Obsessed with Conformity

Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

Pablo Picasso once said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist."

Children. What a pain in the ass. They know nothing of the pressures of being grown up. They just come and go as they please, experiencing the world through tiny pink glasses that don't concern them with paying bills, voting for leaders or negotiating business deals. They're lucky. And they know it. Or, at least my kids do.

Last week we had a freak snowstorm here in Charlotte which canceled school. After the routine logistic chaos necessary to accommodate said children into our grown up workday schedule, I found myself fascinated with the wonder on my daughter's faces.  Snow. Glorious, magical snow.

After an hour or so of business admin,I put off the next few hours to play with my kids and soak in their reckless enthusiasm for a solid form of precipitation. I was making a sacrifice. For them. I commandeered our makeshift sled, blowing the 2-man raft up with my own lungs

 

Untangling

As far back as I can remember my mind has been a playground for wild vines that wrap around themselves in a fight for slivers of sunlight. Some produce fragrant flowers. Some are outfitted with thick thorns that draw thick blood. I suppose all of them have some purpose, but as the keeper of these thoughts, I have always had a tough time deciding which are most useful, and which to prune. So they grow and tighten and somehow manage themselves within the confines of my little mind. 

Only now, it’s getting trickier. It’s like a hard drive filled with images. Except that you can’t replace the old hard drive with a new one. And instead of images, the data is mostly random. Things like song lyrics, baseball statistics and conversations from when I was six. Some of these things are more important than others. Like the moment I laid eyes on my wife and felt a bolt of lightning strike my heart. Or watching our daughters slide from the womb into the world. These are welcome to stay. They’re useful to my attempt at being a good human on this planet. But then there are things like the time in fifth grade when the girl I had a crush on was holding my feet still during the sit-up portion of the Presidential Physical Fitness test, and in an attempt to prove my God-like abdominal strength, I ripped a fart right on her. Why does that have to stay? And why does it have to be so vivid? 

I realize that every breath I take is death to another memory. I just wish I could manage them a little better. My new thoughts are darker today than they’ve ever been. I blame the vines. They have a way of choking the life out of imagination. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem

The Most Creative Thing I've Ever Done

 

 

As an advertising writer, my job is to influence, enlighten and engage people.  I could point to a multimedia Lexus campaign I wrote which sold every vehicle allocated to the dealer and say ‘that was the most creative thing I’ve ever done.’ Or I could tell you about the campaign I wrote that helped reduce the euthanasia rate in Mecklenburg County by 25% that was pretty freaking creative. Or, I could go on – but won’t. I’ve got 300 words and need to get this out. 

My point is, making people think about a thing differently, or applying emerging technology to media is not creative. You want to be creative? Create a completely new word for an idea that no one has ever even heard of before. Go ahead. I’ll give you a few minutes. 

.

.

.

.

Did you create the word? Cool. Now try and sell it. 

Sadly, humans are not creative. Creativity only exists at the ‘divine entity’ level. I wrote a couple of blog posts on this last year and stand behind them. But what I’ve noticed watching thousands of advertising people from across the globe on Twitter is that we’re kind of attached to being ‘creative.’ It helps us justify getting our elbows pierced and our eyelids tattooed. It means we’re able to be “different” from others and get away with it. Trust me, I’ve done it. I know. 

But believing we’re creative is a deception caused by the ego. Am I clever? Yes. Innovatively clever. But unlike true creativity where you ‘create’ a completely new idea that has never been conceived before, I have rules to follow. Lots of them. I just think differently than most people, within the rules. 

That’s why the most ‘creative’ thing I’ve ever done was have two orgasms that resulted in the creation of two humans who, despite having all the normal human parts, are distinctly original souls. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem

Sarah Palin's Nipple

I haven’t taken LSD in 25 years. Even then, it was twice. So I've never expected any flashbacks. Besides, the statute of limitations on those things run out eventually, I’m thinking. Anyway, despite my non-consumption of hallucinogens, I’ve been having these wildly vivid and strange dreams lately. Last night’s was no different. 

I’m sitting in an office somewhere. Eva Mendez asks me if I’d like a water. I do. Returning with it is Sarah Palin. It’s her office. She closes the door and brings me the water. I stand. Now here’s the part where you think you’d act like your normal self in a dream, right? For example, you might say, ‘If that were my dream, I’d punch her lights out’ or something. But you don’t. You never do. You just stand there going, wha…? So I’m standing there in Sarah Palin’s office and she tells me to sit down. I do. She sits behind her desk. There is great natural light in her office. It looks like NYC outside. I look over at Palin and she’s smiling. And to be honest with you, she’s pretty hot in the dream. She’s wearing a loose fitting white blouse buttoned very low. It looks good in the light. Sexy.  So I’m sitting there looking across the desk at her and she starts talking about something. I remember none of the dialogue – none of it. I do remember her foot bumping against mine though. And how she didn’t move it. Then, with her eyes fixed upon mine, she slowly traced her hand across her chest, pulled her blouse back and revealed her right nipple. 

Suddenly, I’m in this massive underground parking garage with my dog. Evidently, he was in the office with me. He has a bad hip so I’m carrying him. We can’t find our car. 

I wake up. 

***

Jim Mitchem

Posted via email from 300 Words

“Eat Like an Animal” – My concept for @jamie_oliver’s food challenge

I usually don’t do this, but when 2010 TED Prize Winner Jaime Oliver, chef, had a wish to help “create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” It caught my eye. And my imagination. So I threw my name in the ring as a possible contributor. 

When an email appeared from the TED people yesterday asking for concepts, I started thinking about my kids and how I could get them to eat healthier. Then it struck me – despite potential etiquette shortfalls (and because of them as a fun double entendre), what if we asked children to eat like animals? After all, people, like animals, are just organic beings. And somehow animals in the wild thrive on natural food sources all around them without going to the corner store for a bag of processed cheese puffs. Plus, kids love animals. I know. We have two daughters and lots of pets. More than pets, though, our kids are completely and unreasonably infatuated with animals. And not just pets either, all types. Thanks to our daughters, we’re contributing members of the World Wildlife Fund, routinely visit zoos and preserves and own a stable of exotic stuffed animals. 

When I was a kid, my favorite show was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. I’m sure it was yours too. But at some point in our lifetimes, most of us grow out of this obsession with animals. It’s kind of sad, really.  But if we’re trying to get children to eat healthier, the animal angle might actually work. Think of how much fun kids would have with this. Think of the potential cross-promotions with conservation organizations. Think of kids everywhere choosing an apple over a bag of Doritos because that’s what a spider monkey would choose. 

Click here to visit the competition site and to vote (or rather, 'applaud') the concept. Thank you. 

***

Jim Mitchem/@smashadv

Posted via email from 300 Words

Won't Get Fooled Again

 

So last night I was working up the post announcing the winning name for the Boxman Studios restaurant contest. You can click here for the contest skinny, but basically we used social media to help build community for the brand, and then enlisted this community to name the restaurant. After paring the names down to five on Wednesday and offering justifications as to our thinking, I now had to write a post announcing the winner. 

Only, the announcement was coming a week after our original announcement date because of some delays in legal. And it just so happened that the new announcement date was April 1st. So here I am at the end of the day, sitting in my Lazy Boy with the laptop about to crank out some work, when it dawns on me - tomorrow is April 1st. 

I'm not a big prankster. The coolest (or rather, cruelest) April Fools' scheme I ever devised was the year I hid my girlfriend's car (two blocks away) after she was out drinking hard the night before. I had to report to Air National Guard duty early the next morning (a Saturday), and didn't wake her on my way out. A few hours later, she called me. Frantic. I laughed my ass off. Good times. She eventually married me. 

I decided to write a fake announcement for the Boxman contest and then emailed the client for permission to post it. The first thing I did this morning was run to my email. He agreed. I tweaked the post so that the 'reveal' was located a few lines below the last line of the body of the post, and hit 'publish.' It didn't take long for people to start reacting to the fake name. How dare we completely change the rules last minute? And with such a bad name! Other people got it. 

I contacted everyone who tweeted anything like this and instructed them to view the *whole* post (since the 'reveal' link is below the body of the post). I was laughing my ass off. After all, it was a perfectly innocuous story, and even included a couple of clues (Punky? Really?) A few minutes later, Google's own name change started circulating on Twitter. I thought ours was better (though theirs received more publicity, of course...)

Here's what I learned from this prank. 

1) It's great to have clients who have a sense of humor (thanks, David.)

2) There are many people who are too smart to be fooled, and who don't like being proven otherwise. 

3) If you're really going to do an April Fools' prank, wait until 11:50 p.m. on April 1st because  everyone else does theirs 'First Thing' too, and no one would suspect it so late. 

____________________________________

If you didn't scroll down far enough in the fake post, here's the post with the actual winner

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and one of the long nine cannons at smashcommunications, a virtual ad agency that started in 2001. Yes, 2001. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv. 

How To Write Memorable - Old Spice

Evidently, the really smart people are working on the Old Spice account. Wow. If this ad had run during the Super Bowl, Betty White is an afterthought. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications, llc. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv.  

The Stepping Off

It's time. I've been putting this off forever, but it's time. 

Yesterday this tweet appeared my stream: "Fear is a clue that you're getting close to doing something important." - Seth Godin. I've never read anything by Godin, but did watch one of his TED talks. He's a smart guy, but I'm not the kind of person who follows people like that. I tend to pick up things here and there and use my own experiences to think through things. But this particular quote reminded me of something I used to hear in early sobriety, "Fear is the opposite of faith." Sure, you can chop this up into little semantic chunks to disprove the statement, but the fact is, to me - fear *is* the opposite of faith. 

I have no fear. Usually. My faith is knowing that as long as I'm following my heart (conscience) and being honest with people (including myself) that everything always works out the way it's supposed to. And this isn't some self-affirmation thing - I've actually lived it. And having these direct reference points helps me endure those times in life when it seems like everything's falling apart. That said, nobody's perfect. I fail at faith almost daily. Most of the time, however, I'm able to look over my shoulder to a point in life when things were worse, and get past the little pockets of fear that emerge. And things work out. 

But this is different. 

I've been writing my whole life. When I was a child I wrote stories and maintained ideas that shocked my mother into thinking I had psychological problems. I was even hospitalized at one point. They cut my hair and put small nodes into my scalp to measure my thinking. After a few days, the only thing they could tell her was that I was stressed. But what they didn't tell her was that I was stressed because of my innate ability to feel deeply about things. We lived in a Navy town during the Vietnam war and death was everywhere - on the news, in the neighborhood. Everywhere. But we were southern, and didn't talk about things that really mattered. It's best to leave the big things alone to fester in the corner of the room. But not me. In an attempt to empathize with how people around me were feeling, I used to create scenarios in my mind (and in writing) that my own family would die in various ways. These tactics would drive me to tears - and created a deep sense of empathy in me that I've carried my whole life. The doctors missed this. 

And empathy is what makes me a really good advertising copywriter. I've realized that when you can get people to feel things, they tend to pay attention - and act favorably. When Hemingway said that writing is easy, and that all you have to do is "sit in front of the typewriter and bleed" - he was right. After being fired from two agency gigs because I was either a hothead or non-social, I started my own agency. It's never become big. That's because you really have to want to be big to be big. So I've carved out a small place in the advertising world doing what comes naturally, and yes, doing something I love - moving people. Sure, I'm selling product and services for companies, but it's still work. And when you have kids, you must pay bills. But deep inside I've always wondered if there was something else I'm supposed to do with my skill. Something more than helping rich people get richer. 

I've lived a pretty colorful life. No, I've not traversed famous mountains, or hitchhiked across Europe. I left home at 16, went to five high schools and joined the Air Force. After that, I was a nomad with no home or money or friends for about 5 years until I ended up in Port Authority New York City. Then I came to. I didn't say my life was amazing - just colorful. The path less traveled and all that. Danger, stupidity, loneliness, fear, failure, faith and triumph. I've had more lovers than I can remember, and even more jobs. In the grand scheme of things, these are but small and insignificant events of a normal life. 

My personal experiences combined with an ability to feel deeply about things make me an effective communicator. And until now, I've only ever used this skill to write advertising. But this isn't the best economy to thrive in. Especially for someone who is a writer first, and businessperson second. Could I throw myself into my work and force things so that we never have to think about money again? Sure. Am I taking steps necessary to keep a roof over our heads? Yes. Am I shifting the core value proposition of my agency to keep up with how people communicate? Obviously. But I have enough personal reference points to know that every fucking thing in life happens for a reason. As Coleridge said, "Nothing is insignificant." Things are slow now for a reason. No, I don't expect to get rich from writing anything. I'm not an idiot. But I'll never know if I'm really supposed to do something different with my writing if I don't try. 

So now I'm standing at the open door of the plane, with a lifetime of training packed tightly into a bundle strapped on my back. The fear is overwhelming. It's so easy to do the safe thing and buckle back into my seat. "What's wrong Jim?" The guy with the goggles shouts above the prop noise. I pretend not to hear him. He walks over to me, "Jim - you're ready. This is it. There are no second chances." I look up at him. I'm trembling. He extends an encouraging hand. 

Either I do this, or not. It has to be acknowledged and attacked so that things can sort themselves out. Only then can I move past it. Regrets suck. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and owner of smashcommunications. He's also scared shitless about stepping off and free falling for a while. 

The Harbinger

In 1990 I wrote the tagline "The Ice Cream Bakery" for Carvel as a member of a focus group in Manhattan. At the time, I was nearing the end of my tenure as the boy who didn't need anyone and was living in a basement in Flushing and commuting into the city on the 7 train to do my job as an IT headhunter. I also was something of a professional focus group taker. But I was no where near advertising. 

This particular night, when the focus group facilitator asked what we might call an ice cream parlor that specializes in cakes, I looked around the room and didn't see anyone else responding. No nervous twitches, no eyes lighting up. As something of a professional focus group taker, I learned not to draw too much attention to myself. You just show up, eat the free Ray's pizza and leave with between $40 and $100 bucks for a couple hours work. It was a sweet gig. But when the guy asked this question - I decided to risk it. I raised my hand. 

"Yes...you - the man in the tattered jacket who is trying hard to look cool but who is really a lonely alcoholic on the verge of suicide and who is treating this free pizza as something of a royal feast - what would you call an ice cream parlor that made cakes?" 

"An ice cream bakery." 

There was a moment of silence. Everyone looked at me. I chewed my pie, and swallowed hard. 

"Are you in advertising?" the guy asked. 

Oh shit, I thought - I would never be invited to another focus group again. 

Of course I wasn't in advertising. I didn't even know there was a career called 'copywriter' at the time. It wasn't until I read "Hey Whipple Squeeze This" as a Junior in college (as a 30-something year old man) did I have my epiphany. 

As a copywriter and agency owner I've since written tons of taglines for Fortune 500's and small start ups. My friends make fun of me for having such a strange talent. I'd much rather have talent to save dolphins or enlighten children or something good like that. But I'm a copywriter. I think in concepts that include taglines. Always have. 

Anyway - that, my friends, is how crowdsourcing worked back in the day. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of the virtual ad agency smashcommunications  You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

Advertising Envy - The Lost Barrel

Never underestimate great storytelling as a communications tactic. Silly fun and extremely well done - via TBWA\Chiat\Day. Man, it must be nice to work within budgets that can support the best ideas you can conjure. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of the virtual ad agency smashcommunications  You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

eleven minutes

12:10 am - as i sit down to write this i have no idea what i'm going to say or how to format this free write since no one does this in real life and most of the people will be like 'what the fuck is this shit?' and then click away from this blog possibly never to return. but why does that matter to me anyway - hahahahaha in this stupid movie we're watching called the ugly truth the male lead just told the female lead to 'eat the hot dog real slow because men like watching penis shaped food go into girl's mouths' that's a pretty good line and i'm not usually one for crude humor, but that works - also i just noticed a product placement in this movie for Sprint it seems like there's product placement in every movie now except period pieces and movies about the holocaust which is a period piece jim - damn, you're an idiot. i heard the term arm-candy for the first time today with concern to some rapper's girlfriend - i like it. i gave a social media workshop for a client today it went really well i know way too much about this stuff and explain it fairly well and break it down to simple concepts. damn i'm suddenly jonesing for cuban food. i miss the ocean. i feel like i'm running out of things to say or whether i'll really publish this raw internal dialogue at all but now it seems like my fingers are going by themselves and my kids are in the next room sleeping and i think they're the best things i've ever done in my life and really that's all that matters to me even though i'm the disciplinarian i'm ok with that because i do love them so and i never even liked kids before we had some of our own. they grow fast. don't let anyone tell you differently - which no one does because everyone says they grow fast you never hear people say kids grow slow but really they grow proportionately to time passing it's really just a cliched way to say i really don't spend enough time with my kids and i keep looking over at them and they've grown a new adult tooth or they're going to need a training bra in a couple of years or you wonder whether or not the shoes you got them in spring still fit them in the fall. they don't by the way because they grow too fast. and love is fleeting and there are seven dogs years in every human year and dogs don't live long enough. but the beach stays the same no matter what unless you're on a NC beach in which case they let you build right on the sand with no dunes and sure enough a tropical system comes through and everyone's like 'what the fuck happened to my house on stilts?' i'll tell you what happened - life. we say nature of the beast when really it's just nature of nature. cliches suck. so do puns. i fucking hate puns but sometimes they're useful because they reach so many people and really when you're in advertising and you're trying to talk to so many different kinds of people at once puns sometimes work - only those are the kinds of jobs you want to get done and get paid and get out from. my laptop is dying with each keystroke and i need a new macbook but am a cheap bastard and will milk this machine as long as i can - i could keep going here but i can't because it's late and we have soccer all day the next two days which means i'll be keeping stream-of-consciousness in my head like i do every. single. day. it's so fun being me. 12:21 am

HTC "You" - a lesson in empathy

I don't know whether this company is worth a damn, but this :60 spot by HTC is one of the best examples I've seen of an advertisement that attacks reality through product usage. Well written and beautiful, great editing and direction - this is a talent (real talent) heavy spot. And it proves three things: 

1) If you want to connect to people, show people. 

2) If you want to create empathy, show sensitivity.

3)  If you want to sell product, show it in action. 

However, I freaking hate their tagline. "Quietly Brilliant" doesn't really make sense. There's nothing quiet about saying you're brilliant. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications  You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

The Halloween Miracle of 2009

I've hung this sign above our candy bowl on the front porch every Halloween since we were able to take our daughters trick-or-treating. And even though the bowl is usually empty when we return home, this year something different happened.  

Just like most years, tonight we were out in the hood for about an hour and a half. We made the final turn home, and our street looked like a parking lot. No way we had enough candy. As we approached our house, a few male teenagers with hoodies were huddled around our candy bowl. I feared the worst. They scurried away as we walked up, but amazingly - there was candy in the bowl. Only, it wasn't the same candy we put in the bowl earlier. 

The kids were actually replacing the candy in the bowl with candy from their own stash so that the next kid had some. Sure, they took the best of what was left, but they also left some. I was shocked. And embarrassed that I expected otherwise. 

Maybe Machiavelli was wrong about people? 

***

Jim Mitchem

Did you ever imagine Shakespeare as a child? Me either.

I think I'm going to move to TED and live there the rest of my life. (thanks to @pgha for the heads up on this amazing lecture)

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

The Power of Social Media Defined in :30

Leave it to advertising to effectively communicate the power of Social Media in universal terms. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

Health Insurance Executives Deserve Their American Dream

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

The Ad that Launched a Career

I was about 12 or 13 when this Miller Lite spot ran in 1977. To this day I remembered everything about it, except for the brand. When I asked @DaBitch whether she had heard of this spot today, I said I thought it was for Budweiser. After all, they had those great "Here comes the king" spots running back in the day. Anyway, I was wrong about the brand recall, but this ad with Smokin' Joe Frazier was one of the first spots that stuck with me growing up. In retrospect, I should have guessed it was a Lite spot since Frazier was the Heavyweight champ. You have to remember, this was during a time when Heavyweight boxing was relevant and Joe Frazier was a star. And their tagline - how brilliant is that? 

Thirty two years ago. Wow. I love advertising. 

Ps - do you remember the name of the backup singers in this spot? 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

Welcome to the 'Real' Human Network

Imagine for a moment that tomorrow everything blinked off. All sense of normalcy gone. No Internet. No phone. No electricity. Nothing. But darkness.

What would you do? Well, if you're not throwing yourself out of a window in panic or looting the local electronics store (duh), your next step would be to start doing whatever is necessary to survive. Things like hunting for food, finding water and gathering firewood. But then what? Well, you’d probably reach out to others. That’s right, you’d turn to your network. And in turning to your network, you open your line of communication up to other networks. Eventually you’d come to find out that a massive solar flare torched north Asia and fried all power on the planet. Then you’d pass this information back down through your networks to inform and enlighten people so that they can do what's necessary to survive.  

Don’t let the word ‘network’ throw you off. The idea of human connectivity has been around a lot longer than Twitter. Yet, we focus so much on the tips and tricks regarding the medium(s) of communication here in Social Media that we tend overlook the basic fundamentals that make this technology so amazing in the first place. Why? Because fundamentals are too basic. Too obvious. Too simple. Who needs them? 

We do. 

To me there’s only one rule of Social Media – be human. And sorry, there are no shortcuts. When you’re sincere and compassionate here you become less of an avatar attached to a string of characters and more like an actual person. And because human beings are your audience, the more human you are - the more likely you are to develop your network. Social Media is about dialogue. Between real people. Just like in real life. 

Admittedly, a massive solar flare taking down the planet’s power grids is probably a little far fetched. But not impossible. The idea is that something like being a compassionate human being to those around you is the same in Social Media as it is in everyday life. So whether it's oversimplified or not, if you really want to make the most of SM, stop thinking of it as a new and tricky medium that you have to manipulate for maximum gain and start looking at it for what it is - people talking with other people. And then talk. Because you never know when you're going to have to rely on the compassion of others to see you through a dark stretch. 

Be yourself and engage. Everything else will take care of itself. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

Song of the Week - Lions

They've been called "the best modern pop band you've never heard of." Lions, by The Features. Oh, and is that Peter Jackson playing the bass? 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv

A Conversation with 'That Guy'

We attended a party last night. It was a kids party, so there were a lot of little people along with their taller kinfolk. Most of the adults congregated around chairs and tables sipping alcoholic beverages and talking about adult things while the kids raucously played in the pool. I don't usually do well at these things because most adult conversation bores me since it always turns to work. And almost no one knows what I do for a living when I tell them. 

Last night was no exception. Near the end of the party I got sucked into one of those 'what I do for a living is very, very important' conversations with the father of three of the children. This particular guy was a scientist who works in the environmental field. He spent a good twenty minutes talking about the finer details of his job before he asked what I did. In his defense, I was asking him some pretty good questions - so it wasn't like he was a narcissist. Anyway, I said, "I'm a copywriter." His initial response was typical, "So you're a lawyer then?" I explained what it meant to be a copywriter and he didn't get it right away. For some reason he continued to associate copywriting with trademarking. I then told him, "I'm in advertising. I run a virtual advertising agency. I just happen to be a copywriter. I write and execute communications concepts." 

Then he said, "Oh, that's cool. I always thought that if I wasn't in science, I'd be in advertising. In fact, I have great ideas all the time." I smiled, nodded and said something cynical which he didn't pick up on (thankfully.) Then, his wife told him to round up the kids. I found out that all of their children had the same three initials - reinforcing his status as a 'high concept' guy. Then he said it - "Look, if you ever get stumped on your advertising stuff, I'd be more than happy to help you out over a couple of beers." I smiled with clenched teeth. He continued, "Hell, I wouldn't even charge you for the advice!" Then he and his wife left with their little clones. 

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications. You can find him on Twitter @smashadv