Talent Zoo | Advertising, Marketing, Digital, and Media Articles and Editorials


Original articles from Dan Goldgeier.

Targeting is Futile When Our Audience is Everyone, Everywhere I know I’m not a teenager, a mother, a senior citizen, a millionaire, or a farmer. A large amount of the ads I see aren’t intended for me. Yet I see them, and I react.

Authentic Brands Attract, and Deserve, Authentic Scrutiny If you’re going to elevate your brand into something that stands for a higher purpose or speaks to a larger cause, you need to be willing to accept the increased scrutiny and criticism that comes with it.

Advertising Could Use Some Farm-to-Table Thinking Just like clients are often not trained to evaluate creative concepts, creative people are often not trained to talk business. The problems persist on both sides of the conference table.

In Advertising, You Don’t Need Money to be Part of the 1% Money isn’t the only way to insulate yourself from other people’s realities. When you work in marketing in advertising, it gets pretty easy to stay in the bubble.

Can Analog Thinking Shake Up Our Digital World? What would happen if the staff of an entire agency couldn’t use a computer, tablet or phone for 24 hours. And just had to think out loud, write in longhead, design on paper?

Brand Storytelling is Just a Fancier Way of Lying, Right? We’re competing for attention. And with real life getting odder every day, and more people confusing real news with stories from The Onion, we’ve got work to do.

Automated Creativity is Coming But Its Success Won’t Be Automatic For marketers, the promise of automation is that we can get infinitely better at personalized communication with customers. Which is kind of ironic when you think about it.

Marketing Buzzwords I’d Love to See Gone in 2013 Remember, we’ve gotta make room for the all-new 2013 buzzwords!

Big Data Might Make Creative People Feel Small Why do most creative people stay blissfully ignorant about data? Because they’re not exposed to it, not trained to understand it, and not interested in how to use it to their advantage.

I Would Write Anything for Cash, but I Won’t Write That It’s easy to feel queasy about refusing to work on a piece of business, knowing there’s a distinct possibility that in this economy, five other people are willing to step up and work on it.

Marketing is Stuck with a Permanent State of Temporary People As advertising increasingly becomes a business of transient people and short-term gigs, your brand is being passed around like a beer bong at a fraternity party.

Advertising Is A Business Full of Generalists, Specialists, and Listlessness Some agency cultures are supportive of employees seeking to expand their skills. Many, stuck in the age where the precious billable hour is king, are not.

In Advertising, All We Can Plan for is Chaos What’s ironic is that the sheer unpredictability and constant change of the advertising business are two of the things that make it so interesting and fun.

Generalizing About Generations is Generally a Bad Idea For every age group, there’s certainly an income gap, a culture gap, and a political gap. Travel throughout America for a bit and you’ll become acutely aware of the differences.

You, Your Agency, and Your Brand are Not Special We all want to feel special. So if we don’t have the self-confidence to feel that way, we look to others to validate our specialness.

Consumers are Everywhere — Forgetting That Will Get Us Nowhere Advertising and marketing professionals are more mobile than most of the population. We’ll move most anywhere for a great opportunity. It’s important for us to remember that most Americans aren’t nearly as mobile.

The Future of Marketing Words Don’t Look So Purty Texting, Twitter, quick emails, and status updates have forced us to become more efficient with our words. R U with me?

All this F---ing Cursing Makes the Ad Business Look Sh--ty The prevalent use of cursing gradually desensitizes us. And if our job is to perpetually push boundaries, where do we take our work from here?

Can Boycotts Be Good for Advertising? Hardly a week goes by that some group of consumers isn’t worked up over something. We need to get used to each complaint, each protest, and each boycott as having at least some legitimacy.

Only Ad Agencies Can Put Themselves Out of Business Nothing is guaranteed in this world. Any death of advertising agencies will be the product of self-destruction, not “creative destruction.”

In Advertising, There’s No Substitute for Experiencing I recently met some people who run a local advertising agency. But I didn’t meet them at their office — they were at a Saturday morning farmer’s market in my neighborhood. Turns out, they had begun a side business selling organic tomato sauce. Since their agency specialized in sustainable brands, they were getting first-hand knowledge in building one of their own.

Should American Brands Wrap Themselves in the Flag? I once had a client that manufactured hand tools, which they proudly made in America. So when I had to write a holiday-time radio script for the brand, I slipped in a line about how buying these tools would also help their based-in-Pennsylvania workers have a happy holiday season. My Creative Director questioned it, but I knew the client would appreciate the nod, even if it sounded a bit jingoistic. Which they did, and the line stayed in.

Are the Fundamentals of Advertising Fundamental Anymore? No doubt, it takes more than simple print ads to advance a brand these days. But in a rush to keep up with technology and trends, have we simply given up on the art of perfecting the basics? Can we skip the simple concepts and go straight for complex, multi-layered ideas? Isn’t that like saying you can get laid without learning how to kiss first?

The Ad Industry is Quite Cold to Brands That Aren’t Cool

Choose a Media Diet That’s Full of Both Nutrition and Junk Don’t forget: advertising relies on knowledge of lowbrow culture just as much as anything that’s considered classic literature or art. Sometimes keeping up requires that you watch or read things you really don’t care for.

Hurry Up and Add ‘Slow Down’ to Your To-Do List We’re conditioned to expect an instant response from the world these days: instant shopping and payments, instant customer service, and instant entertainment. Anything less makes the brands that can’t provide those things seem inferior.

Are We Perfectly Content to Occupy Our Laptops? Several hundred thousand people liking something on Facebook don’t cause the same visceral reaction several hundred people protesting in a park do.

Would Advertising Go Postal if the Post Office Disappeared? I’m not here to defend all direct mail — it’s often called “junk mail” for good reason, and it’s got plenty of other people willing to advocate for it — but it’s a fallacy to say it wouldn’t be missed on some level.

Sometimes the Ad Industry Gets an 'F' in Decorum In some fields — sports, entertainment, politics — it’s common for performance criticisms to be made in public. But how did it get that way in advertising?

Copywriters Without Borders and Customers Without Loyalty Here's the real truth: My Borders Rewards Card, like all these loyalty cards, had nothing to do with loyalty. I wasn’t loyal to the store. I was loyal to the discounts the card came with.

Too Much Pressure Blows Creative Tires Some people think that being uncomfortable is a motivator. Or that employees need to be kept off-kilter to be productive. That’s a common management style in many ad agencies and marketing firms.

Let’s Have a Chat About All These Conferences For many people in advertising and marketing, we’re substituting information gathering for real training. Hence, the rise of all these conferences.

We Need an Effective Definition of Effectiveness No matter what anyone says, advertising and marketing is rife with uncertainty. One thing is for certain: Clients want results. And they’ll determine exactly what results make a marketing campaign effective.

7 Tips for Navigating All the Marketing Advice on the Web We’re living in a Golden Age of Advice. Or perhaps it’s the Dirt Age, since dirt is much more plentiful and cheaper than gold.

Ad People Need To Follow The Money — If There's Any Left When it comes to execution, the ideas themselves don’t seem to have the intrinsic worth that actually making them does.

Groupon, and Why Clients Don’t Get Their Trust On Advertising is one of the only businesses I can think of where there’s a common belief that in order to succeed, our work has to make clients nervous and a little uncomfortable.

The Strange Reality of Working Virtually What’s the key to success when you’re miles away from co-workers? Even now that technology has improved, is working remotely the best solution in an increasingly fast-paced, collaborative business?

The Rope and the Tug of Advertising. Which Do You Prefer? Let’s face it: some people are just trying to justify their salaries or their jobs—they have to be seen and heard having an opinion.

Do You Have an “Off” Switch? Human beings are not physiologically built for the always-on communication world and the constant stream of information. We’re doing our best to keep up—but it’s getting harder and harder for most of us.

Surely, Ads Can Still Influence Popular Culture I’d love to see the best of our work be as beloved as a Leslie Nielsen quote, talked about for years. We’ve got a 50/50 chance of making it happen. Though there’s only a 10 percent chance of that.

Want Less Government? Then You Might Get Less Advertising The reality is that government-funded advertising initiatives, whether it’s for cheese, shrimp, lotteries, or Woodsy the Owl, spur commerce in some fashion.

Looking for Transparency in Marketing? Sorry, There’s Nothing There Companies and marketers aren’t in the business of being transparent. In a lot of cases, they’re simply incapable of being completely truthful.

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid -- So We Need to be Smarter There needs to be action, not just conversation. I can hit the “Like” button pretty easily. The “Place your order” button is another matter altogether.

Happiness in Advertising? Now That’s an Idea Worth Counting There is, for some people, the opportunity to sell out and make more money, even if the quality of the work won’t be the highest.

Can One Agency Really Do It All for a Client? Forget the endless debates about whether agencies of one kind or another are “ready to lead.” It’s about whether they’re ready to serve.

More Advertising Needs to Smell Like Fun These days, it’s hard to sell clients on fun ideas. They want results, and they want them now. Not many marketers are willing to risk their jobs, or their brands, for the sake of a little levity.

News You Might Not Want to Use We’ve moved from beyond just making and releasing ads to filling the media pipelines with all sorts of information. Whether it’s one-way communication or two-way dialogue, brands are putting more authoritative voices out there, with very little real accountability for the quality or accuracy of them.

The Irregularity of Regulating the Ad Biz If advertising gets regulation, it’s because some, but not all, marketers have done something to deserve it. Of course, the problem with our government -- federal, state, and local -- is that regulation is not uniformly applied and sometimes simply not enforced.

Tracking the Rise of Tracking Most consumers, myself included, have no idea how much information is collected on me. Frankly, I don’t mind until it’s used against me, abused in a criminal way, or until messages become uncomfortably familiar. Marketers determine my habits but can’t tap into my feelings. They know my needs but not my paranoia over my privacy.

Spilling the Brand Promise If values don’t mean much, or we expect companies to break them, then why do we bother injecting unsustainable values into brands? What good are they?

Brand Building, Now 30 Percent Off It’s a large part of what’s making social media tick. Groupon, Scoutmob, and other sites offer one-per-day localized deals en masse that you opt-in to buy, along with making it easy to spread the word to your friends. Add to that Facebook fan-page offers, Twitter offers, secret coupon codes -- everyone’s looking for a break, and businesses large and small are happy to oblige.

Your Attention, Please -- If You Can Spare Any ADD is everywhere. I’ve had dinner with six friends where we all kept looking at our phones constantly during the meal. It’s becoming normal, but it’s not natural. As human beings, we’re simply not physiologically wired for a constant stream of information and images the way we get them now. I think most of us are struggling to cope, no matter how much we say we embrace this type of change.

The Bigness of Small, Powerful Targets It’s possible that a range of social change ideas, grass-roots ballot initiatives, and political candidates could have nearly unlimited corporate-funded advertising budgets behind them. Corporations and unions know that from a business standpoint, influencing politicians is often more vital to the well-being of their brands than influencing the public. Do most advertising agencies know it?

Thirsting for Originality Frankly, most clients don’t care about whether an ad contains some sort of truly original concept. They’re not the ones with an encyclopedic knowledge of what ran in California years ago or what’s running in another country. They’ve got their own problems, like sales, market share, stock prices, and their competition to worry about. Clients want answers to their marketing issues, period. As long as they don’t get sued, most won’t give a crap where the inspiration for an idea came from.

Houston, We Might Could Have a Problem Quite often, it’s a question of what “legal” will let an ad say. Many a campaign has been born around a specific product benefit or claim, only to be killed at the last minute because a client’s legal department won’t allow it. Perhaps it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, but few clients risk their necks for that principle.

Tiger, a Little Tail, and the Marketing Beast Celebrity endorsements in advertising are a strange beast. They’ve been around forever—even Ronald Reagan pushed Chesterfield cigarettes as a Christmas gift when his acting notoriety carried a little clout. You gotta wonder about the origins of these campaigns and sponsorship deals.

In Ad We Trust There is good news for ad people: “Advertising practitioners” finished ahead of Senators, insurance salesmen, stockbrokers, Congresspeople, HMO managers, and you guessed it, car salespeople.

Giving the Usual Routine the Boot All the technology that’s opened up new possibilities for marketing also constricts us. You can immerse yourself in all the social media you want, but it’s amazing how the pressure to keep up it all, and the time it takes, can make you anti-social. Nothing replaces the feeling you get when you experience a phenomenon for yourself.

From Cliff To The Abyss Most agencies attempt to do it all, style-wise: serious-minded work, goofball humor, sophisticated humor, “edgy work” (whatever that is), and every now and then a real sentimental tear-jerker. Few, if any, agencies do it all equally well. What would you need to create another agency like Cliff Freeman? Well, I’m not sure, but I’ll take a guess.

Capitalism: An Advertising Story There will always be big brands competing for global dominance. But as we saw with GM and Washington Mutual, no brand is too big to fail. Maybe though, the advertising industry shouldn’t be thinking bigger, but thinking smaller. Did you know over 43% of the American workforce is employed by small businesses, defined as 500 people or less? Many of these businesses are brands that could use some dynamic creative thinking.

Life is Not a Two-Page Visual Solution Spread Advertising in 2009 is much more tactically based: It’s the e-mail that introduces the iPhone app that resembles the TV spot that goes with the microsite that’s announced in the press release to launch the whole thing. There’s always something attractive and artful about a nice, uncluttered two-page spread or minute-long brand “anthem” TV spot. But the other elements of advertising are starting to do the heavy lifting—and clients know it. In this day and age, that’s what they need and seek.

Brands and Stands So this is what we’re seeing: Left-wing Whole Foods customers getting themselves in a twist and others writing letters to Glenn Beck’s advertisers. Right-wingers pledging extra support to Glenn Beck’s ex-advertisers and praising John Mackey. Lots of noise. Lots of vitriol. And marketers getting distracted by having to step lightly around a vocal but small minority of their customers when they’d rather focus on increasing sales in a bad economy. But to some customers, boycotting is the only way they think they could make a difference.

Wherever You Go, There You Advertise Despite the rise of chain restaurants and strip malls, America is not as homogenous as you might think. I got reminded of that on a recent trip to the other side of the country. Regionalism still plays a large role in defining our culture. And even if the ad agencies in a smaller market have their tentacles out far and wide for new business, many clients still display a provincialism in their outlook that can creep into the advertising they seek from their agencies.

Are You Smarter Than An Ad Student? If you come out of college with a degree in advertising, odds are you could land a gig as a junior media planner or account coordinator. But no one, in any discipline of the ad business, receives any formal on-the-job training these days. Despite the precarious economy, there are still plenty of people who want to go into advertising. There’s no stopping them, and there’s no required degree or certification. While that’s little comfort to the experienced people looking for any way to hold on to their jobs and advance their careers, the juniors need help.

But Wait, There Really is More It’s easy to make fun of Billy Mays and the other infomercials of the world. They’re loud, they’re pushy, they sell stuff we don’t think we need. But they work—to the tune of billions in sales. They’re more successful than anything that crates home the awards we tend to covet. We love to pride ourselves on uncovering “simple, human truths,” yet a lot of self-indulgent creative work doesn’t reflect that. I think advertising people of all kinds can find some lessons in what Mays did.

The Path To Empathy In advertising agencies, empathy—in this case, the ability to understand an audience—is a skill, just like Photoshop prowess. It needs to be learned and honed for effective marketing. And yes, it should be an advantage for someone in advertising, at hiring time and on the job, if they come from a different background or upbringing than the majority of their co-workers. If creative people are judged by their unique talent, a unique background should be held in positive regard as well.

Nothing is Dead, So Let’s Bury that Idea So ignore mindless blanket statements like “ad agencies are dead.” Unless agencies kill themselves, it’s not going to happen. Because nothing in our media culture dies — it gets reshaped, reinvented, remodeled, and resuscitated.

Read Globally, Be Pissed Locally If you want change, think of your own life. What matters is you, your family, your co-workers, your community. If you’re a consumer and want to get upset, start with how you’re directly affected. Did the Domino’s video make you nauseous? Fine. But what you should be concerned about is whether your local county food inspector’s office is properly funded and staffed.

Couples Counseling for the Agency-Client Relationship Most clients just aren't interested in the workings of their agencies, even if the people doing the work can provide better insight on the business or the client-agency relationship--which they often can, just from living with the account. The ball is in the marketer's court. They need to ask--and demand--to meet the very people who do the work. Not just the agency people who serve as stand-ins during a new business pitch.

Why Asking May Be the Answer Just because something’s in writing, or appears to be the product of statistical analysis, doesn’t mean it can’t be questioned. Behind every piece of information you come across is a flawed source or a biased origin.

ROI: Advertising's Dirty Four-Letter Word We have access to more data, more statistics, more slicing and dicing of numbers and tactics than ever. And has advertising gotten any better through the years? Hardly. Has the creative work improved? Nope. Less wasteful? Occasionally. Is it still mostly wasted money? Absolutely.

The Advertising Industry Stimulus Package The ad industry is going through a rough time—just like other industries. But Congress won’t throw us a bone in a $1 trillion stimulus package. So you’ll be happy to know that I’ve got a stimulus package to present. It’ll help us and it’ll help our clients. Best of all, it only took me a couple of hours and cost only the price of a Venti Latte. But here goes:

The Fantasy of Reality-Based Advertising Marketers are hardly altruistic, but a few of them like Hyundai are learning that people need some assurances right now. Brokerage firms are on TV telling people to stay the course with their investments and not panic. GM took out a trade ad to apologize for their past screw-ups and promising to do better in the future. You might think the majority of marketers will unveil a new understanding, a new empathy for these tough times. Forget it.

A Cheap High and New Lows We rarely have the luxury of getting consumers to like a brand. Forget about the nonsensical garbage like “we can engage your customers with the brand and make them friends.” Customers aren’t looking to make your product their friend. They’re looking for a cheap one-night stand.

The War On Talent Good people are everywhere. And it’s like not the ad industry has requirements. There’s no certification to acquire. No Bar exam to pass. Anyone who wants to get into the ad industry can try. Many try, but only some succeed. Consequently, it’s not a job seeker’s market and never has been.

From Wasilla to Madison Avenue I have an idea: Put Sarah Palin on the new business team! She’s got the ability to take a simple question and spin an answer that, when dissected, is nonsensical gibberish. That’s a highly valuable skill. Come on, who better could spout off on a “holistic approach to best-in-class, paradigm-shattering messaging strategies”?

Read This or Else So why do negative ads stay around? They work. They work because they hit a part of the human psyche we can’t ignore. Political consultants know this. But here’s the thing: as consumer advertising professionals, we know this, too.

Cutting Off a Campaign’s Legs It used to be a real virtue to present an ad campaign idea that “has legs.” Now, it doesn’t matter so much. Today, it seems we’re committed to prematurely amputate any campaign that has legs. Is that a good idea?

The Loyal Treatment In some agencies, you can get fired for violating a strict loyalty code. But what happens when you leave work in the evening?

The Defense of the Offensive Often, the defense of offensive ads is just as irrational and nonsensical as the protests of the offended people.

Interactive Agencies and Passive Mentalities Last week, there was a kerfuffle over the credits attached to the Cannes Lion-winning HBO “Voyeur” concept. Seems the interactive agency Big Spaceship thought it deserved more credit than the lead agency, BBDO, gave it.

Back to the Future of the Past Advertising, like everything else, is full of rich history. Is it relevant?

Digitally Divided We Stand It’s not that they wore their technological ignorance on their sleeves; rather, they were perfectly happy living their lives without the Internet and Web 2.0 and new media. To them, a “Twitter feed” means a bag of birdseed.

When Weird Works It’s no secret that the ad industry is full of misfits. Smart, yes; passionate, yes; but misfits nonetheless.

Where Adweek Meets BusinessWeek Can ad people ride out the economy’s ups and downs?

Some Free Thinking Can the ad industry survive the pressures to charge less and cut costs?

Obamarketing Lessons from a political campaign can be applied to ad campaigns

Chasing a Moving Target America just might make history this year, but advertising lives in the past

Primary Lessons, And Secondary Ones Too A presidential campaign, if anything, is marketing in warp speed

Year-End Closeout Thoughts It’s time to look back—but more importantly, look forward

Outsourced Outside The Box What might happen if creative jobs go overseas en masse?

Striking it Rich, or At Least Striking it Profitable The ad industry isn’t Hollywood, but we’ve got the same money issues

The Importance of Filtering Actionable Jargon Into Buckets More bizarre vernacular of the ad industry

A Carbon-Neutral Pile of Manure Brands are going green—because there’s money in it, naturally

When Bad Ideas Happen To Good Agencies If you think ad people love a good confrontation, you’re wrong

Getting Back to Your Agency’s Roots Staff turnover is inevitable in the ad biz—but downcycles don’t have to be

Shuffling the Deckhands Can agencies and clients move forward by moving people around?

Turning Chinese The world of global marketing is flattening, but ad agencies are in for a bumpy ride

A Diverse Set of Problems We’re still in an age of mass marketing—and mass mediocrity

Harry Potter and the Obtuse Client So who really are the ones with the short attention spans?

Surrounding Yourself With Breakthrough Nonsense Are you communicating with customers or violating their space?

The Sanjaya Principle Why does bad advertising, like bad singing, work so well?

The Agency Internal Combustion Engine Is your shop chugging along smoothly or choking on the fumes?

The Law of the Advertising Landscape How much government regulation do advertising and marketing need?

Dinosaurs, Cockroaches, And Guerrillas Advertising is all the same—to the public, anyway

Of So-Called Rock Stars and Stage-Hogging Poseurs Can we lower the volume of ego-inflating industry hyperbole?

Rescuing Lost Brands What happens when brands stray from their core values?

Righting the Writing When clients insist on bad copy—by writing it themselves

Be Borat or Be Boring Can we ever convince our clients to stop being so literal?

The Tale of Retail The buzz may be online, but stores with doors still need our help

The Consumer is Not a Moron. Or am I? If you work in advertising, can advertising work on you?

Hardback Books and Hard Truths What can you learn from a book about an ad agency?

HeadOn--and Production Values Off The growing popularity of badly made ads and viral videos

The Interactive Ghetto Agencies are scrambling for talent to produce web work—and are determined to segregate them

This Land was Hand-Crafted for You and Me Perhaps we should rename this country the United States of Advertising

This Column Brought to You by People For Stuff Is there anyone willing to advocate for advocacy advertising?

Safe, Shit, and Everything Else That Happens Life isn’t pretty. So how do people handle advertising that isn’t pretty?

7-Layer Ads How do ad concepts survive the chain of client approvals?

**This Column is Not Valid in Indiana What the fine print really means for marketers

Oh, the Humanity Is the advertising business losing the human touch?

Living In the Echo Chamber Meet the new clutter—same as the old clutter

Scrubbing Bubbles and Flubbing CEOs Strong advertising reflects corporate culture—and outsiders need to beware

The Super Critics The ad world's biggest showcase is everyone's turn to weigh in

I Want My CA, and I Want My MTV Is it fair to compare today’s work to what was done in the past?

The Bald Midget and the Furniture Store Owner's Daughter As media splinters, what will become of local advertising?

Polluting the Mental Environment Why TV advertising's effectiveness is melting away like the polar ice caps

The French Evolution Unfettered hero worshipping in the ad biz? Now that’s crap

Directly Speaking, Can We Control Ourselves? If you're personally affected by bad advertising, maybe you'll think twice about foisting it on the public

Stuck on Stupid Advertising and PR don't work well if they don't jibe with reality

When A.D.D. Adds Up to Crapola Can short-lived campaigns and small projects lead to long-term success and big ideas?

Taking Size 14 and 36DD Risks Two new ads show some skin—but do they show any guts?

The Home for the Strategically Challenged Can you ever make a great ad from a bad strategy?

If You’ve Been Injured by an Ad Agency... Can there be malpractice in an industry with no standards and practices?

Madison Avenue, Main Street, and the Arab Street To win hearts and minds, or merely wallets, perception is everything

Madison Avenue, Main Street, and the Arab Street To win hearts and minds, or merely wallets, perception is everything

Installing an Upgrade to Ad Industry 2.0 How to make sure you evolve—even if your agency and your co-workers don’t

Maximizing Our Skill Sets to Enable Synergistic Crap Why advertising people speak like idiots

Desperate Housewives and Desperate Senators If cable TV gets fined for indecency, will advertising be next?

Boeing and Banging Boeing’s CEO had an affair and got fired. Maybe a career in advertising would suit him better

H-P and the Bigger Picture What happens when a great campaign can’t help a troubled client?

Wardrobe Malfunctions and Advertising Dysfunctions Can advertising still surprise people when real-life is even more jarring?

It’s All About the Benjamins--or the Bernbachs Are making good ads and making good profits mutually exclusive?

New Words for the New Year Because sometimes writers invent ‘em when they’re tired of using all the old ones

Addicted to Advertising Is pharmaceutical marketing benign—or is it a cancer on society?

Black, White, and Spot Color Will advertising agencies ever reflect a diverse America?

In the Land of the Fee Consumers keep paying more, but it doesn’t mean less advertising

Corvettroversy When an ad or idea gets muzzled, is it act of responsibility or censorship?

Advertising Week (or maybe it’s Advertising Weak) Think you’ll get an accurate depiction of the industry next month? Sorry, Charlie

Clear Problem, Clear Solution When the 800-lb. gorilla says there are too many ads, we should pay attention

I Cannes Tell You Exactly What Happened A report from the south of…uh…France, I think

Word-of-a-Whole-Lot-of-Mouths-Advertising These days, the world is just one big-ass focus group

The Bastards Among Us Can ad people act like true professionals when we’re encouraged to push boundaries?

Subservient Agency How do some agencies get away with stuff that others can’t?

FBI, CIA, AAAA, and CYA How both the government and the ad industry play the blame game

From a No Show to the One Show A tale of two creative superstars who weren’t always stars

Brands Flying Blind When advertising seems like a waste of cash

Trump and Chumps For a moment, advertising got a glimpse of reality

A Super Lesson Football, the ad biz, and no talk of commercials

The Soul of Soles One brand breaks all the rules—and the results are wonderful

Slippery Jelly at the Helm of a Dubious Idea Wanna work at Wieden? Pay up, sucker.

This is Your Holding Company on Drugs Why do sister agencies end up in new biz catfights?

I'm the Best Columnist Ever Why am I so superior? I said so, that’s why

Living Under the Bus When people disagree over creative concepts, does anyone really win?

Random Questions Just some things keeping me up nights

Consult This My new career begins right here, right now

Just Sue It Two ad-related lawsuits you need to know about

Queer Eye for the Ad Guy What do we do when our clients, or consumers, don’t want to be cool?

Telemuckraking Want consumers to respond? Tell them you’ll leave them alone

Majority to Minority Are middle-aged white ad guys facing extinction?

Can’t We Just Be Friends? Dealing with friendly, and unfriendly, co-workers in the ad business

Jumping The Shark Why are some shops hot, cold, or dead?

In The Belly Of The Beast What I learned by spending a few days at Talent Zoo

Getting Embedded With the Client What advertising can learn from a televised war?

Leaping to The Dark Side Why aren’t more ad accounts serviced in-house?

Geezertising

Chapter 11 in The Book Of Advertising Is a client's business failure our fault?

This Column is Gold, Baby Your guide to entering awards shows

Screw Unto Others... Religion and Advertising: Two very similar, and sinister, concepts.

On Killer Books and Hard-Hitting Executions The bizarre vernacular of the ad industry

Advertising For Columbine The message we send to consumers: Be afraid--be very afraid

“60 Minutes” and a Brilliant Marketing Minute How Donny Deutsch Made Advertising Relevant Again--For a Moment

The Enemies Down The Hall Can't the various disciplines all just get along?

Hey, Luke, Squeeze This A plea for some useful advice

The Creative Teamsters What if advertising people had a union?

This Agency's For You The industry’s sucking wind--maybe advertising agencies should try advertising

I’m Not Lying To You Right Now Did corporate America learn the art of lying from advertising?

I Got Your Account Planning Right Here, Pal Do we really wanna know what consumers think?

Why Few People Respect Advertising in the Morning Why few people respect advertising in the morning (or any other time of day).

Are You Targeting Me? Are You Targeting ME? As long as they don’t know too much about me, I'm all for 1-to-1 marketing.

My Client, The Bait-and-Switch Sleazebags Why would honest agency people work for dishonest clients?

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