Oktober 2013

Battle For World's Most Valuable Consumer

Last week, I was invited to speak at a conference sponsored
by the 4A's and the law firm of Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass LLP.
The topic was "The Battle For The World's Most Valuable Consumer."
I published my remarks on my company website and received some nice comments, so I thought I'd publish them here.

Good morning boys and girls.

I’m
going to try something amazing today. I’m going to

Advertising Needs Troublemakers

The advertising industry has become too respectable, too congenial, and too polite.

We are in desperate need of troublemakers. We need shit-disturbers. We need hell-raisers.

We need the kind of quarrelsome, pugnacious, opinionated people that make the arts vibrant and interesting.

There's way too much consensus. Way too much cordiality. Way too little controversy.

Attending an advertising

10 Great Things About Obamacare Website

Yesterday we posted 10 ideas to help The President with his troubled health care website.

Frankly, we're getting a little tired of all the negativity. So let's just stop for a few minutes and take a look at the bright side.

Today, we're focusing on the positive. Here are 10 Great Things About The Obamacare Website:

1. Government techies so busy screwing up website, they have no time to tap

GOODREADS FOR AUTHORS

Looking for a few tips on how to make Goodreads work best for you? Read my article here, on the Triskele Books blog.

10 Ways To Make Obamacare Website More Successful

President Obama is having a tough time with his new HealthCare.gov website. So far he's spent $394 million on it, and it doesn't even have any funny cat videos.

The President has found out what we in the civilian population have known for years -- expecting an online expert to get something right is like expecting a 16-year-old to vacuum the garage. And having an I.T. department is like having

A Very Intricate Nonsense

In journalism there is a phenomenon called "burying the lead." It happens when an incompetent reporter doesn't understand the essential point of a story, and buries it beneath secondary points.

In the advertising business, we also bury the lead. But mostly, we do it intentionally.

"Our click rate was .042% which is about 22% above the category norm of .035%. Our re-targeting really helped with

Alarming Online Sleaze Factor

If they gave awards for reporting on the advertising industry (and why not, they give awards for everything else) this year's award should go to Mike Shields of Adweek whose work on the corruption and fraud in the online ad industry has been outstanding.

This is by far the biggest advertising story of the year, and no one but Mike seems to be interested in it.

His latest piece, The Amount of

Spirit of Lost Angels Giveaway

This week, the English Historical Fiction Authors blog is hosting a giveaway of Spirit of Lost Angels. 1 (international) paperback and 2 e-copies to be won!

The Value Of Celebrity Losers

A close friend and former colleague of mine from the East Coast wrote last week to ask the following question:

Since you live on the West Coast, you are not bombarded with Eli Manning ads for Toyota, Dunkin Donuts and one or two others.

Last night with three interceptions, Eli Manning led the NY Giants to their 6th loss of the season.

While discussing his performance at lunch yesterday,

Cover Reveal Triskele Books November 2013 Releases

3 gorgeous new covers. 3 fab new Triskele Books.

Launch party November 16th, Chorleywood Literary Festival. Be there, or be .... somewhere else!

10-Point List For Making 10-Point Lists

If you want to be a world famous blogger and make millions of dollars
and have super-hot nymphos crawling all over you, you have to learn
how to write a blog post that has a list of ten things.

Everyone wants to know ten things. Eleven things are too many and nine things are not enough.

Here are ten points you need to know about making a successful blog post with a 10-point list:

1. Always

Inconsequential Culture Of Incrementalism

I have whiner's block.

I'm tired of writing about the silliness of the ad business. I'm sick of complaining about the wrong turns it has taken.

People keep asking me what I'm optimistic about. The only thing I can come up with is that there are still a handful of agencies that have big ideas and can do really good work. A handful.

I meet and talk to too many agency people who are dull and

Chorleywood Literary Festival

The Triskele girls are very happy to announce that we will be appearing at the Chorleywood Literary Festival on Saturday November 16th, 2013. If anyone is planning on going to the festival, we'd love you to drop by and say hello!

We'll be conducting The Human Library whereby participants can borrow one of the Triskele authors to discuss any aspect of indie publishing.

And, The Rise of the Author Collective where we will talk about the lessons we've learned on the self-publishing journey and the benefits of working together. These events are Free, but ticketed. For more information, see Chorleywood Events.

The Launch:

We will also be launching the next three new releases from the Triskele Books collective:

· Wolfsangel - Liza Perrat

· Overlord - JD Smith

· Ghost Town - Catriona Troth
.... Cover reveal to follow!

The Search For Miracles

With the exceptions of pop music and fashion, there is probably no more trendy business than advertising.

Every few years we invent a trendy new miracle and everyone immediately jumps on it.

Sometimes it's a media miracle like social media.

Sometimes it's a process miracle like account planning.

Sometimes it's a technical miracle like "big data."

Whatever shape the miracle takes, one thing