Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Advertising

Important Question: Are You Coronavirus Stressed Out?

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Stressed out?

Of course, you are. Since I am not a stress expert (other than having experienced it and solved it). I am NOT going to point out that running an advertising agency or working at one today isn’t fucking high stress. Of course, it is. This is way bad. Bad for your career. Bad for your bank account. Bad for your emotional outlook. Bad for your family and worse – bad for your health. A quote from Healthline:

Anxiety can trigger your flight-or-fight stress response and release a flood of chemicals and hormones, like adrenaline, into your system. … This can weaken your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections and frequent illnesses.

The drill is if you are like me, the news is fucking intense. The work environment is intense. This working from home is, kinda not fun after a while and your job is kinda precarious.

Advice — Meditate Now

I will offer my experienced perspective on advertising agency and internet start-up related stress-management-business-guidance soon (I had lovely stress from global agency lunacy, CEOing two internet start-ups and owning my own agency).

In the meantime… I strongly suggest that if you do daily meditation today… At least you SHOULD consider it. Caps for emphasis.

A Mega Tip – How To Meditate!

How to start? Check out the extremely well-reviewed and super downloaded “meditate app” —- Waking Up from Sam Harris. It is the #1 meditate-training app in the app stores. I don’t make a dime from this so please check it out – for my own universal advertising-agency-universe mental health.

Get this app.

Waking Up

That’s it. Do this.

Peter

 

 

 

P&G And A Brighter Toothpaste Idea

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P&G – Here’s My Toothpaste Idea

I happened upon a P&G executive in Varanasi during my India trip, I am here the month of January. Our conversation netted a new toothpaste idea.

He said that he was in R&D and when I asked for detail, he told me that he was “upstream” which I take for management.

I asked if P&G was exploring the marijuana industry/opportunity and was told that if so, it was not discussed in the hallways.

I (humorously) suggested that they create a marijuana THC or CMD toothpaste.

My tagline: Use (Brandname-to-be-Determine) Toothpaste…

“For A Truly Brighter Smile”

Or…

“Start Your Day With A Smile”

 

Is Domino’s Delivery Insurance Bad Advertising?

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A quick note before I get to Domino’s and their Delivery Insurance advertising… We’ve all seen the, mostly consternation, at the husband who buys his wife a Peloton bike for Christmas. The issues: husband type gives beautiful wife an exercise bike; she (at 120 LBs kicks into gear and by the end drops three LBs.) PC issues here. People go crazy. Spoof TV commercial goes very viral. But, for comparison on the PC scale, I discuss worker exploitation that stars in a Domino’s TV commercial. Did this ad get anyone’s attention? Well, a bit. But not at the level of Peloton.

I am sitting in front of my TV in Mexico watching Sunday NFL football games. Domino’s is spending some big bucks to show me a commercial about its “Delivery Insurance” where their employees freak out, run around the kitchen, drive fast and run down the street and walkways to deliver pizzas that quite possibly had arrived earlier without the right topping. Holy shit, who can live without their pepperoni?

Domino’s Advertising Problem

Like you, I have seen numerous articles in the past couple of months about how Amazon’s hourly-wage employees suffer injury trying to get you that new pair of headphones within 24 hours. Some parts of Amazon’s warehouses look like slave-driven machines. This hasn’t been a good PR season for Bezos.

Given the Amazon press, do you think that Domino’s Kate Trumbull, VP of advertising and Hispanic marketing has been paying attention to how a major corporation can damage its employees in a quest for speed? Does Domino’s ad agency pay attention?

Take a look at this commercial. Take a look at how the hourly-wage employees, note – average hourly wage at Domino’s is $6 to $11 per hour for a delivery driver (I’ll do the math for you – that’s about $20,000 per year) – is hustling like a fucking NASCAR whirling dervish to get you that missing dipping sauce.

I guess the next question is… does the TV viewer care about the insane Domino’s work system as long as they get their sausage?

Am I being too sensitive?