An article in the March issue of GQ magazine (which isn’t online yet) is worth checking out, and not just because it quotes Brandweek twice. The piece, titled "Meet the Happy New Me, Same as the Crappy Old Me," chronicles the attempts of writer Shalom Auslander, an author and NPR contributor who’s often compared to David Sedaris, to rebrand himself. Auslander, who writes copy for an unnamed ad agency, consults other, anonymous branding experts to decide what his personal brand should be. They never really come to a conclusion, but along the way we get copious one-liners ("I prefer writing fiction and occasional journalism, but the Dark Lord pays well, and there’s free coffee on the 23rd floor" and "If the Cow-schwitz bovine death camp known as Burger King can be a barrel of laughs, what’s stopping me?"), and the article casts much-needed doubt on the idea of personal branding. But the reason the piece is a must-read for ad types is a cameo by Alex Bogusky. In the story, Auslander is en route to Denver to meet with the man Fast Company calls "the mechanic of cool" only to find that Bogusky has canceled the meeting, leaving the author no choice but to fly back from his stopover in Chicago. Auslander brands Bogusky a "glorified shoe salesman" and considers flying to Denver anyway to excrete on the doorstep of Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s headquarters. The only problem with that plan is, knowing the agency, they’d probably film that and turn it into a hot viral video.
—Posted by Todd Wasserman