In Campaign 29...

There's a scene I have stuck in my head.

It might have been from Seinfeld.
Or Curb your Enthusiasm.
Or Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Here's a hint, they're all the same.

In the scene, Jerry/Larry sits in a diner with a friend who starts scanning the breakfast menu. Jerry/Larry confronts the friend.

"It's breakfast. You never had breakfast before? You need a menu to order breakfast?"

If you were to read that previous line with a New York Jewish accent, it would seem that much funnier.

I bring this up because we, in the ad agency world, seem to be replaying this scene on a daily basis. We meet with our clients and hand them an incomprehensible, overwhelming, massively confusing menu of options.

It's as if the quantity of non-Disruptive™, non-paradigm shifting™, non-viral sharing™ideas laid upon their table could somehow mask the underwhelming quality of the ideas.

I have literally witnessed 300-page plus presentation decks, that if launched from a shoulder-mounted RPG could easily rip a hole through a steel reinforced cement bunker.

Not to sound like a 44-year old broken record player, but I can remember a simpler time when days before an important presentation, one of my supremely-confident and visionary bosses like Clow or Hayden or Lubars would say...

"If we go in with three options, they're going to pick the weakest one. Let's just show them One."

One campaign.

Three TV spots.

Some print to back it up.

Maybe a radio script, no one would listen to.

One.

Done.

That presentation would be no thicker than the Instruction Manual for Apple's new Air Pods.

Wouldn't that be refreshing? Maybe then we could restore some semblance of the work/life balance? By culling the herd and eliminating the Frivolous Fuckwadian Digital Knick Knacks™ we might actually start having fun again.

I'll bet agency people would be happy.

And clients would be even happier.

We haven't shot ourselves in the foot.

We're hobbling around on crutches because we dropped an 85 lbs. PowerPoint deck on our collective Metatarsal.