Mississippi State professor Kate Bingaman takes a close look at her own consumption, placing herself in the middle of her criticism and her art. According to The New York Times Magazine, she does not see her work so much as a negative reaction to consumer culture as an attempt to cope with it on its own terms. As an active participant in her own cycle of obsessive consumption, it seems to me, Bingaman is the …
Madscam: Long On Common Sense, Short On Cursing
I’ve been eager to get my hands on a copy of the always salty and entertaining George Parker’s (of Adscam and Adhurl fame) new book Madscam: Kick-Ass Advertising Without The Madison Avenue Price Tag. It arrived from Amazon yesterday, and while I haven’t read it cover to cover, I can give you a heads up on what it’s all about. Let’s start with what the book isn’t: It’s not a compendium of George’s blog, or a …
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A Wild Ride From Chicago To Miami To Boulder And Back
Lewis Lazare does a good job of bringing a gossip columnist's persepective to the ad biz. Today, he puts Scott Wild in his sights. He's baaaaaaack!!!!! Yes, indeed. The (in)famous Scott Wild is headed back to Chicago this week. You might recall that some 18-months ago, Wild exited Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago and a comfy $250,000-plus salary, and wound up in a lesser-paying senior copywriting job at the very hot Crispin, …
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Web Users Love To Go Fast
Edward Cotton of Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners attended the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco recently. Here's a small sample of what he heard. Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google gave a short, but extremely smart talk at Web 2.0 conference about the most significant thing that the company has learned its short history. The answer was speed and this was an insight that …
Publicis Casts Its Lure
According to International Herald Tribune, French ad people are not as promiscuous as their cohorts in London and New York. Although, Maurice Lévy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe, is trying to change that. A round of musical chairs that is reshaping the upper ranks of the French advertising world continued last week when Maurice Lévy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe, named three executives to key positions in …
Welcome To Chicago, Ros
Lewis Lazare looks again at the fact that Chicago can be a tough town for advertising creatives. I'm careful to say, "cab be" not "is," for Chicago has plenty of ad luminaries, now and in the past. Ros King's first year at the helm of JWT/Chicago hasn't exactly been the smashing success she no doubt hoped when she took on the daunting task of turning around a local ad agency that has sagged badly in recent years. And …
The Joke’s On Us
How an Ad Agency Changes a Light Bulb. Q. How many account executives does it take to change a light bulb? A. How many would you like? Q. How many media people does it take to change a light bulb? A. I first need to figure how many people the light will reach, and then I can back out a number. Q. How many writers does it take to change a light bulb? A. Change! I’m not changing crap! This is bull**** - who said to …
Holy Shit, Those Damned Ad People Are At It Again
USA Today takes a look at the growing phenomenon of curse words and bleeping words in commercials, citing recent efforts by VW, Dodge and Comcast: Dodge: In a Caliber ad, a focus group of Muppet-like characters laments that the car does not make them "feel warm and fuzzy." Most distressed is little Binky, who exclaims, "It scares the (bleep) out of me." That's the reaction market researchers in the ad wanted for …
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