I think advertising needs to bring back the jingle. Seriously, no matter what state I have lived in, there are mom and pop businesses that always use jingles. And no matter what it includes, their name or phone number, people ALWAYS remember them. Luna, Empire, Adriana Furs and The General are just a few you hear in the great state of Illinois. Whether you are in the market for a new bed or a car insurance doesn't even matter. When people hear the beginning of the Empire jingle, they can always fill in the phone number blank. ALWAYS.
So why is it, as a copywriter, I never decide that a jingle is the way to go. I don't think I have ever been in a meeting, since my advertising career started that a creative team has ever presented a jingle. Why is that? I mean everyone can sing the Oscar Mayer bologna song or the Band Aid jingle. Even people who have never seen the ads can sing them. Currently people can cherry pick parts of the long-winded FreeCreditReport.com jingle or recognize the tune of McDonald's 'I'm loving it.'
Maybe the solution to all advertising is bringing back the jingle. People don't just remember good ones, or even likable ones. They remember them no matter how obscure, awful or amazing they are. Sure in my 'ad' opinion I've been ingrained to believe that jingles are a cop out, but I am wondering more and more if I only think that because I was always told that they are. I mean I was also told to never show something and say something at the same time, but now we are forced to do it everywhere we can. I was also told that repetition was a 1950's Madison Avenue device and when used today it is embarrassingly outdated. Jingles are for those people who don't have anything more clever or creative to say. I have to say, I do believe that most of that is true.
However I also know this to be true... the majority of consumers can fill in the following blanks.
"Plop, Plop, ____, ____"
or
"Like a good neighbor, ________________."
Get ready world, I'm bringing back the jingle one client at a time. Hey, a girl can dream
p.s. I wonder what Mustafa would sing if Old Spice decided to add a jingle to their campaign. I'm sure it would be hilarious, and it would probably make those ads test better with recall. I'm telling you. Jingles are where it's at, just not here.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Lauren, you're too LOUD....
could be heard every other day coming from my sister's mouth when I was a kid. That is probably a conservative estimate in fact. I was a loud kid. I'll admit it. Between wanting to be a singer, which of course would have lead to fame and fortune the likes that even 1980's Whitney Houston hadn't seen, and "scweaming my bwains out" on my neighbors truck I was bound to annoy a few people. Rachy was definitely no exception.
Well to my dismay, and others celebration I am sure, I was recently informed that I need throat surgery to clear a polyp from my right vocal chord. I was diagnosed with singer's nodes in grad school, but the otolaryngologist and I agreed they would go away when I quit my job at the bar I worked at at the time. It was a late night joint that often entertained live music and I had to strain or scream for hours at a time to take and deliver hops and hamburgers. It seemed like a classic case of cause and effect. Once the cause of the nodes was gone, the effect would be a back to normal voice.
False.
At some point between then and now, a blood vessel burst in my right vocal chord and the node is now a polyp that can't be treated with voice therapy alone. It needs to be surgically removed or it will just get worse. Worse to the point where my voice will be permanently damaged. It is an out patient procedure. There's general anesthetic. It's no big deal. That is what I was told. Hakuna Matata, right?
In light of the situation, this post is for my big sister. This is for all the times you had to tell me to be quiet or put your hand over my mouth. This is for all the drowned out Grass Roots choruses and Defying Gravity exhibitions. You were right. I was too loud. I am going ahead and telling me so, for you.
YOU WERE RIGHT. The informational packet confirms it.
Assocation with "Extroverts"
Children with vocal fold polyps usually are extroverts and may have a loud voice, which can often be particularly percussive.
So there. Even medical experts agree with you. I wasn't just loud, I was too loud, just like you said. The thing is, I am loud. It is part of who I am. Even my personality is loud. But on November 22nd 2010, that part of me will be silenced forever. Okay dramatic. Not forever, just for seven days after the surgery. I won't be able to talk at all. After that I will have to ease back into talking, while training myself to communicate in a manner that will not cause the problem to return.
So Rach if you want relish in your rightness, come to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving dinner. For once in your life you can do all the talking you want. You can tell a story without my interjection. You can ask a question you have never actually wanted the answer to. I will not be able to interrupt, talk over you or sing Uptown Girl. This Christmas you will have to carry Sisters all by yourself. It's your turn to sing, just make sure it isn't too LOUD.
Well to my dismay, and others celebration I am sure, I was recently informed that I need throat surgery to clear a polyp from my right vocal chord. I was diagnosed with singer's nodes in grad school, but the otolaryngologist and I agreed they would go away when I quit my job at the bar I worked at at the time. It was a late night joint that often entertained live music and I had to strain or scream for hours at a time to take and deliver hops and hamburgers. It seemed like a classic case of cause and effect. Once the cause of the nodes was gone, the effect would be a back to normal voice.
False.
At some point between then and now, a blood vessel burst in my right vocal chord and the node is now a polyp that can't be treated with voice therapy alone. It needs to be surgically removed or it will just get worse. Worse to the point where my voice will be permanently damaged. It is an out patient procedure. There's general anesthetic. It's no big deal. That is what I was told. Hakuna Matata, right?
In light of the situation, this post is for my big sister. This is for all the times you had to tell me to be quiet or put your hand over my mouth. This is for all the drowned out Grass Roots choruses and Defying Gravity exhibitions. You were right. I was too loud. I am going ahead and telling me so, for you.
YOU WERE RIGHT. The informational packet confirms it.
Assocation with "Extroverts"
Children with vocal fold polyps usually are extroverts and may have a loud voice, which can often be particularly percussive.
So there. Even medical experts agree with you. I wasn't just loud, I was too loud, just like you said. The thing is, I am loud. It is part of who I am. Even my personality is loud. But on November 22nd 2010, that part of me will be silenced forever. Okay dramatic. Not forever, just for seven days after the surgery. I won't be able to talk at all. After that I will have to ease back into talking, while training myself to communicate in a manner that will not cause the problem to return.
So Rach if you want relish in your rightness, come to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving dinner. For once in your life you can do all the talking you want. You can tell a story without my interjection. You can ask a question you have never actually wanted the answer to. I will not be able to interrupt, talk over you or sing Uptown Girl. This Christmas you will have to carry Sisters all by yourself. It's your turn to sing, just make sure it isn't too LOUD.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Hiwela High....
I never thought I would go back to camp. I really didn't. For one thing I grew up. Then the camp I attended as a child closed it's doors, and with it closed that chapter in my life. Albeit a chapter revisited and remembered fondly but definitively in my past, or so I thought.
Just a few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to reopen that chapter and amend it, this time as a counselor. The force and fervor with which camp songs returned was astounding. The thrill of a schedule that included arts and crafts was palpable. I was going back to camp. A mixture of nostalgia and nerves filled up every inch of my body as I packed towels and tennis shoes. I worried the campers wouldn't like me. I wondered if I'd forgotten how to play. I dreaded the thought of a shower being an afterthought. I laughed at my own vulnerability.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, being the baby of the family for twenty five years has left me quite the novice when it comes to adolescent behavior. The disciplinarian, the teacher, the example, the friend. All things I haven't been to people more than a few years my junior for the majority of my life. This was now the task at hand. A task that to me was blinking like a hazard light off in the distance. Needless to say as the luggage filled up with jersey and repellents, my stomach filled with knots. This experience was going to be a first, and I could not have comprehended how a week later I could even imagine making that week at camp my last.
Upon arrival I was jolted back to flagpole, campfires, silly games and sloppy meals. The smell of burnt wood lingered among the living. The hugs of returning volunteers mixed with the timid handshakes of newcomers. The white washed cabins looked foreign against the backdrop of the forest. I remembered how great it felt to feel like part of a frontier. Since the campers hadn't arrived yet, my anxiety cut me loose. I just stood for a second to drink in an environment I hadn't visited in decades. It was beautiful. It only lasted for a moment because the kids would arrive in less than twenty four hours and there was a lot to do. Training commenced, lunch was eaten, people were introduced, camp was acquainted, songs were sung and beds were tossed in anticipation. Before I knew it there were nine girls standing in front of me. Some wide eyed. Some veteran. Some gorgeous. Some guarded. Some introverted. Some out loud. They were there, standing in front of me. It was amazing how immediate the feeling of ownership hit me. I felt like they were mine and that scared me even more. I was responsible for these girls until they left over 100 hours later. May seem like a short time to some. That was an eternity.
Now I have to caveat this story by saying, I wasn't alone. I had other counselors with me. I wasn't solely responsible. But unlike the rest of them, save one, I was the only virgin. They had done this before. So, I had a support system from the day I got to camp and they were with me the entire way. They were saviors, sidekicks and supports. The experience wouldn't have been the same without them. However, this post isn't about them. It is about me and the girls.
They ranged from the ages of 9 to 12. Most of them from the inner city. Their backgrounds were starkly different from my own. Everything from where they lived, to how they lived was a contrast. Their schools, their shoes and their attitudes all a bit unfamiliar. Some more callow than others. Many of them older than the years displayed on their faces. The differences from girl to girl were almost as obvious as the difference between them and me. This was a bit of a comfort, but still for me, uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable like being asked a question on your first day in your first graduate course, more like your skirt being caught in your underwear uncomfortable. Unknowingly exposed. Feeling powerful because of my authoritative position, but feeling unqualified at the same time. I felt like a walking contradiction and it was hour three.
Thank goodness time heals all things, because as the hours passed by the contradiction faded away and the connection became apparent. When it comes to growing female, there are baseline issues that no matter your background akin you to one another. The struggle for friendships. Feeling left out or forced in. Becoming a woman. Fighting for attention using whatever talents you have at your disposal. Establishing your role in a group. Struggling to keep it. Detaching all together. Diving in headfirst. Watching this group of young women acclimate to their new, temporary social circle was a trip. I would dare any woman my age to say they didn't recognize the interactions I witnessed from their own pubescent memory. These girls were astonishing to behold. Truly, the were enlivening with their ghettoric (that is what we called it). They were self-conscious -effacing and -indulgent. It was a pleasure to be around them, as well as a throbbing pain. It was fulfilling and frustrating. I was amazed to see how the personalities were already cemented. I mean, these girls were and are who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I could tell you which girls were motivated by intelligence or attention. Those who would chase the boys and those that the boys would chase. The antagonists and the protagonists. The self-reliant. The needy. The ones I would have befriended. The ones I would have frenemied. I knew who was going to end up gyrating at the dance way beyond her single digits. I could tell who was going to spend the majority of her time in the company of adults instead of cabin mates. Well, that one will always be contemplative. Her? She will always thrive on positive reinforcement. This one will forever and always be non-compliant.
It was a slightly shocking revelation that we are who we are that young, and that got me to wondering. If I could interview counselors that had me as a camper, they would probably agree. Twenty years later they'd say, yep, that is the Lauren Buckley I remember. I actually found myself attaching bits of me to bits of them. They were me, but in smaller vessels. Their age was just a number that I had passed fifteen years earlier. It wasn't an obstacle I had to get over in order to relate to them or them to me. In fact, it was the reason I could.
By the third day I woke up and realized I was not just a part of this experience, I was entrenched in it. I found myself vying for some of the girl's attention. I thought about which activity I wanted to sign up for depending on what girls were going where. When breaking up a fight I found myself wondering what side I would've been on. I knew which table I wanted to sit at breakfast,lunch and dinner. I knew what boys I would have flirted with. I even started adopting some of their bad attitudes about things they didn't want to do.
Pathetic. Hilarious. Wrong. Go ahead, you can judge me. I know I am right now.
But the thing is, the good, the bad and the ugly come out at camp. It did when I was younger and it definitely did with my girls. I am glad it all surfaced. I couldn't be happier about it, all of it. I decided to go back to camp as a counselor, but I actually went back as me. Just me and it was almost out of my control. My inner child. My disciplinarian. My last picked for the team. My caregiver. My educator. My student. My gossiper. My nurturer. My discoverer. My loner. Every nuance of my character was brought forth, challenged, found adequate or found wanting by my girls. First they introduced themselves and then they reintroduced myself to me.
Life happens and you do live and learn beyond your foundation as a human being. I know I have in the time after my days as a camper. But at the end of the day it was the unconditional love and acceptance of nine young women that taught me more than I ever could have imagined. When the buses pulled away from camp on the final day echoes of laughter were lost in a haze of exhaustion. I felt incomplete and renewed. I loaded my luggage, a little lighter. I loaded myself, a little heavier. I was a walking contradiction, again. As our bus pulled away I knew my chapter would continue to amend itself the following year. Same cast of girls, but a very different counselor.
Just a few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to reopen that chapter and amend it, this time as a counselor. The force and fervor with which camp songs returned was astounding. The thrill of a schedule that included arts and crafts was palpable. I was going back to camp. A mixture of nostalgia and nerves filled up every inch of my body as I packed towels and tennis shoes. I worried the campers wouldn't like me. I wondered if I'd forgotten how to play. I dreaded the thought of a shower being an afterthought. I laughed at my own vulnerability.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, being the baby of the family for twenty five years has left me quite the novice when it comes to adolescent behavior. The disciplinarian, the teacher, the example, the friend. All things I haven't been to people more than a few years my junior for the majority of my life. This was now the task at hand. A task that to me was blinking like a hazard light off in the distance. Needless to say as the luggage filled up with jersey and repellents, my stomach filled with knots. This experience was going to be a first, and I could not have comprehended how a week later I could even imagine making that week at camp my last.
Upon arrival I was jolted back to flagpole, campfires, silly games and sloppy meals. The smell of burnt wood lingered among the living. The hugs of returning volunteers mixed with the timid handshakes of newcomers. The white washed cabins looked foreign against the backdrop of the forest. I remembered how great it felt to feel like part of a frontier. Since the campers hadn't arrived yet, my anxiety cut me loose. I just stood for a second to drink in an environment I hadn't visited in decades. It was beautiful. It only lasted for a moment because the kids would arrive in less than twenty four hours and there was a lot to do. Training commenced, lunch was eaten, people were introduced, camp was acquainted, songs were sung and beds were tossed in anticipation. Before I knew it there were nine girls standing in front of me. Some wide eyed. Some veteran. Some gorgeous. Some guarded. Some introverted. Some out loud. They were there, standing in front of me. It was amazing how immediate the feeling of ownership hit me. I felt like they were mine and that scared me even more. I was responsible for these girls until they left over 100 hours later. May seem like a short time to some. That was an eternity.
Now I have to caveat this story by saying, I wasn't alone. I had other counselors with me. I wasn't solely responsible. But unlike the rest of them, save one, I was the only virgin. They had done this before. So, I had a support system from the day I got to camp and they were with me the entire way. They were saviors, sidekicks and supports. The experience wouldn't have been the same without them. However, this post isn't about them. It is about me and the girls.
They ranged from the ages of 9 to 12. Most of them from the inner city. Their backgrounds were starkly different from my own. Everything from where they lived, to how they lived was a contrast. Their schools, their shoes and their attitudes all a bit unfamiliar. Some more callow than others. Many of them older than the years displayed on their faces. The differences from girl to girl were almost as obvious as the difference between them and me. This was a bit of a comfort, but still for me, uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable like being asked a question on your first day in your first graduate course, more like your skirt being caught in your underwear uncomfortable. Unknowingly exposed. Feeling powerful because of my authoritative position, but feeling unqualified at the same time. I felt like a walking contradiction and it was hour three.
Thank goodness time heals all things, because as the hours passed by the contradiction faded away and the connection became apparent. When it comes to growing female, there are baseline issues that no matter your background akin you to one another. The struggle for friendships. Feeling left out or forced in. Becoming a woman. Fighting for attention using whatever talents you have at your disposal. Establishing your role in a group. Struggling to keep it. Detaching all together. Diving in headfirst. Watching this group of young women acclimate to their new, temporary social circle was a trip. I would dare any woman my age to say they didn't recognize the interactions I witnessed from their own pubescent memory. These girls were astonishing to behold. Truly, the were enlivening with their ghettoric (that is what we called it). They were self-conscious -effacing and -indulgent. It was a pleasure to be around them, as well as a throbbing pain. It was fulfilling and frustrating. I was amazed to see how the personalities were already cemented. I mean, these girls were and are who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I could tell you which girls were motivated by intelligence or attention. Those who would chase the boys and those that the boys would chase. The antagonists and the protagonists. The self-reliant. The needy. The ones I would have befriended. The ones I would have frenemied. I knew who was going to end up gyrating at the dance way beyond her single digits. I could tell who was going to spend the majority of her time in the company of adults instead of cabin mates. Well, that one will always be contemplative. Her? She will always thrive on positive reinforcement. This one will forever and always be non-compliant.
It was a slightly shocking revelation that we are who we are that young, and that got me to wondering. If I could interview counselors that had me as a camper, they would probably agree. Twenty years later they'd say, yep, that is the Lauren Buckley I remember. I actually found myself attaching bits of me to bits of them. They were me, but in smaller vessels. Their age was just a number that I had passed fifteen years earlier. It wasn't an obstacle I had to get over in order to relate to them or them to me. In fact, it was the reason I could.
By the third day I woke up and realized I was not just a part of this experience, I was entrenched in it. I found myself vying for some of the girl's attention. I thought about which activity I wanted to sign up for depending on what girls were going where. When breaking up a fight I found myself wondering what side I would've been on. I knew which table I wanted to sit at breakfast,lunch and dinner. I knew what boys I would have flirted with. I even started adopting some of their bad attitudes about things they didn't want to do.
Pathetic. Hilarious. Wrong. Go ahead, you can judge me. I know I am right now.
But the thing is, the good, the bad and the ugly come out at camp. It did when I was younger and it definitely did with my girls. I am glad it all surfaced. I couldn't be happier about it, all of it. I decided to go back to camp as a counselor, but I actually went back as me. Just me and it was almost out of my control. My inner child. My disciplinarian. My last picked for the team. My caregiver. My educator. My student. My gossiper. My nurturer. My discoverer. My loner. Every nuance of my character was brought forth, challenged, found adequate or found wanting by my girls. First they introduced themselves and then they reintroduced myself to me.
Life happens and you do live and learn beyond your foundation as a human being. I know I have in the time after my days as a camper. But at the end of the day it was the unconditional love and acceptance of nine young women that taught me more than I ever could have imagined. When the buses pulled away from camp on the final day echoes of laughter were lost in a haze of exhaustion. I felt incomplete and renewed. I loaded my luggage, a little lighter. I loaded myself, a little heavier. I was a walking contradiction, again. As our bus pulled away I knew my chapter would continue to amend itself the following year. Same cast of girls, but a very different counselor.
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