Unlike the UK, which has pretty strict guidelines on advertising junk food to kids, If you ever wondered why so many young Americans are spotty, overweight, and just generally a pain in the arse... Listen up... We are to blame. And no, I'm not talking about us as parents (well, maybe to a certain...
My last couple of posts have been about US health care and drug advertising, a huge cash cow for American agencies, and one that seems to be completely out of control as far as any kind of meaningful regulatory action is concerned. The other sector of the American economy that has obviously been taking...
One of the comments on my last post implied that people who work in advertising shouldn’t be too fussy when it comes to deciding whether or not they wanted to work on certain kinds of accounts… ‘Cos they pay your wages! This drove to write a comment in reply, which I then decided to turn into a post...
For many years Madison Avenue pigged out at the trough of tobacco advertising. Back in the Mad Men days, cigarettes, booze and car accounts paid for many a Westchester mansion, country club fees and the odd boat or two. But with the ever tightening restrictions on tobacco and booze advertising things...
When I first worked on the Dell account, back in San Francisco, in the early eighties, they were severely kicking everyone else's arse. Not only did they offer a superior product for a superior price… They overlaid this great sales model with the kind of service which guaranteed, not just that the...
With the news today in the US that the latest Burger King gross out campaign from the frat boys in Boulder is once again relying on the use of celebrities to push stuff that will probably kill you, only serves to make me once again wonder if this stuff really works. The new Burger King effort has has...
In case you hadn’t realized it, I am a multi-tasking, uber-achieving prince of the blogosphere… Meaning that apart from writing this occasional blog for BrandRepublic, I also write a US blog, and manage to bore the *** out of people with various articles and books. The rest of the time I drink, smoke...
Anyone who’s ever lived over here for any extended amount of time has to wonder why the American public is brainwashed to the extent that they actually believe they have the best healthcare system in the world… Even though a quarter of the population has zero health insurance, and the vast majority who...
Coincidental with my recent BrandRepublic piece of the 22nd , talking about the tenth anniversary of David Ogilvy’s death, I have also been doing a series of posts on my US blog, AdScam, about an upcoming number of layoffs at Ogilvy’s New York Office which are expected to happen in the next week or so...
In a further sign of how bad things are getting over here, BBDO Detroit is granting its 450 staff a four week furlough… Which is Capitalism Speak for four weeks off, without pay. As one commentator put it… “BBDO staffers might want to ask themselves, is getting a European-style four weeks vacation this...
