Okay, so where am I?

I’m still recovering from the red carpet at the Oscars. Every year, for seven straight years, the photographers pit takes a little more from me. This year I may have brought back the flu bug from either the hundred or so camera clickers or the one of the beautiful people who lined the frenzied madness of the 9Oscars Red Carpet. I mean take a look at this:

In this time after awards season, I reflect on the year ahead and the year behind me for a strategic gut check. It’s important to self reflect and make sure the you keep rowing your boat in the right direction. Age has its advantages, but complacency it often the plague that diverts you from your goals. I like to circle a huge goal and assess my talents. The last couple of years netted me some great accomplishments: lots of gold and silver statues (read some of the 2016 and 2017 columns for details), some brushes with getting the Media Guy Struggles script made into a pilot (close but no cigar), and a fourth book published (pretty good). This year I’m gunning to complete the framework of a documentary I’ve been eyeing for a few years. I’m not sure it will be as good as Icarus or Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405, but go big or go home.

I used to know I was great at a few things, namely being able to create great ad campaigns and crafting superior media buys. This still applies today, but after careful reflection, I realized my greatest talent was politics. Not the House of Cards style politics, but the kind it takes to managing creatives and all of the drama that surrounds them. Come to think of it, the process of managing creatives extends to employees that are high performers and high potentials.

In my younger days, I was very totalitarian with a “my way or the highway” approach to managing, but today I like to say: “teams made up of diverse members who are open to taking each others’ perspective perform most creatively.” I guess that’s when totalitarianism meets socialism. Laugh all you want but look at my staffs for the last twentysomething years and you see one thing: low staff overturn and massive productivity.

Back in the day, I wanted everything done in a few minutes. That didn’t work then and it doesn’t work today. I think I finally realized that watching an episode of Mad Men where Don Draper defended his creatives to new management calling them out for being lazy:

“You came here because we do this better than you, and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are.”

So simple, and yet it pretty much says it all when it comes to effective talent management for creative people. Let them be unproductive until they are. A very difficult pill for task-oriented managers to swallow, but an absolutely crucial prescription for the creative potential.

So for those stuck on how to get the most out of your creative team, keeping them happy and motivated, let’s drill down a little bit more.

The Creative Workplace

Having a creative workplace is critical to great work. I mean some agencies or departments really go to town with central meeting spaces looking more like a spoiled teenager’s bedroom with big screen televisions, PS4s, pool tables, and Slurpee machines. This where staff emerge from their office to unwind, brainstorm, bounce ideas off each other while bouncing racquet balls off the wall. Does this mean the creatives are a bunch of immature lunkheads who play all day and get very little work done? Maybe. But I say let them be unproductive until they are. The math of it all usually works out and the clients are always more than happy with the results no matter how hard they fight the process.

Employees need a work environment that inspires their creativity. This can sometimes be as simple as positive performance appraisal or by giving them the right personal music to listen to. Daydreams and pie-in-the-sky ideas produce the best inspiration because we are relaxed, calm, out from under the weight of managerial pressures.

The right colors, lighting, furniture, all have tremendous impact on our moods, energy, productivity, and creative ideas are often a reflection of the mood we are in. This is why a lot of musicians prefer to live in darkness, as it helps them tap into their anger and sadness to create some of those head banging or tear jerking songs.

Motivating the Creatives

Creatives are not paid huge salaries, and yet we often work into the evenings and over the weekends to meet important deadlines. But why would anyone do anything if the cash isn’t there? It has been proven again and again that creative people are not motivated by money. For simple tasks, yes. You offer a cash bonus to the employee who can lick the most stamps, and watch as the tongues start to fly! But offer the same incentive to whoever creates the best jingle for your company’s new cereal, and you’ll get some really lousy jingles.

“People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself, not by external pressures.” 

The Public Relations Society of America did a survey where they asked, “What matters most to you about your job?” If this were an Olympic event, money would have gone home empty-handed. Challenge and responsibility, flexibility, and a stable work environment took gold, silver and bronze respectfully, leaving money in fourth place. In fact, nine out of the top ten answers were about the work itself, the work environment, and the people they work with.

No one is given a bonus for impressing the pants off their clients with incredible ad campaign ideas. But they all beamed with pride for having worked so hard and would celebrate whenever their creativity was rewarded with a simple “Good job, the client loved it.

Be Like Garbo

Creatives work their best when there is no one hovering over them, micromanaging their every move. They like to feel autonomous, like their own boss, independent and without distraction. This can be very difficult in an open office environment, where anyone can just walk up to you and ask you a question, or where you can hear conversations happening right next to you, or constantly getting bombarded with emails and instant messages. When creatives aren’t working together to brainstorm ideas, they need to be left alone.

Want to crush someone’s creativity? Get them to fill out a progress report before they’ve finished a project. Not only will this interrupt the process, but it will make them feel watched, managed, stifled.

This is not to say that creative people don’t respect deadlines, they very much do so, but they don’t need managers on their shoulders every step of the way. They want to channel their inner Greta Garbo (“I want to be alone.”)

Of course not all interaction is negative. Your employees should be encouraged to brainstorm with others as often as possible. Creation can be a lonely journey sometimes, and ideas grow exponentially when more than one brain is working on something.

“Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise” – Dale Carnegie

While creative employees give off the impression of being extremely strong and proud, lone wolves who ‘don’t need nothin’ from nobody’, who can just brush criticism off their shoulders like too much dandruff, are actually the complete opposite. They are like delicate egg shells, and can very easily crack if not handled with care.

Creatives are very sensitive, especially where their work is concerned. And while they don’t need extra money to do a good job, they definitely need a pat on the back for a job well done.

The post Managing Creatives appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

I mean who would make such a video in this sexually harassment-fueled climate? All we read and hear about are inappropriate men doing rotten things to women around the context of work. Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Bill O’Reilly, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, John Lasseter…this list is endless…

…and then there it was…the culprit was the Anaheim Ducks!

Full disclosure: As a life-long Los Angeles Kings supporter (44 years and counting), nothing pleases me more than Anaheim ducking is all up.

So there I am jaw dropped as I watch the news report of perhaps the worst example yet of tone deaf companies—and the individuals who work for them—perpetuating something that should never exist in the media in 2017…take a peek:

Okay, so where am I?

I’m waiting by the phone hoping Michael Schulman, the CEO of the Anaheim Ducks, dials my ten digits so we can discuss their brain burp. I mean, I feel for Schulman because how many people at the Ducks are going to get fired? I say this is because I can’t remember the last time a major sports team making this kind of advertising mistake. This should have been an easy empty net of a happy birthday message to their parent league (more on that later). But, no, they had to be clever.

As a reformed misogynist, every time I see something like this I say, “stop and take a look around at everything that’s happening in all of these industries in the world.” If you don’t think this is serious, look at the punishments people are receiving for their actions. Currently, the penalty is ejection from your workplace. They might not get everyone immediately, but, take someone like Louis C.K. and what they got him on. The people who make decisions on his projects are thinking out loud themselves…

“Uhm, Louis, this movie you were going to be in? Yeah, no, we aren’t worried about that making this real any longer.”

“Hey, you have some movies on Netflix? Not anymore!”

Kevin Spacey was supposed to star in J. Paul Getty, Part 2 and Sony said “nah, no need, Kev, we will just re-shoot every scene you were in and still get the movie out on time.” This is what ejection from the workplace looks like.

There’s a lot of dreadful advertising out there, especially for sports team, but most of it fades into the superficial tapestry of suburban life. You disregard it and move on with your day. But this is a downright affront to the intelligence of anyone with an operational brainstem.

Somebody somewhere had to sit in the Orange County office and say “How are we going to make a real statement for the National Hockey League?”

“I’ve got a great idea…”

And someone else had to say, “Wait a minute – what if we ignore all of the headlines out there and make a video skit that screams sexual harassment?”

And then the first someone probably built on this thought with something like, “How about we pick the guy on out known for pranking people so we will have an ‘out’ should some of the overly sensitive demographic object?”

At which point high fives were exchanged and comps were briefed into a designer with an online extension learning degree, access to an Better Call Saul-like video crew, and a deep appreciation of how women were treated at the office in the 1960s.”

But here’s the most distressing part. The Ducks brass had to buy into this. Someone in charge of an actual marketing department had to say to themselves “You know what? I think this is going to work. We slap this baby all over social media and everyone without access to basic news is going to be hunched over laughing and re-watching it until it goes viral. We’re going to turn our Internet feed into the embodiment of how Don Draper and Roger Sterling treated their staffs in Mad Men.”

So did Anaheim wind up calling? Nope, they decided to issued a non-apology and evil wins again:

Here’s how the smart NHL teams wished the NHL a happy birthday:

–>

The post ANAHEIM DUCKS: You Should Have Called The Media Guy! appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Only Don Draper could write $1,000,000 checks AND have his ads run 50 years later.

Today I ask myself this definitive questions: Is is bad to be jealous of a fictional character?

Strolling through New York City—49th and 7th to be exact—revealed that Don Draper’s “Pass the Heinz” ads are running a full fifty television years later. Yes, when Mad Men’s Draper pitched an ad campaign, clients typically ate it up and then greenlit the campaigns. In the Heinz pitch, navigates through a “Got Milk?”-like set of creatives to create a craving for a product through its absence. This concept wouldn’t gather steam until the 80s. On the show the “Pass the Heinz” campaign did not impress the Ketchup Brass and they ultimately pass.

“Pass the Heinz” billboard at 49th and 7th

Fast forward fifty in years in TV times) or four years here in real Earth time…and Don Draper wins again.

Personal issues aside, Draper is some kind of advertising Demigod. I know he couldn’t keep a wife, be a decent father, or stay sober, but jeez, the guy knew advertising and how to push consumer’s buttons. Plus, he made the equivalent of $300,000 and lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. What a life!

In a clever press release, Heinz says it “selected the ‘Pass the Heinz’ campaign after an agency review because it is clever, modern and doesn’t require paragraphs of copy to convey what Heinz brings to the table. Whether it’s fries without Heinz ketchup or hot dogs without Heinz mustard, this campaign perfectly captures the desire for great-tasting Heinz products with America’s favorite foods,” the (real) company said.

Partly a PR stunt, the ads are officially being credited to Heinz’s current agency, David Miami, and to Draper’s fictional 1960s firm, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. (Draper and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who approved the idea, are both listed in the credits.)

Below are the ads that are running in the New York Post and across the Heinz social media channels:

In the end, Draper took fifty years to get this campaign launched and as I watch his deft pitch, I’m reminded that I should be jealous. #DraperForever

The post Don Draper is a Demigod appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Yes, indeed I am at the newly named Microsoft Theatre (formerly the Nokia Theatre) in Downtown Los Angeles at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Before I talk about the triple digit heat on the red carpet, I must declare that I really want to party with three women:

Click here to watch the commercial.

While I was backstage eyeing up one of those golden statues, the biggest highlight came Apple Music as they premiered they new spot featuring Taraji P. Henson and Kerry Washington hanging with Mary J. Blige at her crib fantasizing about mix tapes and doing air drums to Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”. I mean, really! This is everyman’s dream, isn’t it? (Incidentally, this also counts as the winner of my regular feature, “AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER“.)

Back to the heat…the way you heard celebrities talking about the scorching City of Angels heat, you might have thought they were preparing to join Lawrence of Arabia in the Arab Revolt. There was a lot of moaning about the heat and, I think, Mario Lopez lost 42 ounces of water surrounding all those muscles:

I wasn’t too far from E! News’s Giuliana Rancic and every time she stopped one of the nominees they moaned about how they were making the intolerable expedition from their air-conditioned limousines to the air-conditioned Microsoft Theater without needing an IV for their dehydration. I bet most were secretly wishing they were in Celine Dion’s old Caesars Palace digs with her special climate control system while their tuxedos and Haute Couture melted on the red carpet. Ah, the struggle!

Amish Kitteridge starrring Frances McDormand

The fashion was interesting to say the least. Leading the best dressed were Taraji P. Henson from Empire, Jaimie Alexander from NBC’s Blindspot (see gallery below), and me! There was the Heidi Klum yellow canary disaster too. But my pick for the “I Didn’t Think the Emmys Were This Weekend So I Didn’t Shop for a Dress” goes to Academy Award- (and now) Emmy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand who showed up looking like she rode all week from the Amish farm in preparation. Yikes!

Viola preached! But not everyone was screaming “TELL IT” Meryl Streep-style over Viola’s powerful speech.

Nancy Lee Grahn, known as Alexis Davis to people who watch General Hospital and known as “WHO?!” to people who don’t, was not into what Viola said. Nancy Lee basically screamed “ALLACTRESSLIVESMATTER” on Twitter and went on and on and on.

Mikkos Cassadine needs to come and get his daughter, because Nancy Lee said that Viola is a member of the TV elite who has never faced discrimination and that the Emmy stage wasn’t the place to bring up racial issues in Hollywood. Nancy Lee deleted a few of her tweets, but something called “shift + command + 4″ exists and so Buzzfeed and others screen shot her “greatest hits.”

I don’t know why everyone hated on Nancy Lee. I mean, I, for one, learned something from her rant. The African American history professor tweeted (and deleted) this:

“Heard it and went oh lord ur a great actress just accept it and I heard Harriet Tubman and I thought Its a fucking emmy for gods sake. She wasn’t digging thru a tunnel.”

Nancy Lee is educating us all, because I did not know that the Underground Railroad was an actual tunnel dug by Harriet Tubman.

After Nancy Lee got dragged back and forth and continued to defend herself by saying that she can’t believe she’s getting so much hate, she took back everything she said and farted up this apology:

“I apologize for my earlier tweets and now realize I need to check my own privilege. My intention was not to take this historic and important moment from Viola Davis or other women of color but I realize that my intention doesn’t matter here because that is what I ended up doing. I learned a lot tonight and I admit that there are still some things I don’t understand but I am trying to and will let this be a learning experience for me.”

Translation: “My agent and the executives at ABC made me type this.”


My reaction: Let people have their time and speak with the people they want to speak about. Maybe Nancy Lee needs to read The Secret and gain the power of being positive!

January Jones is no Better Draper…wowza!

The Media Guy’s Instagram Feed!

The Most Beautiful Couple Award: Sophia Vergara and What’s-His-Name

Congrats! That was an amazing speech.

First Coca-Cola and now an Emmy…what an exit for Don Draper.

Matt LeBlanc is still one cool cat.

Maybe it was Jaimie Alexander who brought the heat to the red carpet.

Heidi…Versace…Really?!

Taraji…I’ll make you a mixtape any day!

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: The most successful comedienne of all time.

The post Melting on the Emmys Red Carpet appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

No I’m not on vacation—more on that later—right now, I’m hunkered down, barricade-style, on a mission to finalize my Clio submission.

Yes, it’s awards season in the ad world and fresh off my Telly Award wins (hate to brag, well, no, it’s nice to be able to…), I felt it was time to try to add to my collection of Clio Awards from my work in the 1980s and 1990s (yikes, I must be old!). I did some really nice work this year in Japan, Hollywood and the Middle East. The entire submission process to even be considered for a Clio isn’t easy. Last year I found this whimsical little article by Xanthe Wellson on How to Win a Clio Award: 10 things I learned as an award judge. Since I didn’t use a sumo wrestler (which isn’t so simple to exclude when you work in Tokyo) in my ads, I just may have a shot at another golden statue.

My guesstimate is that I’m asked how to get a leg up in the media world about ten times a month. While I offer my baseline advice …

1. Go to school, 
2. Work for free in one of the great agencies and, 
3. Be either unique or great (hopefully both) …

… the first thing I want to say is look up hall of fame art director George Lois. “Who is this Lois Guy?” you ask. Only one of the greatest art directors the advertising industry has ever seen and is said to be the inspiration for the character of Don Draper—a charge he denies with Draper-like passion. He is probably best known for over 92 (yes, ninety-two!) covers he designed for Esquire magazine from 1962 to 1972. However, his signature work for MTV, VH1, ESPN, Tommy Hilfiger and USA Today validated his proclamation that advertising is an art and not a science. AND, he’s a Clio Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Time Magazine once gushed, “The first step in selling is stopping the eye. No one has mastered that rule as well as George Love. For Esquire, the media renaissance man concocted a fresh style for magazine covers – smart, fun, funny, and visually fluent. He has married the outrageous to the fantastic.” Zip on over to the master’s website to read the insights and commentary on his Esquire covers.

The ironic part of the Clio process is that in order to win an award for your :30 second commercial, you might have to create a mini documentary to pimp you entry. This is actually more work than the creative you are submitting your work for…after this I may need a vacation.

One of the Clio Awards in my office.

Vacations
Speaking of vacations, it turns out you might want to take more of them if you’re angling for a promotion. The conventional wisdom says that you should work, work, work and work some more in order to secure that precious promotion; vacations are for the weak and the unworthy-of-promotion! But new research indicates that the opposite might be true. As it turns out, bosses actually recognize that all work and no play makes for unhappy, unproductive workers. Just make sure you get permission first—going AWOL is a recipe to get fired, not promoted.

Vacations, Part II
In the not so distant past, my tourism work netted a would-be $5 million dollar contract with the Syria Department of Tourism. Yeah, I know when you are saying: There are two words that do not belong in the same sentence: Syria and Tourism. That turned out to be true, because as soon as the ink was dry, civil war broke out and the contract evaporated in the abyss known as Isis. But in 2010, I was the PR King of the Middle East. I convinced The New York Times to pop Damascus into their 31 Places to Go in 2010 as their #7 selection. Read this and hail the king:

7. Damascus
The next Marrakesh? Perhaps mindful of the way that renovations of historic roads have drawn upscale travelers to Marrakesh, Damascus hoteliers are trying to mine tourism gold in the rundown buildings of the Syrian capital’s Old City. These 18th-century homes — many with inviting courtyards and rooftop terraces — are now boutique hotels, like the nine-room Old Vine (www.oldvinehotel.com) and the Hanania (www.hananiahotel.com), which doubles as a hotel and a small museum.

A Meaty Story
If you’re stuck at the keyboard with writer’s block, nothing helps more than a great burger. Every ad man knows that. Benjamin Wallace penned the Story of the Hamburger and its rise from a lowly patty of chopped meat to the aristocracy of foods; its charismatic and delicious descendants; the arguments it inspires­ — over ethics and blends and tastes; and Silicon Valley’s attempt to replace it with a meat that is not meat at all. Make sure to read it if the words aren’t flowing in the screen…

Shia LaBeouf Believes In You
After this psycho pep talk, you’ll just want to DO IT!

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER

The Most Obscene Billboard Ever

Costa Rican drivers are getting an eyeful when they pass this billboard for Republica Parrillera Pilsner beer. Looking at the front of the billboard, nothing seems amiss. But when viewed from behind … well, yeah, that does look like a giant penis, doesn’t it?

As always with such placements, there’s debate over whether this was intentional or a mistake. Proponents of the former say it’s brilliant marketing, as drivers who approach the ad from the back are probably fairly likely to check out the front of the ad as they pass—behavior that precious few billboards provoke. Those who think it’s a mistake can’t fathom the kind of balls it would take to put a giant phallic symbol on a billboard.

The post Hail the Public Relations King of the Middle East appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

“But, why?” you ask…

The answer is simple: Advertising was dying in 2007. I mean it was a bloodbath. Budgets were getting sliced like deli meat and the wise guys in accounting were cutting costs and the media departments took the big hits first. Add to that the advent of TiVo which touted the ability to never have to watch commercials again and you have the perfect storm needed to switch careers and fast!

Enter Jon Hamm as the perfect Don Draper and, BAM!, you have an anti-hero that made advertising cool again in the very first episode:

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is OK.”

The success of the show — four straight Outstanding Drama Series Emmy Award win — spread to the vices of the show. Lucky Strike, the preferred cigarette, saw its global sales soar 44 percent in the same period. Draper’s favorite booze, Canadian Club, which had suffered seventeen years declining sales prior to Mad Men’s debut, suddenly were looking to pay dividends with a 4.3 percent annual growth. Talk to any bartender and he’ll tell you that cosmos are out and classic cocktails are in. Manhattans, Old Fashioneds and gimlets are suddenly popular again.

…and just like that, advertising was cool again.

Applicants at the big agencies in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago jumped, even tripled. Everyone wanted their share of creating the Great American Campaign. Agencies are now teaming with highly-specialized staff ready to solve any problem. It’s a tense, dog-eat-dog environment inside those agencies and yes, it leaves many on edge. Ever wonder sets them off? Adweek’s David Griner has the quintessential guide to treading lightly and the comments sure to provide spontaneous combustion:

• To a Copywriter: “I hope you didn’t make plans this weekend.”
• To an Art Director: “Hmm, it just needs, I don’t know, more pop, you know? Like, more (makes waving hand motions) crackle to it. Cleaner, maybe. Oh and these partner logos need to be added, and brand standards require they run green on black.”
• To a Creative Director: “Oh, you mean like the thing Old Spice did?”
• To an Account Executive: “Then tell the client they’ll just have to live with it.”
• To the CEO: “Did you see that big article today about [rival agency down the road]?”
• To the CFO: “So I was cleaning out my desk, and I found some invoices.”To a Media Planner: “Can’t we just take it from the discretionary budget? You guys always have a discretionary budget.”
• To a Media Director: “We’re thinking full-court press: Mobile, social, TV, outdoor, viral. We really need to get everything we can from this $125,000.”
• To a New Business Manager: “How important is this pitch?”
• To a Producer: “What do you mean we can’t license the song? The client already approved the rough cut. Just make it happen.”
• To a Project Manager: (On the way out the door) “Oh that? I didn’t get around to it.”
• To a Video Editor: “The client’s son is in film school and has some ideas. He says you can just send him the raw files if you’re not up to it.”
• To a Developer: “The client’s expecting this to work across all the platforms: mobile, Android, Facebook, .NET, watches … you know, all of it. Just keep it flexible and be mindful of the budget.”
• To a Production Director: “I’m pretty sure I would have noticed this kind of error on the proof. Surely they’ll redo the print run if you tell them it was their fault.”
• To a Strategist: “But I’m a millennial/boomer/shopper/parent, and that’s not how I feel about brand loyalty.”
• To the PR Director: “Then why didn’t sales go up?”
• To a Social Content Planner: “Man, I wish I got paid to play on Facebook and Twitter all day.”
• To the Receptionist: “You should smile more.”

NOTES ON THE SCORECARD:

SECRETARIES
Before you give your well-meaning, head-in-the-clouds secretary who doesn’t always seem to understand the subtleties of the workplace, some more grief consider this: Meredith Explains Why She’s Don Draper’s Best Secretary Ever!

WHY IT PAYS TO BE A JERK
Sneer at the customer. Keep your colleagues on edge. Claim credit. Speak first. Put your feet on the table. Withhold approval. Instill fear. Interrupt. Ask for more. And by all means, take that last doughnut. You deserve it.

NEED A WINGMAN?: Meet her now!
As designed, Invisible Girlfriend is meant to be a relationship cover. A crowdsourced significant other that lives amongst your text messages to fool others into thinking you’re spoken for. But use the service long enough, and it’s easy to take advantage of the fact that, at base level, you’re texting anonymous strangers who are mandated to text nice things back.

Artist Steals Instagram Photos & Sells Them For $100K At NYC Gallery…yes, right now you can purchase someone’s Instagram photo for around $100,000. The money won’t go to the photographer, however, it will go to “artist” Richard Prince, who has blown up and made prints of other people’s Instagram photos for his series titled “New Portraits.”

Click to Enlarge

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER

Imagine, in a season of racial division, imperialist deception, and capitalist malaise, the whole world gathered upon a hill sharing a fizzy brown drink. Well, they did (metaphorically) and “Hilltop” became one of the top commercials of all time. In honor of the real genius behind the ad, namely Bill Backer, the creative director at the real McCann-Erickson, here is this week’s #TBT pick:

Read more about how this commercial changed the world of advertising…and the world:

What Coke Taught the World: The “It’s the Real Thing” ads were among the first to recognize the market potential of a multicultural America.

The post Don Draper…I Owe You. appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

How to slow down your life…right now…just as soon as I see what my Starbucks name is…

In what is definitely solid proof that the Internet (and Starbucks for that matter) is a place of endless possibilities, some brilliant dude or dudette has created a name generator that simulates the experience of having your name name misspelled on a Starbucks drink cup. Here’s mine:

Now that we have that squared away, and we are enjoying some java forms, have you ever thought of other ways to embrace the moment? Yeah, I know I am sounding like some seventies guru in a tunic, but the last episodes of Mad Men have me looking in the mirror. I mean after Megan went nuclear on Don with her “aging, sloppy, selfish” rant, I’ve been itching to write my own $1 million check. But how? Perhaps living in the now is the key. Let me give you an example…


It’s finally Friday night, the beginning of a weekend of freedom, which also happens to include your birthday. Your family, friends and spouse all have celebratory plans for you.


You have a rewarding career and a network of beautiful people who want to rejoice in your life. As you walk out to your car to officially kickoff the fun, a giddy thrill washes over you.

Live in the now and you might avoid this look! photo: Justina Mintz/AMC

But as you click the seatbelt into place, rather than sitting in awe of how lucky you are, a list of concerns begin worming their way into your consciousness: “I need gas, but the conveniently located gas station charges more than others … I hope it’s not a surprise party … Maybe I should get the beverages I like before going home … I haven’t been to the gym all  week … Did I pay the electric bill?”


And so it goes.


“I think we’ve all had this experience, which often has us psychically living 30 minutes into the future – no matter how great the present circumstances might be,” says Steve Gilliland, a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame and author of the widely acclaimed “Enjoy The Ride,” for which he is set to publish a follow-up (“Detour, Developing the Mindset to Navigate Life’s Turns”) that will be released in May 2015.


“Are we doomed to this torrent of noise which distracts us from enjoying our life? We don’t have to be.”


Don’t live your life 30 minutes ahead of the present. If you won’t live your life now, in the present, then who will?


An older man came up to me, grabbed my hand, and said he wished he’d heard me speak decades ago,” Gilliland says. “After I asked why, he said that when he was eating lunch on break or dinner with his family, he was always thinking about what he had to do after the meal, which represented his daily life. ‘At the age of 97,’ he said, ‘I’ve officially lived my life 30 minutes ahead’ – 30 minutes ahead of whatever he was doing at the moment.”

• Live more! It’s better than crying before you’re hurt. Don’t put your umbrella up until it rains. Worry restricts your ability to think and act effectively, and it forces you to mortgage fear and anxiety about something that may never occur. Laughter is the opposite. When you laugh, you’re living almost completely in the moment and it’s one of the best feelings you can have.
• No one can ruin your day without your permission. As much as we cannot control in life – our genes, our past and what has led up to today – there is much control we may take upon ourselves. Today, for example, we can understand that life picks on everyone, so when the going gets tough, we don’t have to take it personally. When we do take misfortune personally, we tend to obsess, giving a legacy to something that may make you a day poorer in life.
• Cure your destination disease. Live more for today, less for tomorrow, and never about yesterday. How? You might have to repeatedly remind yourself that yesterday is gone forever, yet we perpetually have to deal with now, so why not live it? And what if tomorrow never occurs? There is a difference between working toward the future, which is inherently enjoyable in light of hope, and living in an unrealistic future that remains perpetually elusive. If tomorrow never comes, would you be satisfied with the way today ended?

“It is not how you start in life and it is not how you finish,” Gilliland says. “The true joy of life is in the trip, so enjoy the ride!”


————-


 AD OF THE WEEK


A new feature that I am adding is the “Ad of the Week” (or month or whatever) that highlights some of the best work in the world. 


Most of you have seen the iconic Pulp Fiction scene where Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) has a flashback. The scene shows the time when his deceased father’s fellow POW Christopher Walken brings Butch his father’s watch. You know the watch that was smuggled in with some, er, uh delicate and dedicated hiding. This one is actually a parody of the Apple Watch commercials narrated by Walken. Enjoy.

The post Slow Down appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Okay, so where am I?

Top left and around: Taylor, Seacrest, Nick Jonas, Ludacris, me, Iggy, the red carpet, Pia Toscano, and my credential.

I’m in Hollywood getting ready to fly out on another top secret media campaign. Well, not so top secret, more of a non-disclosure, which binds my silences. Before the free drinks flow in the Cathay Pacific Business Lounge, I had a little business to wrap up in tinseltown.


With all the hoopla of the iHeart Radio Music Awards (yes, the red carpet was amazing once again), you may have missed a little tidbit on the official release of the video from my Miss Pilot show called “You Gave Me Love.” While it’s only been watched on my youtube page a few times, a couple of other posts have been watched almost 1,000,000 times combined. I mean, it’s no grumpy cat, but for a little Japanese show that could, I will take it any day of the week:

The past few days have been bittersweet as a countdown to the last days of Mad Men (more on that later). In between it all, a ran across some news that may or may note blow you away.


Breakfast Is Not The Most Important Meal Of The Day…No, your parents did not lie to you. They were just misinformed. As with many studies surrounding food, a majority of the research surrounding breakfast was funded by those peddlers of cereal and bacon (side note: don’t eat bacon) — unsurprisingly concluding that a complete breakfast was necessary to a healthy lifestyle. But, according to a dietician and a cultural historian interviewed by Hopes & Fears, breakfast, as a structured meal, really doesn’t matter. If you’re hungry in the morning, eat! If you’re not, then don’t lay an egg, just eat whenever hunger strikes. The most important thing to remember is that it’s not when you eat, but what you eat. 


The Machines Now Decide If You Get That Job, Based On Your Voice…Decades of voice research has revealed that no matter how happy, or inspired, or serious people try to sound — underneath all that inflection lies a telltale “fingerprint” of a person’s voice that influences how others perceive you. And when it comes to jobs that rely heavily on putting people at ease, or diffusing anger or winning others over, companies are starting to use algorithms to systematically weed out the good voices from the bad. It’s bad news if you’re looking to get into sales or work at a call center, but maybe good news that your career isn’t in dealing with people all day?


Filed under “every great New York media lunch started with a pastrami sandwich, a good drink and a willing client” comes  BEEF GRIEF…The Price Of Pastrami In New York Is Too Damn High. Imagine this sign:

“Due to the increased price of pastrami,” it began, unpromisingly, “we at the Yankee Tavern apologize for the increase in prices for the pastrami items.” 

Yes…Pastrami is in crisis.

This Professor Has Invented A Pill That Eliminates Hangovers…Former chief drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt has answered your sweaty, toilet-bowl-hugging prayers and invented a non-toxic inebriant drug that mimics the effects of alcohol: without the hangover. 


RELATED: DRINK LIKE A MAD MAN AND MAKING IT AT A MAD MAN PARTY

THE END IS NEAR...Mad Men is coming to an end in seven hours of television. I’m a bit broken up about it. Maybe it’s because for 99% of the viewing public it is just great television. For me, I lived it. Watching the drama at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, etc. is like a little snippet of my childhood, only the people are prettier and it’s set in New York. Virtually everything that happened through the first six and a half seasons occurred in my life. Almost as if they read my diary, er, not that I keep one. So, as Don Draper and company get ready to clock out for good, AMC allows us to get up close and personal with our favorite ad team. I suppose you’ll know where I’ll be April 5 at 10p EST.


But before you check out the photos and a trailer for the new season below, get a little reading in. Haley Herfurth of Menatl_Floss reports that since its start in 2007, AMC’s Mad Men has mentioned, discussed, or alluded to a considerable amount of classic literature, from authors like Dante to Mark Twain to Edward Gibbon. Each mention or allusion serves a purpose within the show’s plotline, working either to explain a character, set a scene, or provide context for decisions made or actions taken. So if you’re going to watch a whole day of television, the least you could do is read one of these 12 classics.

Now, without further delay, all of our favorites are featured — Outdoor Soiree Style:

The post Notes from a Tinseltown Weekend appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

…if you don’t know how to drink or look like you’re drinking while nursing a cold bevie, you’re going to have a tough time in the ad game.

Advertising parties may or may not look like this

Before I get to the fun stuff, how about a quick rundown on how to network at events and parties:

• Put yourself “out there”. If you’re shy, or a total party nerd, going to a party probably feels like a Game of Thrones wedding. Get that thought out of your mind because your slumped shoulders and wallpaper impression ain’t winning friends. 
• Dress to impress. Good grooming works along with a nice pair of Ferragamos or Pradas (and pul-lease shine them up!). If you’re in L.A., by all means go the Media Guy route and rock a black tee, nice jeans and a tailored sportscoat. If you’re in New York, you better suit up:

• Good gawd man, keep on truckin’. When you enter a room, scan the room and pick a target. Don’t forget to that the longer you stay in one spot, the the harder it is to get going. Move on if it doesn’t work. Don’t keep standing there and getting ignored by the Mean Girls flashing you the “you can’t stand here” look. Wave at some random punch bowl and parachute out.
• Body up! Look approachable. Send out those signals that you’re friendly and you want to talk.
• Active listening is better than talking 82% of the time. Use eye contact and nod as they talk, pacing it in time with their speech. Don’t look away as this gives the impression that you are getting bored or distracted. Face them front on and make sure your gestures are in pace with theirs. Also, mirror their gestures and this will make you look like a good listener.
• Smile. Geez, wipe that serious, self-important look off of your face and put the charm into your grill. A smile is the most primitive sign of introduction…and the most effective.
• Practice your Elevator Speech.
• Follow-up. Yes, this is the key because unless you have a private plane waiting to fly you to Vegas, you’re not going to become friends overnight.

Now you know the basic rules of event networking, so now what? How do you get that edge. If you’re a woman, chances are the red carpet is going to unfurl a little faster for you when you enter a room. Guys? Well that’s another story. The best differentiation factor revolves around drinking.

You may recall my overview on what kind of coffee you are in last year’s popular “Aw Fawk” column. What a woman’s choice of drink says a lot about her too. Jessica Klein, writer for the Roosevelts, put together a guide…let’s dive in!

Vodka Pineapple
This woman is out with the girls. Though she may step out to perform awkward arm and hip-thrusting movements in a small circle with her other girlfriends, the most she’ll throw any dude’s way is a coy look and an adorable smile. Not totally opposed to meeting a man while out on the town, she’s far less likely to go home with one than many of her differently imbibing counterparts. If you’re lucky, she’ll give you her number, but three other girls will be standing less than two feet behind her, snickering, as she does so. She almost definitely wears something colorful with frills or flow to express an avidly female attitude, and she loves getting greasy food on her way home from the bar while she and her friends discuss how reckless they’re being, calorie-wise.

Red Wine
This girl probably thinks she’s better than you. In fact, she almost certainly thinks she’s above being at whatever noisy bar you’ve found yourself in on this Saturday night. Quite possibly out by herself, the wine drinker will take her perch at the bar, her classic, little black dress draping modestly over the stool, where she’ll wait for you to go up to her. Your pickup lines will fall flat, but you may not know it until fifteen minutes into your conversation because she’s been keeping you around for her own amusement. If there with another female friend (she’ll be with three other women, max), their eyes will all drift around the room until landing on the man who they know will purchase their next glass of Merlot or Pinot Noir.

Beer
Practical, fun, and most likely cheerful, the beer drinking woman doesn’t allow her drink of choice to set her apart from the male masses. If she spills her over-full pint glass on you as she shakes with laughter over some crack made by the guy standing next to her, you won’t mind because her facial reaction and genuine apology will make up for it. Not afraid of belching in public, she will probably agree to take shots when all the guys do, and she will keep up successfully. Unfortunately, too many guys pass her by when it comes to sex and romance because they’ve been staring at pineapple vodka girl all night.

Rum & Coke
Honestly, I wouldn’t trust this girl. Something about deliberately ordering a rum and coke on a night out feels like a request for trouble. She may very well get too drunk by the end of the night (at which point you’ve got to respect the girl’s boundaries, i.e. not try and follow her/take her home), but before that she’ll flirt voraciously, which will be harmless and a lot of fun for everyone involved. A rum drinker, also, can dance. Ass-to-the-ground-without-knees-cracking dance. She knows what she wants, too, which is one thing you can definitely trust in her: If she doesn’t get her way, look out.

Whiskey
Why is it that men are always shocked and impressed when a woman orders whiskey? Though possibly viewed as more of a “man’s drink,” whiskey on the breath of a woman indicates maturity, independence, and sexual prowess. The whiskey drinking woman will talk to anybody, from the security guard to the bartender to the guy sitting alone in the corner to the bathroom attendant, and she will fall into each of their good graces by the end of the night (perhaps having made out with one and having smoked a joint with another). She feels right at home in any bar, but it might take her a few sips to get comfortable enough to start bringing the fun.

Gin & Tonic
One part aloof and one part too smart and funny for her own good, a girl drinking G & T’s at the bar will engage men and women alike with top-notch banter but will never get too wild. A classic warm weather cocktail, the G & T will sweep drinkers up in it’s lazy, languid attitude, causing the woman who drinks one to become nonchalant in a possibly irksome manner, if you’ve come out that night to seriously party. This woman’s most surprising aspect may reveal itself when it’s time to go home, at which point she’s been removed enough to have chosen her target for the night–she’s had a good idea of who she wants to bring home with her from two hours back, and now it’s time for her to fulfill it. Any guy will be thrilled to find out he’s the chosen one.

Tequila
Tequila speaks (and parties) for itself. A woman drinking tequila is out for a) a crazy time, or b) to forever bury the thoughts of a horrible ex or a particularly lame day at work. Obviously the life of the party, this woman will likely make it to the top of the bar at least once during the course of the night. She will also constantly invite the masses to down more tequila shots with her. You will fall in love with her, and she will fall in love with you–or, she’ll slap you very hard across the face.

To be fair, a woman can embody any of these girls on any given night. Depending on mood, the cycle of moon, and a variety of normal human factors, a lady can go from a coy red wine drinker one night to a wild, tequila slapper the next. Regardless of what she’s drinking, she’ll still wake up the next morning with a personality detached from any beverage, so never judge a girl by her drink 100% of the time.

The post Making it at a Media Party appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

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UPDATE:
Don’t miss the Mad Men drinking game courtesy of Christine Erickson of Mashable.

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