Presenting the all new 2005 XJ

I was going through my files the other day, cleaning out the bottom of the drawer with the hanging Pentaflex folders. Do people still have Pentaflex hanging folders? I know back in the day when I was a mailroom clerk they were all the rage.

Turns out my affinity for disorganization is only surpassed by my late uncle. 

As I was digging through the document dump he has been doing on me for the last dozen years or so, for reasons unbeknownst, he felt it was important that I hold on to a receipt for a new pool heater he had installed in his Palm Springs home in 2006. As well as the newspaper announcement in 1983, that he had been named a Vice President at Saks Fifth Ave.

Somewhere in between all those vital documents was his Last Will and Testament. Let me say loud and clear, especially since this is my third time at this forsaken rodeo, it is no fun being named the Executor of an estate.

However it is not without its rewards. 

You see while digging and sorting through all this paper mishigas, I came across a long copy advertisement I had written, you know when copywriters were actually allowed to write. It was an ad we had done, and by done I mean proposed in a pitch meeting, for Jaguar, close to 20 years ago.

The double page spread -- and yes I will share it with you -- was never produced. Mostly because the genii in the Jaguar marketing department never believed in telling potential buyers why they should want a new $80,000 luxury automobile. 

They lazily believed all we had to do was tell people the $80,000 luxury automobile was here. Hence a slew of outdoor boards with a picture of their fancy man car and the headline: Introducing the new 2005 Jaguar XJ. 

That, to them, was advertising. Turns out they were ahead of their time. If you take inventory of  advertising today, and not just Jaguar, you can see that simple-minded garbage approach has prevailed.

But I digress. here's the loooooong copy ad I wrote way back when. As regular readers of this blog know, I am prone to typos and I make for a terrible proofreader. So if you are inclined to spend a few minutes, please forgive me. (Because I don't know how to confibulate the html flick flacks, I'm not even sure the resolution will permit reading)

Again, this was just a rough, for a tissue session. One that ended quite quickly when the CMO said, "don't bother reading all that and I don't need a leave behind deck, we're not doing those kind of ads."

Ok, then.