If… you are involved in the Scottish advertising scene, better, perhaps, to look away now.
A Glasgow-based website dedicated to reviewing the latest adverts has taken, as its inspiration, a new TV ad to pen a few choice words about the industry it reports.
www.davidreviews.com takes a lead from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If…
Iffy
If you can keep your job when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
And not give a flying toss about their doubting too,
If you can jump the queue instead of waiting,
And discard the truth and favour lies,
And not care one jot about all the hating,
And care more to look good than talk wise,
If you can dream of earning more than your master,
And have nothing but greed and avarice in your heart,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And not be able to tell them apart,
If you cannot bear to hear others speak until you’ve spoken,
Their words meaningless to you, your mind made up,
Them interrupted so much, their spirits broken,
You, so triumphant they cannot shut you up,
If you can talk with focus groups and discard their inconvenient truths,
Or walk with Kings and nod agreement to all they utter,
If you can ignore advice from both friend and foe and remain unmoved,
If all men say they trust you but behind your back they mutter,
If you can fill the unforgiving commercial break,
With thirty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is Purgatory and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be an Ad Man, my son!
