Thursday May 12, 2005

Auletta’s Duck Soup

When Ken Auletta went in search of the future of advertising in The New Yorker and could do no better than the Aflac duck, I said nothing. Surely, I thought, some clever young letter writer will set the poor guy straight about what’s really going on out there, where VW sponsors short films and Audi creates elaborate alternative realities and Mini perpetrates online hoaxes, etc.

Instead, the May 9 issue arrived with two letters about Auletta’s article. One finds the Aflac duck fishy—a little too radical, perhaps—when measured against the antique theories of Rosser Reeves, circa 1961. The other, written by the woman who sang McDonald’s “You Deserve a Break Today” song, laments the death of the jingle as the ad industry’s dominant marketing tool.

Apparent median age of New Yorker letter writers? 132.

Posted by jim at 09:03 AM ||