Sometimes you see an ad and all you think is "what were they thinking?" I saw one of those yesterday while riding the Metro. When I got off the train at Metro Center, I noticed that Macy's had purchased all the ad placements in the station. All the ads were similar: Macy's items, red background,  with the copy: Be ______, ie Be beautiful....Be thankful...you get the picture.

Not the most groundbreaking ad campaign, but that's for another day. There was one that caught my attention. "Be unique" the copy read.
Macy's wants me and you, and everyone else, to be unique...by buying their mass-produced goods after viewing their mass-produced ad. In other words, Macy's is telling us that we should be unique, just like everyone else. What forward thinking.
 


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    About Me

    _I grew up reading every single word of the Washington Post every single day, and I have haven't stopped reading the news ever since. Over the years, this led to my passion for news, politics, marketing and advertising (hey, at one point, the Post had a lot of ads, right?).

    I won't bore you with the details of my college career at the University of Maryland, I'll just tell you that it involved a lot of reading the news (as a copy editor), writing the news (OK, well, opinion columns), and creating the news (as press secretary of the Student Government Association).  Along the way, I learned about messaging and how to get a point across in the most succinct and efficient manner.

    I now work at Arnold Worldwide (yes, the ad agency behind Progressive's Flo), where I work to get Amtrak's point across in the most succinct and efficient manner by managing its national advertising campaigns for the Acela, Northeast Regional and Long Distance Train lines in addition to National Train Day.

    Oh, and I still find time to read every single word of the Washington Post every single day. Except now, I pay a little more attention to the ads.

    You can contact me via email at JoelDCohen (at) gmail.com, or by clicking here.

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