Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family

Host: The rain had washed the city clean, but the billboards still glowed, dripping with half-truths. Neon faces smiled down on wet streets, promising happiness, freedom, and beauty in a bottle. Inside a small diner off Seventh Avenue, the air was thick with the smell of fried eggs and old coffee, and the buzz of a flickering fluorescent light.

At the corner booth, Jack sat, his sleeves rolled, his tie loosened, his grey eyes staring at a stack of papers. Across from him, Jeeny flipped through a magazine, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder, her brows furrowed at a full-page ad showing a woman with a smile too wide to be real.

Host: The morning was early, the kind where honesty feels possible before the world fully wakes.

Jeeny: “You know what David Ogilvy said?” Her voice was quiet but sharp, like the first sip of black coffee. “‘Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.’”

Jack: “Ah, Ogilvy,” he said, with a half smile, lighting a cigarette. “The saint of Madison Avenue. The man who sold dreams but claimed they were all true.”

Jeeny: “He believed truth could sell, Jack. That honesty had its own appeal.”

Jack: “Honesty?” He exhaled smoke, the word almost a laugh. “There’s no honesty in advertising, Jeeny. There’s strategy. There’s persuasion. People don’t want the truth — they want the illusion that feels like truth.”

Host: The smoke curled upward, mixing with the soft light of the diner, blurring the edges between man and mist.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the problem? You keep feeding illusions until you forget what’s real. You sell beauty to women who already doubt themselves. You sell belonging to men who feel invisible. You call it strategy — I call it betrayal.”

Jack: “Betrayal?” He raised an eyebrow, his tone cool. “You’re taking this too personally. Ads don’t make people insecure; they mirror what’s already there. They just amplify it — because that’s what works.”

Jeeny: “That’s the defense of every manipulator in history — that they only reflect the world, never shape it. But words shape everything, Jack. The stories we tell decide the kind of people we become.”

Host: The waitress passed, pouring coffee into chipped cups, and for a moment, the two of them just watched the steam rise, like a brief truce between their worlds.

Jack: “You’re assuming ads have power on their own. They don’t. Power belongs to the audience. People choose what to believe.”

Jeeny: “Do they? Or are they taught to choose from what they’re shown?”

Jack: “You can’t blame the storyteller for the audience’s hunger.”

Jeeny: “No, but you can blame the storyteller who feeds them poison.”

Host: The rain started again, a thin curtain against the window, the city blurred into a watercolor of light and motion. Jack looked out, his expression distant, as if he were staring into his own reflection in the glass.

Jack: “You know, I once believed what you’re saying. I joined this business thinking I’d make ads that inspired people. I wanted to write something that mattered.”

Jeeny: “What changed?”

Jack: “Reality. You learn fast that clients don’t want truth — they want numbers. Honesty doesn’t pay bills.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the bills are too expensive if they cost your conscience.”

Host: Her words landed softly, but they cut deeper than any argument. Jack rubbed the back of his neck, his voice low now, less certain, almost weary.

Jack: “You talk about conscience like it’s some fixed star. But try telling that to a copywriter with rent due. To a company that needs to survive in a market full of louder liars. The honest ad doesn’t stand out — it gets drowned.”

Jeeny: “Then speak louder, Jack. Not with noise — with integrity.”

Host: The diner’s door opened, a gust of cold air rushing in. A man in a suit walked past, his eyes glued to his phone, his face illuminated by a false blue glow. Jeeny watched him, then turned back.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how we’re surrounded by lies, but we call them marketing? We sell happiness but never deliver it. We make people chase ideals we know don’t exist. How is that different from deceit?”

Jack: “Because it’s consented deceit. Everyone knows it’s part of the game. Nobody actually believes the toothpaste will make them irresistible or the car will make them free. It’s theater. People buy the feeling — not the fact.”

Jeeny: “You call it theater. I call it anesthesia. We numb people with dreams until they can’t tell what’s genuine.”

Host: Her voice trembled, not from anger, but conviction. The rain had turned into a steady rhythm, each drop echoing like a small truth trying to be heard.

Jack: “You make it sound like we’re villains. Maybe we are. But even villains have motives. We’re selling hope — in a world that’s addicted to despair.”

Jeeny: “But false hope is still false. And you know what happens when people wake up? They stop trusting. Not just brands, but each other. That’s what lying does — it erodes the language between souls.”

Host: The words lingered, thick as the smoke in the air. Jack stared at her, something like guilt flickering across his face. He stubbed out the cigarette, the ash collapsing like a small defeat.

Jack: “Maybe Ogilvy was right. Maybe the line between persuasion and deceit is thinner than we like to admit. But if every ad had to pass a moral test, the whole industry would collapse.”

Jeeny: “Then let it collapse. Maybe something honest would grow from the ruins.”

Host: The clock ticked above them, each second stretching like a quiet verdict. Outside, a new billboard flickered to life across the street — a smiling couple holding a product neither of them needed.

Jeeny watched it, her expression pained.

Jeeny: “I sometimes wonder what would happen if every ad had a conscience. If every copywriter asked themselves, ‘Would I say this to my family?’ Maybe the world would slow down. Maybe we’d start trusting again.”

Jack: “Or maybe no one would buy anything. Truth doesn’t sell, Jeeny. Desire does.”

Jeeny: “Then make desire truthful.”

Host: The rain softened, the dawn beginning to bleed into the sky, faint light brushing against the diners’ faces. Jack looked at her, the fight in his eyes dimming, replaced by something heavier — maybe shame, maybe reflection.

Jack: “You know, when I wrote my first big campaign, my mother called me. She said, ‘I saw your ad on TV — I’m so proud of you.’ And all I could think was, she believed every word of it. Every line. And none of it was true.”

Jeeny: “And did that make you proud?”

Jack: “No,” he said quietly. “It made me tired.”

Host: The diner fell silent, the only sound the slow drip of coffee into the pot, like time itself cooling. Jeeny reached across the table, her hand resting over his — not as forgiveness, but as recognition.

Jeeny: “You’re still a good man, Jack. You just forgot what the truth feels like.”

Jack: “Maybe.” He looked at her, the faintest smile ghosting his lips. “Maybe it’s time to write something my mother could believe again.”

Host: The camera pans to the window, where the billboards flicker and fade in the growing light. The rain stops. The city breathes. Somewhere, behind all the noise, the truth waits — not in slogans, not in promises, but in the quiet decision to mean what we say.

And in that fragile morning, the lesson lingers — that every word, like every lie, eventually meets its mirror. And when it does, we must be willing to see our reflection — and call it by its real name: truth.