Steven Heyer first came to my attention when he delivered his call for advertainment at Ad Age's Madison & Vine conference on Feb. 5, 2003. He's in the news again. After being passed over for the CEO job at Coca-Cola, he joined Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. as CEO. Now the board has forced him out. According to The Journal News, board members lost confidence in him due to his management style. "He had a …
A Namesake Departure
Adweek reports that Rick Colby said he is leaving Dentsu's Colby & Partners. He declined to detail the reasons for his departure, which leaves the Santa Monica, Calif., agency without its chief creative officer. Colby plans to open a new shop focused on Internet advertising and local clients. Colby launched a shop called Larsen Colby in 1984. He soon partnered with New York-based creative director George Lois and …
Writers Take The Bait
Todd Anthony, a.k.a. Bullshit Observer, gets his Craigslist Crumedgeon on in this riff concerning lame job offers for writers: Here's the gig, it's a 30 page tri-fold brochure. Here's the catch: I don't have really any money. How about 300 clams? Does that sound fair? Oh, did I mention that I get to comment at every stage of the approval process until I see a stream of tears coming down your beet red face? Did I …
The Search Is On for Interactive Talent
New York City-based writer and editor, Jim Hanas, has an interesting piece in this month's Creativity about where the next generation of interactive creatives will come from. According to his article, and several others I've read, there is a dearth of talent avaialble. "We cleared out an entire generation of talent when the bubble burst, so the true believers and the ones who had enough talent to make it through have …
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Analyze My Dream
I had a weird dream the other night. Alex Bogusky--a man I have never met--came to my current workplace. He went through my book with the entire creative team looking on, then offered me a job at CP+B's Paris office. My cube was kind of small over there. …
I Salute Thee, Rothenberg
Randall Rothenberg is letting go of his Ad Age column in order to assume the helm of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. In his farewell piece, he delivers some delcious prose, the kind found in Where the Suckers Moon, his landmark book about Weiden + Kennedy's handling of the Subaru account. Although I was to the manor born, a child of marketers in a house guested frequently by creative revolutionaries, we baby …
Blogging Bridges
Shawn Waite's Shedwa Six--a six question interview series with ad geeks and bloggers--this week features Ariel Waldman from Shake Well Before Use. I find this exchange interesting: S: What impact, if any, do you think blogs serve in the ad community? AW: I find that blogs have really broken down the barriers between competing agencies over time. Rather than operating in isolated pods, we're sharing ideas and …
Death Of The Spec Book
Mike Byrne, chief creative officer at Anomaly on how to find fresh talent today: "I met with a guy last week who, when he was 18, got a DUI, drove into a ditch, ended up going to the Army instead of jail. Then he decided to design tattoos and did this documentary on this Christian rock band he followed around. He's never done an ad in his life, and I'm going to hire him. For me, that's the future. These self-made …
