Ad Agency

Transparency is a big word for an important idea, but I’m curious if it will actually have an impact on the advertising business. If you casually peruse articles about advertising published in the last few years, you’ll see a steady increase in the volume of people talking about transparency, but if you dive one layer deeper, you’ll find it’s still just talk — not a business practice for most companies.

PACO Collective (PACO) is joining forces with Pork & Mindy's to create memorable moments surrounding food, music, and art across Chicagoland and nationwide.

To address leaner advertising budgets and make smaller healthcare brands more competitive, Marcos M. Sanchez – a veteran healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing and advertising executive – announced the launch of Princeton10, a marketing and advertising agency expressly focused on Rx brands seeking to drive HCP-patient demand.

The modern CMO knows that data should be at the center of every marketing strategy, and is eager to leverage any consumer information they can get. But despite the Big Data trend, an unfortunate paradox for multicultural segments has emerged. While there is increased access to consumer information, there’s actually less quality analysis around multicultural business opportunities due to reduced in-house capabilities at the client level. Starting today, ALMA offers a solution for its roster with the launch of a Marketing Science and Analytics Department – a discipline dedicated to providing smart market analysis for stronger decision making.

In this role, Xavier Turpin will lead multicultural strategy for Gravity’s clients

Account managers were giants of accountability during the Mad Men era, when agencies were paid by media commissions and it was important to convince client executives, up and down the line, that high media spending was good for brands.  Everyone benefited from this.  TV advertising was effective, so clients and brands benefited from this account management salesmanship.  TV advertising unleashed the agency's creative capabilities and allowed creatives to flourish and do their best work.  Senior account people sold the agency's creative ideas to their clients, acting as intermediaries (for better or worse), solidifying account executives' credibility in the eyes of their clients.  Although there were plenty of turf wars between the "suits" and the "creatives," the overall process assured a high degree of unity, purpose and intimacy with clients.  Finally, and not insignificantly, agencies made a lot of money -- much more than they earn today.  By Michael Farmer

Being a simple chap, I like to divide the bulk of the media agency world up into planners and buyers.  I know everyone has far smarter and possibly more accurately descriptive job titles these days, but fundamentally you're either a "hot" buyer (driven by the deal) or a "cool" planner (driven by the data).  By Brian Jacob