Latest INDUSTRY articles

Howard Draft: Introducing The Gunn Report 2009

Howard Draft, Executive Chairman of Draftfcb, served as Guest Editor of the 2009 Gunn Report. The fine folks at the Gunn Report were kind enough to share some of Howard’s thoughts on the most awarded ads and campaigns of the previous year or so. Howard pulls no punches; just because an ad won enough gold to outshine Fort Knox doesn’t mean he necessarily loved it, and he doesn’t shy away from telling you so.

Black Turtlenecks & 3D Printing

Currently almost every single thing that we own has many copies. These things are cheap and designed to appeal to the greatest common denominator. To make us buy as many things as is possible, large companies turn to people in black turtlenecks. There are armies of black turtleneck, white sneaker wearing people who are all so desperately different that they are easy to recognize from a distance.

Breaking The Contract

A few decades back, Texan Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson gazed down the highway and didn’t like what she saw.

Billboards blocked her view of the plains, of the distant hills, and of her beloved wildflowers. So she complained to her husband, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who prompted Congress to pass the Highway Beautification Act, which placed limits on the spread of posters- or billboards as they’re popularly known- and preserved the views that Lady Bird Johnson loved so well.

The Chinese Multinational Brand: A Long Road to Rome

No Chinese consumer brand is ready go head-to-head against Western counterparts on the latter’s home turf, despite Lining’s open a new store in Singapore. This is true in every category, from autos to alcohol and pharmaceuticals to hotels, although some non-consumer brands (e.g., Huawei electrical components) have made significant in-roads and will continue to.

That said, many Chinese brands are making progress in emerging markets such as India, Africa and South America.

Tweetin, Txtin, Shakin, Downloadin, Bluetoothin

The days when a campaign would consist of a TV spot, print ad and a fancy flashy micro site are over. These days, brands are everywhere on TV, print, radio, websites, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and iPhone applications - and that’s just on a slow day. In this article we’re going to go through a general overview of a few new ways advertisers are reaching their audience. [...]

Email Etiquette for Creative Directors

For some reason creative directors have a habit, a bad habit, of not responding to emails. I’m not a creative director but I do run a company and I know tons of creative directors, many of them which run worldwide shops and I can vouch for them in the fact that they get many emails, too many emails, including hundreds from everything from photographers, filmmakers, producers, [...]

Advertising In Dubai

Dubai represents everything the Middle East wants to be: progressive, modern and rich. And the ad world is no different. Dubai is the advertising hub of the Middle East, much like how Singapore is to the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to Dubai, Egypt is a huge market and lots of cool work that comes out of there. I found Egyptians capture local insights better than anyone else in the region. Besides {…}

Leo Burnett’s Cannes Predictions Screening in Bangkok

Rafik Belmesk
Operations, AKOS
ihaveanidea
Every year our good friends at Leo Burnett worldwide in Chicago slip us a few tickets under the table to attend their legendary Saturday night party in Cannes. But in 2009, and again you can blame THE ECONOMY, they had to forego of that much anticipated yearly tradition. With the number of delegates [...]

The New ihaveanidea

It’s 3:00 in the morning and I can’t think straight and hence why I think it would be the best time to write this as whatever I say will either be totally stupid or completely honest.

Mike Byrne: Exclusive Diary From The Andy Awards Judging

ANDY Diary - Day Four
The ANDY’s are over.
Final day was very entertaining. Each judge giving an argument for what they think should win/not win. It’s impressive to hear the evaluation from some of the best and brightest in the business.
Every time you judge the ANDY’s you leave it all feeling inspired and certainly like you’ve [...]