Ben Kay is a copywriter at Lunar BBDO. He has a blog with a great name--If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas? In his latest post, he discusses how money isn't the primary motivator for creative people. Picking up on a TED talk by Dan Pink, Kay says what matters to creatives is "Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose." Occasionally, people ask why I bother to write this blog. Up until I saw this lecture I didn't really …
Persuasion 101: Lose the ‘Tude
As a student of the persuasive arts, I can't help but notice how hard it is for "the left" to move people. In fact, politicos are so bad at the art of persuasion, they're about to be usurped by big business on one of the most important issues of our day--the environment. One of the the left's huge mistakes is their weak attempt to use guilt to bring about change. While such base tactics might work on a select few, …
I’m A (Insert Proper Noun)
According to Ad Age, University of Phoenix spent $134 million on measured media last year. The school also inked a $154 million deal for naming rights at the NFL stadium near its Phoenix headquarters in 2006. Yet, the brand continues to be ill defined, claims the trade mag. Pereira & O'Dell, a fancy new San Francisco startup was hired by Phoenix to help change all that. But from the looks of the new campaign, the …
Brands With Sharp Spears Will Eat Tonight
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, spoke at USC last week. According to Annenberg News, here's a bit of what he said: "The way we read a newspaper or watch a broadcast is dramatically different from the way we interface with information online," he said. "Online we are hunter-gatherers, not having a relationship with just one news organization. And while a …
Continue Reading about Brands With Sharp Spears Will Eat Tonight →
Social Media Is The Largest Cocktail Party On Earth. Good Luck Pitching Your Wares There.
I've been looking at making the move to a client side position and last week I had the opportunity to learn first hand just what that could mean. There's a Fortune 1000 company here in Portland that wants a Social Media Specialist to join their marketing team. Even though I've said several times that "there is no such thing as social media, there's only media people interact with and media people ignore," I pursued …
Relevance Is Cool
AOL marketing execs will increasingly be making their way to 35 West Wacker Drive for advice on resurrecting their languishing brand. Ad Age characterizes the account win as Burnett's "first (new) major brand assignment in years." AOL is calling on Leo Burnett USA to help reinvent the brand and give the internet giant a new corporate identity as it prepares to spin off from Time Warner and emerge as an independent, …
e Squared: It’s A 2009 Sequel. But No Twitter? OMG? WTF?
A creative guy travels to Nigeria to respond to a scam. The managing partner is always off at a flaky New Age seminar. And someone's nicking the office bit by bit and selling it on eBay to pay off gambling debts. The fun rolls on! When it was first published 10 years ago, Matt Beaumont's "e" was a sensation. A brilliantly conceived novel about an ad agency, as told strictly through a series of e-mails. It was funny …
Continue Reading about e Squared: It’s A 2009 Sequel. But No Twitter? OMG? WTF? →
The One Club Takes A Stand Against Scam
Amidst the sturm-und-drang of this week's 9/11-WWF-DDB Brasil-One Show controversy, The One Club decided to take a stand with a new policy: Effective beginning in 2010: An agency or regional office of an agency network that enters an ad made for a nonexistent client, or made and run without a client's approval, will be banned from entering the One Show for five years. The entire team credited on the "fake" entry will …
Continue Reading about The One Club Takes A Stand Against Scam →
Want To Reach The Top? Then Shoot For the Stars.
Alex Bogusky has been testing out Posterous, the blog-like-thing that you post to via email. Up until now, it's been a place for him to share some photos, mostly of his dirt bike adventures. But yesterday, Bogusky went another way and shared some insights into his agency's core beliefs and consequent rainmaking ability. Tell other people your dreams. This was the biggie for us. For years Chuck and I had this secret …
Continue Reading about Want To Reach The Top? Then Shoot For the Stars. →
Credle Could Be Burnett’s Missing Ingredient
Susan Credle, 45, has been named the new Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett. She assumes the post on October 5th, after 22 years at BBDO/New York. Credle graduated from University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill before taking a receptionist position at BBDO. Lewis Lazare of Chicago Sun Times portrays her career path in a Peggy Olsen-like arc. She started out as a receptionist, and because her energy and interest …
Continue Reading about Credle Could Be Burnett’s Missing Ingredient →