This article really got my attention so I thought I’d share it.
Katie Notopoulus of Business Week and Kayla Iu of the Daily Free Press recently witnessed a small crowd taking to the streets of Boston to protest, holding signs, chanting, with one person even appearing in full costume and face paint. The protest took place in front of the Back Bay headquarters of insurance company Liberty Mutual. The protest was not against some sort of corporate malfeasance, political, or even a social justice issue.
They were protesting the existence of Liberty Biberty, the new fuzzy yellow mascot that appears in the insurance giant’s TV ads.
People, for some reason, really hate the Liberty Biberty puppet.
There’s a Facebook page with over 40,000 people devoted to hating it. There’s TikToks. Reddit threads. There was even a depicting of the spherical character being fed into a meat grinder.
The concept of the ads is surreal and self-referential. Liberty Biberty is a yellow puppet who has appeared in a few TV ads so far. In one, he appears on someone’s car and tells them about the benefits of auto insurance, and then is carried off by a hawk. In another, he chats to a bored bartender, and then meets the aforementioned hunky actor prone to malapropisms.
Liberty Mutual is well aware of the, ahem, passionate response.
“We’re encouraged by how strongly people are engaging with him, whether they love him or feel differently,” Jenna Lebel, Liberty Mutual’s chief marketing officer for US retail markets, told Business Insider. “We’ve been encouraged by the early results, including independent testing that shows Biberty performing above average on attention and brand attribution.”
Insurance companies’ advertising strategies for the last decade or more has been focused on a series of recognizable characters like Flo from Progressive, Jake from State Farm, and “Mayhem” from Allstate. Let us not forget the forefather of them all, the Geico gecko. Liberty Mutual has also had Doug and the LiMu Emu, as well as a hunky actor prone to malapropisms — hence “biberty.” (Don’t worry: Doug and the LiMu Emu are still active, Liberty Mutual’s PR person assured. Some complaints about Biberty were that people thought it had replaced the popular human/avian duo.)
Young people are watching less and less linear television, and so see fewer traditional ads, with one big exception: sports. Most of the people I talked to mentioned seeing the Liberty Biberty ads during baseball or football games, week after week.
The repeated exposure to the ads seems to be getting under people’s skin.
“I think Liberty Bibberty is just a disgusting little creature,” Connor Harvey, the organizer of the protest in Boston, told me. The 19 year old content creator from New Hampshire said that he considers himself a “sucker for weird advertising,” but that the fluffy yellow orb seems to be intentional ragebait — purposely meant to be annoying.
“The new Biberty campaign has definitely sparked a conversation, with a wide range of reaction and opinion. We’re listening to all of it,” Lebel said.
Zach Johnson, 40, manages a machine shop in North Carolina and was inspired to start the Facebook group “Liberty Biberty Hate” after seeing the ad multiple times while watching TV with his wife one night. “It’s a terrible mascot. Plus, they have more mascots than I can think of,” he said.
The over-the-top hate towards the mascot is certainly a bit tongue-in-cheek; although some people may find it genuinely annoying, it’s not offensive or tone-deaf.
Does that mean all that hate may actually be a good thing for Liberty Mutual?
“I think there’s a real opportunity right now to jump in and have fun with this moment in a way that, frankly, a lot of brands would absolutely die for,” said Simon Bruyn, ad industry vet and co-founder of the marketing strategy firm Significant.
“For that Gen Z and younger culture, who might be starting to get into insurance decisions, you suddenly have a very clean crossover into an internet nascent brand that feels like something you could really, really have fun with and play and own that idea of faux outrage,” Bruyn said.
Harvey, the protest organizer, isn’t in the market for home or auto insurance — for now. “I’m on my mom’s insurance,” he said.
Sadie Denty, a 21-year-old college student, said she traveled from Maine to protest because she doesn’t usually get to partake in many “fun internet things.”
“I get the ads constantly, and there’s been talks about AI generation which I personally don’t support. I think we should go back to having more fun ads,” she said. “I just think we need to reset what we see on our ads and on our screens.”
Denty said the protest was about more than just the mascot.
“I think we live in a really divisive time,” she said. “And sometimes silly things like this are a great way to bring a real community together.”
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
The “Ultima Thule” Daguerreotype by Edwin H. Manchester 1848;Reproduced from a copy daguerreotype, ca. 1860;Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society
Bestselling author Lyndsay Faye discusses Edgar Allan Poe and his use of loss and negative space in compelling fiction.
After I read LYNDSAY FAYE’s take on Poe’s fiction, I thought it appropriate to share given my recent post about Poe’s death anniversary.
Here’s what Lyndsay had to say:
I stand before you in defense of nothing! Charles Seife wrote in Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea, “The biggest questions in science and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero and infinity.”
Therefore how natural that every form of art makes use of both what is and is not visible. Pauses in music … blanks on canvas … stillness in dance. And since transforming inert words into three-dimensional motion, sound, imagery, and feeling is undoubtedly an art form, the writer must therefore also attend to not only what is set down, but what is omitted.
We are not speaking of edits. This art of negative space goes far beyond our sacred advice sometimes the delete key is your best friend (sometimes a delete bulldozer is your bosom comrade, which I discover novel after novel by scrapping at least 20,000 words from the first draft). Our focus here is rather on what the Japanese term ma: the possibilities tingling within emptiness—the lack that makes the reader crave—the eclipse delineating the sun.
The cavity from which Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s most renowned early authors, drew his greatest effects.
My favorite Poe short story launches its gleeful nightmare straight from the maw of negative space. Indeed, “The Fall of the House of Usher” relies so heavily on nothing that the estate’s shattered relics are literally swallowed into the tarn in the infamous conclusion. But let us instead study its opening lines, the words Poe selects to set his largely empty stage:
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
From the curtain’s rising, we flounder in a blank atmosphere: Rather than lightning-streaked portents, we are given dull darkness; instead of thunderclaps, the afternoon is altogether sans noise. Clouds obscure the skies, our hero is unaccompanied, the countryside is bleak. Yet every word of this non-description of setting is precious, for how unnerving is it that there is nothing of significance to describe at all? While our traveler practically drowns in vacancy, we as readers are strangely intrigued, next to be treated to “vacant eye-like windows,” arguably far more uncanny than eye-like windows watching our hero’s every movement.
Lest we forget: I must refer to him sideways, as “the protagonist,” or “our chronicler,” since the narrator is never graced with a moniker. The nameless raconteur battles the missing throughout this classic work. His friend Roderick Usher, who called for aid? “His reserve had always been excessive and habitual.” The Usher line itself? No branches, no in-laws, just a matched set of spectacularly uncheerful siblings. The estate’s servants? “a valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence…” And Roderick’s problem? “I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect—in terror … in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
We know the moral that there is nothing to fear but Fear itself: In Poe, however, while “The Fall of the House of Usher” is clothed in the same argument, another critically apt reading would be that there is nothing to fear but Nothing. Poe’s poetry is famous, not to say infamous, upon this subject—what doth the Raven quoth so tauntingly but nevermore, nevermore? But myriad other examples are relentlessly woven throughout his prolific canon. I particularly love the miniature ode to loss at the opening of “To M—,” published in 1829:
O! I care not that my earthly lot— Hath—little of Earth in it— That years of love have been forgot— In the fever of a minute—
Or consider, equally preoccupied with the want of key facts, “Ulalume—A Ballad”:
Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere; For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year—
What so touched Poe about negative space? Famously, his personal missing pieces were myriad and transfiguring. The author lost his father in infancy when David Poe, a traveling actor like Edgar’s mother Eliza, abandoned his family. The fatal drowning in open air to which so many succumbed—tuberculosis, or the “White Plague”—robbed Edgar of his mother merely a year later, and in his mid-20s the same disease cruelly stole his beloved child-bride cousin Virginia.
It is tragic that Poe lacked family, but they were hardly his sole want; he lacked affection from his foster father John Allan, not to mention official adoption papers; he lacked steady employment, often; he therefore spectacularly suffered a lifelong lack of money; he frequently lacked the acclaim he felt was his due. Naturally, we find these themes of holes riddling the work he so frenziedly produced attempting to forge a career—to create from nothing a place in the early American literary pantheon.
My eighth novel, Raven, is not a pastiche of any particular Poe work (though it is structured according to “The Fall of the House of Usher”) but rather mingles the tragic horrors of his entire canon with the aching losses of his biography. Capturing the emptiness he both battled and sought to capture was thus crucial for me in writing the antebellum biography of Raven Helen Allan—like Poe an unwanted orphan and addict of self-destruction. She writes at the opening, “I died a fortnight ago this coming Thursday. It was a terrifically unpleasant experience—being murdered, I mean to say.” Her posthumous autobiography (or is it?) proves rife with losses, and when she is forced to take employment as a paid companion in the foreboding woodlands outside of Baltimore in a disintegrating mansion, she risks everything to tear aside the masks she encounters and reveal the Legrand cousins’ harrowing secrets.
Fascination with the void was of course not new to Poe. Saint Augustine, trying to conceptualize the chaotic pre-Creation abyss in his Confessions, described, “It was not absolute nothingness. It was a kind of formlessness without any definition … True reasoning convinced me that I should wholly subtract all remnants of every kind of form if I wished to conceive the absolutely formless. I could not achieve this.”
Neither could Edgar Allan Poe, nor did he attempt to—nevertheless, it is in his adoration of the unreachable that we find some of his truest writing. Perhaps the finest example of his reverence for the intangible is found in “Ligeia,” when he wrote in the year 1838:
There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the science of the mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact—never, I believe, noted in the schools—in our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Thanks, Lyndsay! My thoughts: Even though Poe had his mind and imagination somewhere in another universe (Twilight Zone, perhaps?), he is still regarded as one of our most creative and mysterious writers of all time. Time and circumstances permitting, I wish I could have met him. That would be one hell of a conversation, especially over a glass of cognac!
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
Below is a briefing of various articles compiled by the AAByAd Age Staff. Some you will need asubscription to read while others you may not. I have a $20 per month subscription to stay close to the industry.
In 2030, advertising will be defined by advances in AI, new consumer behaviors, evolving career paths and shifting agency models. To help marketers prepare, Ad Age gathered insights from more than 100 leaders across brands, agencies, media companies, consultancies and tech, along with perspectives from our readers. The result is a wide-ranging look at the forces already reshaping the business—and what they mean for the years ahead.
What is Ad Age Future of Advertising 2030?
Who is it for?
Ad Age’s Future of Advertising 2030, available exclusively to All Access subscribers, examines how marketing, media, agencies, creativity, culture, leadership and ad tech will change over the next five years. The package features 14 stories with insights from industry leaders and readers, plus exclusive checklists, timelines and interactive elements.
This package is built for anyone shaping the future of marketing—from junior specialists building skills to CMOs setting strategy. It’s designed for agency leaders, media buyers, creatives and brand marketers who need more than predictions: clear strategies, checklists and guidance to prepare for the next five years. If you plan, buy, build, measure or lead, this roadmap will help you get in shape for what’s next.
After reading about this commercial and then seeing it, I felt it worthy of sharing, especially for those who may not be aware. So listen, watch and read about it. I think you’ll be impressed as I was. Enjoy! Thanks Tim Rudd of AdAge for your share.
Apple’s effervescent three-minute accessibility spot “I’m Not Remarkable” won the 2026 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial on Sunday—the tech giant’s third Emmy win for best commercial in the past four years and its second Emmy win partnering with Somesuch director Kim Gehrig on an accessibility message.
The five other nominees this year included another Apple spot—the holiday story “A Critter Carol”—as well as the Adidas World Cup spot “Backyard Legends”; Coinbase’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “Your Way Out”; Levi’s 2026 Super Bowl spot “Backstory”; and Nike’s “Why Do It?” anthem from last summer.
“I’m Not Remarkable,” made in-house by Apple, rolled out last December. Set to the Kittyy & The Class track of the same name, the musical piece follows Deaf and disabled students through classrooms, dorms and parties at college. The lyrics reject the usual narratives portraying disabled people as extraordinary, arguing instead that they simply use different tools. Apple features including Magnifier for Mac, Braille Access, Accessibility Reader, VoiceOver, AssistiveTouch and Live Captions appear throughout the film as students juggle lectures, friendships and deadlines.
Gehrig also directed Apple’s accessibility spot “The Greatest,” which won the Outstanding Commercial Emmy in 2023. Apple also won the award in 2024 for the holiday spot “Fuzzy Feelings.” (Uber One interrupted Apple’s streak last year, winning for the spot “Brian Cox Goes to College.”)
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
A very interesting look at one of America’s most iconic fashion and retail traditions from an insider’s perspective. Enjoy the intake and the share.
Opening Hook
Most people will remember Neiman Marcus as a department store.
She remembers it as one of Dallas’ greatest creative institutions.
Long before she became a designer, Bucki Rogers visited the downtown flagship not to shop—but to study.
Every season brought new window displays, new visual stories, and new reasons to stop and look.
Looking back, I realize those visits influenced my creative career far more than I understood at the time.
The Breakdown
For many people, Neiman Marcus was retail.
For creatives, it was inspiration.
Stanley Marcus and Ken Knight understood something many brands still struggle with today:
People don’t remember products. They remember experiences.
The windows weren’t displays. They were theater.
The store wasn’t a destination because of what it sold.
It was a destination because of how it made people feel.
Long before experiential marketing became a buzzword, Neiman Marcus was practicing it every day.
My Creative POV
I’m not a retail designer.
But I often find myself borrowing the same principles that made Neiman Marcus unforgettable:
Create anticipation
Reward curiosity
Make people feel something
Design the experience, not just the object
Some of the most important creative lessons I’ve learned didn’t come from a classroom or agency.
They came from places like Neiman Marcus.
Places where creativity was visible.
Accessible.
Public.
Why It Matters
As Dallas prepares to say goodbye to the flagship in September, I can’t help but think about the generations of designers, photographers, artists, merchandisers, and creative thinkers who walked through those doors and left inspired.
The building may close.
The influence won’t.
Great creative work doesn’t just sell products. It shapes future creatives. Sometimes the most influential design isn’t found in a studio. It’s found in the places that inspire us before we even know we’re looking for inspiration.
Thanks to Bucki Rogers, VP, Creative at X-Caliber & Affiliate Companies | Corporate Branding, Brand Marketing Strategy
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
Something you either have or you don’t. Something that shows up in artists, designers, musicians, but not in them.
Sir Ken Robinson spent decades challenging that assumption.
He argued that creativity isn’t a rare gift. It’s the application of imagination, and imagination is the birthright of every human being. The ability to bring in to mind things that aren’t present to our senses. To anticipate. To empathize. To invent.
“Clients respect talent” is a quote I read recently by Vincent Cullers, Advertising Hall of Fame. I wonder if this is universally true. Personally, I think not.
I think sometimes that’s what we’d like to think. More often than not, I’ve witnessed clients showing “ad agency execs” and/or creative professionals the lack of respect and not thinking anything of it. Now, in my experience not all clients are like this, obviously. But it only takes a few to put a sour taste in your mouth.
These are usually the type who have a greater-than-normal ego and believe they know everything or at least more than the ad guy in the room. Now, by “ad guy,” I’m referring to the expert who really knows his or her profession and has spent more than a year or two practicing the craft. This client loves to do his/her own thing and truly believes his ideas are amazing and should be implemented. That, naturally, is not always the case.
When the ad guy tries to explain to the client why this or that proposed idea may not work or is not appropriate, the client usually just ignores the logistics involved or the expense anticipated with an actual production. Also, depending on the maturity and experience level of the ad guy, the client may not appreciate the advice being given.
Times change, of course, as do people. Society can be very cruel at times as was evidenced decades ago during the fifties and sixties. No matter how smart one was, the color of one’s skin often determined whether or not one would even be invited into the conference room for a presentation.
“In those days, no African-Americans were working in advertising. They not only couldn’t get in the door, they didn’t go beyond the lobby.”
Vincent Cullers
Vincent T. Cullers (b. 1924 – October 4, 2003) was an American designer, advertising professional, and civil rights activist. Motivated by the civil rights movement in the United States, Vince Cullers made history in 1956 by founding Vince Cullers Advertising, recognized as the first African American-owned advertising agency.
Nowadays the color of one’s skin matters less than it did decades ago but, alas, the respect issue remains in some circles of the industry and society as a whole. Even the best qualified ad guy can tear down years of respect and admiration if he/she comes across as unprofessional, immature or, dare I say, irrespecutful. After all, respect goes two ways. It should always be upheld at both ends.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
This is an article I recently came across in AdAge by Tim Nudd about one of the more creative talents in the industry. It’s a very interesting interview that I think you’ll enjoy.
One of the industry’s most widely admired creatives, Gerry Graf has had quite the journey in advertising. He’s worked at big holding-company agencies and smaller indie boutiques (founding several of the latter himself) and developed a reputation along the way for entertaining—often outlandish—work underpinned by strong strategy.
Graf has also gotten into the creative awards game with his own show, Astroland, whose judges are required to be new to the business—as a way of shaking up how the industry views its best output.
As he takes on his new role at Joan, Graf talks about some of his favorite work, past and present, what he’s learned from running Astroland, how to be a better creative and why great ideas always make clients nervous.
Gerry, tell us … your first job in advertising, and your current job.
My first job in advertising was at Saatchi & Saatchi Health writing radio ads for Dexatrim—basically an amphetamine. Each ad starred Deidre Hall from the soap “Days of Our Lives” and started, “Independent studies prove that Dexatrim helps you lose weight.” Now: partner and global chief creative officer at Joan Creative.
An ad or campaign that inspired you coming up in the business.
Donna Weinheim and Cliff Freeman’s “Soviet Fashion Show” for Wendy’s from agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. I had a chance to work with Donna later on and confessed to her that I stole her Wendy’s ad structure for my first big hit with Snickers. She forgave me.
The last ad that made you jealous.
A content series for Alexis Bittar Jewelry called “The Bittarverse” from Mason Interactive. Netflix, if you are reading, please make this a series.
A recent project you’re proud of.
The last project I worked on with the greats at Slap Global for Lay’s FIFA World Cup called the Epic Watch Party It took a year to make and a lot of trust between us and a brave client. Messi, Beckham, Alexia Putellas, Steve Carrell and Thierry Henry plan a World Cup watch party. We worked with Meta to create a WhatsApp group so the five could plan in real time; it currently has 5 million members. It’s basically our own content channel where the stars post content, make fun of each other and actually plan a real watch party.
What you’re most excited about in joining Joan as chief creative officer.
Of course Lisa [Clunie, CEO] and all the talent at Joan. And the unrestricted independence to make the world’s best work.
The biggest thing you’ve learned in running the Astroland awards.
Astroland judges have five years or less of experience in advertising. They’re basically all Gen Z. The biggest thing I’ve learned from them is their definition of what an ad is. Winners have been TikTok content series (“Bittarverse”), independent creators messing around, concert tours, pop-up shops, album covers, subreddits, as well as classic 30-second videos. As one judge said, it’s “any creative expression that makes me feel something for a brand.”
One thing that can make anyone a better creative.
Work longer hours than everyone else.
What most brands still don’t understand about creativity.
Great ideas should make you nervous. If you want breakthrough work, there is always an element of risk. Ideas that the world talks about and sell millions of whatever you are selling always have an element that scares the client.
Something people might not know about you.
I was in my school production of “Fiddler on the Roof” as a bottle dancer at Tzeitel and Motel’s wedding.
Where advertising is headed next.
Hopefully we move to a space where advertising tells you something about a product or service that makes you consider buying it.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
Just a week or so ago the Cannes International Festival of Creativity was held in Cannes, France. Below is a write-up from AdAge’s Editor-in Chief on her impressions. Interesting reading!
It’s me! (at right) Moderating a panel at this year’s Cannes Lions
On my way to Cannes, Delta offered a $7,000 voucher to switch to a later flight because my red-eye was overbooked. I almost abandoned the festival altogether. In truth, I was already exhausted by the idea of yet another conversation about AI anxiety and another debate about how the heart of the festival—the creative—has been replaced by data and technology.
I begrudgingly got on the plane (at least I had the rosé to look forward to).
This year, though, Ad Age took a bit of a different approach to the festival. Instead of filling the week with back-to-back panels, we convened chief marketing officers, creators, agency executives and marketing leaders for smaller roundtable discussions. We gave them the space to talk more freely, and they went deep on the challenges they are facing (it wasn’t just AI):
In our CMO roundtable, marketers spent a meaningful amount of time talking about convincing CFOs that creativity matters.
During our creator-brand discussion, creators challenged brands to stop treating them like media buys and start treating them like strategic partners.
At our Leading Women Network roundtable, a conversation about career visibility quickly became one about the invisible work required simply to be in the room.
Each of those conversations, without fail, ended with talking about trust, community and what it means to build genuine connection. It was these conversations that made dealing with what the French consider air conditioning worth the trip.
Here’s what else I’m taking home from the conversations at this year’s festival:
Marketing is becoming more human, not less.
One of my favorite moments from the week came during a CMO Spotlight panel I moderated at the Palais. I asked each of them the same question:
In one word, what’s the future of marketing?
Zena Srivatsa Arnold, CMO of Sephora, answered: community.
Tamika Young, CMO of Hinge, said: heart.
Marta Moreno Gómez, senior marketing manager, Heineken and international premium brands, Heineken Company, chose: human.
Three different answers, but the sentiment was the same: the future of marketing is built on stronger human connections.
Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, described a world that’s becoming more insular, where consumers increasingly rely on smaller networks and trusted voices. His advice to marketers: shift messaging from “we” to “me.” Build trust by making people feel seen, understood and represented.
That same thinking surfaced elsewhere throughout the week:
Pinterest’s “Less URL. More IRL.” activation reflected a desire for deeper, real-world connections. Netflix centered its Cannes presence around fandom. Even conversations about creators weren’t really about creators—they were about the communities they’ve built and the trust they’ve earned.
Again and again, technology was discussed as an enabler, not the strategy itself.
The creativity conversation has changed
For years, one of the recurring debates at Cannes has been whether creativity—the very thing the festival was built to celebrate—has taken a back seat to performance marketing.
That conversation is still happening.
But this year, it felt secondary to a different one: how marketers can convince the rest of the organization that creativity is a business driver, not just a marketing function.
It showed up in different ways throughout the week. The new Creative Brand Lionsrecognized companies that have built creativity into the way they operate, not just those that produced a standout campaign. Procter & Gamble’s Marc Pritchard spoke about using AI to accelerate creativity, not replace it. And across conversations with marketing leaders, the focus was less on choosing between brand and performance and more on building organizations where creativity can consistently drive business results.
The question is no longer whether creativity matters. It’s how organizations create the conditions for it to thrive and how marketing leaders make the case for it across the business. Creativity is increasingly being viewed not as a campaign outcome, but as an organizational capability.
Creator marketing has grown up
Five years ago, most creator conversations revolved around reach, engagement and follower counts. That isn’t what I heard this week.
Brands talked about bringing creators into annual planning before a brief exists. Creators described themselves as consultants, product advisors and entrepreneurs. Compensation discussions extended beyond sponsorships to licensing, equity and long-term partnerships.
Edelman argued that brands should be investing less in celebrity and more in trusted creators with deep credibility inside smaller communities. The common thread was trust.
This year, marketers were asking much more practical questions: How should teams be organized? What work belongs in-house? Which workflows should AI handle? Where does human judgment still matter most?
Pritchard described AI as a way to uncover insights faster and accelerate creative development, not replace it. One participant in our roundtable captured the sentiment in a single sentence: “You still need people with excellent taste.”
That may have been my favorite quote of the week because it recognizes what technology still can’t replace.
Leadership isn’t just built at work
But the conversation that personally had the biggest impact on me came during our Leading Women Network roundtable.
We started by talking about networking, personal brands and career visibility. We ended up talking about everything it takes just to be in the room.
Women shared stories about partners rearranging schedules, grandparents flying in to help with childcare and the weeks of planning required simply to spend a few days in Cannes. One participant admitted she rarely talks publicly about those realities because she worries they’ll be interpreted as a lack of commitment. I suspect that’s true of many women leaders in this industry.
We spend a lot of time talking about how people become leaders. We spend far less time talking about what it takes to make leadership possible in the first place.
That conversation was a reminder that visibility isn’t just about raising your hand or building your network. For many leaders, it’s supported by an invisible layer of planning, tradeoffs and care work that rarely gets acknowledged but makes showing up possible.
The conversation that matters: Trust
If there was one thread running through nearly every conversation I heard, it was trust.
Edelman talked about consumers relying on smaller circles and trusted voices. CMOs talked about community, heart and being more human. Brand leaders talked aboutgiving creators more ownership. Marketers also talked about earning buy-in from their own organizations.
As the industry becomes more complex, technology alone isn’t going to solve the hardest problems. Those solutions come from people sharing ideas, challenging one another and learning together.
That’s why Ad Age keeps bringing this community together—not just to report on what’s changing, but to create space for people in the industry to make sense of it with one another.
I’m glad I didn’t take that $7,000 voucher.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
A short story aboutCharity Hospital New Orleans and its aftermath from Katrina
Prologue
NOLA. Its spirit stays with you long after you’ve gone. The sights, smells, music and culture all linger, sometimes even after one’s memories fade. Those thoughts, dreams, even nightmares can embody your neighbor’s flesh and blood even when that neighbor passed away long ago. Caution: Some photos may be too unnerving or unsettling for some viewers.
A little history . . .
Charity Hospital of New Orleans, LA has long been the medical headquarters for many patients. Some of whom, it is said, never left. If that is so, how many souls stayed behind after the hospital permanently closed? What of them? When alive they endured many horrific events with Hurricane Katrina. Many a sane person would have gone crazy during those times, not able to rid themselves of the nightmarish memories they must still have.
I wonder, do souls have nightmares? Do they wander around aimlessly and body-less seeking answers? Do they seek revenge of some sort? Do they yearn to inhabit other living or dead bodies to continue life anew?
Seems like this would be the stuff of an episode right out of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. While interesting to ponder, the hospital sat empty and abandoned for a long time without anything being done to recessitate it. A surreal set of circumstances led to its demise and only in New Orleans could an old, empty hospital reemerge as a haven for lost souls. Spirits, ghosts, whatever you like all need a place to gather, a place to call home. In NOLA’s Charity Hospital, they evidently found it.
But the story doesn’t end here; it merely continues. To what end, you may ask. Well, we don’t know . . . yet.
Chapter One
It was a dark and gloomy night in the French Quarter so we thought we’d stroll down a few blocks and see some old buildings. We eventually got to the section of Tulane Avenue where one of the oldest abandoned buildings in the area has sat empty for decades-Charity Hospital New Orleans.
Staring up at the 1939 built 20-story Art Deco building, one gets a feeling that the intimidating structure is not too keen on the idea of letting visitors inside its hallowed halls.
Nevertheless we marched slowly but steadily onward to see what had been left behind when it was evacuated because of Katrina in 2005.
In a word, not much. Yet there was a lot that remained. Indeed, some rooms we passed looked like time itself had died that horrific day. Other rooms appeared as if the patient had hardly gotten out of the room before the flood waters rushed in. And then there was the Autopsy Room.
The turn-of-the-century flooded autopsy theatre in the basement of Charity Hospital. Reddit.com
“Administration” Photo by Michael Alford
We drew closer not believing what we thought we saw. The patient appeared to be the only “living” creature in the room. Then suddenly one of the “surgeons” unexpectedly looked up and floated in our direction. It was obvious that he/she/it wanted us out of the room – NOW! We didn’t hesitate except for me; I felt like my shoes were glued to the floor. I kinda shook it off a bit and yelled “we’re going, we’re going!”
“And the Sky was Grey” by Michael Alford
As if these images didn’t make for an uneasy feeling in us, we made our way down this one hallway to see what more could be observed. That’s when we heard it; a soft, eerie-sounding voice whispering “Get out. Leave us alone. We don’t want you here.”
We all just froze. At first we didn’t know what to do or say, if anything. Finally, someone in our group said simply, “Let’s proceed anyway. I’m not going to let a strange voice scare me outta here.”
Well, we continued on, this time ascending two more floors. Alas, it was just as bad and desolate as downstairs. Some rooms appeared as if a bomb had gone off. Others looked like they had only recently been vacated.
Photo: Abandoned Southeast
Abandoned Southeast Photo (If one didn’t know any better, one might think that Housekeeping was running horribly late.)
Proceeding down the hallway we came to what appeared to be an operating room. As we peered inside we could see the patient on the table surrounded by ghost-like figures all dressed in surgical gowns.
Back in the hallway we all were grasping for breath and, yes, looking like we’d just seen a ghost! But before we had a chance to recover, approaching from the other end of the hallway were various other ghostly figures heading our way.
Adobe Stock
Upon seeing this, we wasted no time in locating the nearest stairwell and ran up, I don’t know, what seemed like several flights of stairs. We came out and were grasping for breath. At this point someone just spouted “to hell with the research, let’s get the hell outta here.”
“Okay, everyone, calm down. We’ve just had the wits scared out of us. If this were Halloween, it would be funny. C’mon, let’s proceed down this hallway and . . . “.
Chapter Two
Just then low screams came from a few doors down. When we got there we witnessed a shadowy figure sitting on the bedside with an ax and a pool of blood clearly visible on the floor with a severed hand laying in the blood.
“Oh my God,” blurted Selma. “Somebody do something! He’ll bleed to death,” she said.
“What makes you think he’s alive?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s not. He’s been that way for decades,” says a voice emanating from a nearby chair on the far side of the room.
This time, this ghost appeared more visible than his counterparts before. His features were distinctive but his body had an iridescent glow to it. He was there and yet he wasn’t.
“Excuse me, sir. Do you know this person?,” I asked. “Yes,” said the ghost. “He was my brother, Warren. He died years ago,” stated the ghost.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said I. “By the way, I’m Joe, this is Selma, Thad and Fred. We’re just exploring the hospital before it gets torn down. We honestly didn’t expect to come into contact with anyone here. But we have; at least we think we have,” I stated.
“My name is Walter. I died some years ago, too. As for meeting folks here, you have indeed come in contact with them. If they’ve seemed to be a little skiddish, they are. They’re not used to visitors especially when the hospital closed some years ago. Everyone in New Orleans thought Charity had been completely evacuated; alas, it was not, as you have seen.
“Oh sure,” Walter continued. “Every body was taken out of Charity but some of those died before being taken out. Those souls decided to stay and remain with the friends they had made while here.”
“So what about you, Walter?,” I asked. “Well,” he started, “I kinda look after this place and my friends. We’re not leaving as we have no place to go. Our families have accepted our deaths and have moved on. Why would we want to go back after all these years and disturb their peace? No sir, not gonna do it!,” Walter stated flatly.
When we reconvened out in the hallway we thought about what to do next.
We all thought it best to leave then so we began toward the stairwell. As we started our descent, we could hear in the distance jazz music from the downstairs coffee shop where a jazz quartet played . . . decades ago. All would be dead by now.
Chapter Three
As Selma led the way and was making the turn on that flat “transition” area between floors, she was startled by the sudden appearance of a cloud-like image swinging an ax and, in the blink of an eye, thrusting it into the mid-section of Selma’s body.
As soon as it began it was over, with the image disappearing into and through the wall. Selma was writhing in pain lying down in a pool of blood grasping for breath. There was little we could do. In moments she would be dead.
Walking down fifteen flights of stairs in a building without power or air conditioning is taxing enough. When you add on carrying a dead body under these conditions it makes for a grueling exercise.
The remaining three of us just knelt there beside Selma, all stunned and in shock. Before we knew it, Fred jumped up, hysterical, and screamed, “I’ve got to get out of here; we’re not wanted!”
With that, he jumped up and proceeded to run downstairs, from the fifteenth floor, but seemed to trip as he was rounding the corner of the stairwell, broke through the railing and fell to the lobby and to his death.
Thad and I exchanged horrified looks and just remained there, motionless and not saying a word.
Chapter Four
Then I stated as calmly as I could, “Ok, let’s proceed together, steadily down the stairs to the lobby. It’s just the two of us now, Thad; there’s nothing more we can do here.”
“But what about Selma? We can’t just leave her here; she deserves better.,” Thad remarked.
“You’re right, Thad, she does,” I injected. So we both picked her up as gently as we could and proceeded resuming our trek downstairs. I suggested we take a moment’s break on the tenth floor to gather ourselves.
We reached the tenth floor and rested some. We were both sweating profusely but had nothing to wipe the sweat from our burning eyes.
Almost there we thought. Adrenaline had started to kick in and traversing the next five flights wasn’t nearly so difficult as we suspected it would be.
We each winked at one another and allowed a wry smile on our faces; we were close to getting out of here. We then took a few more steps then stopped. Froze. We heard something that sounded like crackling wood. Before either one of us could say anything, the floor of the stairwell began to give and in a flash both Thad and Selma’s body fell the remaining five floors. If she was still alive she wouldn’t have survived the drop. Thad wouldn’t have either.
Chapter Five
So now it was just me. Five floors to the lobby and exit. I was shaking so badly I could hardly stand. I managed to steady myself as best I could and slowly, holding onto the railing, got down to the second floor but I had to stop once more to catch my breath.
A few more steps and I’m home free, I thought. When I got to the landing area between first and second floors I just stopped again and thought about what we’d just accomplished. Just a few more steps . . . And then from behind I felt the unnerving sensation of being pushed. Before I knew it I was head over heels tumbling downward and unceremoniously heading for the first floor.
For what had to be only a few seconds, it felt like I was tumbling through infinity. Then, suddenly, I felt motionless, I wasn’t falling anymore. I guess I was laying on the concrete floor but I didn’t feel a thing. Didn’t even feel my heart pumping. My breathing? Don’t think I was. My mind was slowing down, now almost to a standstill.
Is this what it’s like when . . . you’re. . . dying . . .
A final thought to my story. Four new souls entered Charity Hospital to see what happened inside thanks to a wicked woman named Katrina. During their journey they met some very interesting residents, all of whom called Charity home. Never mind that the hospital has been closed for decades and that there are no living residents inside. As there have been since Katrina there are now only souls, the souls of Charity.
Epilogue
The historic Charity Hospital building in New Orleans is undergoing a massive $600+ million redevelopment with Tulane University serving as the anchor tenant and become the heart of Tulane’s Downtown Medical School. The iconic New Orleans hospital served the community for a century as the City’s safety-net hospital, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and training thousands of doctors and nurses. Old Charity will become the flagship building for Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, as well as housing for biomedical research labs, Tulane’s Innovation Institute and their School of Professional Advancement. The revitalized structure is expected to open around 2027.
The project is moving forward through a complex, years-long journey to revitalize the 90-year-old, 20-story structure that has been largely vacant since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The Vision: The billion-square-foot facility is being renovated to include state-of-the-art medical and life-science labs, approximately 300 apartments, commercial offices, and retail space.
Tulane University’s Role: Tulane has committed to occupying at least 500,000 square feet of the massive building for public health, biomedical research, and teaching purposes.
Funding and Politics: The redevelopment faced a major political battle when the New Orleans City Council allocated $20 million in bond/trust funds to help speed up the construction. Mayor LaToya Cantrell previously vetoed this ordinance out of concern for other city budget priorities, but the City Council successfully voted to override the veto to keep the project on.
Hurricane Katrina flooded Charity’s basement, shutting down the hospital and trapping roughly 360 patients and 1,200 staff members inside. Weeks later, a team of volunteers, contractors and the military cleaned out the lower floors to get the hospital “medical ready,” but it would never reopen.
For a closer look at how this monumental structure is being reimagined, you can explore the Charity Hospital Redevelopment Project or read about Tulane’s plans on the Charity Redevelopment page.
The 90-year-old, 20-story Charity Hospital building that has been vacant since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (Photo by Lance Traweek.)
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.
