Intersect this

If you’re wondering where the best place to meet up with your ad agency is, don’t worry. They’ll tell you exactly where they live. Spoiler alert: it will be at an intersection.

For all the creative minds working in agencies, somehow they’ve collectively decided to glom onto the word “intersection” as the word of choice to describe who they are, what they do, and what they’re bringing to the party.

And because agencies have never met a bandwagon they didn’t want to jump on, you can now find these roadmaps plastered across agency “About” pages all over the interwebs.

One agency wants you to know you’ll find them at the intersection of creativity and strategy. Kind of feels like the price of admission for an agency, but sure. Put up a sign.

Another will meet you at the intersection of creativity and technology. Welcome to the AI bandwagon. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle.

Insight and imagination? There’s an agency for that.

Human behavior and technology? Apparently the robot revolution is already taking client meetings.

Some agencies have decided two roads simply aren’t enough. Their intersection needs an intersection. Culture, creativity and commerce sounds nice. Maybe not as nice as data, technology and creativity.

I’m sure there are agencies out there living at the intersection of curiosity, connection, disruption and authenticity. And I'd bet front row Springsteen tickets they're wearing black turtlenecks.

Personally, I think a lot of these agencies actually live at the intersection of bullshit and more bullshit.

Somewhere along the way, “intersection” stopped being a useful description and became an agency magic word that takes two expected agency job descriptions and makes them sound like they’re cultural insights no one else has ever thought of.

Chocolate and milk? Peanut butter and chocolate? Strawberries and yogurt? That’s just crazy talk.

Here’s the thing. Not every agency needs an intersection. And almost none of them need a manifesto.

Virtually every agency website shows work they've done and they're proud of. And if it doesn't, that's definitely not the agency you want. But if an agency has great creative that gets the job done, how about letting the work do the talking. It’s much more convincing than a paragraph about how your agency exists at the crossroads of human truth, cultural relevance, transformative possibility and whatever other words survived the edit.

I’ve written countless manifestos for agencies and clients over my career. (Pausing to laugh for using the word "career"). But in all those years and manifestos, I never once used the word “intersection.” Somehow I managed to describe what an agency did without pretending it occupied some mystical piece of real estate between two nouns.

Does that mean I live at the intersection of smarter and less hackneyed? Who's to say.

Tell ya what. Meet me at the intersection of modest and humble, and we’ll talk about it.

If the agency hasn’t rebranded that corner yet.

Headline story

Every copywriter has one. A headline they want to use, wish they'd used or are waiting to use. Usually these headlines, often never presented or sold, do nothing more than amuse the writer to no end. But here's the deal. If you work in an agency owned by a holding company (almost all are), with knit-capped, British-accented account planners droning on about consumer insights ("they want to 'engage' with the product - is social here?"), where every third word in kick-off meetings is disruption, then sometimes a good laugh is all you can hope for.

At one of the many agencies I work at fairly frequently that has a Japanese car account and is near a mall (no, not that one- the other one), I went out to lunch with a couple of my fellow copywriters. We went to this sushi place I can never remember the name of. It's one of two sushi places we lunch at. There's gas station sushi, the restaurant in the strip mall behind the Arco station with no parking, then there's the expensive sushi place in the industrial park with lots of parking. Who needs names? The expensive sushi place is where we were when this exchange took place.

The three of us wound up in a discussion of headlines we've always wanted to use. We all tossed out ones we'd thought of, and then my copywriter friend Victoria had one that still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

"What's wrong with you?" I almost did a spit-take.

I know, onscreen it probably doesn't come off that funny, and you did have to be there because ninety-percent of it was the way she delivered it. Without missing a beat, and with that annoyed I'm-asking-you-honestly-because-I-can't-figure-out-what-the-hell-you're doing-or-saying tone of voice. Plus the fact it just struck me as a perfect line for any client or product.

I don't usually invite my readers (pauses to laugh for imagining this blog has readers) to chime in, but I'd love to know some headlines you've always wanted to use. Post them here in the comments, or on my Facebook page where you probably linked from.

Just to make it interesting, when I get a good number of lines - assuming I get any - I'll put 'em to a vote. The writer whose headline gets the most votes wins a free lunch at the expensive sushi place with the good parking.

It's not like you were going to be using them anyway. So dust 'em off and send 'em in. If you don't, it means Victoria's going to be enjoying another sushi lunch.

And I'll be sitting here waiting to ask you one question.