Agustus 2013

EFestival of Words Virtual Book Fair

Several months ago, I was nicely surprised when a fellow writer brought to my attention that Spirit of Lost Angels had been nominated for the EFestival of Words Independent Book Awards.

I eventually discovered it was a lovely book blogger/reviewer who nominated my novel (you know who you are!).

Taking place over last weekend, the virtual festival was a fun event, with workshops, swag bags and lots of bookish discussions. And I was very happy to learn that Spirit of Lost Angels won the Best Historical Fiction category. Many thanks to the organisers of the festival, and to those lovely supporters who voted for my book.

The Ad Contrarian is on vacation until Sept. 3

More on the Author Collective

In the second in our series of conversations with other author collectives, Triskele Books talks to Notting Hill Press on our blog.

TV Dying? More Alive Than Ever.

Nobody is smarter than the facts.

Contrary to all the baloney you read and all the nonsense promulgated by media and marketing "experts," and digital maniacs, TV viewing continues to grow and continues to swamp online activity.

Here are some facts from Nielsen's Cross-Platform Report for the 1st quarter of 2013:

The average American spent about six times more time watching live TV than on the

The "Youth Car" Delusion

This post is adapted from a piece on the Type A Group website.

According to The Wall Street Journal, it's not young people who are buying "youth cars," it's older people.

"Appealing
to the young has auto makers designing and marketing to the "millennial
generation"—that group of consumers in their 20s and 30s... But senior citizens are making Swiss cheese of those efforts."
The
auto

Beware Of Narratives

On January 4, 2012, I wrote a piece about media and politics. I never published it because I try to stay as far away from politics as possible on this blog. However, being on vacation from blogging, I went back and took a look at some of my unpublished stuff and felt that in light of the horrors going on in Egypt, I would post this. It's a year and a half old, but I think it holds up pretty well

Agency Business From A Different Perspective

I don't usually post Op-Eds, but this one is good. Last week I published a piece called, Do A Few Things Well. The point was that agencies should stick to their knitting and not try to be everything to everyone. Patrick Strother, who is ceo of Strother Communications Group says "not so fast." Patrick agrees that "if you think you are an ad agency, that’s what you should mainly do..." But he

16th Century Russians and Tatars Come To Life

Want to know more about 16th century Tatars and Russians? Read my review of The Golden Lynx and interview with author, C.P. Lesley.

Self-pub Tips

Need any tips on self-publishing? Pop over to the Triskele Books blog and read our collection.

The View From Nowhere

I am often criticized by those who don't agree with my incautious opinions about the direction of our industry. That's fine. After a while, I don't agree with some of the things I write myself.

But there is one line of criticism that I find truly annoying.

It is the idea that I am a "traditional" ad guy and therefore I don't "get it." The essence of the argument is that my views are tainted by

Auhtor Spotlight

JD Smith interviews me today, on the Triskele Books blog.

Do A Few Things Well

I would like to suggest a new strategy for your agency: Do a few things well.

You are trying to do too much. As a result, you are mediocre at a lot of things and excellent at nothing.

You are becoming like government. People used to have confidence that government was competent and effective. Now 10% of the population has confidence in Congress and about 1/3 have confidence in the executive

4 Reasons For Advertising's Radical Remake

Marketers' immoderate obsession with dubious metrics is having a profound influence on the nature of advertising.

I was with a group of broadcast executives recently and what I heard was not
surprising. Their clients are now evaluating their broadcast advertising the
same way they used to evaluate direct mail -- what's our cost-per-response?

Of course, most broadcast advertising is not meant

With thanks to Lisa Eileen Peters for featuring Spirit of Lost Angels on her blog.

Microsoft's Surface Gets Buried

Today's post about Microsoft's misguided launch of the Surface tablet can be found here.

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