Well, it was a long, cruel winter. But we’re back!

Speaking of long and cruel—for a lot of us in adland, the procurement process can feel like a long, cold winter night after the warm fireside singalong of a new business win.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Procurement can be an ally—if you take the time to understand their role at the client, what the discipline values and the language they use to communicate their needs.

In an effort to foster greater client-agency understanding, we hosted David Stowe on the podcast this month. Dave’s an experienced, senior procurement leader, and he did a great job breaking down exactly how procurement thinks, what they’re looking for, and how best to work together with them.

So pull up a chair, put on your headphones, and listen to Dave: Hopefully, it’ll start you on the road to more effective encounters with this vital—but often misunderstood—department.

As you climb the career ladder (in advertising, pharma, or some other corporate gig) do you ever wonder what it’d be like to lead a pharma startup?

I have! So this month, we had Dr. Kelly on the podcast. After earning a PhD in Chemistry, he had successful big pharma research career, then became Chief Scientific Officer and then CEO of Comentis—which at the time was commercializing small-molecule Alzheimer’s and schizophenia therapies.

It was a great talk, covering what it’s REALLY like to lead a pharma startup, lessons learned and rules for success. We also get into the current (and future) research space and even the role of advertising and marketing in startups.

Now Dr. Kelly runs a consulting practice focused on strategic and practical solutions in the drug discovery space. If you’re interested in reaching out, you can contact him at LinkedIn.

This month, we’re going to put the industry journalism in Frenemies to the test.

At Douglas and Runge, we’ve been seeing PR agencies cropping up more and more in our travels around Adland, in places where they shouldn’t be, according to received Madison Avenue wisdom….maybe I was extra-sensitive, because my former creative partner (and good friend) Michael Leopold had been snapped up by Edelman Chicago a few years ago…

“Hmmm,” thinks I, “What light could Leopold shed on the PR/Ad agency frenemy dynamic?”

A whole lot, it turns out.

Without really noticing the time going by, we ran through an hour plus in the interview, and boiled that down to a fairly long Study Hall on what’s happening in the fertile promotional space where PR meets advertising.

Hope you learn as much from it as I did.

Woah.

Study Hallers. That was a rough one.

Not going to sugar-coat it: Frenemies is a great idea for a book (the media we love runs on advertising…and advertising is struggling to adapt to a changing media environment…) that’s pretty poorly executed.

As I slammed into the second half of the book, everything bogged down. Chapters kept wandering around, with thoughts starting and stopping, information, data and themes popping up at random, disconnected places, and always M. Kassan offering his opinion on things: Basically “Be very scared! Hire me!” No. Matter. What.

About the only thing that was EASY to get out of the 2nd half was the M. Kassan sales pitch.

Worse, there was little discussion of the really successful advertising frenemies, consulting firms (ahem) and internal creative shops.

Even worse than that, there was no discussion of the alt-media (for lack of a better term); the people—like Tim Pool and Joe Rogan—that are eating the legacy media’s lunch. You can’t talk about modern advertising without talking about those people—they are experimenting with ultra-low-cost content generation AND advertising. They are indispensable voices. And they’re nowhere to be found. (And don’t tell me they’re too new—they were on the scene in 2016!)

Good Lord, am I glad to see the back of that book.

Ok—show notes!

• Tim Pool on Joe Rogan talking about internet traffic stats here

• Entire Pool/Rogan interview here

• Pool on the Vice layoffs here

• Drake meme in the wild here

• Drake meme on hotel door here

• Shameless plug for myself writing in Ad Age a long time ago about how the internet was going to decentralize authority right…here

This is a pretty scary book—Ken Auletta catalogs the rot in the ad industry, starting with the rebate fracas that broke out at the (now-infamous!) Association of National Advertisers meeting in 2015.

Why’s it so scary? Well, for one thing, it lays bare long-standing, unsuccessfully-addressed problems with the business model on which the ad agency operates. And it explains a lot about why agencies have been struggling with everything from client service to profitability, to pricing, to talent, to working conditions.

…and that’s not even the really scary part. The REALLY scary part is what happens to an advertising income-supported culture if/when advertising income goes away.

So, if you have a problem with feeling too optimistic about the future, or slacking off at work, read this book and meditate on the future. It’ll fix that for you. And make you a more wide-awake, effective professional.

As far as things I wish were different: It’s a less scholarly work that The Attention Merchants, there’s a LOT of reliance on the point of view of one person (Michael Kassan), which leaves you looking for a wee bit more balance at times (or maybe that the bad news would stop). None of these quibbles dim the books appeal, though. Just keep them in mind…

Links for the show:

Ad Age article: Good summary of the rebate issue, and gives you a sense of how the story developed before 2015

MediaLink website: Worth checking out!

We’re finished with the Attention Merchants! It’s a great book—although Part 5 is a little bit weaker than the rest of the book, as Wu misses the opportunity to draw stronger parallels between the digital age and the print, radio and TV ages (they’re there!).

Wu finishes strong, with a call for a “rewilding” of our attention, a movement to take back our time from commercial attention-gathering and focus on things that actually matter. And who can argue with that? (I can…a little: Not sure that legislation is the answer! SOME, very carefully drafted legislation could help, but the challengeof controlling your attention requires a much more sustained, individual effort—in which, unfortunately, the state can’t be much help.)

Part 2 of our interview with Scott Costin, author of The Doctor Won’t See You Now. In this part of the interview, the three of us discuss how sales, marketing and advertising can work together and how culture drives performance and job satisfaction.

You can buy Scott’s book here.

We’re taking a break from Tim Wu to post our interview with the author of The Doctor Won’t See You Now—Be the savvy, successful biopharma representative in a rapidly changing industry.

You can buy the book here.

A successful business-builder in a very tough market, Scott had a lot of great commentary on what’s happening on the biopharma sales scene today, how to create effective sales materials, adding value for customers, and how to nurture a culture that encourages success through straight talk.

We’ll post part 2 later this week and get back to The Attention Merchants in early October.

Enjoy.

Happy August, Study Hall-ers! 

Well, we're almost to the end of the estimable book, The Attention Merchants.

In part 4, we learn about the rise of the "Kardashian Kulture" and get into it a little over what we've done with the amazing attention-gathering machine we've built ourselves. 

I've pretty much avoided dealing with the ethics of modern attention merchandising and (more precisely) advertising until now, and this section of the book seemed like a good place to do it. 

This time, we're turning the comments on, so go ahead and leave a reaction/opinion.

This is the story of the rise of the digital space, or "the third screen," the screen that watches YOU.

It's a short section of the book, detailing the rise of email (and the reason the email check-in is SUCH a hard habit to break), the intersection of hardware with serious money (through computer gaming), and (how) America (got) Online.

Some interesting stuff! Lots to think about, including how even having the right idea (eg, Prodigy understood the power of online retailing, but make a few mistakes and now...well...When was the last time you got an email from prodigy.net?) Good ideas are not enough. You have execute well ...and be lucky.