Just Another Sunny Friday in Advertising

Good morning out there. How has your week been, good I hope? There's been a lot going on in and around the world of advertising this week...

Pepsi have made a bit of a hash of things, haven't they? Messing up your advertising is a very public affair. You can see why clients are often so worried about taking a chance on interesting ideas - they're worried it'll turn-out like the Pepsi debacle. Not that the Pepsi ad was a great idea - far from it. One thing I found fascinating was the extra kicking that some industry people were giving it because it was created in-house. I saw plenty of people saying things like this is what happens when you don't use an agency, or the value of an agency is an outside point-of-view so this doesn't happen. I mean, the ad is truly awful, but agencies have been churning out this kind of rancid, misguided, virtue hustling (TM Bob Hoffman) guff for ages. Even with their precious outside point-of-view. And some in-house work is good, Specsavers for example. The problem isn't in-house, the problem is people on both sides of the agency-marketing world thinking that their brand should get involved in issues that have fuck-all to do with their fizzy drink or soap or beer.

It's been heartening to see a few people in the big agency world and the trade press start to talk about the some of the problems with ad agencies and advertising that we've been banging on about for ages. Things like how agencies are set-up, how they work with clients, how they charge, the work they produce. I'm glad this stuff is starting to be talked about, but where were these people five and ten years ago? I guess the industry people are just starting to wake up? Those people I would point in the direction of this http://sellsellblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/10-years-of-sell-sell.html we've actually been doing this stuff for the last ten years.

It's an interesting time here at Sell! Towers, we've met some very smart people over the last few weeks and had some great conversations about the business and the future of agencies. We've also met a couple of very interesting clients, smart people with good businesses who I hope we get to talk more with soon. We're working on a couple of new projects that are each very important in their own way, I look forward to sharing those with you at some point.

And lastly, I wanted to point you in the direction of this blog: https://ampersandvertising.com/ subtitled Standing On The Shoulders of a Giant, it's dedicated to Ron Anderson, the creative director it describes as the godfather of Minneapolis advertising. There is a ton of great work on here, and some excellent stories about Ron and working for him.

Over and out - enjoy the sun...