Advertising Age - Jonah Bloom

Despite Claims to Contrary, Magazines Still Rooted in Past

Very few magazines -- the exceptions being ESPN, National Geographic, Real Simple and The Economist -- can be considered brands that have established much meaning beyond their printed forms.

Very Short List Offers Glimpse at Power of Simplicity, Editing

As someone whose main function in life is editing, I wonder, in the dark moments, whether I will soon be redundant.

Self-Absorbed Media Missing the Biggest Story of Our Time

There can be a positive in this mess, if we hear the alarm bell and confront the real challenge -- the need to rebuild the American economy for the 21st century.

Carat Mishap Offers Lessons in HR, PR and Accountability

These are tough times for all of us in the marketing and media businesses and they're likely to get tougher, which is why I hope you read our report on the Carat management team's slipshod approach to communicating layoffs as a cautionary tale.

The Newspaper Doomsayers Still Can Be Proved Wrong

U.S. newspapers could be fixed if they could just be pried from the hands of those who milk them for short-term gain and are either woefully ignorant of where readers are going or miserably negligent in terms of investing in that future.

Dear Sir: I Write to Inform You That I've Taken Offense ...

This week everyone was offended. I thought I'd reassure them they're not alone, so I looked back through the archive (in my head) and found these letters...

The Good, the Bad and Ugly Answers to Recent Questions

I revisited a handful of questions that have popped up in my e-mail, on my Facebook page or even in good-old booze-based human conversation, in case any of them inspired a column. They did. Sort of.

Good Work Graced Cannes, Not That Everyone Noticed

It is easy to lose sight of the advertising at the Cannes advertising festival.

Careful, Yahoo -- It Looks as If Your Vision Is Finally Showing

Read between the lines of the deals Yahoo President Sue Decker revealed at Advertising 2.0, and a focus emerges -- on display.

Make Your Marketing Useful, Like Samsung and Charmin

Do I think Samsung's airport charging stations sell phones? Unlikely. But they're way more likely to leave me feeling affection for the brand than some mind-numbing airport billboard that has nothing to do with the frustration and boredom I'm experiencing. They're classic examples of marketing as service, a concept worthy of more attention and dollars than it's getting.

Ogilvy, Dove Miss Chance to Turn Bad Press Into 'Debate'

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The latest Dove controversy epitomizes the ad industry's struggle to reinvent itself as a participant in an ongoing conversation rather than an old guy with a megaphone barking orders to people who no longer follow them.

Marketers, Not Consumers, Need Environmental Education

In a world in which oil companies claim they're green, it's not surprising that consumers are growing more skeptical of such claims.

Of PR, Music and Bikes

France isn't at the top of the list of countries the U.S. looks to for leadership. This is especially true in business, where that nation's 35-hour workweek does little to change the perception that the French citizenry do little more than quaff good wine, nibble stinky cheese and paint the occasional masterpiece. But today's Paris is offering some interesting glimpses into what could be our future.

Want to Survive? You'll Have to Put Some Skin in the Game

If you listen to Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of WPP's Group M and a man acknowledged by many as being one of the cleverest people in the business today, owning intellectual property is no longer just gold at the end of the rainbow but is becoming essential to the survival, or at least the continued profitability, of media agencies.

Discussion of Tilley's Death Brings Out Worst in Industry

The tragic death of Paul Tilley last week triggered one of the ugliest, most narcissistic displays I've seen from the ad industry.

When It Comes to Whining About Ads, Father Knows Best
Within 48 hours of the Super Bowl ending, a small group of extremists made it to the inboxes of Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, and Cie Nicholson, her chief marketing officer.

Some at NATPE See Digital as Future Rather Than Threat

As the National Association of Television Program Executives met last week in Las Vegas, they were joined by the likes of Google, Brightcove, Veoh Networks and Broadband Enterprises. The web wizards and technologists aren't yet the stars of this particular show, but at least a few of the assembled "TV" producers on hand seemed to understand that these digital players are not interlopers anymore, but rather the future of their video content.

A-List Agencies Are More Than Just New-Biz Machines

The agencies that made it to this year's Agency A-List based mainly on relatively measurable criteria such as revenue growth, new-business wins, effective and creative work also exhibited a lot of similar traits of a more nebulous nature.

The Boomers Get Attention and the Weak Get Culled in 2008

Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom takes a look at what's coming in 2008.

What Madison Avenue Can Learn From Thinking Outside of Kleenex Box

Madison Avenue's giants still have a lot of work to do to convince marketers that they can think outside of the box that is their TV department.

Too Many Have Forgotten How to Play the Name Game

Agencies, marketers and media companies pay little heed to names anymore. Worse, many show a palpable lack of respect for the value of a key brand-building block.

Marketers Want Media Ideas, Not Protectionism From Agencies

ANA Confab Needs Less PR Speak, More Digital

There are smart corporate-communications tactics aimed at reducing a company's or personality's exposure to negative publicity. Then there are misguided attempts at mind control. I'm starting to wonder whether some companies know the difference anymore.

Agencies Will Have to Steer Marketers Toward the Big Ideal

For years now, corporate-communications experts have been telling anyone who will listen that a company's financial performance is tied to what the company stands for beyond the balance sheet. But their theories have fallen on deaf ears, with colleagues in the marketing department preferring a brand-centric focus on price, promotion and product benefits to the business of dealing with awkward issues and their company's place in the world.

Want to Restore Marketers' Faith? Embrace Agnosticism

Today's marketing world is lousy with integration. You name the agency and it's gone from doing whatever it was it did best to touting an integrated offering. But by "integrating" they usually mean they're going to execute an ad-centric campaign that ticks multiple media boxes.

Before Rushing Into the Future, Consider the History of 'Adland'

The trajectory of business over time might be undulating -- booms and busts, mergers and breakups, flotations and privatizations -- but is it really cyclical? Capitalism dictates growth, and the biggest companies have, in the telescopic view at least, grown bigger and more powerful and taken greater shares of their global markets.

Advertising Week Could Do Worse Than Mimic Tap Project

Unicef's The Tap Project is a case study in what Advertising Week could and should become. Pick your favorite cause. Then imagine how Advertising Week might tackle that problem. Imagine what could happen if even a 10th of the most brilliant, creative minds in the industry subjugated ego for a day to come up with the strategy, communications architecture and collateral for a one-week campaign of unprecedented scale.

A Brief Guide to the Ins and Outs of the Ad World in Summer

What's in and what's out? I know, weak narrative thread, but it's the end of July in New York, and I just jogged back from a meeting on the other side of Manhattan in a suit. I haven't had a vacation this year. And the media and marketing news from the past 10 days seems to be a weak mix of people abdicating responsibility for their own dietary habits; marketers accepting responsibility for people's dietary habits; and Gatorade creating a sports drink for sports people who aren't in the act of doing sports. I'm ornery, and this is all I've got.

Cloverfield Trailer Will Go Viral and Mainstream

J.J. Abrams' new monster movie will have to be pretty damn good to live up to his opening marketing gambit. By screening a cryptic puzzle of a trailer before opening-weekend screenings of "Transformers," Paramount and Abrams guaranteed themselves the kind of reach that is the stuff of nostalgia for many of today's mass marketers -- the robots-cum-GM-vehicles vehicle opened in 4,000 theaters and has taken in $160 million already -- as well as a frequency of message repetition and level of consumer engagement that advertisers fantasized about a decade ago.

The Awards Shows Need to Tear Down Silos, but It Won't Happen

The news from Cannes is that the drugs, particularly the Advil, work just fine, but the award silos don't. Members of at least three different Lions juries -- for promo, direct and media -- have bemoaned the difficulty of judging integrated work as it relates to a specific category.