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On helping other agencies in your network you must grin and bear it.
helping others is scary… Helping a sister agency within your network is a double-edged sword if ever there was one. In theory the helper gets the benefit of participating in important national or...
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Enough with advertising… I’m going fishing!
Here fishy, fishy… I’m doing something this weekend I haven’t done for a long time but used to do all the time. I’m going fishing! Bass fishing to be precise, on Clear Lake, CA which supposedly has...
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Ruminating on the dogma of agency process and the purity of divine inspiration.
The “ad” scientist… One of the things I’ve come to disdain about our business is how damn serious we take it. Not the craft itself, which I think is beautiful and even pure, but rather the...
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The Faraday Porteur. It is as if God Himself is helping me pedal.
Dude’s gotta dream… New, new things and advertising go hand in hand. Often lovingly. Look at Apple. Yet great things are not always created by marketers. The creators do not have the resources to...
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The ironic voice of popular culture as heard in dialog from a furniture...
“I love my INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE.” Adweek’s Tim Nudd is right to praise this new campaign for American Value City/Signature Furniture –as much for what it is not (direct response crap) as for what...
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Oh, Manifesto! Why copywriters adore them. Why everybody should.
Crazy good! For the past few days, even longer, I have been working on a manifesto for one of our (hopefully) new clients. Actually, I’ve been working on two. Even more actually, I’ve been working on...
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In face of two horrific tragedies, can Malaysia brand ever recover?
Within a few months of each other, two large, nearly full commercial airplanes tragically went down killing every soul on board. The first jet presumably disappeared over the Indian Ocean and,...
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A week in Hawaii: Swimming with dolphins and Japanese tourists.
Selfie from Hawaii, posted much to the chagrin of my children… Oddly, there is nowhere in Hawaii to smoke my cigar. The hotel I am staying in –the lovely Surf Rider in Waikiki- has positively no...
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The coolest thing we take for granted: “You had to be there” is not what it...
Great tune. Too bad I wasn’t there. Or am I? I’m reading Bill Flannigan’s book, U2: At the End of the World, about the band’s epic Zoo TV tour in the early nineties. The book is equal parts...
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Reefer Madness! Two new ads mean high times at the New York Times.
Such a legitimate looking ad… The bastion of left wing liberal media, none other than the New York Times, last Sunday accepted for publication two ads all about legalized marijuana. One from a for...
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Debate 101: how a college course (and one assignment in particular) still...
Who doesn’t love a good debate? I’m not sure what spurned the memory but the other night I got to thinking about a sophomore debating class I took at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Perhaps it...
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In our nightmares we are walking “food.” How come humans don’t see their prey...
“Meat. It’s what’s for Dinner.” (from Stake Land) Being alone this weekend, I stayed up super late and re-watched two exceptional horror movies, Blade 2 directed by none other than Oscar-winner,...
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A lifelong conundrum with criticism: I owe it all to Whiz Kid.
The face of criticism. it ain’t always pretty. It dawns on me I haven’t critiqued an ad campaign in quite a while. I could tell you that’s because nothing out there strikes my fancy. And there are...
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Best. Spot. Ever. FX Campaign for Simpsons’ marathon is eeexcellent.
In a previous post I wrote about my longtime reluctance to criticize new ad campaigns. Obviously, that misgiving does not apply when it comes to praising them. If I see something I like I’m delighted...
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A cozy little essay that’s both random and gay.
That’s one word for it… As a writer (and copywriter especially), I pay closer attention to words than most “regular” people. After years of alliteration, turning phrases and forcing puns I can’t help...
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Advertising & pop culture overkill: the icon-ization of everything.
“Hey, baby, let’s make an icon together!” The other day I told someone that I had two fine Redwood trees in the backyard of my new home in Mill Valley. “Those are so iconic to California,” the person...
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God bless infographics, white papers and all those sentences left to write.
“I’m writing about data points!” Last I checked there were over 800 hundred million billion pieces of written content floating around in cyberspace or near by. The number might actually be higher. I...
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Haircuts, couches & mild dysfunction: Why “Must See TV” must always be comfy.
Pablum or gold? Both. The most watched show on broadcast TV is The Big Bang Theory. A few weeks ago each of its primary cast inked deals worth a million dollars per episode. Last decade the big show...
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My dream, my nightmare: “Belzec: The Made Undead” is once again a screenplay...
Will Belzec be the belle of the ball? A few years ago I was on the phone with my brother, Jeremy talking about our favorite subject, horror movies, when he suggested an idea for one. It was, I...
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No longer hiding behind corporate spin, company leaders open their yaps,...
“I am the CEO and I’ve got something to say…” Are you a fan of people who speak their mind, regardless of political correctness? What if they also happen to be CEO’s? That’s the intriguing subject of...
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