Ten ways the ad industry needs to transform, according to JWT’s Sean Boyle
Editor’s Note: JWT’s Global Planning Director, Sean Boyle, was the bad-boy beau of the ball at the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) “Transforming Advertising” conference in San Francisco last week. With wit and an Irish gift-o’-the gab, Boyle presented his “The Stop-Start Ten Commandments”—five things agencies need to stop doing and five things they need to start doing. It made the room so pregnant with nervous laughter—because only the truth is funny—that we asked him to write an excerpt for us. Listen up, creatives and agencies.
1. Start Telling the Truth To each other. To our clients. About our brands.
2. Stop the Bloody Politics
Because we’re an industry run by bankers, it is the conniving crowd pleasers rather than the cream that tend to rise to the top. A general rule: in most agencies, those with vision who “get-it” are bullied and undermined at every turn by those with no vision, who don’t.
3. Start Having Fun Again We used to be the envy of the salary-man. Why have we let it become so serious and dull? The greatest work ever done in our industry, has always come from places where people like each other and enjoy—really enjoy—playing (and partying) together as a team.
TV to Web shift; the top women of social media; Jaron Lanier warns against the wisdom of crowds; helping Haiti, and more
Shift happens
According to the New York Times “Bits” blogger Nick Bilton, the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien late-night slap fight is an indicator of the coming shift from TV to the Web. In fact, Bilton thinks Conan should ditch TV and go straight to the Web. But is the world ready for anytime O’Brien? And can the Web match TV in ad dollars? iMedia Connection’s Mario Sgambelluri wonders. May we politely suggest a smarter mix of both?
Social media: Where the gals are
TopRank’s Lee Odden names the top 25 women in social media. We’re happy to see our old FoY (“Friend of Yahoo!”), Charlene Li make the list. Congrats to all 25. You go, gals!
Jaron Lanier says you are not a gadget
Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier—that dreadlocked brainiac who brought you the cool robotic glove—has a new book out, reviewed in Sunday’s New York Times. “You Are Not a Gadget” questions whether the social media trend is really such a good thing after all. Among other criticism, Lanier says that the so-called “wisdom of crowds” might not actually be so wise, especially when designing new products. Listen up, manufacturers and advertisers. Sometimes going with your gut can work better than design by committee. Just look at the iPod.
Personal social media ROI; embeddable live social media counter; Yahoo! social science; “mobilizing” your website, and more
Your personal social media ROI
Twitter and Facebook can be a time-suck. We all know that by now. But there must be a pay-off, right? Maybe, maybe not. AdAge’s Simon Dumenco explains how to gage your personal social media ROI.
7 reasons you don’t need to justify ROI for social media advertising These days, Web advertising is all about the math—click-through rates, open rates, engagement modeling, registrations, etc. But, iMedia Connection’s Clyde DeSousa argues, social media advertising is a different animal, and he offers seven “justifications” for social media advertising that you can use when trying to convince the “suits” in the corner office to go for it.
Social media hall monitor Social media gadfly, Gary Hayes of Personalize Media, has just released a widget that counts social media in real time: stuff like new blog posts, members added to Facebook, the amount of money spent on virtual goods globally, Tweets and more—what’s happening now, for the last day, the last week, the last month and the last year. That’s one impressive widget, according to this, the 330 jillionth blog post this year. You can embed the widget, as we have below.
Real moms; weird ad stories; online video tips; world’s worst B-roll, and more
The rise of the “real mom”
The redoubtable researchers at Ad Age have put together a pretty compelling white paper on today’s mothers—focusing on Gen X and millennials. They’ve come a long way since Virginia Slims said that they’ve come a long way… “baby.”
10 weirdest ad stories of the month
The six or eight weeks after Christmas is usually a slow time for most businesses, but it’s a busy time in the ad world. You’ve got the holidays themselves, plus the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day coming up fast. BNET’s Jim Edwards recaps some of the oddest agency and advertising stories of the last 30-odd days…and those days have been pretty odd, ad-wise.
ClickZ’s round-up of round-ups from ’09 It’s not the end of the decade, people! That happens Jan. 1, 2011 (look it up). But it is the end of the year, and that means it’s round-up time. ClickZ looks back at the most interesting items from its ’09 oeuvre and finds that digital is—surprise!—big, and that mobile’s looking more and more grown up. This, we applaud.
What can you do with a Yahoo! display ad? More than just display, for starters
Whether video, Web or mobile, Yahoo! display ads are rocking the house down, branding your products, sending the messages you want and getting the ROI you want, as this video shows. Enjoy, and happy new year!
Good, bad and ugly agency holiday cards; mobility is the game-changer in 2010; top ten marketing stories; Yahoo! reaps science awards, and more
Best and worst agency holiday cards of ’09
Holiday greeting cards have been a staple of ad agencies for decades. They give copywriters, designers and producers a chance to spread their wings a little and speak, for a change, solely to the like-minded—other agencies and clients. AdWeek’s AdFreak offers up the best and worst holiday greetings of 2009. Hat tip to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners’ “New School vs. Old School“. (Be sure to send your clients a greeting, but whatever you do, don’t send along this “souven-ear.”)
Four ways mobility will change advertising in 2010 If you haven’t gone mobile with your advertising yet, now may be the time. iMedia Connection’s Dave Courtney shows us four ways that mobile will change the game in the next year. Ready, set . . .
CMO’s top ten stories of ’09
CMO.com has listed the ten biggest marketing stories of 2009. Among the gems you may have missed: Forrester’s piece on how to get your company ready for social computing; how to manage your brand in the Twitterverse; five trends that have remade marketing during the recession, and more. This being the last year of the “aughts,” you ought to pay heed.
BNET’s worst creative of 2009; surge in games sales; “buzz” is not a metric; measure your holiday social media mojo; ad networks for every fetish, and more
Ten worst ads of 2009 (so far)
BNET.com’s advertising blogger Jim Edwards names his ten least favorite ads for 2009. We won’t judge Edwards’ judgments, but you can.
Video games and consoles top sellers again this year
According to the Entertainment Software Association, video game hardware, software and peripheral sales climbed to $22 billion in 2008, a 22.9 percent jump over the previous year. For more deets, switch over to the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog.
Does buzz + awesomeness = social media success? “It’s good to finally see a growing backlash against…self-appointed social media gurus, mavens and sherpas,” writes Peter Holmes in Reason Applied, citing a BusinessWeek article that calls into question current social media measurement theories that abandon solid ROI practices. “How can anybody claim to be expert in a field that’s still attempting to figure itself out?” It may be time to get the old sliderule back out.
In the documentary “Art & Copy,” the creatives are the heroes
Last week we gave a nod to the film, “Art & Copy” a documentary about creative folks in the agency world. Well, we finally saw “Art & Copy” a few days ago, and what a wild ride it turned out to be. For agency creatives, it has to be the must-see film of the year.
Directed by documentarian Doug Pray, whose award-winning credits include “Surfwise,” “Scratch” and “Hype,” “Art & Copy,” follows the paths of some of the greatest creative minds in advertising of the last half century. Among the superstars of creativity who make the film work are George Lois (Esquire), Mary Wells (DDB Worldwide), Dan Wieden, David Kennedy (Wieden+Kennedy), Cliff Freeman (Cliff Freeman & Partners), Lee Clow (TBWAChiatDay; pictured at right) and Hal Riney (Publicis), among others. It also discusses their trials and tribulations in creating masterpieces of the Madison Avenue trade, such as “Where’s the Beef?,” “Just Do It,” “I Heart NY,” “Got Milk?,” “I Want My MTV,” and Apple’s ground breaking “1984” and “Think Different” campaigns.
Video: Top Marketers at ANA Give Advice to Struggling Companies
Is your company struggling in these tough times? We asked some of the “masters of marketing” at the ANA Annual Conference their advice, and here it is, in tasty little sound bites:
The story behind the video and our commitment to the creative community
Judging from the numbers, a lot of you have already seen the “Yahoo! Hearts Creatives” viral video. But here’s the back story.
Agencies and creatives make advertising. Copywriters, designers, directors—these folks and the agencies they work with chisel sizzle out of fizzle. It seems simple, sure. But anyone in the ad biz knows just how hard a simple message can be to create and get across. Remember the “Where’s the beef?” TV campaign? It became a national catchphrase, catapulted the brand into an industry phenomenon, and even influenced a presidential election. It may look easy, but it’s not.
And at Yahoo! don’t we know it. And we know you can’t just be thinking about TV when you create your campaigns. Back in the “Where’s the beef?” days, advertisers created their ads, put them on TV—it didn’t much matter if it was “Barney Miller” or “The Gong Show”—and prayed. With online advertising things are a bit trickier.
1. Start Telling the Truth
Best and worst agency holiday cards of ’09
Measure your social media mojo this holiday
Last week we 
