Access—you can't get there without it. In the advertising agency business, access has been afforded to the few. The industry is elite by design. The people on the inside ask those on the outside to "break-in," if they can. The entire set up is adversarial from the get-go. Yes, there's talk of a meritocracy for creatives and that's what it is—talk. In reality, aspiring creatives learn to mimic award-winning work …
Business Journalists Have Harder Truths To Tell, And Now Is the Time
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” -George Bernard Shaw I have covered the marketing, media, and advertising industries on this website for 15.5 years now. What began as a place to have digital "watercooler discussions" about ads, quickly grew into something bigger and better. Adpulp.com has also been driven forward by the power of our …
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Coca-Cola, Ford, Starbucks et al Halt Ad Spending on ‘All’ Social Media Platforms
In 2018, Coca-Cola launched #RefreshtheFeed giving its social media accounts a complete factory reset. Coca-Cola's new social strategy was “rooted in optimism, uplift, and connection.” Now the beverage icon is going to pause paid and organic posts on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days, effective July 1. Chairman and CEO, James Quincey, says a dedicated cross-functional and cross-continental …
More than 100 Companies Stop Advertising on Facebook (Sort Of)
Hit pause on hate. That's the call-to-action issued on June 17, by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL. Their new Stop Hate for Profit campaign asks businesses to suspend advertising on Facebook’s services during July. The campaign’s partners, including Color of Change, Common Sense, Free Press, and Sleeping Giants, assert that the social-media …
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Reflections In the American Mirror: Baseball, Race, and Pancake Mix
Major League Baseball will be back soon. A second spring training will begin next week, with opening day in late July. Is this an encouraging sign or a desperate plea to return to a normal that just isn't there? Time will tell. Meanwhile, here in Texas, we're experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases, and the Republican governor is finally starting to make sensible sounds from his mouth. As a resident of Austin, …
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IBM Thinks Bigger; It’s In The Company’s DNA To Do So
Technology that ushers in sweeping societal changes ought to come with a warning, but that's fanciful thinking in unregulated America. On these brave shores, we believe in self-reliance and self-regulation, prolonged fantasies both. I often wonder, did Steve Jobs know what he was unleashing with the iPhone because the impact has not been all good. For example, I use facial recognition technology to log on to the …
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Laura Desmond Meets with Advertising Students at UT, Learns Why They Block Ads
Stan Talks is a library of short videos produced by the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. This new talk, released last month, features Laura Desmond, founder and CEO of Eagle Vista Partners in Chicago. Desmond is intent on building the agency of the future, using data, content, and …
Facebook’s Rogue Founder, Chris Hughes, Funds Anti-Monopoly Efforts
Do you know Mark? Mark knows you. Do you know who does know, Mark? Chris Hughes knows Mark. Hughes was there along with fellow Harvard undergrads Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, and Dustin Moskovitz when Facebook was founded in 2004. Incidentally, Adpulp was founded a few months later that same year. Because Hughes knows Mark, he is critical of Mark's choices and the unnatural powers afforded to him. …
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