A while back I was talking about innovation to someone who had just moved from Pepsi Co to its corporate sister, Frito-Lay. After a while I couldn’t resist being clever and provocative and I said: “so, essentially, you are in the business of selling salt and sugar at scale”? He was not impressed OR amused. He replied, in all earnest seriousness: “Actually, that’s not how we think about it. We like to say that we are in the enjoyment business.” And that, my good friends, is as clear a diagnosis of what’s wrong and dangerous about advertising as anything I could ever hope to argue or invent.

Unfinished Business › “Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them” or Why Advertising Is the One Who Should Apologize (via Instapaper)