Excuses, Excuses

TAC apologizes to my loyal readers (both of you) for missing a couple of days. Been traveling and doing real work. I'll be back tomorrow.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Marketing Gurus Finally Getting It

I read something in Seth Godin's blog today that made me think some marketing gurus are finally starting to get it. The post is called "What Brand Is Your Mattress? "Seth says, "They (some marketers) believe that the brand can build the product. That's backwards." Which is what we've been screaming about for years.Remember The Ad Contrarian mantra: We don't get them to try our product by

Dirty Rotten Liars

A while ago we posted something called "Research or Baloney".The subject was the unreliability of online research. Since then, the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) has called for a study of online research.One of the points we made was that online samples are terribly unreliable because you can never know who is responding. If a sample is unreliable, the results are worthless.Now Business

Status Anxiety

I gave a luncheon talk yesterday. It was to a hundred or so ad execs. Some from agencies, some from media.They were lovely people who seemed in large part to agree with what I had to say. This is deeply troubling.I think I may be losing my status as a contrarian.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

The Rolling Wave

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be writing about a phenomenon which we (my colleagues and I) have dubbed "The Rolling Wave."This wave is a hugely important and influential group of people who are breaking the traditional adoption pattern of new products and new technologies. They are looking beyond product benefits and brand personalities and are making buying decisions -- both consciously

Read A Book

People sometimes ask me what my favorite books about advertising are. Here you go:1. e by Matthew BeaumontA truly hilarious novel about a London ad agency in the throes of a big new business pitch. The gag is, it's written in the form of company emails. I know it sounds tedious but, trust me, it's terrific.2. Then We Came To The End by Joshua FerrisA very funny, and mildly frightening, novel

Ads or Content?

In a headlong rush to get ahead of the digital curve, some once-upon-a-time excellent ad agencies are turning out some pretty awful advertising.These agencies have decided they are no longer in the ad business. They're in the "content" business -- whatever the hell that means. Apparently they have stopped hiring advertising creatives and have instead been hiring "content providers." And you