniquely represented in entertaining, empowering, and validating ways. Anything else wastes your money and their attention/

The thoughtfully rational argument already lost

Wouldn’t it be great if the world was full of thoughtful consumers, who carefully weigh the logic of their decisions? Sadly, we’re a planet of emotionally needy turbo-Karens who desperately want to be heard, adored, and amused. That's just who human beings are, and the more you’re okay with the inherently irrational nature of our decision-making, the cheaper, better, and more successful your advertising will be.

And yes, to all my “content” fam, informing your customer can be persuasive, but first, they have to decide to listen to you, which they won’t do until you prove you love them for being the shameless needy stimulus junkies that they are.

It's not what it does, it’s what it feels

No one buys a Lambo because they need a car. Nothing about it is at all practical or even terribly useful. It is, however, a lovely car to turn up in. Everyone looks at you with envy and admiration. Or at least it feels like they do, and that's what matters. The same goes for using Tide, eating Progresso soup, or wearing Ferragamo shoes. We don’t choose these things to solve the problem of transportation, dirty laundry, lunch hunger, or tender bare feet. We buy them because it feels good to have brands that tell us we aren’t losers driving a ‘92 Geo Metro, smelling like no-name detergent, and breathing store-brand soup breath, while hobbling through life in our dollar store crock-offs.

Advertising isn’t about sales, the same way that dating isn’t about not dying alone

If the whole reason you date is so someone will be there when you snuff it, you’re not going to have many second dates.

The goal of advertising isn’t to generate sales. It’s to create a relationship where every sale doesn’t require another new ad. The goal of good advertising is to need less advertising. When your message affects consumer behavior for months and years, that’s when you’ve gotten an ROI worth the highest of business bro high-fives.

Advertising, like dating, is about building a relationship so that every interaction doesn’t have to start from 0.

The worst possible decision in advertising is not making one

Absolutely nothing is gained by doing nothing. Some might argue that doing nothing also costs nothing. Which is outrageously untrue. Cultural moments pass, opportunities cool, ideas are forfeited, and expert resources migrate away. Inaction causes all the thinking, planning, and expertise assembled to melt away like butter in the Texas sun. And that cost is real, actual money. Not just in the loss of utilization, but in the inevitable rebooting of the project, only now with less time, new resources, and no money.

Just because no one thinks to put a line item loss on a spreadsheet labeled, “inaction,” doesn’t mean it’s not a big loss.

Adequately Successful Advertising Creative Directors Do These…

I’ve been a CD for over 17 years. During that time, I learned lots of useful and horrible things, many of which I never wanted to learn and deeply regret knowing. But if you are sufficiently misguided and aim to become a highly successful creative director who makes loads of money, wins tons of trophies, and gets black-out drunk at awards shows (which, to be clear, you should definitely not do at the 2009 Mercury Awards) then I have the following unsavory, and only slightly useful advice.

Be good-looking. Attractive and fit people with smooth skin and stylish hats are extremely talented and very enjoyable to have in meetings. Not being attractive means that you don’t care enough about the creative process to be attractive in meetings.

Be a famous actor. Being a famous actor means that you always have great ideas that no one else has ever had and you’re totally relevant to everyone, even all those people who lacked the ambition to become famous actors. And of course, working with a famous actor who is a creative director means that they will occasionally come to critical meetings. And this means that people get to say they met someone famous in a meeting. Which makes everyone very excited about meetings.

Wear stylish outfits. No one who isn’t stylish is at all relevant and not worth listening to. Being super on trend is a sign that you are committed to always being on trend and therefore know what is trending, which is enormously reassuring to every consumer who sees familiar trends being used as marketing tools. 

Embrace anthems. Be very good at anthems. Rousing, inspiring manifestos that congeal all the internal unaligned divisions into a vague but unified position that everyone can feel mildly enthusiastic about when it’s made into a sizzle video for the semi-annual stakeholders meeting in Reno.

Smile. A lot. Be completely easy-going and collaborative, entertaining every idea from every person during every meeting; no matter how far along the project is, or how contradictory, ill-considered, or unoriginal those ideas are. Remember, your decades of experience with millions of $ of work, generating tens of millions in earned media and record sales, are no more valid than the off-hand comment from the summer intern sitting in on their first agency call. 

Always win. People like winners. They don’t like people who don’t win. “Not Winners” are the worst sorts of people because their not-winning ideas do not align with the 100% winning goals of most organizations. Always remember: winning always wins. 

Make every hire “The best hire.” Only hire affordable people who will make great work very quickly and with very little effort. Make sure that you don’t hire people who need extra help or have any life demands placed on their time, like children or relationships with people who aren’t coworkers.

Be a managerial natural. Intuitively know what to say and do to manage an ambitious, talented, unsatisfied group of emotionally needy creatives, who both rely on you and resent you; helping them work better with each other, generating their own opportunities, and guiding them along their career path - without having a single minute of managerial training, other than the dysfunctionally toxic work environments that you lived through.

Win every award, every year. Your value as a creative leader is only measured in the past 12 months. Anything older means you simply aren’t creative anymore and have totally lost the ability to solve problems in delightful and surprising ways and someone will be around shortly to drive you to a farm upstate, where you will frolic in the open sunny fields until you snuff it. 

Always say “Yes.” Everyone hates hearing “no.” so don’t say it. “No,” isn’t the right answer anyway. The right option is the one that makes everyone happy and that’s always “Yes.” Remember, always say “no” to “no.”

Be 25-36. Becoming old is a colossal error that should be avoided by everyone in advertising. Getting older means that you obviously didn’t think being young was important enough to continue being young. Your agency and the entire micro-network of agencies that were randomly put together by the holding company, all depend upon you being young. Always remember that older people have let everyone down and have nothing to offer. Sure, they might have done something cool in the late 1900’s, before Google ad words and social posts were invented. But that was ages ago when smartphones were clay tablets.

Be right. No one likes someone who is wrong. Being wrong is bad, don’t be wrong. 

Always be upbeat. Everything is always going to be great. You’re always super excited. Everyone is going to “hit the ground running, jumping right in,” with “all hands on deck,” to work on the project, all day, every day, overnight, and on weekends; canceling vacations, Dr’s appointments, and celebrations to create something that strategically aligns with the client’s goals and is within the budget that was never defined.

Be a better business person than business people. Even though you did not go to business school, and were in no way offered business courses, and you neither wanted nor were even slightly interested in learning business stuff, you must understand business situations and jargon better than 98% of people who did go to business school and who have decades of experience being business people. 

Embrace every new technology. Who are you to decide which technologies are ridiculous and irrelevant snake oil that will only waste time and money? Functionality and relevance aren’t the point. The point is being on the leading edge of something new. New is always new. Not-new is less new and being new is always better. If you’re not busy being new, then you’re busy being old. 

Leave. Develop a persistent casual paranoia of the Machiavellian plots that are working against you. If you are a force for change, know that change causes fear and disruption. If you are a force of stability, know that people bristle against rules. There is no amount of kindness, experience, or value that will counter the inherent discontent of differing agendas. Be your own Nostradamus. Look for the unspoken expectations and the poisonous narratives. Establish key goals that will positively impact your people and the organization.

And when those are met, leave.

People are impressed by someone who creates positive change and wants to create more somewhere else. They are never quite as impressed by the “team players” who stuck around. Remember that the only team that really matters is yours.

Don’t listen. It is everyone else’s job to be a cautious realist. There are armies of people who can scale down, put up guardrails, and sand smooth every rough corner. You will NEVER be better at it than they are. In the world of worried suits, not only do you have fewer suits, you cannot possibly worry more, deeper, or longer than they can. There are countless multitudes of marketing people whose only job is making safe decisions. There’s really no talent to it, that’s why there are so many of them. And there are just as many cynical defeatists who protect their traumatized souls with negativity.

But that’s not you. Your role isn’t to embrace the nagging minutia of infinite concerns, and it’s not to give in to some defeated “realism.” Your job is to help your people make greater things. And doing something great usually means knowing when not to listen.

Even to me.