Most people have no idea what they want to do as a career in life, even well into college and even after graduating. That wasn’t true with me. I decided in 7th grade. I was in a Social Studies class and our teacher made us do an assignment to figure out our careers. I guarantee that no one else in that class even remembers that assignment, but for me, that assignment cemented in my mind what I would someday do.

I remember thinking about doing accounting, but then remembered that I hated math and had no idea what accountants did (I would have done what Kevin did. Mostly eat M&M’s). Back then, computers barely existed, so becoming Neo wasn’t an option.

I was taking an art class at the time but couldn’t draw unless there were dots to connect. I was painfully shy and introverted, so I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher (although I could have been Cameron Diaz’s version). I thought about all the things I liked, and I realized I loved sitting around watching TV. In particular, I realized that I loved the advertisements on TV. I made my mind up that day. I would do the laziest thing I could think of. Writing TV shows was too much work. But writing 30 second commercials, that I could do. I would be the writer of ads and come up with slogans.

Every class and every decision I made after that moment was going to be toward becoming an ad copywriter. I read books about advertising, and tried to figure out what ad copywriters did all day. Don Draper sat around and procrastinated and then at the last moment came up with brilliant ideas for ad campaigns. I’m really good at procrastinating. Sounds like I made the right choice.

Not only did I watch Mad Men, but I watched other movies where people worked in ad agencies like the Mel Gibson movie What Women Want, and a Dudley Moore movie called Crazy People.

In college, I took advertising classes to learn how to get better at procrastination and light bulb ideas. My dream was to write commercials for Nike, because they were the gold standard for commercials in my time. In one of my classes, my group did and ad campaign for Nike. I came up with the idea for the commercial. We would have a basketball game of all the Nike Athletes and they would be greek gods playing on Mount Olympus (but renamed as Mount Nike). All I asked of the other teammates was to engrave the Nike symbol on our local mountain, but they took the easy way out and just drew it on a piece of paper. No wonder I can’t work well with others.

I am well versed in the history of advertising.

For a brief time back in the 50’s, ad agencies even tried subliminal advertising. A researcher tried an experiment where he flashed one with the words, “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” and he claimed that sales of the two went up significantly. I tried to start a subliminal advertising agency, but I found out later, that subliminal advertising was banned because it was deceptive and manipulative. That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. I’m still bitter about that.

Back in the day, there were only so many places you could advertise. There was TV, radio, billboards, and movies (product placement). Advertising is always trying to find new platforms where they can put ads. The new media boom started with the internet and then got more deceptive and manipulative when social media and influencer marketing came along. Sports joined the manipulation by sponsoring arenas and following NASCAR, by putting ads on NBA jerseys.

Branding is a big part of advertising. Branding is basically turning a huge corporations that makes things, into a living being that has an identity. Logos, taglines, slogans, and slogos are a big part of it. The biggest part of branding is telling the story of the brand. It takes McDonald’s from a place that makes crappy hamburgers to “The Golden Arches”.

The other day, I discovered that one of my favorite brands, Stance socks is using a totally new kind of branding. I don’t know if they are doing it on purpose, or if I just discovered it for them. I took off my socks after a long day to switch to my workout clothes and the socks were just tight enough that the logo left an indent on the inside part of my ankle. I just started advertising for them whether I wanted to or not. I’ve been branded. Like I got a temporary tattoo, without even knowing it.

I just discovered a whole new platform for ad people. Nike could put their logo on the inside of the shoes in just the right place and you would have a swoosh on your foor. Shirts, hats, gloves, pants, all of the clothes industry could design their clothes to be tight enough and logo placed in just the right place and we would all be wearing logos on our bodies without even know we were doing it.

I’m now the inventor of custom involuntary customer branding. Companies can give it a fancy name, but they will be paying royalties for every one they do. It’s yet again, another genius idea I came up with that is a combination of subliminal advertising and literal branding. You’re welcome, Nike. And also, you owe me.

For many other genius ideas, keep following this blog. And for an extra bonus, here are the Bitter Friday Giftures…

I dodged a bullet…

Also glad…

I don’t think art would have been a good choice…

I could have taken off…

I would have been really great for Nike…

I was nice enough to offer to put my Ben’s Bitter Blog name on our local arena…

Here’s the mountain that I wanted the guy to draw the Nike Logo on…

Who knew that my hobby…

I watched movies and shows like…

When I started in advertising, I thought branding meant…

I had no idea until the other day…

In one week, I’ve written a fantastic movie for Hollywood, which they will probably steal, and now I came up with a game changing idea for companies on how to advertise their products. It’s getting old having to be the one that does things for free that people that get paid millions should be doing. That ends now, so I will be expecting a few million this week in my account for doing all this work.

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Branding Deal Ben