Since our economy collapsed and the great recession sunk its tentacles deep into the psyche of our nation, I’ve noticed that our industry has come under fire. People come up to me and cry about the fact that advertising creates demand for things we don’t really need.
To which I usually reply, “you’re welcome.”
Does anyone even understand how the economy works? If everyone suddenly stopped buying stuff they didn’t need we’d all be out of work, homeless and most likely killing each other for a small share of the rapidly dwindling …

The cast of the Jersey Shore rang the bell at the stock exchange yesterday.
Seriously.
I spent over 16 years of my life in school, studying multiplication tables, reading Dickens, dissecting small creatures and more in the hopes of honing my mind into something that could help me create a good life for myself.
And it worked, thankfully. I’m grateful for all that I’ve achieved in my life.
But who knew you didn’t need any of that unnecessary book learnin’ to make it happen? You just need a supersized ego and an unchecked id …

So I stumbled upon this article on Yahoo! about a $75 million home that is being sold ‘as-is’. The home has no carpet, tiles or interior walls.
It has everything else you could possibly imagine a home having though. Actually, it has everything most 5-star hotels have and then some.
As I read on, two things came to mind.
One, couldn’t you just finish the damn house? Seems a bit lazy to me, really.
And two, how much shit does any one person really need? I’m not anti-success but what human being has any …

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a meeting and felt bored or confused. OK, I see quite a few hands. Thanks. You can put your hands down. Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a meeting and felt like your intelligence was insulted because the materials were too simple to understand. I don’t see as many hands. Actually, I can’t see shit. But that’s for buying into the illusion that I could.

People are always trying to sound too smart in this business. They love it when …

This week’s entry is a short one. I’ve been away for the past 5 days, celebrating my birthday in the Bahamas.
And it got me thinking.
If they could just bottle the feeling you get from looking at palm trees, the world would be a much happier place.
I certainly would’ve liked to take a swig as my plane descended through the clouds into the gray, rainy metropolitan NYC area yesterday afternoon.
- TJ Bennett

That’s all you need to come up with something great. 11 minutes and you could fuck it all up. 10 minutes and only 10 minutes. Great work is too often killed by spending or wasting too much time over thinking or over working. You can’t over think in 10 minutes. You might feel guilty for not working long enough. Fuck guilt. 10 minutes starting now. Don’t turn on your computer. Don’t get a cup of coffee. Don’t set up a meeting. Don’t make a big deal of it. Wake up. …

I wish I had burned more bridges in my career. The jobs I’ve hated have probably hated me back. But, to make sure I didn’t burn any bridges, I left with handshake while lying about what a great experience it was.
Pussy.
That’s probably what they thought of me.

Leaving with a big middle finger in their face may have won me the “he’s got spunk” title. Also, when you burn your bridges you’ve got no place to move but forward. Sure, you’re old job may look good when you’re unemployed. But, old …

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate my big salary, the nice hotels, the fancy dinners and the expense reports—but I’m a creative bitch and I’m addicted to compliments. I need compliments from my creative director. I need a visit from the CEO to personally tell me how great I am. I need to hear it from the client. And, I want the client to say it in the meeting. Not just nod his or her head and later on tell the account executive they were happy. I need instant awesomefication. …

When I lived in NY, I was in the best shape of my life because I walked everywhere. About 10 miles a day. I live in Knoxville now. Nobody walks anywhere. Everybody is fat. There are very few sidewalks. Imagine what would happen if we, as a country, made a serious effort to push walking as a form of transportation. Let’s get families to walk to their favorite restaurant for dinner. Let’s put people to work constructing walking-friendly roads and sidewalks. Restaurants can offer a discount to diners who walked …

I had the privilege of teaching a class of college students recently. The job was simple—come in one week and provide an assignment, come in a few weeks later and review the work.
I figured it was best to make the assignment pretty challenging. So I decided to ask everyone to create an interesting banner ad for a pretty tough client.
Not surprisingly, the class was a bit intimidated. Also not surprisingly, one of the first things a bunch of them said was “banner ads suck”.
A quick look around the Internet would …