Outside is the New Inside

While visiting one of the ad blogs I like to look in on, I was served up with a Google AdSense "contextually targeted ad" for an advertising agency in my locale. First of all, I'm not sure that's a very effective strategy; placing ad agency ads on ad blogs. It seems that most ad blogs are read primarily by industry insiders, not people looking for an agency. So you know my IP and you know I'm on an ad blog. Guess that means I need an advertising agency somewhere near my IP! Anyway, this agency's clever line, carefully crafted to get me to click on their ad, was the following incredibly original, completely believable pitch:

"We think outside the box to develop eye catching ad campaigns."

Wow. Really? You and about 395,000 other small to medium sized ad shops are all "thinking outside the box." I'll bet some of the big shops are using very similar concepts. With everyone "outside the box" now, maybe it's time we got rid of the whole "box" concept altogether?

There was never a box. You are not outside of it. No one is inside of this nonexistent box. The box is gone. It never was. It was in your own cardboard box of a head. Stop referring to this imaginary box.

If by "box" you mean unoriginal ideas, then fine. There are only original ideas and clichéd ideas - and "thinking outside the box" is about as clichéd as it gets.

You know that history repeats itself
What you just done so has somebody else