From our Late to the Jam Session desk

Sunday’s New York Times featured this full-page ad:

Here’s how the body copy begins:

Rumor has it that during his visit to Istanbul, the Jazz legend Dave Brubeck heard a street musician playing a mesmerizing Turkish folkloric tune. The unusual rhythm of the song stirred up his imagination, and the Ambassador of Cool ends up composing a Jazz masterpiece: Blue Rondo à la Turk . . .

Excellent! And here’s the Brubeck classic:

The GoTurkey ad’s kicker:

Live your own Brubeck moment. Be amazed. Be inspired. Be our guest . . .

Be . . . underwhelmed.

As the legendary adman David Ogilvy wrote in Confessions of an Advertising Man:

Beware of esoteric subjects. They may interest the nationals of the country sponsoring the campaign, but the foreign tourist – the customer – is out to collect clichés.

Dave Brubeck was far more esoteric than cliché.

See you in Istanbul?

No.