Beware any bewildering bewailing

As part of this Saturday’s ceremony at which the Church of England blesses their marriage, reports BBC News, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will acknowledge their “manifold sins and wickedness.” Now, we’re aware that some AdFreak readers tend to celebrate their own manifold sins and wickedness, but the prince and his bride will “bewail” theirs as they recite what the BBC describes as “the strongest act of penitence from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.” This seems like such a good idea that we hope it becomes standard practice on all sorts of occasions. The advertising business, for example, could only win greater respect from clients and the public alike if agency CEOs bewailed their manifold sins and wickedness when they’ve lost an account. Clients might do the same when they fire an agency for having done precisely what they’d hired it to do in the first place. And while the financial transparency mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is fine, it still wouldn’t be a bad idea for a public company’s annual report to include a bewailing of management’s manifold sins and wickedness during the preceding year.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

April 8, 2005 | Permalink