Circumcision Joke Sent Via Twitter Lands Writer a $70K Ad Agency Job

(MoneyWatch)  Saatchi & Saatchi has given a $70,000-a-year writing job to someone who sent the ad agency a penis joke on Twitter. It's a sign of how social media has come to dominate the creative scene in advertising, and the standard of creativity required to advance within it.

On one hand, Twitter imposes a neat discipline on would-be writers. You have to be concise, and know what works in a crowded, cluttered medium. It rewards those who are repeatedly entertaining -- which is what you want in advertising. On the other hand, Twitter prizes throwaway wit over good ideas, and advertising always needs good ideas.

Saatchi's executive creative director in Los Angeles, Mike McKay, made the offer -- on Twitter, natch -- on July 15. By July 20 a "panel of humorists" was allegedly sifting the responses. On July 16 a front runner emerged, JackLovesNachos, who tweeted:

Everything I know about LA I learned from early 90's movies. I look forward to joining your agency and also the Crips.

But McKay changed his mind, and awarded the post to Peglegington (real name Johnathan Pelleg), who replied:

You have to be concise on Twitter. Like a circumcision, everything extra gets cut off whether you like it or not.

OK, it's kinda funny. But here's the weakness: If there was a candidate who tried to pitch McKay with an idea that could become the next Old Spice Guy, McKay would not have given him or her the job. Twitter is too trivial for some ideas to survive within it.

Saatchi's Twitter job offer is just the latest example of how the publicity business has tied itself in knots trying to find ways to utilize the microblogging system. Lindsay Lohan's sponsors used it to endorse themselves even when she was being sentenced to jail; an Australian ad agency spent months impersonating a local police department on Twitter; Cliff Freeman & Partners' defunct Twitter stream detailed the agency's collective stream of consciousness as it imploded; services like ad.ly have struggled to come to terms with Twitter's rules for making money off it; and major corporatuion like BP have found that sometimes more people follow fake versions of their company than the real thing.

The common thread here is that the ad biz's results on Twitter have been a lot like the medium itself: Briefly amusing, but not memorable in the long run.

Related:

• Lindsay Lohan's Trip to Jail Is Brought to You by Norton Symantec and Fashion Bay
• How Twitter's New Ad Tax Will End Auto-Payola for Lazy Celebrities
• BP's Latest Woe: Its Fake Twitter Stream Has Twice the Followers of the Real Thing

Hat tip to AgencySpy.