"but I had that idea *years* ago!"

I said this to myself tonight, watching some TV and seeing yet another advertiser pick up a direction that I'd proposed for one of my clients several years ago – and had ignored.

In fact, virtually the entire category with the exception of this company has moved in this direction.

And part of me feels vindicated, oh so superior. I was out front of the curve, both with the idea and the execution: not just an advertising positioning, but also a multi-year content plan across digital media.

But mostly I feel that I need to be a better salesman. If it was such a good idea, why the hell didn't they buy it? What didn't I communicate? How could I have been more persuasive?

The philosophical part of me thinks that, apart from the personal lesson, there's no value in this kind of looking back. There's only value in continuing to offer clients innovative thinking, taking them new places, trying to anticipate not where their customers are, but where they're going to be.

Besides, the only thing more boring than old ad people boasting about their great campaigns is old ad people boasting about their great campaigns that never saw the light of day.

These are the people to avoid when you're sitting at the Pilot.