Sometime back in May 2008, Tim came to Jack and me and said he had lunch earlier that day with a guy named Brian Pitzer he used to do some freelance work for. Brian was starting a new company and needed a web site, which was why he approached Tim about freelance web design. As [...]

The second in the series, Turning points: growing a great agency brand.
You know the drill: media commissions, people wearing all black and funky glasses, “creatives” vs “account people,” all the typical stereotypes that you think of when you think about advertising agencies doesn’t have to exist. Hell, an ad agency doesn’t even have to exclusively [...]

Today I got an email - yes yesterday’s technology - but in any case it invited me connect to McKinsey. McKinsey, the buttoned up consulting company that publishes in depth, data rich reports about everything related to business. The same company that routinely works with the Fortune 500 of the world. Consultants on top of consultants.
They were [...]

Someone ask me the other day what my favorite ads of the last five years have been. I was kind of embarrassed of much I stumbled to find an answer. Giving it more thought, I really admire what Cadillac has put out there. This love of Cadillac ads started here:

I guess you could say I’m [...]

While not a regular visitor to the corporate boardroom these days, it still happens. This is where the leadership is supposed to be. And a key definition of leadership in virtually all the serious publications i’ve seen concur that leadership starts and focuses outside the building. Managers, run the “show” of the company, but the [...]

A few conversations lately have turned to the same question: how did those independent agencies that we all admire go from being small/start-ups to being the big-time leaders we know now? These also happen to be the agencies that have taken cities that aren’t traditionally known for advertising and put them on the map in [...]

Just revisiting David Ogilvy’s original book and tucked carefully at the end is a typically bold chapter, “I predict 13 changes.” Predicting is always interesting and I’m just curious about how we might view these predictions today, so here’s a quick recap of all 13. Did they come true? Might they still? Which will not? What do we think [...]

My brain is a roller coaster. On a Monday I’ll wake up ready to change the world one campaign at a time. And then on Tuesday I have a tough time getting focused. On these days I stare at my inbox all day, bite my fingernails and think a lot about how uncomfortable my [...]