Same Same

I could never be mistaken for the Jaguar type. 

My tastes are more pedestrian. Less on style and more on substance. You could comb through my closet and not find one piece of clothing priced over $100. With the exception of my $1000 Brooks Brothers Funeral/Wedding/Bar Mitzvah suit, which ironically is fit for so many occasions, but no longer fits my leaner, meaner torso. 

Nevertheless, in 2002 I was hired by the surprisingly rascally John Doyle (a Three Stooges Fan!), to be the Group Creative Director on Jaguar Automobiles. I willingly dove into the rich history of this rich guy's motor company. And picked up several quotes from the design team who were faithful to the brand's credo: "If you can't tell it's a Jaguar from 100 feet away, we haven't done our job."

To wit...

They made beautiful automobiles. And then they stopped doing their job. 

Perhaps it was to speed up production. Perhaps they started listening to focus groups. Perhaps they were looking to cut costs. Cost cutting seems to be the defacto reason for much of what ails this world.

Take a look at the picture at the top of the page. One of those cars is a Jaguar. Without zooming in for a look at the badge on the bonnet, can you tell which one?

The sameness is stultifying. 

And as my friend George T. often points out, it hasn't just afflicted the glorified middle managers running the car companies, like Jaguar, it has invaded and metastasized the ad industry.  

Nothing demonstrates that better than the way they pimp weird-sounding pharmaceuticals using the same jingle factory, choreographed by the same washed up off-broadway dancers and "art directed" by the same craftsmen/craftswomen who can skillfully design 1000 words of possible side effects (including rashes, infection, explosive diarrhea) into an almost invisible scroll that takes up 27 seconds of a 30 second spot.

Don't know if you've noticed but there's a new Jardiance commercial out. Same song. Same wardrobe. Same Stepfordian cast. Same colossal waste of of money.

My old partner and I did quite a bit of traveling during our tenure at Chiat/Day. We'd often comment on the sprawling cookie cutter housing developments we'd see along the way, whether it be in Iowa, Massachusetts or Arizona. John Shirley, a genuinely funny man (for an art director) would often riff about one neighbor stopping by to visit another...

"Oh, you put the couch on the right side of the room! We should try that honey." 

He'd do the same joke again and again. But at least it was funny.