Not only is the new Heineken ad starring John Turturro hilarious, it's also educational. In the spot that will play during the Super Bowl next Sunday, he manages to completely destroy several words (see below), and deliver some truly original lines.

Some inspiring phrases and choice quotes from the "philosophers" over at Heineken's ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy:

"Every man is a leader of his own expedition."

And the zinger:

"No destination is the destination of the undestinated. But, he who wanders with purpose has no purpose to wander."

These excerpts from the commercial make no sense, of course. But they are both good examples of an emerging trend in advertising: totally bizarre behavior as the ultimate sales pitch.

This ad, along with many other truly weird advertising campaigns such as GotVMail's viral campaign with Gary Busey, seem to signal the emergence of a new advertising zeitgeist. It seems like putting a slightly goofy looking guy in an environment where he can spout seemingly useless nonsense is really good for business. It's as if finding humor in what is truly awkward (and vaguely tragic) is some sort of great human truth (it's not advertising, but NBC's "The Office" is a good example of this type of humor).

Look for the ad during the Super Bowl this weekend, or check it out below. Among many other ads vying for the attention of the super bowl viewers, this might be the only time this ad ever "fits in."

Newspapers are (were?) beautiful. They've served as repositories for historical events and made tangible the fleeting moments that mark our individual and collective human experience. But newspapers are an endangered species. The recent crumbling of the economy has only hastened this imminent death, and as ad sales continue in a downward spiral, it's even more difficult for newspapers to stay in business. It's not a pretty picture.

While all of this is going down, there's a man in Chicago starting something he calls The Printed Blog. According to the Times, Joshua Karp is planning to reprint blog posts on paper. Yes, that's right. The mix of local and national blog content--given away free by bloggers--will allow Karp to eliminate one of the biggest costs of running a newspaper besides production: staff.

Karp has an interesting concept, but does the market for this newspaper even exist? Won't The Printed Blog face the same fate so many other printed newspapers do these days? When Karp says something like, "We are trying to be the first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and other user-generated content," it makes you wonder if he's given this idea a lot of thought, because the concept isn't unique. In fact, the advent of newspapers was entirely due to "user-generated content" in the first place--it just wasn't called that back when the printing press was invented. What we now call "users" were just people who had something to say.

I'm not as cynical as Seth Godin about newspapers. I actually understand why people feel nostalgic about them. At one point in time, a local newspaper was the only thing that connected citizens, and made tangible the fleeting moments I referenced earlier--births, deaths, and all the other minutiae of daily life. But now they're as anonymous as the internet, so what's the difference? And Seth's probably right that no one will miss the mass-produced drivel that populates most big newspapers, but they will miss the type of newspapers that solidified small communities and linked people with no other means of connection.

Back in 2006 and 2007, I was working on a research project at Brandeis that required me to read loads of old newspapers on microfilm. All of these newspapers--from the 1920's through 1940's--were from Minnesota and North Dakota, states that saw a huge amount of mostly Norwegian immigrants at that time. As people settled, much like they did in other states, they had families, put down roots, and newspapers served as a tangible record of events in the community (and even discussed the best crops to plant for the best harvest). It was personal, and it was meaningful.

I can appreciate what people like Joshua Karp are trying to do, but he's got to sell this plan differently. Instead of publishing blog posts that people could just read online, make news relevant again--make it local. Sell the customization aspect of your network, because the bottom line is that the news cycle we know as the gold standard today is too fast to relay in print days later. The only way to resurrect the printed newspaper is to make it relevant and highly customized to the specific communities you're serving.

As a little kid, it was so exciting to be able to just write complete sentences that the idea of having to actually revise them seemed like a daunting task. That's how I felt the year I entered second grade, when our teacher, Anne (we called our teachers by their first names at Stevens), made all of us write original stories that we would later "publish" using colored poster board and a type of duct tape that served as binding.

As a second grader, writing an entire story was a challenge, and the idea of revising something I wrote perplexed me. Wasn't it perfect the way it was? What really needed improvement? Needless to say, there was a lot that needed revising--especially the very unique way I'd decided to spell the plural of the word "penny" in one story.

After second grade with Anne, writing seemed like smooth sailing. She'd prepared us for what was to follow, and she gave us a token of our hard work in our "published" books. When in fifth grade we were assigned the task of writing our autobiographies (an arduous task, no doubt, given the utter madness life can throw at you in your first ten years, *ahem*), I didn't feel overwhelmed with the process of revising. I was beginning to see why people made revisions, and how their work was improved as a result.

Over time, figuring out how to say exactly what you want to say in as few words as possible becomes easier. When you look at your writing, you know what words should be eliminated, and why, right away. But sometimes, when faced with a new project, even grown-up copywriters find themselves scaling that steep learning curve all over again. Part of the problem is that you need to revise with an eye for concision as well as the goal of the task at hand. For example, if your client wants something clever, there's the pressure to both say what you need to say, and also be witty (or serious, or entertaining--it all depends on the project).

Revising doesn't mean just eliminating words. And simply eliminating words can strip copy of its meaning. As Jason of 37signals points out, revising within the confines of what you've already created sometimes leads to total confusion.

Jason suggests a simple--but perfect--solution: start fresh. If what you're working on is not working for you, you've become limited by the requirements of the task itself. Jason of 37signals put it best: "I don't want to be influenced by what I thought I had to say before. I want to think about what I want to say now." Don't be afraid to go back to the drawing board, and just start all over. The second grader in you will feel a lot less overwhelmed.