Advertising saves lives.

I went to the Eagle Awards last night. It’s an advertising award dedicated to print only and apparently quite a big deal to win. Well, a big deal to people who work in advertising. To everyone else, it’s meaningless. Which is ironic since the point advertising is to seduce all those other people into buying whatever it is the advert is selling. And even more ironic is the fact that the award is judged by people who work in advertising and have been trained to see through the gimmicky techniques advertisers use to create the seduction in the first place. So, this must beg the question. Is it an award that celebrates advertising, or an award that celebrates advertisers? It is surely the latter.

And then to add to the dilemma, not only is this the case for 99% of advertising awards but 99% of the work that’s submitted into these awards never actually runs. And if it does, it runs once as a thumbnail in some completely random miniature publication, like the art director’s wife’s garage-studio yoga newsletter. Which means no one outside of the advertising fraternity is ever exposed to it. Essentially, the very people who it’s intended to seduce don’t even know it exists. And I assure you that any honest, self-respecting creative (as much of a contradiction as that may sound) will admit to this. So, this then begs a further question. What the fuck is the point?

What the fuck is the point of advertisers awarding themselves for work they’ve done that’s intended to sell products to the man on the street if he never even sees it? The more I think about it the more ridiculous it becomes. It’s like an Oscar being awarded to a director for a movie he created that no one other than those in the film industry ever saw. Or a Pulitzer being awarded to a writer for a book no one ever read.

The advertising community pats itself on the back time and time again with award after award after award for job after job after job that, theoretically, don’t actually exist. How fucked up is that? What difference are they making? It’s actually pathetic. And when you go to these award ceremonies, you see these ad geniuses milling around in their skinny black jeans acting as though their work is so mind-blowingly amazing that should a homeless child dying of kwashiorkor see and understand their ad, it would be as though the child had just received a life-saving injection of protein without even using a needle. Because after all, advertising saves lives.

I once met a life coach.

I was sitting at the Seattle Coffee Company on Kloof Street in Cape Town (the one opposite A Store) about 4 years ago, quietly minding my own business while writing a piece for an online youth culture magazine. The 4-piece string quartet across the street added a pleasant kind of rhythm and melody to the usual street sounds of cars, scooters and incomprehensible natter from many others enjoying that Sunday morning. It was the kind of rythm you catch yourself slowly nodding your head to, then looking around to see if anyone was watching, or at least nodding with you.

I think I was writing something about being a creative, or understanding what it's like to be a creative. Oddly enough, since then my definition of 'a creative' has changed. At the time I was referring mostly to people who worked in the creative department of ad agencies. I was sympathising with all the frustrations and fears associated with such a job, trying to sound as though I had years of experience to create a true and understandable connection with whichever 'creative' might read the piece. But as I said, my definition has changed and to be honest I don't really give a fuck anymore.

So anyway, while sitting there, nodding on (not to be confused with nodding off, considering the live music from across the road and the fact that I was drinking an espresso) some random dude came up to my table, placed a piece of paper down next to my cappuccino, smiled and walked away. A little confused I picked it up and read it. I can’t remember exactly what he’d written but it was some shit about how people don’t just sit on their own and write anymore, and that he really admired what I was doing. He may have even used the term, ‘lost art’. He then went on to say that he was a life coach and that if I ever felt like meeting up for some coffee to chat about writing and life he’d love to get together. Just then, like a giant ball of pink candyfloss smacking me in the face, it hit me that he was gay and using this life coach thing as an angle to make a pass at me. Unfortunately for him I am not gay and unfortunately for me he wasn’t a gorgeous woman.

Anyway, this got me thinking about life coaches. What the fuck is a life coach? Or more importantly, how can anyone assign such a title to themselves? Coaching implies you’ve reached a point in a particular field where you’re able to teach others how to learn and excel in that same field. Just as many ex-professional sportsmen become coaches of the sport that was their profession. And it so happens that just like these regular coaches, life coaches charge for their services too. But the thing about life is that you never reach a point when you know everything there is to know about it to then be able to teach others how to live theirs. Because you’re dead.

Either these coaches should change their job title to something more appropriate, like ‘people who want to charge you for help but don’t want to study an appropriate field’. Or they should focus getting better at living their own lives and stop hitting on every guy they see sitting at a coffee shop trying to work.