From the perspective of serial entrepreneur Jeff Bussgang, a partner at Flybridge Venture Capital in Boston, traditional advertising as embodied by fictional characters in AMC's hit show Mad Men are true relics, with little chance at ever again exuding the kind of swagger we see in Don Draper. Writing in BusinessWeek, Bussgang argues: With the rampant digitization of advertising and the explosive growth of …
Cannes Is For Closers
The New York Times and Adfreak are highlighting this self-promo campaign from Ogilvy One. Ogilvy execs apparently believe that salesmanship is a lost art. One they intend to find and revive. Rory Sutherland, vice chairman for the British operations of Ogilvy & Mather, said, "There's an interesting case to be made that advertising has strayed too far from the business of salesmanship," which is unfortunate because it …
Big Ideas In Small Packages
I've never met David Baldwin of Baldwin&, so I don't know if he's humble or not, but he sounds humble in this Q+A with Bart Cleveland, care of Ad Age's Small Agency Diary. He also provides great answers (while sounding humble), which makes me want to pause and listen. Q. Most agencies think they are different, but it's shades of gray. Most sound the same. What have you done to shape your firm to be truly …
Clients Pay For Reaction, Not Proaction
Another week, another poll in Adweek that shows how agencies are lacking. The complaints are all too familiar, but a new poll of client executives finds that agencies still aren't proactive enough and need to make more of an effort to grasp the business challenges that clients face. Asked to identify their top sources of frustration with agencies, the execs pointed to "more reactive than proactive" above all else, …
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Inside The Concepting For The E-Trade Ads That Ruffled Lindsay Lohan
With rare exceptions, such as Randall Rothenberg's excellent "Where The Suckers Moon," journalists and reporters rarely get a glimpse inside an agency's concepting sessions. But Esquire got an inside look, for Grey's E-Trade campaign that is now the target of a lawsuit by Lindsay Lohan. The article gives some insight into the concepting process and the changes made along the way. There's one interesting sticking …
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Who Wears Plaid Anymore?
The agency formerly known as Plaid has been acquired by Source Marketing (an MDC Partners company) and is now known as Humongo. Naturally, those formerly known as Plaid are very excited about the development, maybe a bit too excited: Living proof that small is the new big, and that Humongo is the new ginormous. We built the greatest agency in the land to be nimble, smart and filled with awesomeness. And then we …
Making Contacts Is One Way Of Winning The Racies
Once you look past the One Show, Cannes, the CLIOs and all the other popular awards shows, there are a whole shit-ton of other shows that attract more client attention. Some are tactic-specific, some are industry-specific, but to many folks other than creative types, they matter quite a bit. Over at Gods Of Advertising, Steffan Postaer takes a look a one such show, the Racies, sponsored by the Retail Advertising and …
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A Clever Interruption Is Still An Interruption
Brian Wiener, CEO of 360i spoke about creating the "Agency of the Future" last week at the IAB Ecosystem conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Jodi Harris, senior editor at iMedia Connection, was there. To illustrate the need for affordable, consumer-centric innovation, Wiener related the example of "Amanda," who was shopping in a Barnes & Noble store. Amanda found a book she wanted, but before purchasing it, she took a …
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