Agencies

More obnoxious hyperbole from Ad Age as it examines the future of account planning: Not long ago, planners were the undisputed rock stars of the agency business. But they're now mere mortals in "the middle of the maelstrom of everything going on -- what communication, what media, how to compete and how to become versed in multimedia," said Edward Cotton, director-strategy, for Influx Insights, a unit of Butler, …

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Ad Age has a section on its site called "Talentworks" and while it portends to be a career-advancing section, there's some really bizarro content on there. Like this article, written by an employment attorney: It's no secret that marketers often consider the appearance of an ad agency's employees to be one indicator of how their accounts will be handled. As a result, successful people in the industry have learned to …

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I've always wanted to be an interviewer-talk show host type of guy. Good ones are rare. So here's to the memory of Tom Snyder, who I always liked to watch. If you didn't think he was ahead of the curve, here's a clip: R.I.P., Tom. …

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw BusinessWeek is running a fascinating look at Anomaly, the NYC shop that seeks intellectual property agreements from its clients, instead of the standard fees. Retaining and profiting from intellectual-property rights is …

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I didn't think it was possible for W+K and Goodby to earn yet another degree of respect from me, but they have. According to Ad Age, neither agency feels the need to join the American Association of Advertising Agencies, commonly known as the 4As. Dan Wieden will never be part of the organization, according to his spokeswoman, because the shop felt rejected when it applied for membership in 1982. When Mr. Wieden …

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Well, that sure didn't take long. From Ad Age: The agency that "reanimated" the late popcorn founder Orville Redenbacher for ConAgra Foods has lost the brand, along with Slim Jim beef jerky in a $34 million account shift. ConAgra shifted the two brands from Crispin Porter & Bogusky to independent Venables, Bell & Partners, according to people familiar with the accounts. Crispin created a lot of buzz for the brands -- …

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According to Ad Age, Chan Suh is pulling a Steve Jobs. He's back in the role of CEO at Agency.com, the company he founded in 1995. "It's like getting the band back together," Mr. Suh said. "It's time to agitate again." Mr. Suh, had stepped away from agency operations in 2004, the year after it became wholly owned by Omnicom. Mr. Suh's goal for Agency.com is to boost its emerging-media capabilities and bring the shop …

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Ad Age reports that five Crispin Porter & Bogusky staffers have left the shop for greener pastures. Their fledgling agency will be called Goodness Mfg. with offices in Venice, Calif., just blocks from the office Crispin opened (and later shuttered) in the 1990s. Goodness Mfg. has no clients yet, but the agency is open to "any account that pays the bills," said creative director Tom Adams. Crispin's Chief Creative …

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