Letters

Ad Industry Should Embrace TiVo, Not Fear ItAs I watch with interest the ascendancy of Maurice Lévy, the tossing aside of a venerable agency, John Dooner hoping his company's accounting practices are not quite as slick as his hair, and Donny Deutsch the bad boy railing against all things advertising (except his own), one has to wonder, how bad can it get? Not to mention the growing ranks of the advertising unemployed and the minuscule profit margins marketers seem willing to allow their agency "partners" to earn. It ain't pretty, but hey, at least we have our wonderful creative award shows, where agencies can celebrate their excesses—I mean successes—without client interference or involvement.And, to top it all off, now we face the Death Star, the opportunity for TV viewers to shut us out entirely with their TiVos, ReplayTV and, according to a recent New York Times article, potentially their own customized cable service. On this particular challenge, I suggest we embrace it and own it. This may in fact be the opportunity many of our clients have been looking for, to use TV to target more effectively and (heaven help us) maybe even provide an opportunity to correlate sales to their advertising. We need to allow viewers to choose to pay (and be paid) based on the amount of commercial-free TV and the amount of involvement and information that they are willing to provide marketers.As the advertising and media industry, we have an opportunity to grab a new level of choice for consumers and make it work for all those involved.For once, let's grab the moment and not react after the fact. There's already plenty to be concerned about in our wonderful business.Barry SilversteinEvp, group directorArnold McGrathNew YorkPop Songs in Commercials: Playing the Wrong TuneThe other night I saw a spot by Wrangler. It had a lot of good shots of blue jeans and a whole bunch of Americana. It was cut to an old Creedence song called "Fortunate One." The lyrics are: "Some folks are born/Made to wave the flag/You know they're red, white and blue." Hey, that's good stuff, especially during a war.But wait! I think I recall that the chorus goes something like: "It ain't me/It ain't me/I ain't no fortunate one." I asked a friend of mine, an art director, a medic during his tour of Vietnam, if this in fact wasn't an old anti-war song. We always thought it was. He said the spot was probably written by a twenty something, and you couldn't expect him or her to know what the song was about.It reminds me of a few years ago, when a Mercedes spot used the Janis Joplin song with the lyrics, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz." I always thought that song was meant to be ironic. What do I know?This is stuff done by good agencies. Why are they trampling on our culture? I hate the fact that they use good songs, but at least they should attempt to understand them.I don't think TBWA\Chiat\Day is to blame. Years ago they told the industry they didn't do jingles. Instead, they used songs from our popular culture in their virgin form. For all I know, they cut them in real time, gave us their true meaning, didn't besmirch the integrity of the artist's vision and showed us some really nice pictures of their client's product. Who could argue with that? Certainly a lot of good agencies didn't, because this formula is running rampant these days.I'm not arguing for a return to moronic jingles. I'd just like to see advertising that's original instead of glossy, well-produced stuff that borrows from my past and neither understands it nor respects it.Bill HarperPresidentThe Silent PartnersPlaya del Rey, Calif.

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