Tag Archives: Advertising Age

What Advertising Week 2026 revealed about AI, creators and media buying

Just last week I read in AdAge about recent developments in the industry to deal with current trends and news-making discussion. Thanks to Ewan Larkin, Gillian Follett, Brandon Doerrer, and Jon Springer for putting this article together. I felt it appropriate to share with you for reading pleasure and knowledge.

Advertising Week New York returned to the Penn District last week with a bevy of creators, the same dizzying lines and crowds and, at least in intent, less AI conversation. Agentic media buying was a hot topic, too, with executives mulling over how much control software should have over the process. Key takeaways below.

The push and pull of AI

One year after ChatGPT trucks swarmed the conference, Advertising Week tried to turn down the volume on AI. The push started before the event, with a campaign promoting face-to-face interaction. This week, event staff wore T-shirts urging attendees to “give AI a break,” a message that also blared on screens during panels.

“I’ve been to eight conferences this year and this is the first one where the panels and conversations were not completely dominated by talk of AI,” said Tom Morrissy, chief growth officer at media agency Noble People.

That could also be because some of the AI conversation shifted to other marketing conferences held this week. Former WPP CEO Mark Read brought his new invite-only, AI-focused event series, Prompt, to Manhattan on Tuesday. On Wednesday, influencer marketing platform Statusphere hosted its inaugural Status Summit, centered on how AI is reshaping the customer journey. And on Thursday, marketing leaders including Ulta Chief Marketing Officer Kelly Mahoney and PepsiCo Beverages U.S. CMO Mark Kirkham took the stage at Zeta Live, the annual conference hosted by martech company Zeta Global. 

Still, plenty of Advertising Week programming focused on AI, from agentic commerce to how brands compete in the world of large language models. There was a good deal of tech on display, too. Kovio, which sells ad space on humanoid robots, had one stumbling through the building, waving and blowing kisses at the many passersby it drew.

Celebrities, big crowds and a change in venue

The Female Quotient’s FQ Lounge was one of the hottest spots, consistently packed from Monday through Wednesday as attendees sought out CMOs and brand executives.

Trevor Noah drew a long line for his Great Minds Stage session focused on brand partnerships and YouTube. Attendees also crammed into the small Marketplace Stage room to see Terry Crews and leaders from Ogilvy and Creative Artists Agency discuss AI and protecting creator and celebrity likenesses. TikTok star-turned-entrepreneur Alix Earle was on stage Tuesday morning for a conversation about the creator economy.

Creator marketing has outgrown the sponsored post

Conversations around creator marketing have officially evolved beyond best practices for brand-sponsored social posts. Several panels instead explored creators’ growing influence on everything from AI search to Hollywood.

On Thursday, creator Dhar Mann took over the main stage to host Advertising Week’s first “Creator Day,” where CMOs, creators and other attendees participated in games and challenges inspired by reality TV formats. A session called “The Masked CMO” (inspired by Fox’s “The Masked Singer”) had NFL CMO Tim Ellis, Blizzard Entertainment CMO Monica Austin and Wendy’s newly installed CMO Tariq Hassan don cloaks and masks and describe what they’re seeking from creator partners.

“Facilitating the environments where creators and marketers can be together in the same room is something I think we need to do more often,” said Jessica Williams, CMO of financial services app OnePay, who spoke during Mann’s Creator Day. She said she’s focused on establishing more direct relationships with creators, particularly those who work with the brand on larger, longer-term campaigns, rather than routing everything through agencies.


“I have so many creators now that I can just text [to ask] ‘Hey, what do you think about this? Do you have anyone who might be interested in this?’” Williams said. Earle made a similar point during her main stage appearance, saying she’s currently in group chats with two brands she’s working on campaigns for and values being directly involved in those discussions.

Blenders Eyewear took that philosophy a step further in July, when it brought creator Jordan Howlett into the C-suite as the brand’s first chief content officer. On stage at Advertising Week, Howlett and Blenders CEO Jack Gray discussed how the partnership goes beyond a typical ambassador deal, giving Howlett a say in the brand’s content strategy and product development.

“We’re reaching such a transitional period, where I think a lot of people—creator, brand or otherwise—are realizing that the previous [creator marketing] model … has run its course,” Howlett told Ad Age. He expects that more brand-creator partnerships in 2027 will resemble his relationship with Blenders. 

Another recurring theme was marketers allocating bigger parts of their creator budgets to creator-hosted events and experiences in 2027. Scott and Alexis Fisher, co-founders of Creator Nation, the newly launched, Live Nation-backed creator management venture, told Ad Age that helping creators organize and host live events—from stadium tours to mall meet-and-greets—is a major priority for the firm.

“We want to bring back that fandom and the fan experience that really drives creators,” said Scott Fisher, who founded talent firm Select Management Group in 2010. He recalled that in the creator economy’s early days, “our clients would show up to a mall, and the fire department would get called” when the crowd inevitably got too large. “If you have fans, then you have a business—a long-term business.”

Creator-hosted events are emerging as a bigger priority across industries. OnePay’s Williams and Carlos Wigle, chief creative officer at personal-injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, both said they plan to partner with creators on events next year. “In a world of AI, people want those real experiences,” Williams said. 

Agentic media buying questions remain

Leaders from brands and agencies discussed the potential for AI agents to take over more of the media buying process, and questions remain about how much control advertisers are actually willing to hand over. Several sessions explored the technology needed to automate media transactions, connect agents across buying platforms and shift more investment decisions away from humans.

A Thursday session presented by Vistar Media—featuring Maureen Bosetti, chief investment officer at Omnicom Media; Bruce Williams, CEO of dentsu X; and Danielle Sporkin, senior VP of media and marketing services at Ferrero—examined the risk of prioritizing faster media execution at the expense of strategy, creative and a meaningful understanding of audiences. At a Wednesday panel hosted by Snowflake, Jason Dailey, North American agency partnerships lead at Meta, and Mike Treon, head of connected TV and video strategy at PMG, stressed that agents still need a deeper understanding of brands’ businesses before they can be trusted to make those decisions.

Dailey said agents need three things to make useful media decisions: context, constraints and an understanding of consequences. That includes everything from a brand’s budget and margins to seasonality and restrictions on where it will advertise. While AI models have become more sophisticated, connecting them to that information remains challenging.

“The models were really never the hard part,” Dailey said. “The hard part was, how do you take those three C’s and then actually get that into the ad system?”

Meta announced new capabilities for its AI business assistant that provide more memory of advertisers’ past campaigns, goals and seasonality, along with tests of tools that allow advertisers to create campaigns, adjust targeting and change budgets through conversational prompts. Meta is also expanding its Model Context Protocol server, which allows advertisers to connect outside AI tools to its ad platform. Actions prepared by agents can be transferred into Ads Manager as drafts, with explicit advertiser approval required before campaigns go live.

For now, adoption remains uneven. Dailey said some agency partners are restricting access to agentic tools to a handful of employees, while others are making them available across their organizations. The degree of autonomy varies as well, from allowing agents to retrieve campaign information to permitting them to make actual changes. Those decisions depend partly on each organization’s technology investments and appetite for risk.

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.

Gerry Graf on the changing shape of ads and the risk/reward of great ideas

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.

This month, Graf left Slap Global, the agency he co-founded in 2020 with Maxi Itzkoff, to join Joan Creative as global chief creative officerfollowing the departure of Jaime Robinson. At Joan, he reunites with CEO Lisa Clunie, a Saatchi & Saatchi colleague from two decades ago.

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.

What I’m taking home from Cannes—takeaways from Editor-in-Chief Jeanine Poggi

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!

Jeanine Poggi, editor-in-chief at Ad Age, speaks on stage with executives from Sephora US, Hinge and Heineken Mexico.
It’s me! (at right) Moderating a panel at this year’s Cannes Lions

ByJeanine Poggi, Ad Age editor-in-chief

June 27, 2026 07:00 AM EDT

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). 

And yes, there was plenty of hand-wringing over AI, plenty of debate about how exclusive and closed off the festival has become and, of course, plenty of complaints about the unbearable heat. 

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. 

AI is moving from novelty to infrastructure.

Last year, many of the conversations around AI centered on disruption.

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.

Ideas, not AI, will decide who survives in 2030

In a world where everything can be personalized and optimized, there’s only one true differentiator left: ideas. (Adobe Stock)

AI will undoubtedly shrink the marketing services industry. Or so that’s the opinion of industry paper Ad Age via author Barry Lowenthal in a recent piece a few weeks back. Thought it worthwhile to share again especially to those of you who may not have seen it yet.

Many of the functions agencies are paid for today—targeting, media planning, asset versioning — are already being handled faster and cheaper by machines.

Yet the most successful agencies in 2030 won’t be those with the biggest AI budgets; they’ll be the ones still capable of original thought.

Since the explosion of generative AI, holding companies have raced to future-proof themselves, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the technology. They’ve hired engineers, signed vendor deals and built proprietary tools. The logic is that automation improves margins by enabling more work to be produced with less overhead, and it’s attractive to clients.

But here’s the problem: Everyone is doing the same thing.

AI platforms might look different, but they’re powered by the same foundation—similar models, trained on similar data, offering similar outputs.

AI is a great equalizer. While early investment and enterprise deals offer short-term advantages, the tools are ultimately accessible to all. As technology becomes commodified, there’s only one true differentiator left: ideas.

In a world where everything can be personalized and optimized—where every ad element, from celebrity to color palette to music cue, is engineered for conversion—what cuts through is the unexpected.

Zany, emotional, human ideas. The kinds that make people laugh out loud, tear up or text a friend because it hit a nerve. The kind no algorithm can predict because they come from life experience, not data.

Those ideas aren’t born from prompts or dashboards, but from humans living messy, interesting lives—wandering museums, walking unfamiliar streets, swapping stories at a dive bar.

The agencies that stay relevant in an AI era will be the ones that protect this kind of cultural immersion. They’ll hire for life experience, not just technical literacy. They’ll measure inspiration like they do performance, instead of grinding their teams into creative exhaustion. They’ll reward originality over speed and efficiency. 

If the goal is to survive the next five years, curiosity and creative instinct must be treated as core competencies.

That means rethinking workflows to allow time for discovery, not just delivery. It means protecting those unproductive long walks and deep rabbit holes.

The payoff won’t always show up neatly in a dashboard, so it will be a challenging pitch to the CFO. But in a world where AI devours everything else agencies in once thought made them valuable, it’s the only bet worth making.

That’s the future. And no, you can’t buy it; you have to nurture it.

********

I agree with Mr. Lowenthal, original thought leading to creatively inspired ideas will and must lead the way. I’ve been involved in this business for several decades and I realize that the industry has turned into a young person’s game. Most have grown up with AI and consider it the “standard.” That is unfortunate. It still must be considered a tool in the work belt of the creative person who’s developing the idea. It can’t be used as the end-all. That is unless sameness is one’s idea of creative thought.

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.

‘Unfairy Tales’ Wins Cannes Grand Prix

This animated spot is simply awesome. And touching. And serious. And gripping.

It sort of grips you by the throat as you’re reaching for the Kleenex.

UNICEF_UnfairyTalesMalakandtheBoat16

Every so often I see a commercial or piece of design work that intrigues me or, in this case, stops me in my tracks. The photo still alone does that but the spot goes on to do more damage to my soul.

According to Advertising Age’s “Creativity,” 180LA and UNICEF have earned the Cannes Grand Prix for Good for the “Unfairy Tales” campaign, a series of films that first seem to start out like sweet kids’ stories but then take dramatic and, at times, terrifying turns when you discover the children are fleeing for their lives from war-torn Syria.

Among the stories were the tale above, “Malak and the Boat,” which chronicled a seven-year-old girl’s harrowing journey on the seas, and, at the end of the trip, is the only survivor of a boat that had been once full of her fellow countrymen.

Kudos to the men and women who had the guts to go forth with this message and for the artful way in which it was created and produced. While the animation brings a potent emotional punch to the stories, the appearance of the real-life protoganists at the end of each short really drives the point home.

Visually stimulating animation and poignant storytelling.

A powerful combination. We’d be well served to see more of this.

The short films mark the debut of UNICEF’s #actofhumanity global initiative, designed to promote positive perception of the tens of millions of refugee children around the world.

The Grand Prix for Good is chosen from all the Gold Lion-winning work that was created for charities or not for profit, as well as those with public service messages, with the exception of those awarded in Pharma, Health/Wellness, Innovation and Film Craft. Such efforts are not eligible for Grand Prix in their respective categories. The Titanium/Integrated Grand Prix jury determines the winner.

Nicely done and well deserved!

A little creative juice for the soul. Thank You, Creativity!

Ever get curious? Well, I was curious as to what the back cover of my Advertising Age issues referred when they featured someone and a quote. Near the bottom of the page was listed “Thank You Creativity.”

join-us-02

OK, what gives?

“A love letter to the stories, lessons and magic of creativity.” Or so says the home page.

The rest is rather intriguing. See for yourself and Enjoy.

Thank You, indeed, Creativity!

Advertising Hall of Fame Quotes – Part 6

Here’s the sixth in a series of various worth-remembering quotes which I find interesting and inspiring, and, hopefully, you will, too. Excerpted from the newsletter “Smart Brief” from the American Advertising Federation, these quotes are usually from a member of the Advertising Hall of Fame.

quote

51. I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

— David Ogilvy

52. Too many ads that try not to go over the reader’s head end up beneath his notice.

— Leo Burnett

53. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

— Maya Angelou (not part of original series; just a great quote)

54. Meetings are all too often the burial grounds of great ideas.

— Keith Reinhard

55. Play by the rules, but be ferocious.

— Phil Knight

56. A good ad should be like a good sermon: It must not only comfort the afflicted, it also must afflict the comfortable.

— Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

57. Some questions don’t have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.

— Katharine Graham

58. Appeals that sound good when described to a client or employer are not always the most effective appeals that can be used. Clever, tricky ideas often sound fine when described in a conference room. But some simple, basic, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face idea will sell more goods.

— John Caples

59. Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.

— John Wanamaker

60. I think the harder you work, the more luck you have.

— Dave Thomas

So, which ones are your favorites?

Do you have a favorite or favorites in the series?

Lemme know.

Advertising Hall of Fame Quotes – Part 2

Here’s another in a multi-part series of various worth-remembering quotes which I believe you’ll find interesting and hopefully inspiring. Excerpted from the newsletter “Smart Brief” from the American Advertising Federation, these quotes are usually from a member of the Advertising Hall of Fame.

Get ready to chuckle, and, I hope, remember.

q-curly-double

11. Know what the client wants, know what the client needs, and know how to cause the client to want what the client needs.

— Keith Reinhard

12. The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.

— Charles Brower

13. The three ingredients of effective advertising are relevance, originality and impact, the initials of which spell out what clients most desire: ROI.

— Keith Reinhard

14. Anyone who thinks that people can be fooled or pushed around has an inaccurate and pretty low estimate of people — and he won’t do very well in advertising.

— Leo Burnett

15. Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved in the broth.

— Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

16. When you are through changing, you are through.

— Bruce Barton

17. There are two kinds of men who don’t amount to much: those who can’t do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.

— Cyrus H. K. Curtis

18. You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different. And that’s what too many of the copywriters in the U.S. today don’t yet understand.

— Rosser Reeves

19. Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret … to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink.

— Leo Burnett

20. An important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all.

— William Bernbach

So, which one or ones is/are your favorite(s)? Lemme know.

Why Would Burger King Sell Red Burgers in Japan?

Sell red what? That’s what I thought when I first saw the headline, “The Inside Story on Why Burger King Sells Red Burgers in Japan.”

I didn’t think someone would make this up, especially since Advertising Age was reporting the story. Well, I became intrigued and felt like this may make for an interesting blog post on a site like this, exploring all forms of creativity and innovation.

Even in a land of relentlessly wacky fast food innovations, Burger King Japan has nabbed a lot of attention with its all-black burgers.

BK's Black Burger

Burger King Japan’s black burger.

Yeah, you heard right. The sight of pitch-black buns and cheese, evidently, really gets to people.

Pass the Pepto, please!

But wait, that’s nothing.

Burger King Japan recently launched an all-red burger, with red-colored cheese, buns and, obviously, hot sauce. A Google search turned up more than 150 headlines in English alone on the new creation.

What Better Way to Get Brand Attention on a Tight Budget?

The Aka Samurai from Burger King Japan. Also comes with chicken.

BK's Red Burger

As some of you may be gasping about now at the sight of the Red Burger (personally, I prefer the sight of the Red version over the Black), the question arising in my mind was “why?”

Obviously, the folks at Ad Age were curious, too. So, Burger King Japan’s general manager for business management, Masanori Tatsuiwa, who worked previously at agencies including Ogilvy & Mather Japan, answered a few questions about the red Aka Samurai Burger (buns and cheese tinted with tomato powder), the black Kuro Burger (which used bamboo charcoal and squid ink), as well as the brand’s “flame-grilled” personal fragrance.

Here are excerpts from that interview . . .

Ad Age: Where do these ideas come from, and what’s your process?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: We sit down with marketing and R&D look for something unusual. When we start to think about something, we have taste tests inside the restaurant. We have 93 restaurants in Japan.

At the moment we don’t have much ad budget in our hands, so we do almost everything by ourselves. We are not using any creative agencies for these products. This way we don’t need any big money to expand our awareness in the market.

Burger King is not big compared to the competitor companies in Japan. McDonald’s has about 3,000 restaurants in Japan. The local MOS Burger chain has almost 1,400 restaurants. (Editor’s note: Burger King re-entered Japan in 2007, after a first attempt had failed after eight years in 2001 amid tough fast food competition.)

Ad Age: How big is your marketing team?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: Five people. Including R&D.

Ad Age: So, why red this time?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: This is the fourth year we’ve had a black burger, and we wanted to have something new happen this year. And we were also thinking about the Burger King “Angry Whopper,” (a jalapeno-laden rendition of the classic), that launched in some markets, but with the color the same as usual. Brown. We thought making it red would make people curious and express the hot taste.

Ad Age: Are other markets picking up on these ideas?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: Burger King Singapore has a black burger and a white burger this year. Burger King Malaysia has a black burger called the Ninja.

Ad Age: On April 1 you had a one-day-only sale of something called “Flame-Grilled Fragrance.” (The 1,000-piece limited edition flasks sold for $41 and came with a Whopper. They sold out.) Why a perfume?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: The idea came from Burger King in the U.S., they had a perfume several years ago. We thought we could use that on “Whopper Day” in Japan.

We were thinking if we announced a launch for this kind of perfume for April 1 (yes, April Fool’s Day), some people might think it wasn’t true (and that would generate more conversations about it). But we seriously produced this product, and that was very effective. We collaborated with a local perfume company and asked them to produce a flame-grilled smell. It was a very unique order for them. They worked very hard on it. (I’m not making this up, gang. Sounds like the perfect White Elephant gift.)

Ad Age: How were sales?

Mr. Tatsuiwa: It was a record for one-day sales on a weekday.

Now, honestly, even as promotion-crazy as we tend to be in the US of A, I wonder if either one of these would fly. What do you think, marketers and creative folks? Would any of you client companies have the guts to try something like this or to let your agencies develop this kind of special promotion?

I doubt it.

Hell, if it tastes good, why not. Just put on a blindfold while eating one (especially the black version).

When we fail to fail, we fail. Creativity suffers.

In his recent talk before the Ad Age Small Agency Conference, Dan Wieden, co-founder of Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, OR, stressed the importance of failure, or, rather, the freedom to fail.

Talking about his agency’s mantra, “fail harder,” Mr. Wieden referenced the significance of one making three collossal mistakes before moving on to more fruitful creativity. He mentioned how mistakes are too often seen as marks of stupidity, instead of building blocks of knowledge.

I know, not everyone feels they have the flexibility to make ONE mistake, let alone three or more. That’s a scary thought!

Consistent barriers seem to be erected that prevent us from experiencing failure. Some are self-imposed, while others are insinuated by organizations and companies with which we work or perform services. Time to fail is rarely included in the timeline for producing most projects.

Everyone wants results now, not three days from now (at least, that’s how it feels at times). Yet, one must be diligent in expressing doubt that a hurried or tight timeline would include time to fail.

In today’s fast-paced business climate, failure doesn’t seem to be tolerated. “We don’t have time to fail,” seems to be the business mantra. Ah, therein lies the rub.

When it comes to creativity, those of us practicing it everyday don’t seem to be allowed to think about failure. Yes, I admit it – I did not achieve perfection on the first draft of my _________ (fill in the blank with design, article, illustration, photograph or whatever).

I “failed.”

190px-The_Scream

Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”

That’s hogwash (technical term)!

Companies like Nike, Apple, Pixar and even others much smaller in size, openly embrace failure and incorporate it into their systems.

Those who don’t engage creativity everyday, seem to think that it’s some commodity one can easily switch on or off at will. This attitude does a disservice to those involved in practicing the craft as well as for whom they are practicing it.

It’s unrealistic to ignore failure. It’s unrealistic not to schedule time for its possible appearance. It’s reality that we need to learn from the process to improve upon what we just created. We need to make time to do that, and then move on.

The other reality: Will anybody really care?