View Post Agencies ULTA Beauty Splashes on Some Mullen By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 10, 2014 - 2:06 PM ULTA Beauty operates 675 retail stores across 46 states and also distributes its products through its website. Yet the company recently decided to spruce things up a bit with an agency review. CEO Mary Dillon, who has been at the ...
View Post Ad Biz Sir Sorrell: Creativity Is Dying, and It’s All Your Fault! By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 9, 2014 - 2:50 PM In what seems to be a weekly occurrence, Sir Martin “Mr. Happy Fun Guy” Sorrell offered agency folks a Debbie Downer moment in the form of a LinkedIn”fluencer” blog post: “The 10 Trends Shaping the Gl ...
View Post Social Media Twitter’s New CTA: Buy Now, Tweet Later! By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 9, 2014 - 2:37 PM We discussed it until we exhausted every clever headline copywriters would send us for a nominal fee — social media advertising is here to stay. Despite our opinions on its alleged effectiveness, clients are going to take a ...
View Post Ad Biz | People YP CEO David Krantz: ‘We Were Mobile Before Mobile Was Cool!’ By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 8, 2014 - 3:00 PM This week, Adweek offered readers the gentle musings of YP CEO David Krantz. In case your Web browser doesn’t have that URL in its search history, that would be the former Yellow Pages. For the Millennials out there in A ...
View Post Ad Biz | Brands | Digital Can Advertising Change ‘Fauxsumerism?’ By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 8, 2014 - 1:34 PM One thing posting on AgencySpy has taught us: marketers and creatives love a robust conversation. On that note, we’d like to bring your attention to an alarming trend that doesn’t seem to show signs of fading away anyt ...
View Post Brands | Sports Tim Howard Set to Save Up on Endorsements By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 7, 2014 - 6:21 PM ICYMI (and the ratings tell us that very few did), Tim Howard is America’s newest hero with his World Cup-record 16 saves in the game against Belgium, or the highest-rated soccer match in the history of U.S. cable TV. It wa ...
View Post What The?? Is Advertising and Marketing with the U.S. Flag Unethical? By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 7, 2014 - 11:58 AM Happy (belated) Independence Day. This weekend was America’s birthday. Contact the fire department for these 238 candles. Now, go to the store — any store — and you will see brands adorned with Old Glory everywhe ...
View Post Agencies | Campaigns German Agency Thjnk Dares to Pitch Bono at Cannes…and Wins By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 3, 2014 - 12:45 PM Never underestimate the power of chutzpah. Oddly enough, it took a German ad man to prove that point. One of the last stories from Cannes-Lions making its way into the headlines concerns the bold actions of Michael Trautmann, CEO ...
View Post Ad Biz | TV FOX and Nielsen: Ratings War No More By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 3, 2014 - 12:14 PM In what would have been quite the change of scenery for a major ratings draw, FOX recently threatened to leave Nielsen to go to exclusively with Rentrak for its measurement needs. In what resembled a real-life episode of 24, th ...
View Post Agencies | Brands Deutsch New York, Barton F. Graf 9000 Help GoDaddy Lose Its Sex Appeal By Shawn Paul Wood on Jul. 2, 2014 - 6:03 PM New Ad Strategy: Swap Sexy for Creepy? For a couple of years, GoDaddy made headlines for all the wrong reasons. During the Super Bowl, scantily clad B-list women and “athletes” would offer themselves up for innuendo, d ...