Obama's Secret Weapon Revealed

According to some marketing geniuses, granola may be the secret behind Barack Obama's success against Hillary Clinton.The New York Times reports that political analysts have determined that if you like butter, white wine and Fig Newtons, you were more likely to vote for Hillary. On the other hand, if you preferred olive oil, granola and a latte you probably went for Obama.How about the general

Keeping America Safe For Advertising

TAC is on emergency field duty in NYC. Until we return on Monday we will, once again, leave you to contemplate The Ad Contrarian mantra:We don't get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.

Conversation With A CEO

The following is an imaginary conversation between The Ad Contrarian and a company CEO.CEO: Okay, why did you drag me down here?TAC: I want to talk to you about advertising.CEO: I have a marketing department for that.TAC: Advertising is too important to be left to the marketing department.CEO: What's so important about it?TAC: It's your company's public personality. Nothing's more important.CEO:

I Love To Say "I Told You So"

On August 1, 2007, in response to all the "advertising is dead" idiocy appearing in every newspaper and trade publication, TAC wrote a blog entry called "The End of the World." In it, we said the following:It will soon become apparent that the advertising industry, far from dying, is in a substantial growth period. It will be re-energized, redefined, and creatively refreshed by the diversity of

Three Words

In a post yesterday, Seth Godin defined "great marketing" in four words: Make Big Promises, Overdeliver. In the blog he said, "If you can define great marketing in fewer words than that, you win."I don't know what I win, but I'd like to take a crack at it.There's a blues song that goes like this:Feelin’ goodFeelin’ goodAll the money in the world spent onFeelin’ good*The guy who wrote that lyric

Talk To A Naked Copywriter, #1

This is the first installment of a new feature here at TAC. Each Friday, a comment or question from our readers will be replied to by a naked copywriter.Dear Naked,When did so much science come into making a sale? When I was selling door-to-door newspaper subscriptions as a kid I was given a script to follow. When I followed it, I couldn’t sell a thing. When I went by my gut, I killed.The same

Schmoozefest '08

The advertising industry is having its annual schmoozefest this week at the the AAAA's 2008 Leadership Conference in Laguna Niguel, CA.Every self-important, overfed agency grandee will be there. There'll be lots of inane speeches about how advertising needs to embrace the future and how digital is changing everything (golly!)I once went to one of these things and felt like killing myself.There is