Category: advertising

When Arcade Fire took home record of the year Sunday, a lot of people made note that an indie upstart, not associated with a big label was able to write, perform and produce, all by themselves, the best album of the year. Unlike the "Lady," they didn't need the big…

The old moto was "shoot it on 35." And if there were good folks behind the lens, you were virtually ensured a decent negative to make pretty pictures in post production. "Shoot it in HD" has a lot less meaning. In fact, HD is a delivery format and not really…

There's been a mass hysteria in the blogosphere for the last couple years. People are claiming that advertising is dead, the world has changed, and the only way to truly communicate a meaningful message to your consumer is to use social media. In this scenario, the forward thinking Social Media…

Last year I went out on a limb and made some predictions about the year to come. It has now passed. Well, what do I have to say for myself? Some of the predictions were wrong, some were right, and some were easy. Let's start with the easy. "The kids…

It's not new to complain about the craft of writing being under assault. I'm sure when the printing press was invented monks everywhere were cursing Gutenberg's terrible invention. These days, writers in the ad world are called upon less and less to be simply professional and proficient writers. But I…

New post on agency blog: The digital age has added a new responsibility to the creative’s job. It used to be that we just had to be funny, smart, and on target. Now we have to be measurable, and we must create content with measurement in mind. While this certainly…

In the age of social media, everybody want to be an expert and nobody ever wants to be an idiot. Ones idiocy could be on their permanent Twitter-record after all. But I'd like to stand up and say it's OK to be an idiot, at least sometimes. Early in my…

More than a few of my posts have been about the difficulties of working in advertising these days. It's always been a competitive industry with high burn out and turn over. But it's been even worse lately thanks to the economy and the rapid change in technology. But there are…

If you work as a creative, chances are your job isn't nearly as glamorous as you imagined it would be in portfolio school. Like the kid shooting hoops in the driveway, or practicing his pitching  on the mound, you most likely imagined yourself becoming the hero by applying your skills…

When I first started in the ad business I couldn't decide if I was an artist, a craftsman, or a hack. Now I've come to realize that I'm all of those at the same time, maybe even on the same day. It may be a creative business, but business it…