Elephant in the room

Axa Financial, an insurance/financial services company, is running a new TV campaign that presents a nice inconceivable. In it, a couple is discussing their finances or something, and at the table with them is a huge gorilla, which they are ignoring. The gorilla starts talking about Axa or whatever and then closes with a statement along the lines of, "but I'm only the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

Ouch. The term, "800-pound gorilla" refers to the industry giant in a particular area, like Microsoft in software. What the stupid Axa people actually mean is the elephant in the room. You'd think before they'd spend all that money on a TV campaign they'd look up the metaphor.

Just go to Urban Dictionary, dummies.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=800-pound+gorilla
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=elephant+in+the+room

gertrude

Creative creatives creating creative creative

A passage from Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris:

Jim explained that in the advertising industry, art directors and copywriters alike were called creatives… Jim also told him that the advertising product, whether it was a TV commercial, a print ad, a billboard or a radio spot, was called the creative.

…
“You folks over there,” said Max, “you say you call yourselves creatives, is that what you're telling me? And the work you do, you call that the creative, is that what you said?” Jim said that was correct. “And I suppose you think of yourselves as pretty creative over there, I bet.”

“I suppose so,” said Jim, wondering what Max was driving at.

“And the work you do, you probably think that's pretty creative work.”

“What are you asking me, Uncle Max?”

“Well, if all that's true,” said the old man, “that would make you creative creatives creating creative creative.” There was silence as Max allowed Jim to take this in. “And that right there,” he concluded, “…That's a use of the English language just too absurd to even contemplate.”

With that, Max hung up.

don't you hate it when they get metaphors wrong?

The other day a political pundit was answering the question on NPR of whether the fairly recently appointed General David Petraeus is likely to be honest about the situation in Iraq, and he stated that Petraeus "is a square shooter."

I wonder what that would look like.

gertrude