United Auto Workers Is Battling the Culture of “Corporate Greed”

American workers are tired and tired of being overlooked while struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, corporate profits are soaring to unheard-of heights. According to the Economic Policy Institute, profits at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis almost doubled between 2013 and 2022, totaling $250 billion. Is that money trickling down to the workers in the […]

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The Valley’s High Priests Want AI Allegiance and Adoption

The Valley’s hype machine has been in full grind mode since the dawn of AI as a mass market tool. Since the start of 2023, I’ve seen a lot of over-the-top nonsense masquerading as product promotion, but what I saw last week in venture capitalist Mark Andreesen’s verbose defense of the technology, is unprecedented. This […]

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Long Live the Indie Bookstore

As a former English major, professional writer, and fan of books, I was happy to read in The New York Times that “small booksellers not only survived the pandemic, but many are thriving.” More than 300 new independent bookstores have sprouted across the United States in the past couple of years. Given how bookstore sales […]

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“Owning A Large Portion of the Best Talent” Is Pre-COVID Thinking

Like so many businesses, the agency business is a talent business from top to bottom. Nothing good happens without extraordinary efforts made by dedicated, gifted people working as one. Agency heads used to say the agency’s “best assets,” a.k.a. the talent, walk out the door and go down the elevator each evening. Of course, these […]

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War in Ukraine Leads Western Firms to Close the Door on Russia

Horrible news and painful images are pouring out of Ukraine every day now, as the European country of more than 40M people struggles to survive and repel Russia’s lethal invasion. The images and news from inside Russia are also disturbing as the Kremlin is viciously attacking anti-war protestors, closing media outlets, and tightening its grip […]

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Lose Trust and Relationships Rust

Edelman PR has studied trust for more than 20 years and believes that it is the ultimate currency in the relationship that all institutions—companies and brands, governments, NGOs, and media—build with their stakeholders. The firm speaks highly of trust and places its importance at the center of everything. Trust defines an organization’s license to operate, […]

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Stanley Black & Decker To Help Train 3M Skilled Workers

Building healthy brands and companies that last requires long-term vision from the leadership team. As brand managers look to the future, some of the problems that will be waiting for them begin to reveal themselves. For instance, today there are 10 million manufacturing jobs around the world that remain unfulfilled due to a lack of […]

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The Machines Have Moved In. The Machines Have No Feelings.

I am a writer. I write ad copy, journalism, poetry, fiction, and essays—not necessarily in that order. Because I am a writer, I want to laugh at the idea that a machine can do what I, or what any writer does for a living. Sure, a machine can spit out words, I get that part. […]

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Square and Stripe Tell Powerful Stories of the Small Business Owner’s Struggle

Small business is the backbone of the economy. Small businesses are also a radiating pain point during this devastating economic downturn. According to WBUR in Boston, earlier this summer, MassINC Polling Group surveyed 1,868 small businesses (defined as having fewer than 500 employees). Their findings show that 44% of small businesses lost at least half […]

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There’s A New School In Ad City, It Is Free To Attend and “Unapologetically Black”

Access—you can’t get there without it. In the advertising agency business, access has been afforded to the few. The industry is elite by design. The people on the inside ask those on the outside to “break-in,” if they can. The entire set up is adversarial from the get-go. Yes, there’s talk of a meritocracy for […]

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Two for Tuesday

The Hard Reset Begets The Big Shrinkage In 2020 and 2021, agencies will shed 52,000 jobs, according to Jay Pattisall, an analyst with Forrester. Half the jobs will not return, he predicts. Forrester also predicts that advertising spending in the United States would decline by 25 percent this year and would not recover until 2023. […]

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Jeep Beep Beeps. The New Bronco Bucks.

Ford built the Bronco from 1966 to 1996. Collectors of the mid-size SUV have pleaded with Ford to return the Bronco to its lineup. Their requests are being answered. The Bronco, which will be assembled at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, will go on sale next year. The new 2021 Ford Bronco reveal event […]

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Brands Pause to Acknowledge the American Melee and Register Their Sadness

Exceptional brands create culture, but most brands reflect culture. Reflecting the culture since mid-March has been a creative challenge, given that millions of people are stuck at home and fearful for their health and economic well being. To make matters much worse, one week ago today, a Minneapolis cop was caught on video murdering a […]

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When There’s No Money Or Desire To Buy Things, There’s No Need To Advertise

I do not understand economics. Or, I do understand, it’s just that economics stopped making sense. Did you know that demand for housing was down 18% in April; yet prices remain 7.4% higher compared to last April? How does anyone explain such figures that are clearly at odds? When you dig in and work hard […]

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Will Make Ads in Exchange for Food and Shelter

It’s difficult to get a proper read on the number of job losses across media, marketing, and advertising in the wake of COVID-19. It’s tough for a few different but related reasons. First, the great majority of people working in these industries work for small businesses. When a small business finds that it can no […]

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Newsflash: Print Ads Now Guaranteed to Work (Not An April Fool’s Joke)

If you work in media, marketing, or advertising, it’s time to innovate and there is no time to waste. That’s the message from several directions today, and now we are beginning to see real-world results, as companies adapt to the new constrictions. Sarah Jerde at Adweek reports that The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group […]

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Now for the Good News: Here’s A Growing List of Smokin’ Hot Jay Oh Bees

It’s Tuesday morning. Depending on your location, it’s week three (give or take) of the global and totally unprecedented information worker lockdown. Did you know that as many as 1.5 billion people are working from home today? A handful of these people working from home are creative recruiters. And a handful of that handful have […]

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Ford Motor Company Wants To “Help Take Care of You”

Ford Motor Co. is “built to lend a hand.” That’s what the car maker’s new information-rich ad campaign says. For instance, did you know that Ford Service centers are essential to your community and still open? We need our cars and trucks, even if we can’t go anywhere in them. Ford is also dangling discounts […]

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Alt-Weeklies Are Sinking Quickly to the Bottom of the Dead Newspapers Pile

Alternative weeklies–our city’s free arts and entertainment newspapers–are facing untenable marketplace conditions today. The papers rely on advertising revenue from bars, restaurants, movie theaters, and retail stores. Given that all of the above are temporarily closed for business, there is next to no ad revenue coming in the door today. Joshua Benton at NeimanLab paints […]

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Ad Biz Is Facing Dire Outlooks for 2020 Revenue, New Business, and Jobs

How are you feeling about the future of your agency and your job? Or if you’re primarily an independent contractor, what is your outlook? I am hearing anecdotally from friends in the business that things look pretty bleak on the horizon. Then there are the press reports to weigh, which I will now do… Let’s […]

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