by mark March 20th, 2008
in Daily Thoughts.
It never ceases to amaze me how much I learn about this advertising/marketing business from reading anything but the trade journals. Case in point, last Sunday’s New York Times “News of the Week in Review” section offered up a fascinating article by Matt Bai in which he explained the key difference between two political campaign consultants–one of whom works for Ms. Clinton and the other for Mr. Obama–a distinction I would argue is every bit as important in our field as it is in the political realm.
Right from the start, Mr. Bai is quick to point out that “To refer generically to these strategists as ‘consultants,’ however, as if they were necessarily experts in the same craft, is to obscure important differences in how they got to where they are.” Because, as he goes on to say, David Axelrod, Obama’s advisor, is “an advertising guy” whereas Mark Penn, who works for Clinton, is “a pollster”. Continue reading ‘Political Intrigue’
by mark March 17th, 2008
in Daily Thoughts.
I know, I’ve been remiss in the posting department lately. Sorry. I got caught up in the annual exercise of figuring out exactly what I need to “render unto Caesar” (rounded to the nearest denarii) and other mundanities of commercial existence. But, fool that I am, I haven’t completely lost interest in this business of ours.
In fact, I just finished a wonderful little book called “Up The Agency” by Peter Mayle. At first I bridled at that title thinking it was a direct lift from Robert Townsend’s “Up The Organization”. But closer scrutiny revealed the two books were published twenty years apart and in an industry where anything in an awards annual more than two years old is considered ripe for the purloining, I guess that would count as a reasonable interregnum. Besides, Mayle’s book is a smart, fast read and paints a picture of the business as agonizingly accurate today as it was when he wrote the fucking thing. Continue reading ‘AWOL’
by mark March 5th, 2008
in Daily Thoughts.
Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of insanity. But what about saying the same thing over and over? I only ask because I’ve been saying the same thing–that eventually marketers are going to discover they can’t just milk their brands indefinitely, that sooner or later they’re going to have to get back to building them–since way before the latest near total breakdown of financial engineering techniques. And I’ve been wrong. Repeatedly.
Of course Warren Buffett has been saying the same things over and over for years, too, and no one thinks he’s crazy. (His net worth would seem to make that a difficult proposition to defend.) Which he did again in this year’s letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway: That, among other things, “it’s only when the tide goes out you see who’s been swimming naked.” Like Chrysler I’d be tempted to chime in. And Sears for sure. Continue reading ‘Land Of Milk & Money’
