Eli sat in the passenger seat of the rented SUV. It smelled like someone else’s body odor and a very specific fast-food fry. McDonald’s, probably. Marie drove with both hands at ten and two, like her DMV driver’s license test was happening right now, and everyone was along for the ride. Behind them, Joel and Gordon watched Manhattan shrink into smaller and smaller skylines. The city lost its grit first. Then it turned into neighborhoods that believed in yard maintenance. Houses with quartz countertops. Backyards that didn’t smell like onions. Pool furniture that got brought inside at the first sign of rain. Why would you have waterproof pool furniture? How could you prove to the neighbors that you have help for that?

On the podcast, the host said, “You don’t need to fix it. You need to embrace it,” which somehow sounded like a threat. Marie tapped the screen, and the voice disappeared. Peace, at last.

She glanced at the GPS. “Eighteen more minutes,” she said. “Assuming we don’t hit any more traffic.”

Gordon checked his watch. Slightly behind. Not late, exactly, but late enough that the vein in his neck started to pulse. His phone lay face up on his knee, a stack of blue and green notifications building like a tiny digital city. He ignored all of them. It was a power move, he’d decided, to be unreachable when it suited him. The only thing more important than being needed was looking too important to answer.

Eli scrolled through the deck on his phone. Shot list. UNLEARNED series outline. Then, a separate note he kept just for himself, the one where he wrote jokes Quentin would never be allowed to say. That secret page was the only part that still felt like writing and not factory work.

“Run of show,” Gordon barked. “One more time.” He spoke into the air between them like the car was a conference room he had booked back in the city.

Marie obliged. “We arrive. Mindy from Quentin’s team checks us in. Quick tech walkthrough. Block shots for Unlearned episode one.” She tapped the beats of their day on the steering wheel with her thumbs. “Break. Wardrobe notes. Then dinner with Quentin, where you,” she nodded at Gordon in the rearview mirror, “nudge conversation toward ‘the big idea’ so we get a signed retainer for Q4.”

“Good,” Gordon said. The word sounded exhausted.

Joel stared out his window. The hedges out here had geometry. Right angles. Flat tops. They looked like they were maintained by someone who hated joy but loved control. They were the “rugged but aspirational” hedges they were looking for in the Ford mock-ups, the kind Georgia had stayed late trying to find on Pinterest. Georgia should have been in this car. Georgia would have said something witty about the hedges. Or about the fact that they were doing brand work for a man. A man who was, ultimately, the product.

“Something wrong?” Eli asked quietly.

Joel didn’t pretend. “Georgia would have been great on this project.”

Gordon cleared his throat. “We’re not talking about people – people – who do not work here.” The stutter in the middle didn’t help Gordon’s authority, but the team took the hint. The car filled with the silence of employees who knew their names had been moved around on a spreadsheet and left, for now, in the column labeled keep.

The GPS spoke again in a refined accent. It sounded like it had never been trapped on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in commuter traffic. They turned off the main road. The hedges rose higher. The air shifted from gas station coffee to someone pays landscapers on retainer.

At the end of the ridiculously long driveway, the house waited. White, glassy, tiered. It looked as if it had been designed by someone who had only ever seen homes in drone footage. Walls of windows. Decks stacked along the front. A pool so blue it looked fake, like it had been rendered.

Two large studio lights sat on tripods in the lawn, pointed at nothing, just waiting. A man in a black polo and a headset stood beside black cases and coils of cable. He pivoted toward them without moving his feet. Full-body swivel. Like a security camera that had learned how to stand.

Marie parked near a row of already-parked black SUVs. Eli unfolded himself out of the passenger seat. His spine adjusted to being upright. Too much desk hunch, too many late nights.

“Remember,” Gordon said as they stepped onto gravel. “This is not just a shoot. We need to walk out of here with a signed scope.” He had been repeating variations of this sentence since the owners’ call. At this point, it was less guidance and more manifestation.

At the front door, a woman in a navy jumpsuit and white sneakers smiled as if they’d arrived at a boutique hotel that also sold influencer ‘How to Have Money and Influence People’ learning courses. She had a clipboard tucked under her arm.

“You must be the North team,” she said. “I’m Mindy.”

She used their first names naturally, like she’d spent a few hours practicing. Heavy eye contact. Warm voice. All controlled.

“Joel. Eli. Marie. And Gordon.” She checked each off her clipboard. “Welcome.”

Inside, it smelled like clean laundry and a candle labeled Montauk Ocean Breeze. Or was it Coastal Clarity? Divorce Settlement? The floors were a pale wood without a single scratch, or at least not a scratch anyone hadn’t buffed out by EOD. The kitchen looked arranged rather than lived in. Fruit stacked by color in a glass bowl. Greens together, yellows together, one lonely dragon fruit for diversity.

“Quentin is finishing hair and makeup,” Mindy said. “I’ll take you to first floor office to wait.”

They moved through a living room. Low white couch. Art books stacked to prove a high IQ. A coffee table holding a perfectly placed bowl of something that might have been shells or small, expensive rocks. Every surface had a point of view.

Eli noticed the cameras first.

Not the obvious production cameras they we were maneuvering through a door onto the first level. The little ones that pretended to be part of the design. A smoked dome in a corner. A black circle near the ceiling that broke the molding line. A tiny lens tucked into a speaker. Little eyes watching their every move.

For one hopeful second, he wondered if they were fake, like restaurants that put up plastic cameras to scare teenagers into not dining and dashing. Then one of the domes made a soft motor sound and pivoted, tracking a production assistant crossing the room. Nope. Real.

The office had once been a guest bedroom. Now it had three seamless backdrops pulled down in soft curves: white, beige, and a terracotta shade that a pre-production deck would have called CLAY or WARM EARTH or SOUL. They were being stored there until Quentin inevitably had to film some last-minute response to one of his enemies.

A clothing rack held linen shirts spaced with military precision. A folding table held rows of bottled water labeled by pH level, plus snacks in bright foreign packaging to suggest Quentin was worldly and well-traveled. It was elevated in the way an airport lounge is elevated. Inoffensive. Mostly empty. Technically nice.

“Unlearned Episode One,” Mindy said, tapping her clipboard. “Quentin Learns How to Change a Tire.”

Joel drifted closer to the lights. Fancy LEDs, the kind that did not get hot. He tapped the glass, and the DoP, who was trying to enjoy his expensive pistachio cream croissant, snapped at him in mouthful grunts.

“Crew is finishing blocking outside by the garage,” Mindy said. “Quentin will start on camera in twenty minutes.”

Quentin entered exactly forty-five minutes later.

He moved fast, the way tall, important men do when their entire life has been walking into rooms where everyone already knows their name. His hair had that stiff shine and volume that screamed product with a name that had a sexual innuendo. Big Sexy Hair or Boss Energy or something that implied sex and voluminous hair were interchangeable.

He wore a white tee that was definitely not from a pack and joggers with a minimalist logo nobody recognized. He smiled like someone had whispered, ‘NOW,’ to only him.

“Mindy,” he said. “Are we nearly ready?” They had been ready for twenty-five minutes, but Mindy did not say that. Mindy was always ready.

Quentin’s eyes swept the room. “Wait. Is this North and Main?”

Mindy nodded and made introductions. “Joel is your creative director. Marie is strategy. Eli is copy. Gordon runs the agency.”

Quentin shook each hand with the same aggressive grip.

“Thank you for coming out,” he said, robotic. His voice had a weird stockbroker cadence. “It feels like we are really building something big here.” Spoken like a man reading from a list of pre-approved pleasantries.

Gordon turned up his own smile to match Quentin’s phony one. “We feel the same.”

Marie jumped in because the vibe was quickly getting awkward. “Unlearned positions you as the student of things most men pretend to already know,” she said, pulling a printout from a beige folder like she was presenting evidence in court.

Slide one showed Quentin in front of a white seamless, holding a tire iron, face reading as humble confusion. “Episode one is car stuff,” Marie continued. “Changing a tire, checking oil. What you’re really modeling is curiosity, not just competence. You learn in public. It makes you approachable.”

“Men love approachable,” Eli added. “As long as it still looks hot and aspirational.”

A thin line appeared at the corner of Quentin’s mouth. Amusement, or a mental note that Eli was on thin ice. It was hard to tell.

Joel took the baton. “Episode two, we move into money. Crypto basics. What real wealth is.”

They were overexplaining it. Eli could feel it. The concept was simple, and they were giving a dissertation about the themes and values of entry-level storytelling that exist only on your phone.

“We’re setting a tone,” Joel said. “Curious. Generous with your platform. Not afraid to help your fellow man.”

Quentin nodded slowly. “People like that.”

“They do,” Gordon said, too eager. “And they share it. Sharing is how we’ll grow your audience.”

“I want to be everywhere,” Quentin snapped back. “Everywhere.”

Mindy touched her earpiece and nodded, listening to instructions from someone more important than her. She clapped once. “We’re ready to go outside when you are, Q.”

Crew shuffled past. A camera operator with a backwards cap. A sound guy adjusting levels. Production assistants carrying silver cases that could contain anything. A hard drive. A weapon. A man’s entire personality.

Mindy motioned Quentin toward the driveway.

“You can set your things in the office for now,” she told the North team. “We’ll show you your rooms after we get scene 7B.” Their rooms. Of course. The email had said overnight for efficiency. Translation: we own you for a full 24-hour cycle.

The space was on the second floor. It overlooked the pool and the ocean beyond, a horizon so perfect it looked like it had been licensed from Adobe stock.

A long pale desk ran the length of the wall. Eli dropped his bag at one end. Joel took the middle. Marie claimed the corner nearest an outlet. Gordon stayed standing, already on another call with someone whose title began with Chief.

The house hummed. The air conditioning whooshed, mingling with the swarming-bee sound of an overhead drone. Somewhere, a ‘Mediterranean Ocean Sounds’ soundtrack played through hidden speakers; it was recorded by Werner Herzog as a passion project, and his scaly old man voice cut in every few tracks to talk about his love of the Mediterranean people. It was jarring.

Eli wandered to the doorway and looked down the hall. There were more doors than felt necessary. Each had a keypad lock instead of a knob. Little red numbers glowed against the clean white walls.

Across from the window, a tall mirror spanned a section of wall. White trim, designed to disappear. Eli stepped closer and saw himself elongate slightly. He touched it with two fingers. It was cool to the touch. Too cool. There was a faint delay in his reflection. Almost like a subtle shimmer.

“Creepy, right?” Marie appeared behind him.

“It’s…giving dentist office,” Eli said.

Marie tilted her head, watching herself watch herself.

Eli scanned the frame and found it. A pinhole at the top, dead center.

“Of course,” he said.

Gordon appeared in the hallway, phone still pressed to his ear. He frowned at them just standing there, loitering. “They’re ready outside,” he said, covering the receiver. “Let’s move. The retainer!”

The retainer. Always the retainer. Gordon spoke about it as if it could save them from death.

--

Outside, the driveway was now their set. A cherry-red convertible Mustang with the top down sat in front of the garage. A perfect prop to signal wealth, mixed with a relatable mid-life crisis energy. Light stands were set up on either side of the car. A long dolly track had been set up, ready to roll into a shot of Quentin doing something impressive. Everyone wore black and moved quickly, acting as if what they were doing was very important.

Quentin had been positioned by the front fender, linen shirt now on, sleeves rolled just so. He held a lug wrench like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was clear this man would outsource any task that required grease in his real life, but this… this was content. Advertising that made Quentin seem like a man’s man.

“Okay,” the director called. “Unlearned episode one, scene one.” CLAP.

The first take was awkward. Quentin tried too hard to look effortless. By take three, he found a more natural way of talking. By the fifth take, Eli could already hear the comments in his head.

He doesn’t have to teach us, but he does anyway.
Imagine being that rich and still changing your own tires. What a bad ass.
These thirst trap videos have me soaking wet at work.

They shot the intro. It wasn’t far off from a teen inviting everyone to like and subscribe to their YouTube channel. Then they shot the steps. Quentin leaning down and unscrewing an already loosened bolt. It was very manly, but most importantly, it would work as stand-alone clips that could be used for social.

Joel hovered near the video director, offering small adjustments. As the creative director, he knew part of his job was to perform collaboration. Joel was never calm, and he was very bad at hiding that fact. Gordon lingered like a creeper, just out of frame. His rule on every shoot day was that he was there to be seen, not heard.

When they finally cut, Quentin lifted his arms in a small victory gesture. Someone handed him green juice in a glass bottle. The whole thing had been suspiciously painless. They had actually pulled it off. Even if the idea had been inherited from their Doppelgängers.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Vika Chartier

Lyla lay on the bed in a purple taffeta gown. More static attached itself to her brown, curly hair every time she shifted. She bounced a bright yellow ball against the ceiling. Thunk, catch, thunk.

“I just think he’s weird,” she said to the ceiling.

“Is he nice?” Joel asked, looking up from his dresser drawer.

“Define nice.”

“Uh.. Not a jerk?”

She sat up, mouth open like he’d sworn in church. “You aren’t supposed to say that.”

“Is he?”

“Not really.”

“That’s good. Not nice, not a jerk. Neutral. Neutral is a good place to be.”

“Fine, Dad. He’s neutral.”

Joel laughed and tossed the last T-shirt in. “If Max makes your mom happy, then you need to be nice.”

“I’m going to try my best to be neutral,” she said, not at all satisfied.

“Fair enough.”

Lyla rolled over and peered into Joel’s bag, the gown swishing like clothes in a washing machine. “You should pack linen. That’s what people wear in the Hamptons.”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s common knowledge, really.”

He zipped the bag. “I’m ready for my trip. Should we pack for yours?”

She flopped back, arms wide, the yellow ball pinned beneath her knee. “I don’t want to go to Syracuse.”

He lay down beside her, their shoulders touching, both of them looking at the ceiling. It had those fancy, ornate sections that you see in colonial-era period pieces. Like Bridgerton, that kind of thing.

“-- and I don’t think I can be neutral about it.”

“Come on.”

“Have you seen what they wear in Syracuse?”

“Who cares what they’re wearing?” Joel said. “We have to pick out what you’re going to wear.”

“I hate the way he says buddy. He calls me buddy like I’m a golden retriever. And he has a boat. People with boats are always making you sit on their boat.”

“Come on, Lyla.”

She folded her arms across her chest like a queen in a portrait. “If he calls me buddy, I’m gonna call him comrade back.”

“Very Cold War,” he said. “I’m into it.” He reached for her hand and squeezed.

She slid off the mattress with a swish and disappeared into the closet. Hangers clacked. She returned with jeans, a purple sweater, and sneakers that had survived gym class and 57 art projects. She added socks with embroidered stars and a T-shirt with a dinosaur that Joel had bought for her at the Natural History Museum. His favorite part of the trip was the subway ride home, when she couldn’t stop talking about Rexy, and how she was the first T. rex skeleton ever discovered. He loved that she assumed the giant, scary dinosaur that looked like it was hunting was obviously female.

“Practical,” he said.

He folded her picks into her small, hard suitcase that had been gradually taken over by stickers, a timeline of phases: horses, space, a frog in sunglasses, some holographic Lisa Frank. She placed the yellow ball on top of the folded clothes, and Joel zipped it shut. He checked the time. They were late, but they were always going to be.

--

The handoff happened in a bright lobby with a bunch of plants. Max stood next to Lyla’s Mom. He had a boat-owner tan and a ring of keys that suggested access to more doors than a person would ever need. He welcomed Lyla with “Hey, buddy.”

Lyla raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Joel. She turned back and hugged Joel with a double squeeze. She hated this part the most and would discuss it at length with her therapist 17 years later. Joel watched them leave through the glass and told the reflection version of himself to be better. Lyla thought he was already great.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: CJ Dayrit

Broadway tossed a confetti of receipts at their torsos, flyers for comedy shows, and a coupon for free Pilates that would cost two months of rent if you actually followed up. They crossed with the light and did not look at the faces in the cars. Everyone focused on their own worries in this city. Cleaner that way. Again, “if you see something, say something” was simply a suggestion.

Marie said it first, the same way she’d set a lunch meeting with a noncommittal client. “Are we quitting, or what?” Eli admitted he had been interviewing for months. “Dentist appointments,” he added, because adults require cover stories. The lie had been clean. He had even shuffled his calendar invites so they would land at believable times. The dental practice had five different names by now, a whole network of plausible dentists.

“You didn’t actually get a root canal?” Marie asked, already shaking her head. “I bought you a feel-better stuffed duck.” The duck had been yellow and medically cheerful. An object you cannot throw away, but never really want to see.

“It’ll be fine,” Joel said, but ‘fine’ is a room with no furniture, and they used to have a couch, a coffee table, and a Keurig.

- -

They stepped back into the office and were immediately hit with a blast of cold, sobering, conditioned air. The entrance was spotless, but a woman still worked on the windows, scrubbing nothing in particular.

Upstairs, the boardroom was already set for the briefing. On the screen, a lazy deck tossed the words QUENTIN BROOKES, A MAN OF MANY MASKS onto the screen in a simple, sans-serif font.

The Doppelgängers had already made themselves at home. Doppelgänger Joel scrolled his phone; his face was smug and mean-looking. Doppelgänger Eli typed furiously between bites of his sad corporate lunch, a mix of Mediterranean ingredients tossed together in a landfill-friendly bowl that claimed it could be composted under the right circumstances. Doppelgänger Marie had a tidy, slick back and a blazer. She was meditating, or maybe just thinking. Doppelganger Georgia tapped her trackpad, moving elements around in Photoshop.

The presentation kicked off with some backstory. Doppelgänger Joel described Quentin Brookes’ elite family tree. “A nepo baby of sorts,” he stated as the overarching theme.

Doppelgänger Eli went on and on about wealth and how it limited Quentin’s ambition, and how a man born with everything must invent a series of escalating ‘needs.’ The whole thing was essentially a Comedy Central Roast dressed up as a professional case study. There were charts that appeared to show his wealth increasing every time a foreign leader incited war, newspaper clippings like it was 1950, and a handful of clickbait digital headlines from Page Six. Quentin’s live-fast-and-die-young exploits were constantly getting him into trouble. The Doppelgängers stated it as vaguely as possible, using the pussyfooting language of a team that has pitched to global, high-stakes brands and knows sometimes not saying what you mean is a good thing.

What Quentin really needed was a clear POV (point of view). From the POV, they could develop his TOV (tone of voice). What they really meant, in the space between those acronyms, was that an adult man, born into unimaginable wealth and nothing but time on his hands, needed a team of people to write his thoughts and sentences for him.

That was definitely the real assignment at the middle of all this pomp and circumstance: content.

Shape Quentin’s online persona, remove the rough edges that snag on his public perception, and make intelligence a costume Quentin can wear every time he publishes a tweet. Doppelgänger Eli voiced over the real subtext: “Convert the raw material from a dipshit into the public performance of a philosopher.”

Nobody wrote that down.

The content needed would require the team to nudge public perception by small increments until the whole picture had moved and nobody remembered the original. The type of content that says “I am not an idiot” without confessing that anyone ever thought otherwise. Words that look like spontaneity, but were actually drafted in a doc titled DRAFT_v.7final.final.

A content calendar appeared on the next slide. There were icons for drafts, reviews, approvals, and live content. There were lessons from a study on post timing, which told the team when Quentin’s average target audience was most likely to be scrolling their phones and looking to escape their own lives.

The next slide was a tone map. Upper right quadrant: curious, not offensive. Lower left quadrant: empathetic, never apologetic. Upper left quadrant: funny, not flippant. Lower right quadrant: Authentic.

Doppelgänger Marie said “authentic” out loud, and no one batted an eye, which told the real Marie everything she needed to know about how many meetings this tone map had already survived.

Eli sucked coffee through his straw. The presentation was longer than he expected, and he had gone in committed to disengaging. He already knew this process would be arduous. That a single sentence would be reworked 100 times. That he needed to find a way to make himself write like a dipshit, and craft the philosophical musing of a dipshit. He took a loud sip at the exact moment Doppelgänger Eli said “resonance.” He thought to himself: What does that even mean?

Joel was also disengaged. He was distracted by the tiny Sharpie marks on the side of Doppelgänger Georgia’s fingers. His Georgia had the same ones after she did markups on campaign imagery. Looking back, he regretted being so harsh in his feedback when she turned in the markups for review.

“Did you see this acne scar?”

“The model looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks.”

“We have to do something about her flyaways.”

Thinking back, any of those campaign images would have worked just as they were.

In the last few slides, the Doppelgängers presented a series of process diagrams. A rainbow of color coding where green arrows pointed at yellow boxes. They walked through a crisis PR appendix that outlined what they would do if Quentin “went off the deep end.”

Eli didn’t write anything down. He was protesting the fact that he had to sit in this room and listen to this drivel. That decision would only shoot him in the foot later when he tried to recall the tone map guidelines from memory. His high school days were wild, and his short-term memory was shot.

When the last THANK YOU slide arrived, everyone’s eyes were glazed over. Time to get the fuck out of here. Chairs scraped, laptops slapped shut. The Doppelgängers had completed their job, and then came the best bit – the job was now someone else’s problem. That’s what happens at ad agencies: ownership evaporates, then condenses on new surfaces without any warning.

In the hallway, the Sonos had been turned back on and was cycling through a playlist called ‘Monday Morning Reset.’ It was Tuesday, 4:22 pm. The office had returned to its usual buzz, like nothing ever happened.

They split off into three directions. Marie would go back to her desk and realize not even she could read her handwriting. Eli would create a Google Doc and name it something dumb like qB_persona_polish_v01. Joel would duck into the stairwell for a few minutes, pacing like a rat trapped in a cage, ruminating on every decision that had led him to work on Quentin Brookes account.

At 4:30, just eight minutes later, their calendars pinged with a new recurring event called QUENTIN STANDUP. Mondays at nine am, thirty minutes. The invite arrived without any context. Not even a loose agenda. Everyone clicked accept on that stupid, rounded-edge button.

Part 11

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Chris Johnson

The carpet had that expensive gray you only notice when you’re trying not to look at anyone. Framed awards for campaigns that all had quippy titles, like “Put Yourself Out There” for a Tinder spot or “A Floor You Can Eat From” for Brawny. The chairs across from his desk were the kind where you can’t find a comfortable sitting position. Joel called it compliance furniture.

Joel and Marie sat in the uncomfortable chairs, looking uncomfortable. Eli meandered around the room. He moved toward the floating shelves at the back, touching tchotchkes with the curiosity of an old woman ready to wheel and deal at a yard sale. A bronze pencil trophy. A glass block with an etched logo from a telecom client that no longer existed. A photograph of Gordon between two men whose teeth were an argument for universal dental care. He rumaged through the bar cart near the door, leaving his greasy fingerprints on Gordon’s ornate, short drinking glasses. There were bottles arranged by how fancy the label made them look. Anything with Japanese characters was right up front. The ornately etched decanter was empty. Eli lifted it to the ceiling light. Maybe the whiskey had become vapor, and the light would reveal the trick. No such luck.

To the right, in a matching set of chairs: their doppelgängers. A duplicate copywriter, strategist, creative director, and an art director with a face that, if you squinted, looked eerily similar to Georgia. Same messy updo, same intense concentration. Joel felt his chest sink. Was it hard to breathe, or was the air in this room just really, really stale? This strange grief came over him like an intrusive pop-up ad appearing at the front of his mind.

Gordon got up from his chair and moved around his desk. He leaned casually, we’re all just friends here. Right? He tried to meet everyone’s eyes, thinking strong eye contact was the best way to exude authority and build rapport. It did neither. He looked crazy and disingenuous. He ran full speed into a speech that he had been rehearsing for hours. It came out in nervous, polished fragments.

Ensure the A-team worked on pitches. Doors and who did or did not come through them, if revenue didn’t. Optimizing teams within an inch of their life. Although he used different words for the same sentiment.

The whole thing was a bad, confusing word salad. After way too long, he finally made it to his real point, his grand finale. He finally said the quiet part out loud: change was here.

Eli, still fluttering around in the background, unintentionally broke the tension.

“Looks like you’re out of whiskey.” He said, with the same helpfulness of a passenger telling the pilot a wing is missing. Gordon quickly snapped back, telling him to put the decanter down. It was one of the few times Gordon looked moderately in charge, like he had finally nailed the right level of managerial aggression.

Eli set the crystal back with a ceremonial gravitas, mocking Gordon’s authority.

Gordon’s plan arrived with the same vibe of a magician revealing a pigeon, except this time the pigeon wasn’t crushed beneath a satin scarf. Well, maybe metaphorically. A “switcheroo,” Gordon called it, an unserious word that made the moment feel more transactional and whimsical than intended. He motioned to the doppelgänger team, officially assigning them the ExxonMobile pitch. He gestured to Joel’s team for something called the Quentin Brookes account.

Marie ran her finger down the spine of her notebook, then cracked it open. She wrote down the unfamiliar name in the center of the page: Quentin Brookes.

And that was it. Gordon silently patted himself on the back for getting through the speech, believing that everything was good. Smoothed over. Vast Bay, Blank Wall, and Tasteful Painting had told him to make big moves, and that was exactly what he was doing. He was almost giddy to hop back on the phone with them and share how brave he’d been. He smiled in the same way you smile at a toddler who is about to pet an unfamiliar dog. The problem was that everyone in this room had been bitten before.

Doppelgänger Joel leaned over the chair towards Doppelgänger Eli, whispering so everyone could hear. “They’re fucked.”

Joel’s eyes slid, against his will, to Doppelgänger Georgia. She looked back at him, slightly creeped out. For a small, stupid second, he saw the shadow of a Post-it, the way Georgia’s soft, hand-drawn lines had caught his pompadour with both accuracy and beauty.

Eli finally sat down; it had reached that level of awkwardness. The chair made him look more responsible, or at least a degree more uncomfortable. Eli didn’t look at Joel. He looked at the edge of Gordon’s desk, where the veneer had peeled back to reveal particleboard. It was all fake, all pretend. Gordon tried his best to wrap it up with a neat bow. “We need the right people, sitting in the right seats.” He left out the part about the missing people. The people who had already been escorted out carrying tasteful cardboard boxes.

Part 10

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Joel crossed through the space carrying his computer bag. He didn’t notice the silence; he had the Ford pitch on his mind. He was thinking through the strongly worded response he would send if they didn’t win the project. How he would shame them for not understanding their consumer, or at least not understanding him.

The office didn’t care about sad men or lost projects. No hard drives hummed from the edit bay. No sexist jokes from the media buying team. No Georgia singing the same hook with the wrong words over and over again. Joel plugged his laptop into his cubicle and watched his second screen light up. Email loaded, but it was mostly cold outreach messages from other desperate men trying to drum up work.

He typed ‘Georgia’ into the search bar, refreshing his memory from her slides they had discussed the night before. He expected a refreshed deck with new imagery that matched the retro-futurism direction he had given her.

“It’s simple,” he had said to her harshly, “futuristic elements, but with housewives who had perfect ringlets. That’s how Swiffer can recruit a new generation of consumers.” The visuals were meant to be ironic.

Instead of a beautifully polished deck from Georgia, her most recent message was a link to a cheap frame shop from last week, and a joke about making million-dollar ideas look like they belonged on a bus shelter. Joel lifted himself from his chair and leaned over the fabric-and-particleboard wall into her space.

Empty. That was really the best way to describe it. Like she was never there. Like her tiny little cube had been reset to rental. The thrift store sweater she found in the men’s section at Goodwill was gone. The tiny blue Post-its where she had drawn his late-night likeness. Gone. The dent of her body in the chair that had given her back problems. Gone. The cube and the furniture had forgotten her.

He tried out her name anyway. “Georgia?” The empty cube did not respond.

A sad parade drifted by. Pam from HR held a stack of manila folders to her chest and an unopened box of tissues that looked like a prop. There was a pale watercolor flower image printed on the box, part of Kleenex’s ‘soothing sick noses’ campaign. Behind her, an Account Manager carried her belongings in a cardboard box and held back tears. He wanted to tell her it would definitely get better, but he knew he was stealing that tagline from somewhere, and she might notice the hollow sentiment. Two creatives he didn’t know very well came past holding their coats. He watched them pass, but they didn’t look down at him.

The Slack channel named #wins was quiet.

--

Joel stood in front of the bathroom mirror’s cold honesty and watched his cheeks turn red. He couldn’t think of a moment-worthy line to say out loud to himself.

The stall door swung open, and Eli appeared. It startled Joel, who believed he was alone in the room. There also wasn’t any flush, which Joel wouldn’t realize until later. Eli looked abnormally disheveled, even against the backdrop of their current circumstance. Eli looked Joel up and down as he mimed washing his hands using just water. “Everything alright there, buddy?” Joel wondered if Eli ever washed his hands.

After a beat of silence, Joel shifted his mouth into the expression men use when they want to cry, but know that society isn’t cool with it. “Georgia’s gone.” The words just sat there for a moment. “Four years. Intern to designer to art director.” A person they both knew and worked with for years, now defined only by their job title and termination date.

Eli hopped up and took a seat on the counter, perched on the edge of the faux marble. His sneakers tapped the glossy, white cabinets with little, rhythmic taps. He wore his new white cotton socks with the little yellow stripe. They actually fit the stark whiteness of the room well, and the little yellow stripe was a nice case for tenderness in the moment. A pop of comforting color.

“Thirty people,” he said, and let the number sit between them. “That’s how many people they handed pink slips.”

Suddenly, their phones vibrated, buzzing on the counter, demanding each of their attention. Two jarring buzzes, at nearly the same time, knocked on the counter. The message had no punctuation, which made it worse.

gordon wants to see you in his office

It was a Pam special, an HR woman who knew how to always keep it neutral. But when you get a text with no emoji, no indication of tone, your mind always goes to the worst-case scenario. Joel assumed the message should read like the shocked face emoji with the big eyes. Or did that one get reworked by Apple in iOS 8?

Part 9

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Vadim Babenko

The North & Main Owners were already on the call when he joined. Three rectangles. One with a tasteful painting. One with a view of a vast bay. One with a blank white wall that basically screamed: I do not have any personality, but I do have money. They all looked abnormally unbothered. Corporate resting face.

“Gordon,” said the Vast Bay. “Thanks for joining. I know it was short notice.”

Gordon smiled the way he had learned to smile in rooms with room temperature, aerated water in glass bottles. He saw his image, small in the corner, and tried to fix his hair with a lick of spit and his fingers. It didn’t help.

“We have to talk runway,” said Tasteful Painting. Straight to business. She had used the same term in a Q1 slideshow that also used a lot of arrows.

“We’re bleeding money,” said Blank Wall. As Gordon knew all too well, bleeding is never a good thing. On the street or on a balance sheet. The silence on the call had a weight he recognized. The same weight as a different silence, years ago, in a place he’d trained himself not to think about. His body remembered even when his mind refused to.

Gordon nodded. “We have some big pitches in play,” he said. “Ford, for one.”

“They called this morning,” said Tasteful Painting. “They went with Leo Burnett. Those smug British fucks took our all-American account.”

Gordon smiled without teeth. The kinda smile you see from every white guy you pass while hiking in the woods. “Understood.”

Vast Bay sighed. “Projects are taking 97 days to complete. On average. That means the final delivery payment is taking 97 days or more.”

Gordon rubbed his eyes. He knew he needed to respond. He knew that the gun was now to his head, and there was a round in the chamber. “We can right-size,” he responded, but it sounded hollow. “There’s an appetite for short-form content. That could speed up deliveries. Speed up timelines. Create more recurring revenue.”

Blank Wall didn’t blink. “Headcount is the plan.” But “headcount” is just a word until you picture the heads.

“How many?” Gordon asked.

“Fifty percent by Friday,” said Tasteful Painting. She could have been shopping for lamps. Jarringly calm.

At that exact moment, North & Main employed 61 people, if you count the intern with the perfect bangs who always made coffee.

“That will impact delivery,” Gordon said. “We are mid-scope on State Farm. We’re mid-scope on Swiffer.”

“You’re mid-scope on a lot of work that is not profitable,” Blank Wall rebutted.

Vast Bay adjusted the tchotchkes on her desk. “And Gordon, we need to bring revenue above 6.7 million.” The line was quiet.

“Understood,” Gordon responded after too long, not sure at this moment if that was actually feasible.

Tasteful Painting nodded softly and cracked a smile. She intended to calm Gordon with her soothing facial position, a technique she had learned at a weekend business seminar at Harvard. She would never say it out loud, but it was mostly for the LinkedIn clout. “We value you,” she said, which has as much meaning as asking, “How’s it going?” Everyone knows you just say “good.”

Blank Wall pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You have until Friday for the… reduction, then we need a full plan for next quarter. We will expect to see new accounts, named leaders, and a clear point of view on who is absolutely necessary.”

Gordon nodded, and the rectangles signed off, one by one. He walked to the window and pulled the blinds, blasting the room with light. The city looked like a set, a backdrop you have printed to shoot New York on a soundstage in Los Angeles. He watched the woman in the building across the street water her plants. He wondered if she ever thought about what went on in the room he was standing in. If she ever imagined that inside, men argued about words that sold trucks. Or car insurance. Or convenient broom alternatives that make their money from the endless refills. Or who should or should not be getting a pink slip.

He opened a blank document, named it ‘Plan.’ He started typing out names from memory, then backspaced over them. He made a new column for ‘Rates.’ He made another for ‘Client Relationships.’ He was slicing the North & Main body into tiny little pieces, and he did, in fact, feel like Jeffrey Dahmer.

He tried to think practically. Instead, he thought about people, the worst way possible to remove all practicality from a decision. He thought about contribution. Who was actually doing the work, and who was simply adding their name to the cover page of the group project? That was the true practical approach, so he kept going.

He called HR. Pam answered on the second ring in her jarring baby voice. “Hi Gordon.”

“Can you meet me in my office?” he asked.

Part 8

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Aurelien Thomas

Joel’s suit had been disassembled to a button-down with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. Just the right amount of harried for a creative director out for drinks after a long day. He knew he was playing a part in a city where everyone was pretending to be something, especially in places like this. He took a sip from the short glass.

“Joel?!” A voice with confidence shouted his name.

Evan. The name was already creating a small tension headache behind Joel’s forehead. Evan wore a black tee that was tight even for New York standards. Glossy hair. Shiny teeth. Dark wash denim, the fancy kind that you don’t wash, but instead put in the freezer for some reason. He moved through the room like there was a camera just over his left shoulder. A constant reality show focused on only him. He slapped Joel on the back in that way that says hello while also claiming your personal space. It stunned Joel for a second, the same kind of feeling like when you accidentally run into a glass door because it’s too clean.

“No way!” Evan exclaimed, like the universe had chosen this and not a Google search for ‘hot NYC bars.’

“I was just telling someone about you.”

“Really,” Joel said. He found a forced smile. “How have you been, man?”

“Busy,” Evan said. It was his full-time brand. Not being busy, but talking to everyone about how busy he was. He plopped into the chair next to Joel.

“You hear about the Gucci balaclava controversy? We did a soft pivot, turned outrage into a micro-pledge mechanic. Ten thousand user-generated apologies in forty-eight hours. People love to make personal confessions if you give them a micro site to make them on.”

Joel nodded.

This is how Evan spoke. Like he was always pitching himself and his work. This was how Evan told time. By campaign.

“We built an internal studio just for brand social shoots. Everyone wants to go viral. Get in trouble the right way. Not political, but using memes and all that kinda shit. You should come by.” He glanced down at Joel’s rumpled button-down, then back up at his tired eyes.

“How’s North?”

Joel considered lying. It would have been easy. “We just pitched Ford,” he said.

“Ah. Very… Midwestern.” It was meant to be an insult. Evan stole a peanut from the tiny bowl in front of them. “You still working with Georgia? She’s great. She posts her illustration work on Instagram. I always give her a like. Maybe that would work for Ford?”

Joel nodded, trying to push the conversation to an end.

Evan looked around like he needed more than just Joel to hear him. “We’re doing the social launch for this new algae-based toothpaste. Algeneron,” he said. “Don’t laugh. They raised thirty million in round A.”

Joel did not laugh. Nothing about any of this was funny. “I, uh…I was actually just heading out when you caught me,” he said, because he couldn’t take any more of whatever this was.

“Well then…let’s grab a proper dinner soon,” Evan smiled.

They did a friend handshake that had been negotiated over a decade of working in the same industry, but only ever interacting at the parties. Joel watched Evan move back into the crowd, grinning as he waded through the throngs of people. The jukebox started a song from Nickelback, and Joel decided that was the perfect cue to down the last of his drink and get the hell out.

On the walk home, the city played its normal stereotypes. Steam from a manhole. A guy selling roses to couples who wanted to prove they had a magical night. Joel passed a storefront with mirrors and saw himself multiplied. The version at the end looked like he had slept. The middle version looked like he had not. The original version also looked like he had not.

Joel’s building lobby was quiet. At midnight-ish, he stepped into his hallway. Inside the apartment, the dark had a softness. He tried the lights, but the lights didn’t flicker on. He tried them again. Nothing.

He set his keys in a small bowl by the door. The bowl was etched with PARIS, TEXAS in a font designed by a cool guy with circle glasses and a full-sleeve tattoo. He crossed to the kitchen and searched the junk drawer for a flashlight. Nothing.

He filled up a cup in the sink and took one long drink. Someone in college might have considered it chugging. The window let in some of the city lights; it actually made his apartment look quite beautiful. In that light, he saw it on the counter. A sheet of paper. A math test with a big red 98% circled at the top. Lyla’s long division lined up in neat rows.

He smiled. He went to the fridge, found a promotional Taco Bell magnet, and pinned the paper among old birthday invites and school forms. The magnet said “Live Más,” a motto he did not, in fact, live by.

“Dad?” Lyla’s voice from her room, checking to make sure a killer hadn’t entered.

Joel cracked open her door. “Hey, Lyla,” Joel returned. His voice was soft. “Power’s out.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m pretending to camp.” He could hear her smiling sass, even in the dark. He pushed her door open wider with two fingers. Clothes in piles, stacks of books slowly climbing the walls. A soccer ball resting against the dresser. Lyla sat criss-cross-applesauce under her fluffy blanket, flashlight propped under her chin. The book in her hands was ‘The Catcher in the Rye.’ She was early for it, or maybe exactly on time.

“Did your pitch go good?” she asked kindly.

“Yeah. It went,” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

She looked at him, eyebrows lifted. The flashlight changed his face, added years. “Mom says sometimes a ‘no’ can be a relief,” she said.

“Your mom is very good at sayings.” He put a hand on the blanket and felt the shape of the soccer shin guards she had tucked in at the foot of her bed for safekeeping.

“I saw your math test on the counter. Pretty impressive.”

“I know,” she said. “I told Max, and he said I should major in math. That Stanford would be calling me any day now.”

“Max is trying his best,” Joel countered.

She nodded. Joel got up. “ I’ll let you get back to your book. Good night, Lyla.”

“Night, Dad.”

Part 7

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo credit: Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

The super allowed his labradoodle to roam free, and that was probably where the first scent was coming from. Eli stepped into the mirrored elevator. He looked tired but used his reflection in the mirror to make sure the fit of his pants was just right. He wasn’t sure about this more high-waisted cut, but the mirrors convinced him it was a great choice. His shirt was stuck to his back from sweat, but he liked the way it looked. He pushed his thumb to the 7 and watched the aesthetic white light circle the button.

On his floor, the hallway was carpeted for some reason with this brown, puce color. It wasn’t half bad paired with the dark green walls, and it helped highlight the framed prints of dogs that were hung every few feet. Each of the dogs had an Instagram account with over 150k followers. The decor was a great conversation starter at their dinner parties.

Their door looked the same as always, but the brass knob had that judgmental look that only came from knowing you were already in trouble. Eli braced himself, turned the key to unlock the door, and carefully entered. The curated space that he and Luke called home looked like a page out of one of those home-design coffee-table books. A blur of simple and quirky, with a polished raw wood table, where, if you looked closely, tiny cartoon faces had been painted on the edges. There were two matching chairs, and a row of skinny candles that had been added a few hours earlier for ambiance. The table also sported a linen runner that had been ironed flat and perfect. There were two plates and place settings, each with a folded napkin tied with a cute cotton string. That damn little string jolted Eli’s memory. Tonight was their second anniversary. The cotton anniversary. Eli had mocked the tradition the week prior when they were riding the Uptown 6 train.

Paper was year one. Cotton was year two. Leather was year three, which would give them the chance to cosplay as Old West cowboys. It was perfect because it was a roleplay Eli wanted to try, but was too afraid to bring up.

The whole apartment smelled like rosemary. The Spotify playlist had reached the part where the artificial, upbeat DJ was only playing songs from your top five. The candles had been burning for hours, nearly burned to their bases. A roasting pan sat on the stove, with a little aluminum-foil tent. A shiny tent of shame.

Luke was on the couch scrolling on his phone. He was wearing a white shirt tucked into acid-wash denim. His hair was styled. He had definitely spent time making it look perfect. He didn’t acknowledge Eli.

Eli clicked the door shut and latched the locks. He set his bag down by the coffee table, the one Luke had purchased in Rhode Island and had to have shipped into Manhattan. It was a huge pain, but it did go really nicely with their white carpeting. Eli didn’t say anything, but he really needed to. He defaulted to the easiest option: “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You are two hours late,” Luke quickly responded. His voice sounded more sad than harsh.

“The Ford pitch went long, and then I got stuck at the office doing the debrief from the pitch…” He should have rehearsed the excuse in the hallway before he stepped into the apartment. It was sounding dumb and flimsy, the same way you hear someone trying to open a pack of Skittles during the quiet part in a movie.

“Right,” said Luke.

Eli moved toward the kitchen and lifted the foil. The steaks Luke had roasted in the oven looked like sad, congealed blobs. The green beans were floppy. The potatoes didn’t look half bad.

“I can reheat,” Eli offered. He noticed the notes taped to the microwave. Oven at 375. Steak should be soft to the touch (for medium). Let rest for five minutes before slicing.

“I was setting the table,” Luke looked back at him, “and I thought… should I do cotton napkins? Like, you know, a fun joke.”

“They look good,” Eli said, because they did. It was the kind of thing that Eli would never think of.

Luke got up from the couch and leaned on the kitchen island. He did his best to make Eli feel the weight of his lateness. “I sat down at 7:15,” he said. “I blew out the first set of candles at 8:00 because I was worried about wax getting on the runner. I lit them again at 9:10, which I now realize was absurd. I texted you at 9:20. You responded at 9:50 with a thumbs up.” He looked at Eli. “A damn thumbs up. Might as well have been a fuck you.”

“I shoulda called,” Eli said. “I don’t even think we won it…the Ford project.”

Luke cocked his head. He didn’t care about Ford, their trucks, or any piece of creative collateral that did or did not get approved. “Darn,” he responded flatly. He didn’t care if electric vehicles had friends or personalities, or commented on @Wendy’s latest Instagram post.

“I made a playlist,” Luke said. “I picked songs from the last two years. The first time we met at that dumb Gramercy bar. Some of the songs we listened to on the way upstate when your phone wouldn’t connect, and we were stuck with the radio. That song your niece made us play on repeat.”

“How do you remember what we listened to on the radio?” Eli asked.

Luke pulled out one of the chairs and sat at the dining table. He looked especially handsome in this light. He looked up at Eli like something had finally clicked. “I know your job is very, very important,” he said with every bit of sarcasm he could muster. “But I left work early. I went to Trader Joe’s. I trimmed the green beans like Julia Child.”

Eli sat down across from him. He wanted to make the point that his work was far more important than candles or dinner. He wanted to make the point that responding to a comment from @Wendy’s would, in fact, have an impact on overall Instagram engagement. Instead, he said, “You’re right.”

After a quick stint in the microwave, the steaks made it to the table. They ate a few bites. The steak was very tough. The room was stiff, but the situation was a bit funny. That awkward kind of funny when you’re with someone you like, but don’t know what to say.

“What did you get for cotton?” Luke asked after a moment.

“Pillowcases,” Eli said. “I ordered good ones from that company that keeps getting its ads defaced in the subway. They’re Danish, I think.” He nodded his head toward the bedroom. “I’ll put them on after dinner.”

Luke smiled. “I got you socks,” he said. He stood and walked to the coffee table, opened the middle drawer, and pulled out a small box wrapped in that brown paper that old-fashioned packages have.

Eli opened the box. The socks were white and soft. They had cute little yellow stripes at the top. He felt something in his chest. Longing? No, that couldn’t be it. Maybe real regret?

“I am sorry,” he said again.

Luke nodded. “I know,” he said. “Please just…before nine next time.”

They moved to the couch. Luke dropped his feet in Eli’s lap. They watched a show where people date each other with no intention of finding love, but were more in the market for internet fame. Eli leaned back. This was nice. This was calm. He did not say that Ford would probably call tomorrow and officially pass. He did not say that his job seemed to require the part of himself that had cost them dinner. He did not say anything about a cliff’s edge.

Part 6

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Ehud Neuhaus

The Ford team sat in a row of almost matching suits. Chris, a man whose light blue tie had listened to all his HR complaints. Martin, who seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Arnold, whose posture made it clear that he’d be the first to not get it. Two assistants on either end, like parentheses.

Across from them, Joel was wearing a dark blue suit. Eli was in a slightly cheaper-looking dark blue suit. Marie was in a black skirt suit that she would regret the moment she stepped into the room. Gordon, at the head of the table, was playing his best Managing Director.

On the screen: a person at a cliff’s edge. You know the one.

“Ford sells quality vehicles,” Joel began, settling into his rehearsed words, not too confident, but not too salesy. He shifted to the side, and the choreography got a little more obvious.

“When we ask consumers to buy into electric,” Eli said, joining Joel at the front, “we’re asking them to take a leap into the unknown.”

CLICK. The slide switched. The lightning appeared with its chrome grin and cute little electric-bolt logo. “EV purchases are accelerating among men thirty-five to fifty,” he said, and the slide produced a graph that was real in the same way unicorns or Santa are real.

“Which opens a lane for Ford to enter as the calm, cool big brother,” Joel said. He didn’t glance back at the cliff like he did last night. He could feel the cliff looking at him.

“How do we sell the excitement of electric to a consumer who doesn’t trust advertising? Doesn’t really trust anybody?” Eli asked. He gestured an open palm toward the screen like that old guy in Jurassic Park.

CLICK. A video appeared. A road curling through the mountains, yellow leaves falling gracefully, and a gray-haired driver. Georgia’s wrinkles had been abandoned for stock footage of a real old man. Probably a good call.

“We acknowledge their fear,” Eli said, “and invite them to jump anyway.”

Pause for dramatic effect. CLICK. Text faded in: #TakeTheJump.

“This is more than a campaign, it’s a rallying cry.” Marie moved forward. “It’s inspiration for every day. We create a narrative where Ford isn’t just a truck, but a friend among friends.”

“Who wouldn’t want their truck to be their best friend?” added Joel, but he probably should have held that back.

CLICK. A ‘Thank you’ slide. The room was quiet. Out of mostly politeness. Arnold looked confused. It was very on brand.

“I’m not sure I get it,” Martin stated plainly. “Is it a marketing campaign about suicide?”

That’s when it was over. Whatever they responded with from this point would not matter. The Ford team eventually rose from their chairs, murmuring of a follow-up call, but everyone knew the pleasantries were hollow. If they didn’t grab a cookie on the way out, it was always a bad sign, and all of those damn cookies were untouched.

Part 4

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Billy Pasco

Joel, the creative director, wore a ripped NYU sweatshirt over pinstripe dress pants, the uniform of a man who believed in dressing the part, but only until 10 pm. His pomade was failing. His hair slumped like the fins on those orcas who murder their trainers in captivity. He stood in front of the projector, really overdoing the hand motions, repeating a sentence that he had already fallen in love with hours earlier: “Søren Kierkegaard said, when you stand on the edge of a cliff, you’re not anxious you might fall, you’re anxious you could jump.”

“Which we absolutely cannot open with.” Eli, the copywriter, stated plainly without looking up. He had that agency thing about him. Too much black layered over black, not enough sun. He rubbed his eyes. Hard.

Marie, the strategist, had gone past tired all the way to overly positive. About everything. She rolled back in her chair. “I think I’m following,” she murmured. “It’s like, I dunno, Thelma and Louise, except for old men and trucks.”

“That is the consumer, I guess. Men. Trucks. The American dream, but somehow without any guns. Oh, and the damn thing is electric,” sighed Eli.

Georgia, the art director, and Joel’s right hand sat across the table, laptop open, face lit with blue light. She was twenty-something, new enough to still be amazed by Joel’s ideas. On her screen, she slowly penciled in crow’s feet on the stock image of a young man. The Photoshop job had a particular uncanny valley-ness, where the smile lines were a few millimeters off the mark.

Eli leaned over. “It’s not ideal looking.”

“We’re working with what we have,” Joel said. It was his motto for every deck, every pitch. He leaned over Georgia’s shoulder, forced a small smile, then motioned in the air to show her. “Look where they would naturally form. Soften here, drop the opacity.”

The projector threw a slapped-together slide onto the slightly textured white wall. A cliff’s edge with a man as tiny punctuation at the top, the horizon big and comically vast.

Joel paced. “Ford sells quality vehicles that help get the job done.” He said out loud to himself, rehearsing the lines.

They moved in loops around the room. From table to screen, from sentence to sentence, from the image of a cliff to the glossy image of a truck. The F-150 Lightning Electric Truck beamed from the slide like a prize they could pick from the Price is Right showcase. “Electric vehicles have started gaining traction among males thirty-five to fifty,” Eli recited. “So there’s a real opportunity for Ford in this space.”

“I wouldn’t buy one.” Joel quipped.

“Neither would I,” said Eli.

Part 3

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Sean Driscoll

“Chaos in every can,” Gordon said. “The suggestion of danger sells better than the danger itself.” The client wrote it down in a little leather-bound notebook. They always do.

Gordon, the Managing Director, stood on the wrong side of the glass. He was forty-something. His gray hair pompadour flapped in the updraft. He gripped the glass with the panic of a private school kid who had only ever fallen into soft things like goose feather pillows. The wind lifted his cuffs, a gentle flourish with every gust. The city below him buzzed as it always did, even after a train delay, when someone decides to end it all. But that’s not why he was here.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The banging was like thunder, far away, then somehow immediately here. Fists on metal. Someone should really oil that stairwell door, he thought for a moment. Nobody ever would.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

He looked back, and they were there, and there was nowhere else to go.

The woman in the high-rise across the street watched the whole thing play out. Gordon’s leather toe dropping into the night. The blackness of the dark swallowing him like it was a mouth taking a big, expensive bite. Before she knew it, he was gone. His shins, his knees, his hips, his chest, his head. A sequence of vanishing body parts.

Gordon didn’t scream. He had learned how to suppress his emotions at boarding school. He had practiced this. Once before, in a tunnel, when he was seventeen, and the silence afterward had lasted the rest of his life.

On the ground, the lookie-loos were already gathering. The Ford was a boxy, older model, positioned perfectly to catch him. Almost like a bowl that had been placed beneath a leak. The truck’s cab had collapsed in, leaving behind a clean, person-shaped indentation. The windshield had shattered, covering the street in beautiful, ragged glitter. Gordon had done the last thing that he would be paid to do. At least he made an impression.

Part 2

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo credit: @mak_jp

Laundry had made its way to every part of the floor. Shirts flung into probably-worn, maybe-worn, and definitely-worn piles. Socks that would never be paired again. Suits filled with every wrinkle in the known universe. Her bedsheets were twisted into ropes, decorative throw pillows on the floor, candy wrappers dotting her dark comforter like little stars.

She let her tote bag fall off in the middle of the chaos. The shoulders of her blazer slid off. Trousers unhooked, unzipped. The sudden cold of the room dusted her skin.

She stood in front of her small ornate mirror that didn’t match anything else in the room. The gold frame gave her a little confession booth to share her sins. She had added the gold paint using a spray can and the dumpsters out front as a work surface. The landlord asked if she was the one who had left the paint marks. “Definitely not,” she told him.

She pressed a thumb under one eye and then the other. The mascara smudge became smudge-ier. Not like she’d been crying, more like she was auditioning for some low-budget horror film where the ghost who haunted pre-war studio apartments hadn’t slept in weeks.

On the windowsill, between a dying succulent and a stack of unopened mail, Marie kept her altar. She wasn’t religious; she was just collecting small pieces of proof that she’d existed. That she was real.

A little laminated card of La Virgen de Guadalupe. The corners were soft from being felt too many times. A plastic cup that had once held a tea light and now held bobby pins. One tall prayer candle in a glass sleeve. The kind you could buy at any bodega in New York. And nearby on the ledge was a knife and five blackberries, as if her window were a set piece in a Frida Kahlo painting.

She didn’t light it daily. That would imply routine. Stability. A person with a real plan. Marie lit it when she felt the weight was becoming too much and she needed to nudge the universe in the right direction.

She found a lighter in the kitchen junk drawer, the one with a single takeout menu from the Chinese place down the street, and an expired MetroCard she refused to throw away out of superstition. It was the first card she bought upon arriving in New York City. It was good luck. Probably.

FLLLICK. The wick took a long second to light, then steadied. A small flame, trying to be brave in a city built to bully small things. Marie watched the light catch the glass, creating a small, beautiful corner in her studio apartment. The room didn’t change. Her day didn’t change. But the flame existed. That was something.

She put two fingers to her forehead, then her chest, then her shoulders. Just like her mom had taught her. Because if you didn’t know what to do, you did this.

“Por favor, Dios. Que todo salga bien,” she whispered to herself.

When her mother, Antoinette, had brought her to Phoenix, Marie was fourteen and angry in a quiet way that almost didn’t look like anger. Two suitcases. One backpack. A city that felt like a big, bright, hot punishment. They’d been scared and lonely at first, not in a way anyone could see, but in the small, constant way of not knowing where to go or where to put yourself.

Antoinette had lit candles in their apartment too. Not as a miracle request. As a declaration. We are still here. We still get to ask for things.

Across the room, in the kitchen, the fridge buzzed loudly. Inside, milk was aging into chunks, peaches were decorated with a thin green layer, and a jar of jam sat there in the back. Just taking up space. Behind all of it, a large lidded rectangle: the casserole. The thing brought by a well-meaning neighbor last week, after the fire alarm incident had woken her up at 4:30 am. The neighbor said she was cooking pierogies, but Marie suspected that might be code for meth.

She carefully slid the casserole out of the fridge and thunked it onto the counter. Popped the lid. One big, coagulated mass, with some elbow macaroni that added additional girth.

Drawer. Spoon. That overly large serving kind. The first bite was ice cold, but kinda good? The second bite was a mouthful of salt. In a definitely good way.

She slid down the cabinet until she was on the floor, knees up, casserole wedged between them. Like she was doing one of those old-fashioned exercises where you squeeze a hoop between your knees. The spoon clinked across the glass bottom as she enjoyed her dinner.

In the wall to her left, muffled conversation came in and out like the Coney Island tide. The building didn’t believe in privacy. If you were going to have a fight with your wife, it was everyone’s problem. Marie actually preferred it this way. Other lives as white noise meant hers could be static.

After consuming the casserole in the fashion of a slumped-over goblin, she dropped the spoon into the empty dish and crossed back over to the bed. On the way, she flicked the kitchen light off. The dark let the place enlarge itself again by a few forgiving inches.

She fell sideways onto the bed. Her phone, face down on the nightstand, called for her attention with little repetitive buzzes. She gave in very easily and unlocked her phone with 1234. A password someone would only dare use on their luggage.

Thumb. Swipe. The little red cartoon flame opened with its cute little animation. Tinder. Profiles came in and out with the quick swipe of her finger.

A man with a fish. You know the pose. A man standing in front of the sign for Zion National Park. She had hung off the chains at the Angels Landing hike, and it wasn’t a fond memory. A man in a suit with a tie so red he could be a congressman. He checked both “Christian” and “conservative” on his profile.

Left, right, left. The muscles remembered her dating preferences without her. The ones she paused on had the same face, all expressed in different places. Different universes. A baseball cap and a toddler, a freshly killed elk, a gym mirror selfie.

Bios did their elevator pitches with varying degrees of grammar.

“Six four if that matters.” (It kinda mattered.)

“Looking for my partner in crime.” (Okay, Clyde.)

“No drama.” (Sure, Jan.)

Marie had always been clear in saying she didn’t like Tinder. But, she did like the feeling of choice at your fingertips. It felt like control. Swipe enough, and you can trick the part of your brain that was exhausted into thinking it’s found the perfect mate.

A siren settled one street over, and the cops quieted down as they hopped out to harass a homeless man. She adjusted a pillow, sat up, tried a new position, then surrendered to a less-than-comfortable one.

Left, left, right. Him.

Joel’s face appeared on her screen. Not a professional headshot. A weird, casual image in Central Park shot from a low angle, probably by his daughter. Gross. A weird mix of photos in band t-shirts, unshaveness, and weekend light. The whole thing was jarring.

Hard pass. Left swipe. This was the end of it for tonight.

She had rules for situations like this, which basically meant she had a collection of stories she told about who she was. One of them was about not being the kind of woman who slept with someone at work. Another was about being the kind who refused loneliness and dressed up even if there was nowhere to go. The third was about not being predictable, even to herself. The rules worked best when they weren’t tested.

The phone now lay there, face down, buzzing once. Twice. A third time. Some app asking for attention. Or a human. Or a robot wearing a human’s name. She didn’t check.

In the wall, the conversation next door heated up. “WHO THE FUCK IS JESSICA!?” Then resolved. Must have been a family friend. Or an elderly coworker. The fridge made that weird reset sound. Somewhere in the building, a toilet flush really made a show of it.

On the windowsill, the prayer candle threw a thin line of light onto a stack of mail as if it were blessing her overdue water bill. Marie let her hand rest on her stomach and felt the solid, heavy casserole. She rolled over and closed her eyes. When you stand on the edge of a cliff…

Part 5

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Every Sunday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Photo Credit: Krišjānis Kazaks