Threadless was created on the foundation that they would willingly place their business and the future of the brand, in the hands of their customers and their online community. Yeah, the stones they must have, right? They never set out to alienate their fans by creating online communities for the purpose of monetizing them. Rather they focused on creating a shared interest and passion between consumer and the brand. Their popularity was entirely word of mouth and online buzz. They are the perfect case study for marketers on how to succeed and grow your brand using social media. But it’s ironic that ad people would have such a deep affection for a comapny that truly sets the standard for honesty, respect and transparency as a brand. Which at least 75% of the time ad people are paid to cover up or persuade people to ignore the lack of transparency or honesty in a brand. Plus, Threadless was able to achieve incredible success and loyalty in their consumers without spending a dime on traditional advertising or ever tapping an agency to help them get to where they are.

Do ad people secretly cheer for the underdogs? The lucky few companies who can succeed without their years of experience, creativity, and killer pitches catered by Daniel et Daniel?

Perhaps ad people are somewhat jealous of Threadless? Rarely do you meet a client or company so willing to put their customers happiness and satisfaction ahead of their profits or tripling their ROI. If they had an AOR, could you imagine the freedom and creativity they would let agencies get away with?

So why don’t other companies follow the Threadless model?

Shhhhhhh, silly! If that were the case there would be no need for ad agencies. And we can’t have that now can we. Who would I write about all day?

Whatever the case, ad people’s love for Threadless could simply be an almost puppy dog crush, due to Threadless’ oblivious and naive way they approach running their business. They make building a community and fan base seem so nonchalant and easy. “What do you want to do today?”, “I don’t know, wanna start a company that goes against all traditional business models and advertising strategies…or we could watch Lord of The Rings, I’m down for either?”

For example, take a look at the way Threadless handles their permission marketing and weekly e-mail.

Every week Threadless sends out their weekly e-mail to all their fans and subscription customers. In one Monday e-mail, they made an error and followed the intital e-mail with a second, which was an apology stating:

Oops! Due to a last minute template switch, we sent you an e-mail today without a working unsubscribe link. Here’s the link to the subscription center, were you can unsubscribe and manage your subscription.

Sorry for the oversight! Your friends at Threadless.

Can you imagine the gall and cojones they must have to reveal such an error. Several CMO’s would experience a heart attack if a company employee sent out an e-mail like that. The nerve, not only willingly letting people opt out and walk away from their business but guiding them along the way to doing so!

It’s been well documented that many of the coolest things around today are spawned from the people who work in ad agencies. They know cool, hip, trendy and ride the crest of awesomeness on a daily basis. So, it’s no surprise that ad people would find a company who has built a reputation for cultivating online awesomeness appealing. Regardless, one does find it strange, if not ironical, that ad people would have such adoration for a company who rose to fame by rejecting the traditional advertising mold and very industry that they work in. It’s like a company that manufactures steroids, secretly cheering for the baseball player who who hits 763 homer all on his own.

But where did the word come from?

It’s believed that the early Egyptians were the first to use to word. There is no substantial proof but many scientist and logographic experts believe they have found what appear to be hieroglyphs of a bird, three squiggly lines, a snail and a monkey, which they say, when translated means synergy.

However, there are those who believe Zeus himself passed down Synergy to the ancient Greeks on a bolt of lightning. The word then flourished in the ancient Greek economy as merchants used it to confuse farmers and uneducated buyers when selling slaves or as a negotiation tactic to avoid having their goods stolen by pirates.

In the 21st century the word was used exclusively by fresh out of school B.A.s hoping to demonstrate their expertise and prove that they actually paid attention in University and didn’t spend four years and $50,000 just to play beer pong and be promiscuous. However, a growing trend began to emerge where company presidents and CEO’s adopted the term in the hopes of sounding as ambiguous and confusing to their subordinates as possible – while still appearing to have a complete grasp on what they were communicating. This in tern lead to mid-level management and uppity account people hopping on the synergy bandwagon and the word trickled down into client meetings and marketing plans.

Clients were baffled and amazed upon hearing the word. They had no idea what it was, how it worked, or what it meant for their branding campaign but looked at each other in awe as they opened their wallets to agencies. Consequently if you do the research, due to the use of the word synergy in almost every creative pitch from the 1950’s to the late 60’s, it was directly responsible for selling some of the greatest ad campaigns of all time.

Bernbach has stated numerous times that Volkswagen was completely against the “Think Small” campaign and were about to scrap the idea but in a last minute Hail Marry, he reached deep down and pulled out the word “synergy”. Leo Burnett was once quoted as saying, “if we wouldn’t have had synergy, we wouldn’t have had a Marlboro Man”. Batton, Barton, Durstine & Osborn’s The Pepsi Generation campaign might as well have been called the synergy generation.

Unfortunately due to success stories like the above mentioned, the word spread through the advertising industry and has been grossly overused by many people who don’t understand the word or how it works. With great power comes great responsibility and perhaps the word synergy wasn’t meant to be used by everyone. Like an O.C. housewife and a bottle of vicodin, it’s been abused and misused.

Lucky for us there is a whole new generation of buzzwords seeping out of the industry that perhaps one day may be able to overthrow synergy as the most overused buzzword. Words and phrases like: socialization, turnkey solutions, visceral, a 2012 approach (start over/anew), cross-functional multi-discipline team network (I just threw up in my mouth a little), blog, Google, and twends, may take this generation into a whole new era of redundancy.

Creatives will often spend copious amounts of time during the work day with their feet up on their desk, trying to come to grips with the clients latest batch of refusals on the copy they just spent days slaving over. So naturally, they require a comfortable – yet fashion forward shoe, that can withstand this type of grueling routine. Not to mention, playing ping pong or foosball without the proper supportive footwear,  is cause to throw ones back out or twist an ankle.

So why do Ad people share such a connection and universal acceptance of one shoe?

Well maybe it has to do with the history of Chuck Ts.

Charles Taylor, aka Chuck, was a real person. He was one of the first basketball players to officially endorse a sports shoe. Converse then hired him in 1921 to run basketball clinics around the US, selling the sport of basketball, and the shoe it took to play it. In 1923, Chuck Taylor’s name was added to the All-Star ankle patch. Next, came World War II, and Converse was tapped to shift production for war times and outfit all soldiers going through basic training in the Chuck Taylor All-Star.

Could a history so rich in product endorsement and paradigm synergy optimization integral branding metrics Facebook be the answer? Of course not, that sentence was just a bunch of marketing buzzwords I heard a client use in our last meeting.

I’m not an investigative reporter, so I’ll just assume it has something to do with the fact that, how many clothing styles or items of dress have been around for close to a century, and can blatantly brag about being in style for the general population for at least 50 of those years? Chucks have been a symbol of “hip”, “cool”, “in the fashion know” for 50-plus years.

Or maybe it has something to do with Creative folks ability to identify with a pair of shoes that reflect their individual styles. Which, when you think about it, isn’t really all that individual.

But Chucks remain as versatile as ever. Not only worn by lowly Jr. Copywriters making barely enough to survive and forced to wear the only shoes he/she can afford – without committing fashion suicide. Chucks are also worn with ease by corner office Creative Directors and agency Presidents. Worn with a suit they make the statement that you’re successful and a person of influence, yet still connected to what’s cool and trendy. Clients love that. Although what it really says is, you’re someone who spends too much time and money trying to appear like you have neithe

Take motivational posters, for example. You know the type I’m talking about: photograph of a mountain, or silhouette of a runner, or a saccharine picture of a kitten hanging onto a branch, with a caption featuring a prominent word or phrase like “Excellence” or “Overcoming Adversity”, typically with an explanatory statement in smaller text like “You can achieve anything if you work hard” or “There is no reward without struggle”.

Back in the late ’90s, these posters were the toast of the corporate community: you’d find at least one hanging in the offices of executives and the cubicles of overly-ambitious assistants the world over. But now, only ten years later, the overwhelming cultural trend towards irony and cynicism has relegated what was once an eager, fresh-faced expression of business inspiration to the realm of amusing curiosity at best and, at worst, the stuff of internet-meme-mockery.

Many websites have started allowing users to write their own captions for a variety of photos that range from the mildly ironic to the patently absurd to the graphically offensive, and then generating the caption-with-photo into the motivational poster template. Titled “demotivational posters”, this meme has taken off in a huge way with entire websites devoted to user-generated demotivation.

Here at SAPL, we recognize the need to sling a little mud our own way every now and again – and what better way to illustrate our ability to laugh at ourselves than by highlighting what happens to old ideas in a new era? Besides, some of those posters are pretty damn funny.

Check it out for yourself, and share a laugh at the expense of ad people everywhere.