The advertising agency business has been in one bind or another ever since the dawn of digital. Digital shook the industry to its core, and the reverberations are still being felt from top to bottom. The list of problems is long, but one problem we don't spend enough time discussing is the problem of not knowing who or what we are, any longer. It's a confusion that I find perplexing. May I point you to an …
What ChatGPT “Thinks” About Ageism in Advertising and Media
Discriminating against people due to their age is a pox upon advertising and media houses. It's bad business, and another bad business practice is the last thing that these industries need, right now. Ageism is also a particularly perplexing issue emanating from professional workers who truly ought to know better. Given that everyone who is alive is aging, it's just a matter of time before it's your turn. The …
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Bias Against Aging People, Like All Bias, Is Idiotic and Unproductive
The truly odd thing about ageism is how every single living creature on this planet is aging. We're all aging right now, as we do each and every moment of our lives. Ultimately, this means our bias against aging people is discrimination against the self, and that ageism is a brutal form of self-hatred. As we know, ageism is also bad for business. This new 45-minute documentary film, directed by Scott Haper, …
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“Owning A Large Portion of the Best Talent” Is Pre-COVID Thinking
Like so many businesses, the agency business is a talent business from top to bottom. Nothing good happens without extraordinary efforts made by dedicated, gifted people working as one. Agency heads used to say the agency's "best assets," a.k.a. the talent, walk out the door and go down the elevator each evening. Of course, these commuters almost always returned in the morning. Today, with our newfound and …
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Is Anyone Fully Informing the Public? Not This Week
This coming Sunday, a parade of new ads will interrupt the NFL's programming. A few legacy brands will return to the Super Bowl with the horses that brought them. Most of the other advertisers will be looking to score points with customers and the press care of their innovative new approaches to their showcase (and expensive) celebrity endorsements. Amazon.com, for instance. https://youtu.be/d0UEAr8I9G8 And …
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Lose Trust and Relationships Rust
Edelman PR has studied trust for more than 20 years and believes that it is the ultimate currency in the relationship that all institutions—companies and brands, governments, NGOs, and media—build with their stakeholders. The firm speaks highly of trust and places its importance at the center of everything. Trust defines an organization’s license to operate, lead and succeed. Trust is the foundation that allows an …
It’s Not News, We’re Suffering from Disinformation Blues
Misinformation and disinformation are both proliferating today and consequently polluting minds. While both misinformation and disinformation can deceive audiences and thus both pose a real danger, the distinction is that disinformation is intentionally, maliciously deceptive. According to a recent study from NewsGuard, $2.6 billion per year is spent by big brands advertising on websites that carry …
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Introduction to Marketing Effectiveness (A Primer)
"Marketing effectiveness" sounds like a webinar that someone once forced you to attend, or worse, a graduate seminar on the way to a Master in Business Administration. Perhaps, the term would benefit from a rebrand, because it's not a seminar or webinar. Marketing effectiveness is the difference between failure and success. Given its importance, why don't we know all about it? Bob Hoffman, founder of Hoffman Lewis …
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Bias Against People Over 50 Is the Work of Feeble-Minded Novices
Divisiveness is a fact of life in America today. Sadly, too many brands and their agency partners see an opportunity in it. When you make fun of one group, it excites another group and moves them to action. That's the idea and it's not wrong. What's wrong is using fear, judgment, and other wedge issues to sell. Ken Dychtwald is a nationally recognized expert on aging and ageism. In a new article for AARP, he …
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Are You Helping Your Clients Reach Digital Marketing Maturity?
Think with Google is a new YouTube series that seeks to educate and inspire the next generation of marketers, advertisers, and creatives with tutorials from experts in privacy, digital transformation, and AI to name a few. https://youtu.be/Ad86QPvnqkI In related news, the 2021 Forrester Digital Marketing Maturity survey, conducted on behalf of Google, found that nearly three-quarters of survey participants said …
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On BuiltIn.com Now: RFPs Are a Waste of Precious Time
To reach new and more readers, I started to send out articles for publication—articles that would have otherwise appeared in these pages. Technology-focused Built In has been kind enough to run two of my pieces, so far. Here's the latest: RFPs Are a Waste of Precious Time. Here’s a Better Way to Hire an Agency. There’s a wealth of highly specialized marketing talent available to brands today, but few brand …
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Are We Profoundly Misinformed? It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault
Are we, the people, adrift in a sea of digital flotsam? Joseph Bernstein, a 2021 Nieman Fellow, has written a thought-provoking piece for Harper's. He believes we are profoundly misinformed about social media's role in keeping us misinformed. Bernstein points to a 2019 Pew survey, showing that half of Americans think that made-up news/info is “a very big problem in the country today,” about on par with the …
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