Ad Agency

Help the 4A’s address the critical issue of Gender and Diversity in the advertising industry.  Please take just a few minutes to share your thoughts and experiences on this important topic.

In this opinion piece, the author speculates on the future of advertising. Arguing that the challenge of predicting the future lies mainly in the lack of an acceptable definition of the field, the author solves that problem by developing a set of postulates to create boundaries for the theory and practice of the discipline.  By Don Schultz – Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

Marketers should require media agencies to be fully transparent to elevate trust and restore confidence in the client/agency partnership, according to a wide-ranging set of recommendations released \ by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and Ebiquity/FirmDecisions.  A key recommendation was that clients require their agencies to disclose all potential conflicts of interest and allow thorough audits of the agency, its parent company, affiliates, and subsidiaries to ensure full transparency and contract compliance.

Hispanic marketing is challenging. Believe me, we have been doing it for 15 years. Effective Hispanic marketing requires an integrated team that not only possesses the skills to execute standard marketing principles, but also a deep understanding of the complex and dynamic Hispanic consumer.  By Lee Vann / Capture Group

Joash Brunet and artist and designer Kedgar Volta announced hey have launched Castaño Group, a new content production company specializing in immersive, interactive and multicultural audience experiences in a variety of broadcast, digital and physical formats.

As the ANA report generates increased discussion in the industry, and it will, those debates will also drive more transparency. The discussion is important – and it should be leveraged to put steps in place to help organizations get the most from their media investments.

By Gonzalo López Martí    – Creative director, etc. /  LMMiami.com  

• Your garden variety advertising creative has enemies aplenty.
• Real and imaginary.

Ebiquity’s subsidiary Firm Decisions has been summoned into court by Group M, WPP’s media buying agency.

Hill will have served in this role for nine years, successfully modernizing the 4A’s operations, providing guidance to the agency community on transformative issues and passionately advocating for gender and diversity initiatives throughout the industry. 

The Cannes International Festival of Creativity is a yearly celebration that recognizes the best in creative advertising worldwide.  June 25th marked the official culmination of the festival for 2016, which reflected a historic performance for Alma. The agency won a total of 8 Lions and 18 Shortlists, establishing a new record for the multicultural industry!

While Arthur W. Page Society members remain dissatisfied with the level of diversity and inclusion on their communication teams, few are being held accountable for developing and implementing strategies to improve. This is the key finding of a recent student conducted by Syracuse University and funded and released by the PRSA Foundation and the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama.

Marketers have long relied on agency partners for advertising efforts, but in recent years, the degree and level of collaboration occurring between the two entities appears to be expanding.

It should come as no surprise that agencies have these kinds of practices around rebates and credits in place.  Every person who has ever worked in an agency environment knows this to be the case — it’s not much of a shock, although the press is treating it as such.  

Orcí hired Luiz Salles as Senior Vice President, Head of Strategic Planning and Susan Page as Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMIAMI.COM

• What is it with your average creative that he -or she- whines, kicks, screams and throws tantrums yet he -or she- rarely has the rocks to start his or her own agency?
• How many agencies in America were founded by creatives?
• How many agencies in the US Hispanic market were founded by creatives?

It’s been about a week since the ANA’s report into transparency hit the best seller lists. Lest we forget (and judging from some of the less temperate comments flying around some seem to have forgotten) the report was titled “An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry.” It was not titled “Why Advertisers Hate the Holding Companies” nor “We Name the Guilty Parties.”  By Brian Jacobs The Cog Blog

MarketVision has won a strategic marketing assignment from San Antonio’s University Health System following an agency review.

Thirteen percent of advertising and marketing executives surveyed plan to expand their teams in the second half of 2016, according to new research from staffing firm The Creative Group. This is up from 11 percent in the first half of the y

Grupo Gallegos Founder & CEO John Gallegos announced two new posts that will enable the agency to more effectively fulfill its mission to be the most creatively driven, culturally attuned agency in the U.S.

The ANA released a K2 report on media buying practices. Although the 4A’s has worked collaboratively with the ANA via a joint task force, this report is anonymous, one-sided and paints the entire industry with the same negative brush. This statement further elaborates the 4A’s position on this issue.