Posted on Sat, 25 May 2013 13:00:00 -0400
Two weeks ago, I was at the ANA Financial Management Conference in Phoenix. How did I, a former copywriter indifferent to most things financial, end up at a meeting filled with CFOs and accounting types? Well, that’s a story for another time.
Suffice it to say that in the parade of chief procurement officers presenting spreadsheets, one of the speakers I was really looking forward to was Miles Nadal, chairman and CEO of MDC Partners. In many ways, he’s re-invented the holding company concept to focus on the best of the best from a creative standpoint. From CB+B to 72andSunny, the man has taste and discernment when it comes to ad agencies. His choices make sense. And he’s a darned entertaining speaker besides.
In fact, he had some really important things to say. Like this: "It all starts with brilliant work that performs in the marketplace. When you have a non-differentiated offering, then procurement can rightly say, let’s buy it for less. If it’s performing and you can see it, that changes everything."
But then Mr. Nadal — a gentleman of a certain age himself — said the thing that made me feel like the advertising equivalent of Dracula. He said he wouldn’t hire anyone past their late 20s. As he jokingly put it, “I wouldn’t hire myself.” Why? Because the young think newer, more exciting thoughts. Because they understand technology. Mercifully, he didn’t say it was because they can un-ironically wear socks on their heads. So that’s something.
Well Mr. Nadal, we know that advertising is and has been a young person’s game for a very long time. Heck, I had my first agency job before I could legally buy a drink. Was I smarter then than I am now? Maybe I thought so. But brain science says otherwise. According to no less an authority than the Harvard Business Review, “Results of long-term studies show that – contrary to stereotypes – we actually grow smarter in key areas in middle age … In areas as diverse as vocabulary and inductive reasoning, our brains function better than they did in our 20s.”
Vocabulary and inductive reasoning: valuable skills to have in an advertising agency. They’re important both when it comes to creating great work and persuading clients that they can and should do something risky and exciting. That’s right. Plenty of us geezers still believe in taking chances and being different.
The HBR article also went on to say, “Younger brains are set up to focus on the negative and potential trouble. Older brains, studies show, often reach solutions faster …” In an ad agency setting, what’s more valuable than that? Would you rather have a roomful of angst-filled slackers or a somewhat older group of real problem solvers?
If I could talk to you one-on-one, I’d make it clear that I’m not quite dead. And I’d ask you to re-think your glib dismissal of the somewhat-more-mature. Again, according to the HBR, that shouldn’t be difficult. Because apparently the other thing that comes with age is “get(ting) better at knowing what to ignore and when to hold your tongue.”
Author bio: Claudia Caplan is CMO of Bethesda, MD-based RP3 Agency (www.rp3agency.com)
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Posted on Sat, 25 May 2013 12:06:00 -0400
One issue Yahoo will have now that it plans to build out Tumblr's advertising offerings is persuading advertisers to actually show up on Tumblr.
We recently reported that Tumblr's ad products offer only extremely limited targeting abilities and that clients aren't yet asking about paid media on Tumblr.
But Rob Leathern, CEO of Optimal, a social media marketing management company, wrote that brands have mostly not bothered to investigate even Tumblr's free offerings:
Of the 10,600+ brands we examine on a daily basis (see optimal social.com/portfolios for more on these across 100 sectors), we see about 2,400 (just less than 25%) have a tumblr presence.
However, 25% of these are mostly empty and many appear to be brands squatting on their own names and planning to get to it later when they have time, perhaps. About 588 of these brand pages have fewer than 10 items of lifetime activity. Some brands like Pepsi are quite active, though the activity levels ebb and flow quite a bit, but others are far less so. The mean number of total engagements per brand on tumblr is 224 but the median is just two.
That's scary: Tumblr has 225 million unique visitors per month, but most companies don't have a presence there. Of those that do, engagement with other users is minimal: just two per company.
How likely is it that Tumblr can build a robust advertising business if brands don't even want it when it's free?
In part, it's about education. CEO David Karp only got serious about advertising a year ago. Prior to that, he was actively disinterested in it. It's early and most brands probably haven't added Tumblr to their "To Do" lists yet.
A spokesperson for Tumblr tells us:
We are one year into working with brand advertisers and have been delighted by the content brands have created on Tumblr- beautiful and diverse content that fits seamlessly with the best work on our network. We now have 10 out of 10 of the top Hollywood studios advertising on Tumblr along with eight out of 10 of the most valuable brands, and growing.
Hayes Davis, CEO of Union Metrics, one of Tumblr's official content analytics companies, adds:
Tumblr is still an emerging platform, but with that said, there is an incredible diversity in the types of brands taking advantage it. Most recently, we saw the movie studio behind Great Gatsby tap into the community to build momentum and interest around the movie's release. It saw huge levels of engagement, with an animated GIF featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby receiving 161.5k notes. But it is not just entertainment - companies like General Electric, which might not come to mind when thinking about Tumblr, has a vibrant presence on the site and just in the last month has garnered 55.1k notes around its brand.
... Adidas saw an increase in conversations around its brand when a fan took a screen grab of one of its TV commercials and posted it on the Tumblr. In just two weeks the post saw 88K notes.
This is part of the problem: GE, a handful of movie studios, and Adidas have famously taken to Tumblr like fish to water. But other than that, brands with serious money are conspicuous by their absence.
What Tumblr must do is go down the path trodden by Facebook: Encourage brands to use Tumblr's free offerings — blogs and dashboards — and then, once they've gained some traction with their followers, start charging for promoted products that have extended reach beyond organic views. • There's A Huge Flaw In Yahoo's Monetization Plan For Tumblr
• Tumblr's Ad Sales Pitch Deck Says Brands Will Now Be 'Front And Center'
• Yes, Yahoo Will Put More Ads On Tumblr
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http://www.businessinsider.com/very-few-brands-are-actually-on-tumblr-2013-5
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Posted on Sat, 25 May 2013 11:00:00 -0400
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Posted on Sat, 25 May 2013 09:24:00 -0400
 The media constellation has become increasingly fractured. The Web produced the initial fissure, but mobile created new cracks in the landscape. Today, no single medium earns more than 45% of our media consumption.
How can you solve this problem? Social media offers a solution.
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are daily destinations for millions of consumers. Increasingly, their ad products offer targeting according to specific demographics, social connections, interests, and habits.
In a new report from BI Intelligence, we analyze the state of social media advertising and where it is heading, offering a comprehensive guide and examination of the advertising ecosystems on Facebook and Twitter, offer a primer on Tumblr as an emerging ad medium, and detail how mobile is an important part of this story as mobile-friendly as native ad formats fuel growth in the market.
Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>
Here's an overview of some major players in the mobile advertising ecosystem:
- The lure of social media advertising is massive: As brands look across a fractured media landscape, social networks offer them an interesting proposition. Social networks have scale - enormous user bases and deep databases. They have high engagement - Americans were spending an average of 12 hours per month on social networks as of July 2012, with 18-24 year olds averaging 20 hours. And potentially, social media gives brands offer a uniquely captive audience for their content.
- Guaranteed placement is getting advertisers to pay up: Brands are paying to get their content or copy in front of a quantifiable audience, an increasingly rare feat in an era of scattered consumer attention. This desire for guaranteed attention also helps to explain social media's move away from traditional display ads — like Facebook's right-rail ads — and toward so-called native ads that surface in a user's stream, either as a tweet or a Facebook post. A consensus seems to be forming around in-stream advertising as the most promising social advertising format.
- Social media advertising is set to explode: Social media advertising is a young market and so far, it only represents 1% to 10% of ad budgets for a wide majority of advertisers. There's significant opportunity for that share to grow. BIA/Kelsey recently came out with a study that offers one view - forecasting $11 billion of social ad spend in 2017, up from $4.7 billion last year. That estimate is large - but still seems pessimistic, because...
- Increased mobile usage will be a huge growth driver: The BIA/Kelsey prediction calls for mobile to account for only $2.2 billion of that in 2017 - a 20% market share. This could easily be surpassed. Both Twitter and Facebook have passed the 50% mobile usage mark and, given the continued growth of mobile devices, it will only rise. Mobile accounted for 11% of Facebook's ad revenue last year even though it didn't release mobile ads until the tail end of the second quarter. By the fourth quarter, it was up to 23%. And now, Twitter is reporting that its mobile ad revenue now regularly outpaces its desktop ad revenue. Social media advertising is therefore uniquely positioned to grab an increasing share of the fast growing mobile advertising market.
In full, the report includes:
To access BI Intelligence's full reports on The State Of Social Media Advertising, sign up for a free trial subscription here.
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Details:
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-of-social-media-advertising-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 17:30:00 -0400
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 17:23:00 -0400
Real-time bidding, or RTB, is a style of programmatic buying in which digital advertising opportunities are auctioned off in real-time. The auctions take place in milliseconds as advertisers bid on the right to show you an ad immediately after you open an app or click to a new web page.
On the desktop it's a powerful technique to deliver the right ad to the right consumer at the right time and place. On mobile, it could be more powerful since consumers take their devices everywhere — to the mall, the car dealership, Starbucks, etc.
In a recent report, BI Intelligence analyzes programmatic bidding and real time bidding, analyze how it may help solve the mobile advertising CPM problem, and detail its recent impact and successes.
We also examine the potential obstacles to its widespread adoption, and look at how the holy grail of mobile advertising - controls and efficiencies - may be reached through its use.
Access The Full Report And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>
Take a look at this infographic from our report:
By all accounts, RTB grew tremendously in 2012 across the mobile advertising ecosystem. Some of the most promising highlights include:
- Nexage, whose mobile RTB exchange is 18 months old, saw the number of bids per auction grow 96% between the second and third quarter of last year.
- MoPub reported bid depth of 1.6 bids per auction in June 2012, up from 0.4 bids per auction in January.
To access BI Intelligence's full report on Programmatic Buying and RTB, sign up for a free trial subscription here.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-real-time-bidding-ad-ecosystem-2013-55
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 15:38:00 -0400
Publicis Brussels has created an ad for the Belgian suicide prevention line, Centre du Prevention de Suicide, that makes creative use of the pre-roll skip ad feature. The work aims to recruit good listeners for the prevention line.
Those who don't listen to the woman in the ad and hit "skip ad" are shown a scene that results in suicide. Those who don't click "skip ad" and listen to the woman's story get thanked by the woman and are shown the recruitment message.
t's an interesting approach both for the use of the "skip ad" feature and for its commentary on today's world where everyone is in a rush and doesn't care about the well being of others.
Of course, we can't really conclude that people who don't skip the ad will be good prevention line listeners or that people who do skip the ad won't be but we do like the analogy Publicis used.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/a-suicide-prevention-psa-made-a-brilliant-use-of-ad-pre-roll-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 15:06:00 -0400
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 14:42:11 -0400
Will one of the retailers for the 1% get a new owner?
Luxury department store retailer Saks Fifth Avenue is exploring a sale, according to media reports.
Although luxury goods sellers have fared better than middling retailers since the financial crisis, their sales haven’t returned to pre-crisis levels.
In fact, the real estate holdings for companies like Saks, which has locations in large cosmopolitan cities like New York and Chicago, may be more valuable than its services.
Saks, which has long been rumored as a possible deal target, owns a good chunk of its own stores, including its flagship 5th Avenue store in Manhattan.
That prime real estate alone could be worth about $1 billion, which was more than half of Sak’s market capitalization ($1.7 billion) before the reports of a possible sale. (Shares of Saks have since shot up, making its current value $2.2 billion.)
Beyond its real estate holdings, Saks may still have legs as a retailer. Even though first quarter profit for Saks fell by 38%, sales improved, rising more than 5%. Also, the company has been closing stores and paring down debt.
But retail investing hasn’t been an easy play for private equity firms, which have struggled to find ways to exit those deals. Private equity firms TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus held on to Neiman Marcus for about eight years before exploring a sale or IPO this year. That’s about three years longer than the typical holding period for a private equity investment.
Real estate, however, is becoming a more attractive investment for private equity firms as the US economy recovers, including the real estate of struggling retailers. In April, Goldman Sachs arranged a $1.75 billion loan for JC Penney, which was backed by the department store’s valuable real estate.
Saks also has brand cachet. High-end brand names are especially attractive to sovereign wealth funds, which have prioritized brand equity over financial performance in those investments.
The retail sector is in a bad state, but Saks may have a few shiny traits left to woo the right kind of investors.
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More From Quartz:
•Smart Car Charging Stations Are Extremely Vulnerable To Hacking
•Why India's Education System Will Never Be Like America's
•If Cable Is Dying, Then Why Is It Still Making So Much Money?
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http://www.businessinsider.com/saks-fifth-avenue-woos-investors-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 11:59:00 -0400
Paul Adams, Facebook's global head of brand design (and a former Google alum), has left the company to take a position with Intercom, a company that makes customer communications, messaging, and analytics tools.
Adams is famous for his presentations on how people actually use social media, and for taking a key role in the design of Google+. Basically, he's one of the more important "thinkers" in social media.
At Facebook he took a lead role in ad product design, and reported to ad products director Gokul Rajaram and director of global creative solutions Mark D'Arcy. He had a hands-on role designing Facebook products for companies like Nike, P&G, Unilever, Coca Cola, and Starbucks.
Adams' role at Intercom will be head of product design. He received equity in the company as part of his hiring.
"I loved my job at Facebook. I had a fantastic position there. I had a lot of freedom and flexibility," Adams tells us.
But he started advising Intercom several months ago, and became increasingly fascinated with the company's main challenge: How do you design social customer interfaces that increase the level of contact with new customers?
Most companies regard customer relations management as a cost-center, Adams tells us, and try to limit the amount of time they have to interact with their consumers. Forward thinking companies want more consumer communication, Adams says.
He cites Zappos — with its legendary phone staff — as an example of a company getting it right.
At Intercom he will design systems that segment customers as thinly as possible, so that messaging to each consumer will be as accurate, useful and relevant.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-adams-leaves-facebook-for-intercom-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 10:19:00 -0400
McDonald's in Australia just released a series of ads that pulls at the heartstrings ... but in an incredibly depressing way.
It's a clever campaign that shows the ripple effects of the chain's Loose Change Menu, which is the Aussie equivalent of the Dollar Menu. The pink bear trapped in the $1 claw machine game goes unsaved; the hero of a cheap video game has to take up knitting because no one will play with it.
The thing is, just like "Toy Story" made audiences want to run home and dust off their stuffed animals, this ad tactic might make consumers think, "Forget the french fries, I want to contribute my quarters to a depressed washing machine!"
DDB Sydney created the campaign, pictured below.
If you buy food from the Loose Change Menu, this poor claw machine bear will never find a loving home. (Note the abandoned balloon flying off in the distance):
Arcade game heroes will have to find new hobbies:
Even the view finder is depressed:
This is where the change goes:
SEE ALSO: JELL-O Is Trying To Rebrand The Abbreviation 'FML' >
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Details:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-australia-released-a-series-of-really-depressing-ads-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 09:34:00 -0400
When you’re a world-famous fashion model, your face is your fortune. Odd then, that Gisele Bündchen’s new campaign doesn’t feature hers.
In her latest assignment for cult New York label BLK DNM, the Super lets her pert posterior do the talking in a pair of the label’s jeans. She follows in the footsteps of Caroline de Maigret and Stella Schnabel, who have both leant their behinds to the brand for past 'Wild Poster' campaigns.
The image is part of the brand’s ‘guerilla’ advertising technique which sees them plaster posters around downtown Manhattan each season. Accompanying the central shot is a series of black-and-white portraits of a topless, contorted Gisele, shot by the BLK DNM’s creative director Johan Lindeberg, in which she wears no make-up, no hairstyle and is entirely untouched by the airbrush.
READ: Gisele is the new face of H&M
“I’m a massive feminist. I’m the one who thinks that women should take over completely,” Lindberg told WWD at the unveiling of the campaign last night. “I’m anti-retouching and [anti-] plastic surgery. I think a woman is beautiful how she is."
Ever the earth mother, Gisele was totally on board with the au naturel idea. “I really had so much fun,” Bündchen told Styleite . “Because I feel like it’s so rare that you get to really express yourself the way you want to express yourself. Because you know, I’m a model, so you do whatever the designer wants. There’s a whole idea behind it. And here it was just about not looking perfect, but about looking real and authentic - no hair, no retouching — just going through what you feel.”
It’s been good six months for the Brazilian beauty so far; not only has she scored a Chanel and H&M campaign, she’s welcomed her second child, daughter Vivian, and been named the most powerful model in the world for the second year running.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/giseles-backside-is-starring-in-a-new-ad-campaign-2013-5
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 09:05:37 -0400
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's parliament has passed legislation to ban all advertising of alcohol and tighten restrictions on sales in the mainly Muslim but secular country.
The legislation, adopted on Friday, bans the sale of alcoholic drinks between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. It also prohibits alcohol sales anywhere close to mosques and educational centers.
The law bars drink companies from promoting their brands and forces the blurring of images of alcoholic drinks on television.
It also brings stricter penalties on drunken driving.
The government says the law is aimed at protecting Turkey's youth from the harms of alcohol but secularist opponents accuse the Islamic-rooted ruling party of gradually imposing an Islamic agenda.
The legislation needs presidential approval before coming into effect.
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 08:34:00 -0400
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Posted on Fri, 24 May 2013 08:26:00 -0400
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Posted on Thu, 23 May 2013 21:59:00 -0400
Bob McDonald, the 59-year-old CEO of Procter & Gamble and a 33-year veteran of the company, has stepped down suddenly.
He will be replaced by an old hand: his predecessor, A.G. Lafley (presumably on a temporary basis — Lafley's 65 and has already been CEO once before).
P&G is the world's largest advertiser, with a global media budget of more than $10 billion annually.
The move comes after pressure from activist investor Bill Ackman, according to Forbes:
McDonald was thought to be in jeopardy of losing his job last summer after a string of reductions to profit forecasts frustrated analysts and investors, and Ackman barreled onto the scene, unveiling a $1.8 billion stake in the company.
Ackman had privately urged the company’s board last year to replace McDonald, according to the Wall Street Journal, and at the Ira Sohn investing conference early this month, the hedge fund manager had said that McDonald only had a couple of quarters to show that he could improve performance. Ackman also took pot shots at McDonald for serving on too many corporate boards, which, he claimed to have calculated, ate up 25% of his time.
 In fact, investors began taking shots at McDonald a year ago. On a conference call at that time, Ali Dibadj of Sanford C. Bernstein suggested McDonald wasn't cutting it. "How much patience does the board have?" is the quote that will go down in history:
Unilever or Personal Care grew 10%, J&J skin in the U.S. grew 6.3%, [indiscernible] grew 6.5%, Kimberly grew 6%, all organic, all with their profitability, supposedly not through price gaps because it sounds like that's a minor issue. And I'm not sure if you can use geographic mix as an excuse anymore. So I'm just trying to understand how long do you expect investors to wait? How long does your current plan have to work? How much patience does the board have?
McDonald has had difficulty getting the company to fire on all cylinders at once, according to the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. McDonald reacted by refocusing on P&G's core markets and products and cutting costs. The company's shares reacted, rising 26% in the past 12 months. But they tumbled last month after the disappointing earnings report. P&G said its sales rose just 3% after stripping out currency movements and the impact of acquisitions and divestitures, at the low end of the company's forecast.
Most famously, McDonald steered P&G in the direction of "free" social and online media, only to haul it back to old-fashioned paid media when he didn't see the results he liked.
He laid off more than 6,250 marketers in the process.
Here are McDonald and Lafley's letters to their staff, per Ad Age:
Dear P&G Friends,
Today I’m announcing my retirement from Procter & Gamble. This has been a very difficult decision for me, but I’m convinced it is what is in the best interests of theCompany and you.
Replacing me will be my friend and mentor, A.G. Lafley. I’m thankful that A.G. has agreed to come back to P&G and carry on with the work we have collectively done to strengthen the Company, its business and its organization.
During the past year, much attention has been focused on me from several angles, which has been a distraction that is not in our best interests. I’ve always believed that we are a Company -- One Company -- comprised of great individuals. When we get to a point where too much attention becomes a distraction, it’s time to change that dynamic.
Most important, thank you for all you are doing to make P&G the great Company it is and always will be. I am proud of what you have accomplished, and it has been a privilege to be a part of it. During the last four years together, we’ve expanded our business into many new categories and geographies. By the end of this year, developing markets will account for 40% of our sales and 45% of volume. We’ve launched exciting innovations with many more to come. And, we’ve made significant progress on our productivity program. There are many more accomplishments, and I cannot thank you enough for all your hard work and dedication.
I love this Company and all of you. I will celebrate 33 years with P&G on June 4, and I first met A.G. the night before I interviewed. I know you will give A.G. your very best effort. We are on the way up, but there is more to do. We have an opportunity to have an excellent quarter, and there will be many more to come in the future.
My official retirement date is June 30. Please know I am always available to help you in any way I am able.
Best wishes. I have every confidence in you. I am counting on you. Thanks.
Bob
Here's Lafley's memo:
Dear P&Gers,
Today I am rejoining P&G. I’m looking forward to working with all of you again, to do what we do best and what matters most -- win with consumers.
I want to thank Bob McDonald for his 33 years of service to the Company, and for his leadership. I’ve known Bob his entire career, and he has real passion for doing what is right and for improving the lives of consumers around the world.
I also want to thank P&Gers for the work you’re doing to win with consumers. I want to assure you that we will build on the business momentum behind the current growth strategies:
Strengthening core developed market business.
Maintaining strong developing market momentum.
Building and leveraging a strong innovation pipeline.
Driving cost savings and productivity improvements.
I will be getting up to speed on the business in the next several weeks. In the meantime, here are a few of my core beliefs:
The consumer is boss -- at the heart of everything we do.
We create and build brands that improve consumers’ lives.
Innovation is our lifeblood.
Every P&Ger is an owner and a leader -- we are one team, with one dream, collaborating internally and competing externally.
I look forward to working with you in the days and weeks ahead.
Best,
A.G. • How Facebook Helped Screw Up P&G's Ad Budget
• P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To Advertise On Facebook
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http://www.businessinsider.com/pg-ceo-bob-mcdonald-retires-2013-5
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Posted on Thu, 23 May 2013 21:02:00 -0400
As recently as late 2010, mobile commerce was only 3% of e-commerce. By the end of last year's holiday shopping season, that number had risen to 11%, according to comScore. That's approximately $18.6 billion in consumer spending - and that doesn't even include travel-related purchases, which comScore counts separately.
New mobile merchandising trends — merchandising being the art of selling people products they didn't know they wanted — like mobile catalogs and coupons are helping to drive this explosion.
Thanks in part to this new ecosystem of retail and shopping apps, mobile-generated retail spend could rise to 15% of retail e-commerce by the end of this year.
In a new report from BI Intelligence, we examine the main reasons why mobile commerce is exploding, dig deeper into the numbers underpinning the explosive growth, and analyze the new mobile merchandising trends — like mobile catalogs and coupons - that are contributing to this growth.
Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>
Here's a brief overview of why retailers and brands are offering mobile coupons:
In full, BI Intelligence's report on Mobile Commerce:
To access BI Intelligence's full reports on Mobile Commerce, sign up for a free trial subscription here.
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Details:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-coupons-driving-mobile-commerce-2013-5
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Posted on Thu, 23 May 2013 18:29:00 -0400
Mark Silber, the executive creative director of WPP-owned mobile ad agency Joule, has criticized his boss — WPP CEO Martin Sorrell — in an "open letter" for what Silber says is Sorrell's excessive focus on media and metrics over creativity.
The letter — sent exclusively to Business Insider — was written in a spirit of debate and fun, as a reaction to a speech Sorrell gave in London which said that, in advertising today, the medium has become more important than the message. The Drum quoted Sorrell as saying:
... [It's] the medium, or media, that determines the nature of the creative content, a fact which “doesn’t go down well” in established ad agencies.
“The days in which creatives ruled have gone and media departments are now much more front and centre. It’s much more balanced now, which is for the best. The Don Drapers of the world did rule, but no longer.
 Silber told us, "I read Sir Martin's comments and thought a creative person's perspective might make an interesting sidebar. I'm in no way contradicting him. What I'm saying is, we know this is true. Just please don't say it. We creative people have fragile egos. At least, I do."
It is extremely unusual for someone of Silber's rank to criticize his boss publicly, even in jest. And Sorrell, famously, has a bit of temper, and doesn't have much patience for critics whom he believes are wrong on the facts. Is Silber worried he might feel Sorrell's wrath? "No. I understand he has an excellent sense of humor and will appreciate the tongue-in-cheek manner in which this was written.
Having said that, Silber also admitted he had not spoken to Sorrell about the matter personally.
The 318-word dispatch laments the diminishing clout of creative people in advertising agencies, in favor of the rise of account managers and media planners and buyers. Silber wrote:
Is a world run by media people truly a world in which you want to live? With spreadsheets and retargeting strategies and trading desks and people who know what GRP stands for? Although on the plus side I suppose there’d be more parties.
... And now you want to take us down another peg? Really, our standard operating mode – deep self-loathing – wasn’t sufficient?
Read Silber's letter to Martin Sorrell in full here.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-silbers-letter-to-martin-sorrell-2013-5
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Posted on Thu, 23 May 2013 17:42:00 -0400
 An open letter to WPP CEO Martin Sorrell from a creative guy who works for him (at least, as of this writing).
Dear Sir:
At the MediaCom Beyond Advertising event in London on Wednesday you said, “The days in which creatives ruled have gone and media departments are now much more front and center.”
Now, I’m not one of those sensitive creative types but … You hurt my feelings.
It’s tough to be a creative these days. First they took away our two-month LA production junkets. Then they took away our Sharpies – man, I miss the smell of those things.
And now you want to take away the illusion that we run the show.
 Look, telling us creatives we were in charge was like telling the children to decide where the family should vacation: A convenient pretense to keep everyone happy.
Account people own the client. Media owns the budget. All we creatives own are black jeans and an attitude of superiority.
And now you want to take us down another peg? Really, our standard operating mode – deep self-loathing – wasn’t sufficient?
I ask you: Is a world run by media people truly a world in which you want to live? With spreadsheets and retargeting strategies and trading desks and people who know what GRP stands for? Although on the plus side I suppose there’d be more parties.
Anyway, couldn’t we all just go back to the fairy tale where we pretend the creatives are the prima donnas and everybody else is … secondary donnas, is that what they’re called? Then, when the creatives aren’t paying attention – which, trust me, is pretty often – the media people can ignore whatever we came up with and go and do whatever they were planning to do anyway.
Everybody wins!
As T.S. Eliot said, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” That goes double for creatives. You think we were moody and depressive before? See what we’re like when our friends find out we’re not even cool. Please, sir, tell everyone you were just kidding.
Sincerely,
Mark Silber
Mark Silber is an executive creative director of Joule, a global mobile ad agency. SEE ALSO: See Why Silber Wrote His Letter To Sorrell
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Details:
http://www.businessinsider.com/not-so-loud-sir-martin-the-creative-people-can-hear-you-2013-5
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Posted on Thu, 23 May 2013 16:07:00 -0400
The FTC has launched an antitrust probe into whether Google's dominance of the display ad business on the web hurts competition, Bloomberg reports.
The assessment, which is preliminary and may not develop into a full investigation, is looking at whether Google is involved in illegal "tying," or "bundling" — the practice of requiring customers to buy linked products in more than one category in order to leverage competitive dominance in one category into an unfair advantage in another. Bloomberg reported:
The FTC is looking at whether Google is using its tools to force companies to bypass competing products and use other Google properties, including a marketplace for buying and selling Internet display ads, and features that help companies maximize revenue, the people said. The agency is also reviewing Google’s potential to use its dominance in search advertising to squeeze out competitors in the display advertising market, the
people said.
Google settled an antitrust probe into its search advertising business in January. That settlement required Google to tweak some of its practices, but it left the core search ad business alone. What dominance Google has in search ads was a natural outgrowth of the fact that Google's product is superior, the FTC concluded, and therefore not an illegal monopoly.
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Details:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ftcs-google-antitrust-probe-of-display-advertising-2013-5
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