Learn to use the media you've got!

This is a suggestion, nay, a plea to all marketers out there. Please learn to do something good with the media you already have before invading everywhere else I look.

Don't get me wrong, I love guerrilla advertising if it surprises, delights and makes people happy. I simply can't stand that I have, for example, a (bad) GM ad on my airline tray table. Really, did I need that? Were your ads so great that I just couldn't wait to open a magazine before seeing it?

This whole plague of advertising stems from one thing: bad creative that couldn't sell antidotes to poison victims. Creatives/Media types can't think of a good actual idea (because of client restraints or whatever bad excuse) and therefore spend their time searching for a little spot that nobody has ever thought to place an ad ("Hey, how about ads in peoples' sinks at home! I'm a genius!" and they strike. Thus forever ruining whatever item it was the ad was placed on forever for all of us.

So here's what I propose as a rule: if your message contextually makes sense with where you put it AND it causes more happiness than annoyance, GO! If however it's just another space that people look (I'm reminded of a Steve Martin movie where he suggests tongues as an untapped media space) then please...keep it to yourself and learn to do your job. Not for your client, but for the industry and for humanity.