Often when I see or read an ad, I try to "reverse engineer" the creative process...

...that resulted in the finished campaign before my eyes. As a veteran of countless, purgatorial hours of "creative" sessions, I don't find it difficult to imagine the conversations and counter proposals at these meetings.

Take the Charmin toilet tissue campaign. (Please!) Why bears? Why are frolicking, dancing bears selling TP? I imagine a creative session that went something like this:

"We need something soft. Something cute. Something cuddly. Yet with some connection to . . . you know . . . what people do with our product."

A sullen silence all around. Suddenly, someone has an "ah-ha!" moment. "I know," this someone says. "Bears!"

"Of course!" the creative director crows. After all, when we want to affirm that something is true, we ask, "Do bears [expletive deleted] in the woods?"

Lo, the odd logic of Madison Avenue at work. And a vulgar expression becomes the driving force for a too-cute TP campaign. Because bears [expletive deleted] in the woods.

Brand advertising: making surrealism part of the ordinary tissue of our lives.