On spoiling my chances of ever getting anything from a PR Company ever again

I get email. Email from a PR company

Currently we are spreading the word about a creative agency out of Santa Monica. They are crowdsourcing a rename of their agency, the winning idea submission will receive $4,000.

We thought that this contest would be a great post for your readers, etc etc etc

Of course I am interested as there's genuine cash money involved. And I firmly believe that we are the people who can win this competition in the name of good, old fashioned British creativity. So I look at the brief:

Rename the agency to better reflect its philosophy of positive change. This agency walks the talk and behaves in line with its philosophy, as conveyed through the new name. We want an agency name that is conceptual and intuitively understandable.

Dear Chris

Thanks for your recent email. I have given ther competition at least five seconds' thought (I am a GENIUS, this is a LOT of my time) and I've come up with the following award-worthy name:

* The "Why Lie, It's Shit" Advertising Agency

A new, novel angle on the entire ethos and raison d'etre of the advertising and public relations industry. The great unspoken - the elephant in the room, as it were - is that advertising exists solely to draw attention away from the fact you are peddling crap. Why lie? The client knows they want you to dress up turds, and you are expert turd dressers who would be unemployable elsewhere.

There's no point hiding behind buzzword bingo, the ten-foot experience will allow a 'through the middle' approach for a continuum of products which will allow a thousand flowers to bloom right through the value chain. Truth is the new lying. The positive change is that you will be the first agency to acknowledge the man behind the curtain is rogering the advertising rhinoceros with his wizard's staff of necessary untruths.

* www.whylieadvertising.com and www.whylieitsshit.com are both available

This idea will give you:

* A refreshing outlook on the industry
* Free, and dare I say it - VIRAL - publicity
* Superb merchandising opportunities

This idea will give clients:

* Honesty about their products
* Ready made-slogans: Buy [XXX BRAND], marginally less awful than [YYY Brand]. Ideal for politicians and companies with products with fatal design flaws

* Spectacularly high advertising rates as companies flock to the only honest PR company in town

It's a Win-Win, I am sure you'll agree (except perhaps for your staff, who may all be unemployed and unemployable within a month). You might as well send me the four grand, all the other entries are going to be SHIT (see what I did there?)

Be lucky

Your new pal

Albert O'Balsam