I love reading books about advertising. 

I read one about the famous and super-smart ad man David Ogilvy.  

Sitting in a presentation, he noticed the presenter had taped notes on the back of each board to remind him what to say. Ogilvy stopped the show and asked the presenter to flip the boards around. Cut through the crap, basically -- say what you have to say. The people reading the ad want to know what the product will do for them, they're not interested in how cute you are. 

Maybe. I like elegant products pitched with eloquence. And conversely, when they pitch a product with an idea that makes no sense, I think they should read their own ad, and go back to the drawing board and come up with a new product. 

As I feel with the ads for Panasonic's Lumix cameras.  

They've made a massive ad buy on the NYC subway system, or at least on the 1 train which I take regularly to go up and downtown.  

Their pitch is thus: "If it has a ringtone, it's not a camera." 

Wow does that tell you a lot -- about them -- and the kind of heat they must be feeling in the market.  

The problem is thus: Someday very soon, it won't be a camera if it doesn't have a ringtone.  

Just as film cameras were pushed aside by digital cameras, so will non-communicating cameras be pushed aside by ones that communicate. 

We live in an ever-more-realtime world. If I take a picture of a pizza place, I want to tell my peeps "Hey I'm at this great pizza place." For a lot of reasons. First, to brag. Second to get kudos. And third, maybe someone will tell me what to order. It's happened before. "> 

Gone are the days when we come back from a trip and do a slideshow for our friends. Five years ago we marveled at our ability to upload the slideshow from a London hotel room. Next year that's not good enough -- the pictures need to flow up to the net through wimax or at least 3G, selectively (only the good ones please) and our friends will see them within seconds of us taking them. 

Someone at Panasonic knows this or the ad never would have been created. And someone else at Panasonic, the guy who owns the ad budget, is in denial. We're privy to an internal conversation that has leaked into the ad boards of the 1 train in NYC.  

Update: Rebuttal -- "The best camera is the one you have with you."