According to Adweek, holding company IPG is combining two of its "regional" shops, hoping, as it has before, that the arranged marriage succeeds. In a deal quietly in the works for months, Dallas-based TM (formerly known as Temerlin McLain) will now absorb Seattle boutique Sedgwick Rd. "We've both been regional agencies for a long time," said Jim Walker, president and CCO of Sedgwick Rd. "What it takes [to succeed] …
DPC’s Concrete Jungle
Downtown Partners/Chicago has a minimalist, but well designed web presence. Having said that, I fail to grasp the significance of the darkness their imagery conveys other than polished concrete. I keep thinking Spiderman or some other superhero is going to swoop in, but that doesn't happen. Rather, a few pigeons make their way across the screen. What's your take? …
Chicago Advertising Blues
In today's Chicago Sun-Times, Lewis Lazare highlights a letter he received from a local post-production veteran: Copywriters were hired for the number of tattoos and piercings on their bodies rather than writing skill or cleverness. Chicago agencies brought people in from the West Coast and London to give their places a cool vibe, not to sell a client's products. Now the entire scene is disintegrating because …
Engadget Man’s Big New Idea
The New York Post is reporting that Downtown Records and Internet entrepreneur Peter Rojas plan to launch an online-only record label that will offer its music for free and generate revenue only through advertising and sponsorships. One source familiar with the project described it as a "curated YouTube or MySpace for music with an editorially driven filter." This source said RCRD LBL would feature a central …
The Dangers Of Typing Too Fast
USA Today's On Deadline blog shares a fascinating dispute between the stodgy old NCAA and a mainstream media company over the practice of live blogging. The NCAA had a newspaper reporter tossed out of the press box yesterday because he was posting updates on a baseball game to the The Louisville Courier-Journal's website. The NCAA argues in a memo that blogs are a "live representation of the game" that violate …
Now Entering The Post-Web 2.0 Space
Netscape founder and serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen started a blog recently. One of his early entries claims there's no such thing as Web 2.0 and cautions against the use of such vague terms. Before the "Web 2.0 space", you had the "dot com space", the "intranet space", the "B2B space", the "B2C space", the "security space", the "mobile space" (still going strong!)... and before that, the "pen computing" space, …
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Welcome To The Age Of Media Arts
Bob Garfield caught up with Lee Clow in Cannes. He asked him if he was still an ad guy, what this brave new digital world is all about, if Cannes does more harm than good and other high-minded questions. On the emergence of digital "the "oldest guy" in this business "thinks he gets it." As opposed to just being this new digital age, I think it's this new age of transparency and kind of obligation that everything that …