Does creativity know anything about geography?

I’d like to think not. But, sad to say, some people think geography has something to do with creativity. Specifically on the Ernie Schenck blog recently, there was a post about the fact that Rudy Giuliani didn’t hire a “New York” agency for his campaign. The sad thing was that some of the posted comments referred to D.C. advertising with words like “buffoons”, “hamfisted” and “schlockmeisters”.

That was hard for me to read. Now, I hate the junk political consultants call “advertising”, and to be completely honest, I’m embarrassed they’re here. At the same time, I think that anybody who buys into the “any creative that didn’t come from New York is crap” mindset is a genuine, grade-A idiot. But what bothers me most about the Giuliani/Schenck post and comments is that the whole freaking city of Washington got painted with the “schlockmeister” brush.

For every one of those political hack agencies, there’s an Arnold. And Rosenthal Partners. A Design Army, August Lang, and a Redhead. With Lisa Biskin, Woody Kay, Joel Mooy, Dan Rosenthal, Ed Stern, Francis Sullivan, and so on. It’s a shame that sort of a little bit maybe sometimes to the outside world, Washington advertising is colored by the junk the hacks do.

It’s a problem. And I don’t know if something like Advertising Week is the answer or not. But I do know that there is some damn good work being done here. And, truth be told, there’s a lot of crap that comes out of New York.