I'm a big fan of Steve McKee's articles in BusinessWeek, but I often wonder if anyone takes his advice to heart. His new one is called "Get the Most Out of Your Ad Agency" and it's full of tips for small business owners who work with agencies. Here's one tip: Value risk. For advertising to be attention-getting, it has to be different. And anything different is risky. In every other avenue of your business you know …
David Esrati Will Not Stay Quiet
Running for office in Ohio's 3rd Congressional Distict, ad agency owner David Esrati is trying to get the word out about his campaign. He's running against the Republican incumbent Mike Turner, who used to be the mayor of Dayton. And that's what makes the spot below so interesting: When Mike Turner was Mayor, he had me arrested for a silent symbolic protest. We went to court, not once, or twice, but five times. We …
Lipitor Ads Go Under The Microscope
If you're old enough to remember the early 80's, then you may recall that Dr. Robert Jarvik's artificial heart was a really revolutionary invention. But Jarvik is now under fire for his ads promoting Lipitor. One ad features him rowing. Only it's not him. It's a body double. As The New York Times reports: The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is looking into when and why Dr. Jarvik began taking Lipitor and …
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L.L. Bean Hires New Consultant To Find New Agency
Man, it's deja vu all over again. From Adweek: L.L. Bean has placed creative chores on its ad account into review, a company representative confirmed. Consulting firm Select Resources International, Santa Monica, Calif., will help conduct the search for the Maine-based retailer, sources said. Our friend Dean Gemmell at BlackLabFive, relating a conversation he had with the previous consultants, had some interesting …
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Chasing A Moving Target
If you watched any of last night's election coverage, you've probably figured out that voters are completely unpredictable. And beyond that, this year the conventional wisdom regarding race, gender, age, and religion just can't be applied to this election cycle. Since voters are consumers, and ad agencies are in the business of trying to figure out what our target audiences want, I decided to take a closer look at …
It’s Time For CareerBuilder To Fire Its Agency Again
Well, this year's CareerBuilder spot finished in the middle of the pack on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter. Here's more background on CareerBuilder from the Wall Street Journal. The middle of the pack in the Ad Meter? A 5.15, fully 3.72 points behind the freakin' Clydesdales? This is totally unacceptable. Heads will roll. A complete utter failure, right? Because to CareerBuilder, its ranking on the USA Today Ad …
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Virginia Beach Police Crack Down On Abercrombie Ads
So is this photo obscene? Virginia Beach police think so. Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges. Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to …
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The Fattening of America: It’s Not All Advertising’s Fault
I once interviewed at an ad agency that had a manufacturer of corn syrup on its client roster. And while it didn't make a difference in me getting the job or not, frankly, I was really turned off by that because I've read countless times how the abundance of corn and corn-related products in every step of the food chain has done a number on our health. And I'm a guy who's done my share of casino marketing. I'd …
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