Stupid Advertising Is No Longer the Exception

As a retired advertising agency executive, I found the article (“Tacky Ads: A Low Road to Attention,” Sept. 5) only scratched the surface of the growing amount of stupid advertising being thrown at the public.

One area alone--automobile promotion--is a disgrace. Cars jump across creeks with wheels and doors falling off then get back in place while some squirt babbles about the qualities of the car. Cars dash through dust storms so dense that the car can hardly be seen. As many as a dozen adults and children get out of a car then back into it. A line of cars, bumper to bumper, race around turns, sometimes on the wrong side of the road. What they are trying to prove is beyond me.

If there was a prize for wasting the most amount of advertising money it would be hard to decide which agency or client should receive it. Thank goodness I am no longer in the business. And I am ashamed to admit that I ever was, based on what is currently being produced.

Why don’t you blast these upstart “advertising geniuses” and urge that they go back to kindergarten before they totally ruin what used to be a respectable business?

JACK WEST

Palos Verdes