Straight up indeed.

My friend Steve Hull, who publishes Bethesda Magazine, sent me this gem just a few minutes ago.

You can read the whole thing on the BusinessWeek web site here, but the gist of it is, well, here's the subhead:

"The vast majority of ads don't register with consumers. Here are seven straight-up reasons why your message probably isn't getting through."

OK, the author, Steve McKee, is an advertising guy, but he's right. Some of the seven reasons are -- oh what the hell, here they all are. It's boring, it's boorish, it's safe, it's trying to do too much, it hasn't been given time, you like it and it's not an advertising problem.

Read it. Makes a hell of a lot of sense, I think.