Faster than a speeding bullet, gyro SF ignites Turn. And the New York Times!

A drink before…

I no longer have to be as coy about our first commercial ever- the one with smoking women, guns and, what’s more treacherous, cigarettes! Yes, it’s true. Forgive me God, but my maiden voyage at my new agency (gyro San Francisco) is ripe with deliciously bad behavior. And while I don’t condone smoking, drinking, illicit sex and gun play it sure as hell makes for great drama…and hopefully a fine commercial.

It had better because we’re debuting it on the season premier of Mad Men. The client (the best, most trusting, yet cavalier group of people I’ve ever worked for) is Turn. What they do is deliver advertising to exactly the right online audiences faster than the proverbial speeding bullet. Ergo the most whack product demonstration I’ve ever had the sinful pleasure of producing.

Last I wrote about it, I had to be vague about our Mad Men scheme out of respect to reporter, Andrew Newman. He wanted a scoop and I didn’t want to screw that up. And voila! We have our story: In the New York Times! How exciting is that? Veteran ad sages, Abbey Klassen and Barbara Lippert even provide commentary. And so I held my tongue so that better ones could wag.

Hell hath no fury…

Alas, I cannot show you the commercial or the content-laden micro site. Not yet. For that you will need to watch Mad Men’s finale, which I wouldn’t miss anyway.

Bragging aside, I must thank Turn for their enthusiastic support and courage for doing something so remarkable and in such a short time. Though I guess that’s fitting given their business model is predicated on speed and precision.

Thirty days ago this commercial was merely a suggestion made by our agency’s President, Robert Ray (albeit an enthusiastic one). Our whole agency jumped on it and, well, you can read all about it in the New York Times!

I got the ink but the people below also deserve ample recognition:

Copywriter (gyro): Eric Flynn
Art Director (gyro): Ian Ashenbremer
Creative Director (gyro): Jeff Shattuck
Account Executive (gyro): Quynh “the mighty” Cline
Account Executive (gyro): Natalie Marmer
Media (gyro): Zak Garner
Motion Graphics (gyro): Toby Peterson
Director: Michael “True Blood” Lehmann
Exec Producer (Dark Light Pictures): Vince Arcaro
Producer (Dark Light Pictures): Sharon Groh
Editor: Mauro Camaroda
Music (MusicOrange): Blaise Smith

Adios, Adweek! Saying farewell to former stalwart of adland.

Adweek: Under New Management.

They still post an occasional story about ads, under the category of “Agency.” They still have that little rascal, Ad Freak, God bless him.

But mostly Adweek is no longer about advertising. According to the new man in charge, Michael Wolff, it’s all about media. In his words, the media industry is “undergoing one of the greatest examples of modern industrial transformation… This is the opportunity we have (with Adweek) to not only be great for the media business, (but also) put ourselves in the sweet spot of what we’re covering.”

And so the edgy alternative to Advertising Age has now become an online magazine primarily serving the media. That means stories about “up-fronts” and “cable contracts;” companies like Viacom and Comcast; people like Glenn Beck and Rupert Murdoch.

It also means I will no longer be reading it. And I suspect most of you won’t be either. The fact of the matter is I just don’t care about that stuff. And neither do you.

Wolff’s no idiot, however. He’s not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He’s just putting Advertising in its place, which is somewhere in the corner, ironically where media used to be. Wolff’s as aware of the all the “death of advertising” talk as we are. And he’s acting on it. Of course I hope he’s wrong. It’s certainly possible. After all the name of the show is Mad Men not Media Men. Yet, we already know his rebuttal: Mad Men is about then. This is about now.

It’s not like Adweek never covered the media. Back when the magazine was made of paper they ran a story or two about new TV shows and rating points. But we never read them. We looked for news about agencies and ad campaigns. We wondered what Barbara Lippert had in store. My favorite items were those dealing with agency pitches, often detailed like a sporting page, with favorites and dark horses. I loved that. Many of us rifled through the pages looking (hopefully and fearfully) for coverage about our agency and our work. If something we did was written about that meant something for the scrapbooks, something to send to Mom. It also meant our stars were rising or, God forbid, falling. Either way, Adweek was a must-read, one of the first things we did upon entering our offices on Monday morning.

But like the ‘agency memo’ or TV reels and BETA, it’s now history. For advertising news, we scroll through our favorite blogs, check Tweetdeck or Facebook. Maybe some of us don’t even bother at all.

There is still the venerable Advertising Age. One assumes Wolff’s vision of Adweek brings tears of joy to the editors of AdAge. But also apprehension. Any good editor will tell you a competitive publication is good for both parties. But then that’s J-school talk and last I checked newspapers were getting thinner and thinner, with even online versions struggling in the face of social media. Most schools don’t even call it Journalism anymore, favoring terms like “Integrated Media Training.” A fitting way to end this story, eh?