The Adweek 25: home to the best advertising voices on Twitter

Update for Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010 koopstakov edwardboches Have you noticed how many people are adding "innovation" to their job titles? It seems like innovation is the new digital. This week, we're sticking with the theme. Joining the list is James Cooper, who has the unwieldy title of chief creative innovation officer at JWT New York. Cooper won us over with a personal appeal about his worthiness, impeccable Ping-Pong ability and willingness to call BS on the au courant idea that creatives and strategists are the same. That means we have to say goodbye to another chief innovator, Edward Boches. He's a charter member of the Adweek 25, but we need to make room for new voices. THE CURRENT LIST: annaobrien bastholm benkunz bethcomstock bigspaceship chloalo cotton darrellwhitelaw dberkowitz dddiana griner ischafer jtwinsor koopstakov LCrampsie LenKendall leighhouse luckthelady MadeByMany malbonster marciikeler McCann_NY mtlb RGA Schwartzie14 LIVE TWEETS: PREVIOUS UPDATES: Update for Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 jeffbadby LCrampsie We begin this week with a refresher on the complex formula used to devise this list. Edward Boches, chief innovation officer at Mullen and a charter member of the Adweek 25, has crunched some data in an effort to figure out who on the list is really influential. Something similar was once done with Klout scores. In short, we don't have a formula. You could argue this is lazy, but we think it's the best approach for several reasons: 1) "Influencer" measures aren't very scientific. They typically value people with lots of reach who spend all day tweeting. See here. We'd rather have no formula than a dubious one. 2) The most "influential" industry tweeters often talk about the same stuff. There seems to be a vast digital strategy industrial complex that's cornered Twitter. Our list still overindexes with this crowd more than we'd like. It's almost like a cool-kids group that's always RTing each other and lauding its members. 3) We have a semi-firm No Social-Media Gurus Policy. This crowd tends to do quite well in scientific measures. 4) It's proudly random. Part of the magic of Groupon is how strange it can be. You get leg waxing one day, go-kart rides the next. We want that in here. We want people from traditional advertising and digital. We want people in PR, media and other disciplines. 5) We have a point of view. We don't like inanity like Foursquare airport checkins, RTing yourself, those satanic Paper.li things and other bad behavior. That's purely subjective. This makes it more fun. With that said, it's time for this week's hellos and goodbyes. It would be bad form to off Edward for his post, so he's safe. Instead, we're pulling the plug on our Jeff Goodby experiment. Judging from his recent tweets, his mind is clearly focused on Chevy. It doesn't make for scintillating material. Taking his place is Lauren Crampsie, the CMO at Ogilvy, who wins extra points as an Eagles fan. Update for Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 MikeDuda shivsingh leighhouse mtlb We took a week off due to the holiday, but we're back to do some pruning to the Adweek 25. Ex-adman and now "brand capitalist" Mike Duda is first in our crosshairs. In his place, we're welcoming Leigh Householder, proprietress of Advergirl.com and digital strategist at GSW Worldwide. Householder is a sharer of fun facts in healthcare marketing like, "A man's sperm can still impregnate a woman after he's been dead and buried for 3 days." Now that's stuff we don't know. There's one more switch. Out goes Shiv Singh, head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages, and in comes Bill Green, the force behind the Make the Logo Bigger blog, co-host of the AdVerve podcast and all-around advertising superpundit. Update for Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010 narrowd McCann_NY We have another retirement from the Adweek 25. Following in the steps of Alex Bogusky, McKinney art director Nick Jones, aka @narrowd, wrote us with the news he's taking his talents off Twitter and into doing real stuff for clients. Priorities, please, Nick! But until he changes his mind, we'll bid adieu to him. In his stead, we're welcoming our third agency account to the mix. @McCann_NY is a surprisingly frisky Twitter account that stands out in the sea of self-serving blandness coming from agency land Tweeters. One typical update from last week noted research that found Ozzy Osbourne has a bit of Neanderthal DNA. Update for Monday, Nov. 8, 2010 flytip malbonnington chloalo malbonster To shake things up a bit, we decided to make this family rivalry week. It's apparent that sometimes the Adweek 25 might have the right address, wrong person. First, Rich Ting gives way to his wife, Chloe Gottlieb. Luckily, Chloe is just as razor sharp as Rich in her role as ecd of interactive design at R/GA. It's also time to swap Malbons. Ben exits, Tim enters. Besides, @malbonster is a better moniker than @malbonnington. Tim is co-founder of Made by Many. Update for Monday, Nov. 1, 2010 jeffbadby iaintait This week we're bringing on an ad legend, Jeff Goodby. The ponytailed creative first announced his presence on Twitter in Cannes, wearing a T-shirt with his Twitter handle (@jeffbadby) during his keynote presentation with Ben Stiller. Since then, Jeff's had a bumpy ride, unevenly posting and not totally finding his footing. We're banking on the Adweek 25 spotlight to put pressure on him to up his game. That means one lucky Tweeter gets to step aside to make room. Iain Tait (@iaintait), global interactive ecd at Wieden + Kennedy, gets the hook. He was on vacation last week, which meant just a few Instagram updates. Update for Monday, Oct. 25, 2010 madebymany copymatt Only a single replacement this week. We need to bid adieu to Matt O’Rourke (@copymatt). While we enjoyed the CP+B group creative director’s tweets, there were too many F-bombs and links to dog photos. That makes room, however, for Made by Many (@madebymany), the agency Twitter feed of the London digital shop with the same name. Made by Many is a source of trends in digital culture and a template for how an agency can have a worthwhile Twitter feed. Update for Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 griner narrowd darrellwhitelaw bmorrissey GapLogo tombed This week, we decided to take care of an oddity on the list. I'm walking off the island to make room for another Tweeter from the Adweek orbit. If this were the agency world, I'd take a title of "vice chairman." Instead, I'm content to fade into the background. That leaves a spot for David Griner, AdFreak writer and social-media strategist at Luckie. Griner himself thought it would be a good idea to replace me—a sign of a man with a plan. We're also bidding adieu to @GapLogo. Let's face it, these ginned-up social media "controversies" have short shelf lives. (Besides, @GapLogo's presence incited @OldMySpaceLogo to harass us.) We'll also have to escort Tom Bedecarré to the exits. His offense: too many conference tweets this week. Replacing the Gap logo and Bedecarré are some creative types. First up is Nick Jones (@narrowd), interactive art director at McKinney, who caused a stir in agency land recently by pointing out that nearly all of the top agency sites are unusable from iPhones and iPads, due in large part to an unhealthy obsession with Flash. Also joining is Darrell Whitelaw (@darrellwhitelaw), creative director at Mir, which specializes in digital and mobile work. Update for Friday, Oct. 8, 2010 GapLogo Malbonnington tmontague BBHLabs This week brought a first to the Adweek 25: Yesterday we added a 26th member, @GapLogo, since the Gap controversy was burning so hot. That means we need to lose someone to make room for the feisty (and unofficial) musings of the much-maligned new logo. The victim we chose is Co: founder Ty Montague. We like Ty, and we don't rule out welcoming him back to the fold. It was a slow week for him, though, with only a couple of @ replies from the account. Membership in the Adweek 25 demands a certain level of friskiness. Our only other goodbye this week is @BBHLabs. The account is still pretty good, but we believe the tweeter makes the corporate account. Ben Malbon, main curator of @BBHLabs, left the company last Friday to join Google as director of strategy at its Creative Lab. The Adweek 25 will follow Malbon there, adding @Malbonnington to our list. We expect a lot of posts about the free food in the first couple of weeks, then a return to regular programming. Update for Monday, Oct. 4, 2010 Another week, another couple of new faces. As a reminder, we're taking nominations for inclusion on the list via Twitter at the #adweek25 hashtag. thaz7 shane_steele BestBuyCMO OUT. We're saying goodbye to Thaz7. We realized our list is a little top heavy with digital planner types. We're also bidding farewell to Shane Steele and Best Buy CMO Barry Judge. bethcomstock Schwartzie14 copymatt IN. GE CMO Beth Comstock describes herself as a "marketer on a mission" in her bio. She's fairly new to Twitter but clearly wants to keep abreast of what's happening in design and tech. It also can't hurt to know what's on the mind of someone in control of marketing at one of the world's largest companies. Rob Schwartz, chief creative officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles, is a new arrival, too, adding some much-needed creative perspective with a barrage of links to interesting stuff. We're also sticking with the creatives with the addition of Matt O'Rourke, a group creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky. O'Rourke is a keen (and sometimes slightly profane) observer of the little things, such as noting, "there's nothing sadder than a minivan in a strip club parking lot." Update for Friday, Sept. 24, 2010 We're saying several goodbyes this week to shake things up on the list. What we've found is that a worthwhile tweeter is a lot like pornography: hard to describe but you know it when you see it. As a reminder, we're taking nominations for inclusion on the list via Twitter at the #adweek25 hashtag. cstoller dougchavez woodlandalyssa cindygallop1 OUT. First, a couple of Foursquare expulsions: Chad Stoller and Doug Chavez. Don't say we didn't warn you. Also out is Alyssa Galella (@woodlandalyssa). This was a tough one. Many great links, but the volume just got too high, particularly when Seamlessweb food orders are referenced. We must also bid Cindy Gallop (@cindygallop1) adieu. The R-rated tweets are nice; the self-referential retweets not as much. iaintait annaobrien LenKendall luckthelady IN. Iain Tait (@iaintait), global interactive executive creative director at Wieden + Kennedy. The driving force behind Old Spice and Isaiah Mustafa's social-media charge admirably goes easy on the self-promotion. Must be an English thing. His updates veer towards offbeat observations, like how he started his week: "Getting barfed on by both daughters pre-7.45 keeps you real." Anna O'Brien(@annaobrien), vp of social media at Citi, thankfully steers clear of financial-services issues. Instead, she gives a regular stream of pop-culture tidbits, such as the news that teens are addicted to tanning. Len Kendall (@lenkendall) from GolinHarris is the rare social-media guru who creates stuff. He's the brains behind the 3six5 project, which gathers a daily blog post from a different writer each day. Angela Natividad (@luckthelady), co-host of the Adverve podcast and sometime Adrants writer, delivers ad criticism with attitude. Pardon her French. Update for Friday, Sept. 17, 2010 Time for hellos and goodbyes. We went back and forth over the process for exile and entrée to the Adweek 25. For logistical purposes, we'll switch out folks each week based on our own assessment of the previous week's content. bogusky danielstein OUT. We start our goodbyes with the only bona fide quasi-celebrity (very loosely defined, people) on the list, Alex Bogusky. He's turned his back on advertising in favor of more worthy pursuits, which means he's not interested in grubby social-media lists. He even tweeted as much. Mechanic of cool, you've got your wish. Then again, Alex might be playing hard to get. Recall that he quit Twitter cold turkey back in March 2009, only to return two months later after his following freaked out. But for now, Elvis has left the building. • There's a saying that half of the game is showing up. Daniel Stein doesn't feel that way. This was actually our fault. The EVB CEO was, for a time, an all-star tweeter—until he decided to devote most of his status-updating energy to Facebook. Perhaps there's only so much time in the day, particularly since Daniel has spent the past week cycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In any case, we felt that Daniel's heart is not in it. Adios, muchacho. cotton marciikeler IN. Now, let's say hello to the new kids. Ed Cotton is director of strategy at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners in Sausalito, Calif. He won us over with his regular linking to interesting material, such as his own post on Levi's effort to revive a down-on-its-luck Pennsylvania town, and his bold statements, like declaring "Google is the competition" for agencies. • Marci Ikeler is director of digital strategy at Publicis New York. She impressed us with a mix of industry-related and offbeat updates. We'll excuse the occasional Foursquare check-in. This week's pearls of wisdom included the stat that Halo: Reach made $200 million on launch day, versus just $27 million for Avatar, and a link to an augmented-reality cake showing a sad Keanu Reeves atop a unicorn. Gold. Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 It seems like everyone is tweeting nowadays, at least in the ad world. The problem is, the signal-to-noise ratio is off the charts. We hope to help make some sense of it—and reward the most interesting advertising and marketing voices—with the Adweek 25. The Adweek 25 is a Twitter list. You can subscribe to it here and get a feed of all messages sent from the 25. Their tweets will also stream in the widget below, and on Adweek.com. Our criteria for inclusion are simple: These are people who post messages related to advertising, marketing and media that are thought-provoking, funny or preferably both. We deduct points for the following no-no's: 1) Foursquare check-ins, particularly from airports; 2) sucking up to clients; 3) heavy use of emoticons; and 4) ego-stroking links to articles in which the tweeter is quoted. The initial list has big names like Alex Bogusky. But we included the just plain interesting like Ben Kunz. There are even a few agency accounts, like @BBHlabs, @Bigspaceship and @RGA. To keep the Adweek 25 on its best behavior (and open the list to newcomers), we'll vote one tweeter off the island each week and introduce a replacement. Bookmark this page for updates.

AdFreak

The Adweek 25: home to the best advertising voices on Twitter

Brian Morrissey

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Brian Morrissey