Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:35:15 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Diane Francis :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Diane+Francis istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/draft-fcbs-unique-style-lands-wal-mart-account/42550/ Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST Only giant and small, specialized advertising agencies will survive as market conditions force medium-sized firms out of business or into the arms of competitors, predicted veteran Madison Avenue denizen Brendan Ryan. "To be in the middle is a bad place to be. This is true in every industry," said the lanky vice chairman of FCB Worldwide, formerly Foote Cohn & Belding. "I can't think of any industry where the middle is thriving." Not surprisingly, Mr. Ryan is heeding his own advice: His... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/avenue-as-online-focus-stays-ahead-of-curve/42137/ Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST In five years, consumers will pay for subway rides, soft drinks, and airline tickets by swiping their cellular telephones. Touch screens will completely replace cashiers at retail outlets. Buttons in cars will automatically download music ordered online, and groceries will show up on doorsteps based on past shopping patterns. "The credit card may be replaced by cell phones or fingerprints and we will be living digitally in ways that are not imagined yet," the president of the eastern region for... Diane Francis http://www.nysun.com/business/hip-saatchi-couple-makes-more-than-coffee-ads/41641/ Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST Saatchi & Saatchi began decades ago as an advertising partnership between two British brothers. Today, its New York executive team of CEO Mary Baglivo and her chief creative officer Tony Granger continues that "fraternal" tradition. The two have been in charge of Madison Avenue's third largest agency since 2004. Symbolically, they share a glass boardroom that links their two spacious white-on-white offices in Greenwich Village. Mrs. Baglivo is one of the industry's highest-ranking women and... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/young-smart-firm-finds-digital-truth-on-madison/41201/ Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST Digitas Inc. started off life in 1980 designing direct mail pieces and running telemarketing operations for clients. Then along came the Internet and email. So nine years ago the company transformed itself, changed its name to a combination of "digital" and "veritas"and is now one of the hottest, Internet-oriented advertising agencies in the country. In fact, Digitas is where Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley converge. "At first we just built Websites and technology for clients, then we became... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/nimble-frog-looks-to-outmaneuver-the-dinosaurs/40807/ Tue, 3 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST The co-founder and creative director of advertising firm Strawberry Frog, Scott Goodson, said his company is named after an extremely rare species of reptile that is red with blue legs and lives in the Amazon rainforest. "Frogs are smarter and faster than the big, slow dinosaurs we compete against," said Mr. Goodson. "The frog versus the dinosaur is 21st-century thinking versus 20th-century thinking." Strawberry Frog is one of the few advertising agencies actually located these days on Madison... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/vietnam-era-protestor-who-became-the-establishment/40332/ Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST In the 1960s, Jim Heekin was all about rejecting the 'Establishment.' For him, that meant the Vietnam War and the advertising world in which his father worked. Funny, because today he is a ranking member of the Madison Avenue establishment as chairman and CEO of Grey Worldwide, an enterprise with 10,000 employees across the globe. "I grew up in the business. I went to a small liberal arts college and became a war protester. My thing was to avoid business and become a teacher," Mr. Heekin said... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/campaign-refugees-created-livestrong-bracelets/39907/ Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST Rob Shepardson and Lenny Stern enjoyed working together on an election campaign in Pennsylvania. So they decided to put their talents for organization to work on behalf of corporations. Their collaboration, called SS+K for Shepardson, Stern, and their friend Mark Kaminsky, was launched 13 years ago and is a business version of the political campaign. But it's on behalf of clients as varied as the New York Knickerbockers, Polo Ralph Lauren, Unicef and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/ogilvy-chief-makes-technology-his-focus/39465/ Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide, spent the last 18 months touring his company's 100 offices hunting for trends and found the monster that is affecting all businesses. "The monster is that consumers everywhere are seizing back control through the use of technology," he said in an interview with The New York Sun. "The iPod is not about a technology. It's people seizing back music agendas from the DJs of the world. TiVo isn't a storage device but it is people... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/ad-agencies-like-taxis-have-their-limits/38729/ Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST Paul LaVoie was inspired by the famous ad man, Jay Chiat, who once asked: "How big do we have to get before we get bad?" Mr. LaVoie, founder and chief creative officer of the hip, new advertising boutique called Taxi, believes the answer to Mr. Chiat's question is 150. "When a certain African tribe reaches 150 people, it sends two of its leaders out to start another tribe," he said in a recent interview. "The United States Army never has more soldiers in a unit than 150 or else it's... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/kiwi-advertising-legend-a-radical-optimist/38339/ Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST Kevin Roberts was kicked out of school at age 17 in northwest England, but immediately landed a marketing job in the 1960s with British designer Mary Quant in swinging London. Years later, he and his family live in remote New Zealand but he globe trots the world as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, a giant advertising agency with 134 offices in 84 countries and 7,000 employees. With far-flung operations and a home "on the edge of the world" as he puts it, he is a denizen of airports and hotels... Diane Francis http://www.nysun.com/business/google-breaks-more-ground-in-advertising/37917/ Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST Whenever someone goes to the Google Web site and searches for "mesothelioma," Google Inc. receives $50 from each of the law firms and other advertisers that pay to guarantee their ads appear next to the search results. The price for this "key word" for a form of asbestos cancer is the highest paid to Google by advertisers. While Google's system of matching "key words"with content and its pay-perclick charges are transforming advertising, its recently announced deals with three high-profile... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/general-in-the-battle-to-win-attention/37511/ Tue, 8 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST In the 1980s, Paul Taaffe was a young advertising executive who immigrated to London from Australia and eventually fell in love with the city. When asked in 2002 to move to New York to run the worldwide operations of public relations giant Hill & Knowlton, he balked. "I suggested I could run Hill & Knowlton from London, but my chairman, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP Group, said, 'There are only six multinationals in the U.K., and we're one of them,'" Mr. Taaffe said recently in his New York... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/fishing-for-eyes-in-a-changing-advertising/37097/ Tue, 1 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST Jon Mandel's hobby is fishing, while his day job, as chairman of MediaCom, consists of trying to land the best places for clients to advertise. The latter "fish" aren't exactly jumping these days. "Advertisers must be more targeted and find communities or small groups where there is a commonality of interests," he said during a recent interview in his New York office. "For instance, there is no more prime time TV. Everyone has a different prime time. Lifestyles have changed since the 1950s. Now... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/bbdo-chief-wants-to-spark-love-affairs-with/36665/ Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST Veteran ad man Dave Lubars likes to point out that as of 2003 the average American citizen was being bombarded by 5,000 advertising messages a day, up from 950 in 1985, as the number of TV stations soared to 200 from 15 in some regions during the period, magazine titles jumped by 50%, and Internet usage soared. "Despite all this choice, the amount of time people spend consuming media remains the same, or around 60 hours per week," the khaki-clad chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/public-relations-reaches-blogosphere/36215/ Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST A few years ago, when Richard Edelman and his public relations associates wanted to pitch a story on behalf of a corporate client, they would call their contact list of influential editors and television personalities. These days, they also pitch Web loggers. "Public relations has changed so that now we call both. In other words, we pitch from the bottom up as well as from the top down," Mr. Edelman said in a recent interview with The New York Sun. "We have nine full-time bloggers to advise... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/boom-in-online-advertising-is-seen-by-sir-martin/36014/ Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST Online advertising will double within a handful of years, the founder and CEO of global powerhouse WPP Group PLC in London, Sir Martin Sorrell, said. Meanwhile, advertising spending as a whole will outpace economic growth for years to come. "This year, ad expenditures are already ahead, with the World Cup, Winter Olympics, and midterm election campaigns, which will spend $1.5 billion on advertising," Sir Martin said during a recent interview with The New York Sun in his New York offices. "In... DIANE FRANCIS http://www.nysun.com/business/humor-think-aflac-duck-is-key-to-kaplan-thalers/35077/ Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST In the 1970s, Linda Kaplan Thaler was fired from her job as an actor in a road show production of "Hair" after she refused to take off her clothes onstage. She taught music for a short while, and then began writing jingles for advertisers after her father introduced her to friends at an ad agency. Ms. Kaplan Thaler ended up working for 20 years at J. Walter Thompson and other agencies. In 1997, she launched her own company out of her Manhattan brownstone. That company, the Kaplan Thaler Group...