world's first twitter ad agency?

Yeah, it's a recession. Ad agencies all around us are downsizing, reorganizing, even shutting their doors. (RIP, JWT/Chicago.) So, um. Yeah. What better time to start up a new one. We met as twittering Mad Men. Now we're forming a Mad Men 2.0 agency. Same convenient initials as Sterling Cooper. Supporting Characters. It's a consortium of social media players I'm proud to be part of. Advertising veterans. PR strategists. Creative technologists. Futurists. To help brands achieve relevance in digital space.

Yesterday, Ad Age posted a video piece about it and my partner, Carri Bugbee (aka @PeggyOlson). Ad Age called us the world's first twitter ad agency. But we won't do only twitter. In fact, we'll sometimes advise against it. Because we believe that a technology platform ought to be the last choice you make when designing a social media campaign. We'll talk more about this and other hard-won insights in our Social Media Road Show. Coming soon (hopefully) to a conference room near you.

more women do it than you might think

From AdAge Digital:

According to a recent study, more than one-third (35%) of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week. And that number increases if less-frequent visits are factored in. Of those women who are online any amount of time, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or update blogs, according to the study.

news flash: ad broad joins a gym

So there I am in the trainer room getting my Complimentary Fitness Assessment when the trainer (nice guy @ 25 yrs old) says he's going to take my blood pressure. He reaches for some sort of contraption. "Wrong one," he says, putting it back. "They sent us these new pressure monitors, but they don't work as well as the old ones." He grabs a contraption that is larger, less sleek looking. "This is the old one," he says, slipping the sleeve on my arm. "It works a lot better."

I know, of course, what he is too young to realize: that this is the first of many times he'll wonder why they made a new version of something, when the old works better.

The hard part of learning new technology as you age, is having to UNLEARN the way you did it before. (Craig Daitch wrote a fine post about this in a recent Ad Age.)

"Your pressure is fine," says the kid, beaming at me. And this handsome young guy who is in the best shape he'll ever be in in his life--suddenly, I feel sorry for him.

PLEASE! 6 things to avoid when doing ads for boomers

1. No more peace signals with the two fingers. When was the last time you saw anybody make this gesture, except at a bar signalling for another round.

2. No more visuals of 60s VW buses decorated with daisies. According to adverts today, you'd think that's what everyone drove in the 60s when, actually, they were so rare that when one passed you on the highway, you rolled (!) down the window gave it the peace sign.

3. No more shots of boomers playing golf. Surprise! Not every boomer flush enough to buy your product wants to be out on the green. This also goes for boomers climbing mountains. Why can't art directors think of anything else for us to do?

4. Enough with lines like The Generation That Refuses to Get Old. Aside from those of us spending way too much in cosmetic surgeon's offices trying to fend off Time (which, alas, fools no one as the same youthifying procedures don't exist for hands and legs, those telltale signs of actual age)--we're OK with getting older, which after all is better than the alternative.


5. Why do all models in print ads for boomers seem to be laughing hysterically, when the headlines are all so painfully earnest? Better idea: make the ads funny (we've got a sense of humor, remember); and let the models relax.

6. Speaking of models, when looking for a spokeshead, you can give us someone younger than we are without us thinking "Gee, that person is in his forties, so obviously the target for that product can't be me." As John Barker pointed out recently in a post on this subject in Ad Age, it's best to aim younger, not older with Boomers, just like it's smart to aim older when targeting kids.

And that's my contribution today to the world of advertising.