What A Concept!

The International Herald Tribune reports that Publicis is prepared to launch a brilliant new idea.

It's a fully-integrated agency with, like, the creative and media in one "agency-like entity." Holy cow, what'll they think of next!

Now, am I wrong or isn't this way ad agencies were configured for about a thousand years before the global bozos got their sweaty hands all over us?

For about a decade or more these guys have been talking out of both sides of their mouths -- reciting all the platitudes about the power of integration, and meanwhile dis-integrating an agency's two most important functions: creative and media.

And speaking of turkeys, have a nice holiday and we'll see you Monday.

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Ads or Content?

In a headlong rush to get ahead of the digital curve, some once-upon-a-time excellent ad agencies are turning out some pretty awful advertising.

These agencies have decided they are no longer in the ad business. They're in the "content" business -- whatever the hell that means. Apparently they have stopped hiring advertising creatives and have instead been hiring "content providers." And you know what? The content stinks.

These agencies better figure out who they are and what business they're in. If they're in the ad business they better keep these "content providers" away from the ads, or their hard-earned creative reputations will fade in a hurry.

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Start Your Own

I was talking to a young lady the other day. She went to a great college, studied advertising, and now has a job in an agency. She expected the ad business to be full of oddballs, eccentrics, and iconoclasts -- like in the movies.

Instead, she said, everybody repeats the same 10 cliches, drops the same 3 agency names, and talks about the same ads.

One of the problems is that it's getting harder to hold unconventional ideas in a consolidated, globalized industry. Conventional wisdom has become too canonical and too powerful. The pressures to accept it are too great and the penalties for doubting it are too severe.

I'm glad I have my own company.

For a wonderful piece on the dangers of blindly accepting conventional wisdom, I highly recommend this.

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Big, Dumb, Global Bozos

Every now and then some big, global agency comes sniffing around trying to buy us. Usually it’s because their agency in SF is a disaster, or they want to get their hands on one of our accounts.

Recently it was driven home to me why we’ve never taken any of these guys seriously. The ceo of a very large agency came around. He’s sitting in our conference room. He leans across the conference table. The first question he asks is, “So, Bob, what would you say are your core competencies?”

What are our core competencies? What are our core competencies? We’re an AD AGENCY. What do you THINK our core competencies are? Folk dancing? Knitting? Cheese making? We make ADS, schmuck. That’s our core competency!

No, I didn’t say that. My mother taught me to be nice to guests.

Even big, dumb, global guests.

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