Retail Advertising's Bad Reputation

And it does have one, doesn't it?  But why?  And how?  At it's core, Retail Advertising is really the grandaddy of all advertising.  When I was a young junior copywriter at Young & Rubicam, one of the stars of the agency once said to me that the basis of a good ad is to:  "Say it, say you said it and then say it again."  He meant that was the formula no matter whether it was print, radio or television.  Of course, on a billboard, you can only say it once ... unless you're one of the geniuses who developed the road-side campaigns for Burma Shave.  Those ads began in 1927 or so and ran until about 1963.  Four or five signs spaced for easy reading mostly pitching the product in pithy sayings always (except for a couple of exceptions) ending with the product name.  I've read them all and there are hundreds. My favorite is:

Past  /  Schoolhouses  /  Take it slow  /  Let the little  /  Shavers grow  /  Burma-Shave

Needless to say, 'Burma-Shaving' became and still is used by many small stores, strip malls and bars around the country and oddly, by local political campaigners as well.
In my mind this repetitious kind of advertising could be said to be one of the first cases of branding.  But it was retail all the way.  And far from what that senior copywriter was trying to instill in me.
Because those ads did what advertising and real retail advertising is supposed to do.  They engaged the reader.  They made the reader think and most of all, they posed the problem, offered a solution and they named the solution. They did it over and over again.  People looked for the signs just as we, as advertisers should be looking for the signs all around us.
I have been appalled by the lack of writing skill copywriters are exhibiting these days.  And why should they try to write great prose when so few people actually read?  Which is why most of the print ads are actually written by the art director or the client.  
Which leads me to my title point.  Retail Advertising lost it's punch and it's stamina when, after decades of the same products pointing their logos in our faces, the great idea of a campaign was replaced by the stellar execution of a non-idea agreed upon by a series of focus groups.  When the great idea was replaced by the MBA slouch who said:  "Let's get (insert name of sports figure here)!"
We will never again see anything as evocative as the words:
"Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventative dentifrice when used in a consciously applied program of daily oral hygiene and regular professional care."
We have instead:
"If an erection lasts for more than four hours please seek medical attention immediately."
Retail advertising got it's bad reputation because those writers/art directors/creative people who were not good enough to do the real job of finding and promoting that one product attribute which made their product better and more promotable than that of their main competitor.  I'm sorry but "Tastes great - Less filling" is a slogan for a diet product, not a beer.  "Lite"is not a word.
Informercials tore retail down another notch or two as did cheap ad time on cable when it first hit the airwaves.  Although the local television stations had begun to fill their interstitial air-time with pitches from local car dealers, carpet mavens, plumbers and anyone with a few bucks and a beta camera.  Radio was worse.  And both broadcast media tore Retail a new one when they started offering air time at a discounted rate ... "And we can write and produce your ads for you ... no charge!"  The final products pushed at us was the perfect example of you get what your pay for.
When, after twenty years of working the generic marketing side of the fence,  I took a position at a so-called prestigious Automotive Retail Advertising Agency I learned that there were two things to learn:
1) A sixty second radio was lousy if it contained more than 165 spoken words.
2) People who buy cars are the most ignorant people on the planet (they were dubbed "Mr. & Mrs.  Johnny Lunch-bucket) you can tell them anything as long as the message is 'urgent-sounding' which is short hand for loud.
And from the early '90s after the four or five Retail Auto agencies took over, the Retail Advertising Reputation spun into a death spiral.
Another two decades has passed and now the old guard has passed as well.  You don't hear car dealers or their spokespeople screaming at the top of their lungs some incomprehensible offer written specifically to get you into the show room door where the deal is neither available or non existant. Some guy like me (or was it me?!) had been saying since his first day in the Automotive Retail Ad Biz these words:  " ... the Lunch-buckets will stop buying cars and people, young people smarter than us with more access to more information, will not be buying the same brands as their parents and grandparents. They will want something that will last longer, cost less and they will not be brow-beaten into something else, in fact they will probably be buying a used vehicle as a first car ..."  and on and on like that.
I know every good writer who makes their living writing and producing car dealer commercials these days ... sadly, there are only 5 of us in the whole country - each one of us painstakingly craft our scripts and create spots that are the couches for real, honest offers provided by the manufacturers and most times sweetened by the dealer in some real way or another.  Don't get me wrong, we are not (John, Jeff,  Jason, Carl nor I) - individually or collectively - saving the rep of retail. I just want you to know ... we know ... but you can't blame it on us.