"No," I thought, it isn't a solution, it's a store, and how absurd that someone would try to convince me or anyone else otherwise. Who comes up with these "slogans?" No one really expects me to start referring to Rite Aid as a solution, do they?

"Honey, I'm going to the solution, need anything?" I can't picture myself saying that, can you? Who sold Rite Aid on that concept? Was it an ad agency? Did they really do focus groups that backed up their assertion this would be successful?

Most commercial messaging is insulting to witness. Most commercial messaging doesn't work. No wonder marketing budgets have been slashed back in these hard times. When you cut back ineffective marketing budgets and find you suffer little for that cutback, are you likely to reinstate said budgets when the money spigots are flowing again? DM Guru Mac Ross pondered this in front of me this week and I didn't find myself arguing the other side too strenuously.

Much of advertising and commercial messaging is broken. Until it's fixed, until it proves that it does actually work, I seriously doubt we'll see marketing budgets return in the way and to the levels of recent memory.