Lawyers and Research Ruin Everything

For those of us on the creative side of advertising, there is nothing more infuriating than having an idea nibbled to death by ducks. It doesn't take much to turn something good into shit.Just one wrong word, one extra word, or one bad thought and an idea that's unique and memorable becomes just one more bad ad.A million years ago, there was a very effective campaign for Band-Aid. It consisted of

Einstein On Advertising

Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy.What most people don't know about Einstein is that in addition to uncovering the laws of relativity, the equivalency of mass and energy, and predicting that the speed of light was constant, he also said -- without knowing it -- the smartest thing ever said about advertising.After his amazing successes as a young man, Einstein spent the rest of his life

Simplifiers and Complicators

About a thousand years ago I wrote a piece for ADWEEK called "Simplifiers and Complicators". It was so long ago, ADWEEK wasn't even called ADWEEK. It was called MAC.Every now and then I run into someone who reminds me of the piece. It happened again last week.I can't remember the specifics of the article, but the point was that there are two kinds of people: people who simplify things and people

Why Your Clients Hate You

Photos of the Cannes advertising whack-a-thon from Ad Age. Every room, martini, airline ticket, condom, shrimp cocktail, limo, line, and hooker subsidized by client ad budgets.

Maybe Not Cautious Enough

In an article on June 18th called "Brought To You By...Anyone?" The Washington Post chided "big brands" for being slow to adopt digital media in their advertising plans."While spending on Internet marketing has been growing dramatically over the past decade, the top 50 or 60 brand marketers are very much underrepresented," said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive

Just Toddlers With Money

One of my regular stops in the blogosphere is remarkable communication written by Sonia Simone, which is aimed at helping online marketers write and think better.She wrote a post last week called A Toddler's Guide To Salemanship which drew analogies between talking to customers and talking to three-year-olds.It reminded me of something my daughter used to do when she was a kid. We called it "

It's All About U

I never post on weekends, but I write on weekends.So it's actually Saturday morning now. And it's probably one of the most unusual Saturday mornings in at least a hundred years. Why? The two major league home run leaders this morning are guys whose last names begin with "U" -- Dan Uggla and Chase Utley.I want some of you tech and data geeks out there to scour the web and tell us if there has