Occupy Madison Avenue

I’ve been following Occupy Wall Street for awhile but trying to keep my head down because I work for an advertising agency. One that services a big financial institution no less. I’m at the bottom of the holy list, some might say.

However when I saw this flier floating around cyberspace promoting “Occupy Madison Avenue” I just could resist the urge to post.

After all the protests were started by Kalle Lasn who founded a magazine called Adbusters (not Bankbusters), so why didn’t he pick off the marketers first? When I first went to London during my university years I saw a copy in some flashy design shop. By the way it was perfectly art directed and the insight of the content I thought it must be written by someone in the industry, trying to push it forward rather than shut it down. Suffice to say that’s not Adbuster’s intention.

So Ad Age asked Lasn why they were picketing Wall St not Madison Ave. The article is a good read, but it basically comes down to people hating on the financial bailouts. He does make the distinction between people who sell products and people who sell ideas. At the end of the day you still need the later in a functioning society, especially at a time of political unrest.

Some NYCers didn’t get this memo as the protest on the advertising industry is apparently happening in two weeks.

I completely agree that the advertising industry, more than any other, needs regulation and unions to stop top level greed and distorted representation. In fact when my BF who works in finance and I meet new people, they see my profession as the worse of the two. However no banker has brought as much positive change to the world as some of the famed mad men.

Unique thinking can be the best and the worst thing, depending on the idea and who’s there to implement it.

The workaholism, disproportionate pay and severe absence of women needs fixing. But at the end of the day we have the best careers in the world, we get paid to be artists. I think instead of protesting I’m going to try to come up with some cool ideas, but if you’re heading down to Maddy Ave then I’ve made you this great poster you can take with:

You’re welcome.