I have just caught up with an interesting research report from the US into value-based pricing – the latest candidate to break the default setting of people/hours fees. In August the ANA (ISBA equivalent) and AAAA (America’s IPA) jointly published something called the Agency-Advertiser Value...
Surprisingly, it is the way they dress. My authority for how a Japanese ‘salaryman’ presents himself is a wacky website, called www.mynippon.com. I quote: "You must maintain the utmost cleanliness at all times. This includes short neat hair, shiny shoes, clean pressed suit and shirt...
It is not meant to be a rude question. But with seemingly half the agencies in town either currently leaderless or having recently taken on new top talent, it is timely to ask what roles Chairmen and CEO’s are supposed to fulfil.In my agency days I’d always thought that the CEO was basically...
If a global client satisfaction survey had just been published (which to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t) I can confidently predict that its shock finding would be that standards of client service in creative agencies have significantly dropped. Client-on-agency evaluations routinely show numerous...
In this morning’s times 2 there is a review by Anjana Ahuja of a book called ‘Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives’ by Professor Richard Wiseman. Wiseman, who is a social psychologist, writes about lonely hearts ads. His experiments, based on 25-word personal ads, show...
No-one in the Cafe Royal listening to Moray MacLennan's inaugural address as IPA President yesterday could have failed to be impressed with his message. Campaign today reprints the speech on pp 30 and 31. There are conflicting signals from the Titanic right now, with plenty of activity on the deck...
Some mistake surely? We normally talk about being nostalgic about the past, or worried about the future. No, after attending the Adforum Worldwide Summit in Amsterdam this week I’m nostalgic about the future I had thought we were all looking forward to. I’ve been crazybusy at an international...
A month ago I called for the industry to mount a Campaign for Real Marketing to guard against the slide into mediocrity and short-termism. Last week I blogged every day in support of A4A (Action for Ads). Now it’s time to link the two causes. Will all marketing leaders out there who haven’t...
I seem to be referring to Action For Ads in every post at the moment. So when we are just talking amongst ourselves I thought it might be OK to call it A4A Now that so many of us have signed the petition, might it be a good idea to have a debate about A4A, and how we can all make it work? It's almost...
Much of the success of UK clients is down to the advertising and marketing communications talent they can call upon to build their brands. But Action for Ads should also emphasise the role of British agencies and groups in making our industry world class. It is not all about WPP, but what an achievement...
