Kinda Like Holistic Innovative Thinking

(UPDATE: The video that motivated this blog post has been edited by the owners removing some of the heinous silliness including the line that gave this post its title.)

Earlier this week, the great Rich Siegel (soon to be chairman of WPP) unearthed a video on his blog that I can't stop watching.

I present it here for your consideration.

It is a series of interviews with planners and/or strategists trying to explain something -- I'm not really sure what. It is either the difference between planning and strategy or the similarities or... I don't know, something.

Whatever it is, it is a thorough embarrassment to our industry.

It would be ridiculous and farcical if it wasn't so sad. Our business has reached such a level of self-conscious pretension and confusion that otherwise intelligent people can't even explain in plain English what the fuck it is they do or why.

The other thing that makes it so sad is that it is not unfamiliar. It is depressingly typical of how so many in the ad business torture logic and language and twist themselves into knots pompously describing their precious contribution to civilization.

Watch in awe as planners make the obvious incomprehensible.

The only question is this: Is it real or a lost Monty Python episode?