Watered down

Like the lawn in a torrential downpour, or cocktails at the craps table in Las Vegas, ideas for Super Bowl spots from advertising agencies—like the people who create them—are often not what they start out to be.

For a lot of creatives, the Super Bowl spot is the Holy Grail, the pinnacle, the showcase where you can either make your mark and launch into a career arc filled with money, location shoots, media girls (another time) and a title too long to fit on the puny business cards you'll never carry.

Or it can be a spectacular flop seen by a billion people and sink you faster than the Quizno's Spongmonkeys—which by the way I think is awesome and one of my favorite commercials ever. Call me crazy, but I admire the bravery of it all. Just try not singing the tune after you've seen it.

I know, right?

Anyway, there are a few rules about the annual Super Bowl assignment that seem fairly universal no matter what agency you're at. First is the freelancer's spot never gets chosen, even if it does. No agency hands the biggest boondoggle and budget of the year to the freelancers to produce. And if their spot is picked, it's—take your pick: refined, evolved, massaged—just enough for them not to be able to claim it as their own.

Next, you would think that since the date of the Super Bowl is known over a year in advance, agencies would give themselves enough lead time to concept, sell and produce the spot they really want to make. Not so much. Virtually every agency starts working on their Super Bowl spot late in the game. Then it's a mad rush to meet the goal, with everyone hoping they don't fumble.

Ok, I'm done now.

Finally, just to prove God does have a sense of humor, it's almost always the team who couldn't care less about sports who has the winning spot. Then they have to go through the entire ordeal, pretending they're interested in the game and that they have a favorite team.

Sometimes, even though it's a score (sorry) to get your Super Bowl spot sold, it takes almost more than you can muster to get motivated to see it through.

But to quote Don Draper, "That's what the money's for."

Pen and tell her

This post lent itself to yet another in a series of interactive blog post titles that are fun when said fast (remember this one?).

Fun wasn't it? On to the post.

In the same way listening to an audio book isn't really reading it, a written letter isn't the same as email.

I read today that for the typical American household, two months will go by before a personal, handwritten letter arrives. And the time between them is getting even longer. It's been coming for a while. It's not a shock.

But it is sad.

I know we're all about efficiency and fast, but with the slow disappearance of the written word, the handwritten word, there are two other casualties of the electronic age.

Grace. And impact.

No matter how hard it wants to be when it grows up, an email will never be as personal as a letter. It will always be cold and detached.

It will also never be permanent. It isn't something you'll pick up and read every few years, or keep in a trunk as a memory that can instantly take you back to a time, a place and a feeling (forgive me for going all Don Draper on you).

With the touch of a key - by you or someone else - the email is altered, or deleted. Gone.

Also, and this is a lesson I seem to keep learning over and over, with a letter you actually have time to consider whether you should send it. With some emails I've sent, before my finger is off the send button I wish I hadn't.

The impact of the idea that someone takes the time, makes the effort and gives considered thought to exactly the words they want to say to you, then puts them down on paper, can't be overestimated. Or duplicated.

As a result of email, I believe we've cheapened the currency of the written word. We now have the ability to yammer on about any trivial thing back and forth, all day long. There's no picking your fights. Choosing your battles.

With hands on the keyboard, you think it here, it comes out there.

The art, skill and thought required to compose a letter is being lost, as so many things are when an easier way is found. (Can you name three kids who can drive a stick shift? Didn't think so.)

Even though the postal service is faltering, mail won't disappear entirely. The bills, supermarket flyers, Land's End catalogs and election year propaganda will always find a way to the mail box.

But I seriously doubt you'll be looking forward to any of it.