I am a Bucket and So are You.

From all the Tim Russert eulogizing that's happened over the past few days, my favorite anecdote was told by Mike Barnicle today. Russert went to work for Pat Moynihan's senate campaign back in 1976. A product of Ohio colleges surrounded by a sea ivy league hot shots, Russert must have felt understandably intimidated. Sensing this, Moynihan told him, "Tim, what they know, you can learn. What you know, they can never learn."

A beautifully familiar sounding quote, and one with lessons for the rest of us. After all the research, after all the time spent observing, after all the focus groups and conjecture, many of the biggest ad blunders come from misunderstanding this simple truth. There are things we just don't know and can't understand about other people. We are different for so many reasons, very few of which can be defined within any segmented target definitions. We are far too irrational to fit into nice little marketing buckets.

A few tips for people trying to sell me shit:

1. What I do tomorrow won't be defined by what I did yesterday.

2. What I say out loud is only sometimes what I'm actually thinking.

3. My 27 year-old white neighbor in about the same income bracket as me doesn't like, nor buy the same stuff. That guy's a douchebag.

4. I don't always do what I plan to do.

5. I don't really give a shit if what you have does everything that an iPhone does for less money. I want an iPhone.

6. Sometimes I eat breakfast at dinner for no apparent reason.

7. I would be offended if you talked like some of my friends do.

8. I might get bored by you if you don't.

9. I might forgive you for lying to me if you do it in a clever way. But I'll thrash you endlessly if you don't.

Well, you get the point, I think. We're not created to fit snuggly and easily into a pre-defined bucket. And the second we stop trying to make it so will be the second we can have a more meaningful conversation. Brands don't choose me, I choose them.

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