As I enter the 45-year mark of this amazing business called advertising, it seems like we have lost so many of the fundamentals that made this industry so powerful, starting with the art of listening. An incredibly important skill for success in the advertising agency business, and yet we seem to have become such poor...
I was reminiscing about the good ole days in the advertising agency business with a friend who like me got their start on Madison Avenue in New York City. Both of us continue to run advertising agencies some 45+ years later, but the paradigm shift in our industry is mind-blowing when you think about it....
I was fascinated by a recent national study that indicated most CEOs feel their brand(s) needed to take a stand on social issues, even though less than a third of consumers want to see politics in marketing – and pretty much the opposite of what every agency seems to be telling its clients. Curious don’t...
The “way to early” debate on the certain demise of the advertising industry due to AI continues to rage. Over past few months, I’ve had many discussions with folks in the advertising agency business, as well as with photographers, web developers, software engineers and more, and the response to the impact of AI is either...
Nobody wants to work anymore seems to be the number one rallying cry of business owners, recruiters, and cranky people who aren’t getting their coffee fast enough at Starbucks. Can you relate? Truth be told, I have wondered the same thing – pre and post pandemic. It is crazy how many jobs are available, and...
Consumer marketing professionals who retired 10 years ago would hardly recognize today’s marketing landscape: ChatGPT – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Extended Reality Smartphones Social marketing The massive rise of Mobile A world that’s Video crazy Big Data – Analytics The Metaverse Voice Search TikTok A Cookieless future, And more… Can you imagine what things will...
It’s the new water cooler conversation piece – ChatGPT – the artificial intelligence (AI) that many say will transform (or destroy) their industries. In our circles of course, everyone is asking the question “Will Advertising Agencies become a thing of the past?” Heck, find one college student who hasn’t discovered ChatGPT and I’ll show you...
Effective marketing eludes most people for a couple of reasons. The first is because we, as marketers, have become lazy and enamored with vanity metrics. It’s far easier to brag about impressions and reach of our campaigns than to hold our marketing dollars accountable for metrics that matter. Increased accountability increases predictability. A predictable marketing...
We are approaching that time of year when the stress level for kids graduating from college is deep. The pressure to be “successful” the day after accepting your diploma is real…but probably not realistic. Indeed, graduating students are already beginning to hear stories of peers who have gotten Fulbright’s or jobs with prestigious company’s, who...
On the face of it, consumers spending less to cope with inflation doesn’t scream marketing opportunity. And it probably isn’t in terms of driving immediate results for many businesses. Yet if you examine the changes people are making, spending less is only part of the story. It’s also about changing established routines: shopping in new...