(Note: this post was rewritten after Andrew reached out and corrected my erroneous affiliation of his participation on the Oreo campaign. It just goes to show, reading is fundamental, people.)
Andrew Teman. Ever hear of him?
Probably not. He’s a Boston-based Ad guy (or at least used-to-be-an-ad guy) who tweeted this when he found out that Oreo’s now famous Superbowl tweet was up for one of the most prestigious awards in advertising.
So Teaman made good on his threat. He quit. In his resignation post, he says:
I have no axe to grind with Oreo.
My anger and disappointment is actually with the ad industry, that’s holding this up as something revolutionary. Something that deserves the grandest of advertising awards.
But the joke’s on us.
Because in bestowing this award on this piece of work, we’re actually exposing a really sad truth. That the advertising industry has become so top-heavy with cost and process and approvals and meetings and waste, that the idea of just making a simple image, and deploying it to a simple platform at an opportune moment, is considered at this point to be ground-breaking.
We’re so screwed, that we’re giving out awards based less on the work itself, and based mainly on the fact that someone (by all appearances) was able to dodge the bullshit and actually do something.
He’s right and his words carry over to the PR industry perfectly.
Somehow in our push to maximize the potential of the digital age, we’ve lost touch with what matters.
Connections.
Relationships.
Storytelling.
Meaningful action.
We’ve bogged down the speed, beauty and efficiency of these new mediums with bureaucracies laden with insecurities. Often the best work of my career has been to get people in the same room. To talk. To identify issues. To map out root causes and build on common values and goals. It doesn’t have to be hard, It doesn’t need a 12-page white paper or a complex process map.
We need to get ourselves out of the forest and be the tree.
Fortunately Teman’s not walking away altogether, He’s starting from scratch, hoping to find a better, simpler way to help startups find success.
Godspeed to him and his partner. We’ll be watching.
Nancy Syzdek, APR 