I seem to have spent a large chunk of this week charging round the office hunting down missing books, scalpels, calculators etc. Which has reminded me of the Allan Ahlberg poem ‘Scissors’, which I’ve adapted here for agency use: Scalpels don’t lose themselves, Melt away, or explode. Scalpels have not got Legs of their own … Continue reading In search of missing stuff
Category: agencies
End of an agency
Those of you in the UK who work outside London might have seen the ad below earlier this month in The Drum – it was Poulters’ last ever ad. I’ve blogged before about how sad it was to see one of the long standing Northern heavyweight agencies fall, but the majority of copy here (which … Continue reading End of an agency
The passing of Poulters
One of Yorkshire’s oldest agencies Poulters is apparently being closed by parent company Bezier. Although it looks like a handful of staff might reappear in Bezier’s new retail offering Coutts, for the majority there must be some very long faces in their Rose Wharf offices today. My current (enormous by regional standards) agency started life … Continue reading The passing of Poulters
What are we going to do? Buy Heat magazine!
Its been around for a while, but I love this ad by Quiet Storm. It beautifully positions Heat magazine as the original and best gossip mag in a lovely gentle Smack the Pony type way that speaks directly to women who will stop at nothing to get their weekly gossip fix.
Here it goes again: oh where did you nick that ad?
The latest culprits in the ongoing ‘nick the creative from youtube and hope no-one notices’ saga has got to be whoever at JWT did the latest Berocca ads. The agency must have assumed that they were the only people in the world who had seen OK Go's fab video for here it goes again. Just … Continue reading Here it goes again: oh where did you nick that ad?
putting the advertising cart before the business strategy horse
Why can't some marketeers grasp that they need a business strategy in place before they start worrying about a marketing plan, or a comms plan, or an ad campaign? I keep coming across marketeers who will quite happily let you present insight driven concepts for creative work (as per their brief), before suddenly admitting that they … Continue reading putting the advertising cart before the business strategy horse
Let’s stick together
Great post from The Adlads suggesting that the old art director / copywriter team should be replaced by creative / planner teams. Its a really interesting idea, I'm just not sure where AdLand is going to find an extra few thousand Planners from, or what all the left over Creatives are supposed to do (retrain … Continue reading Let’s stick together
Trust me, I’m a Planner
I’ve been thinking a lot about Trust recently. In an planning/agency context, there’s a lot of Trust needed, between Planners and their Account Directors (please involve me but don’t try and micro manage my relationship with your client) and between Planners and their key client contacts (I really do have the best interests of your … Continue reading Trust me, I’m a Planner
provisioning for proximity
Sat at my desk trying to tune out the multiple conversations and ringtones going on around me in our very open plan but very jam packed office, I was reassured to read in the New York Times that google have done some research into how information flows inside creative businesses (using themselves as guinea pigs) … Continue reading provisioning for proximity
New Year, same old issues?
It looks like the big issue of 2008 is going to be a variation on the age-old integration vs. specialism debate. Only this time round, my money is on both specialist and integrated agencies being forced to ramp up their Digital offering as it takes on an ever increasing share of marketing budgets and, in … Continue reading New Year, same old issues?