Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

It used to be an agency pro­fes­sional was expected to be a gen­er­al­ist in the specifics of mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing. It was under­stood that it’s impos­si­ble for a cre­ative, AE or media plan­ner to know every­thing about every­thing. Sure, you bet­ter know media buy­ing, strat­egy and cre­ative but no one expected a mid-level art director […]

Back in the 50s, cut­ting edge adver­tis­ing was inspired by sci­ence and research. Agen­cies like Ted Bates stud­ied con­sumer behav­ior and attempted to manip­u­late con­sumers con­sumers into buy­ing prod­ucts with sci­ence rather than inspir­ing them thought­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion. For­tu­nately Bill Bern­bach and the cre­ative rev­o­lu­tion came along and showed us a bet­ter way in where the […]

Some peo­ple who get divorced from or break up with a lover often talk about how they for­got why they ever got involved with their spe­cial some­one in the first place. Or they just won­der what hap­pened to the love. As if it was a mag­i­cal thing that came and went with the wind. These kinds […]

It’s been a few weeks since I posted here and for good rea­son. But this really isn’t the time or place to talk about it. (If you’re my Face­book friend and you know me per­son­ally, you already know why I haven’t posted.) I’ve writ­ten here before about the need to post fre­quently and main­tain a  […]

Eco­nomic pres­sure has cre­ated a sit­u­a­tion where mar­keters are ask­ing for imme­di­ate results before they ask for per­ceived lux­u­ries like brand recog­ni­tion. Clients are demand­ing met­rics that con­nect mar­ket­ing to sales. Met­rics for things like brand recog­ni­tion are tough to tie to con­crete things like sales and thus to ROI. They’re also push­ing for media plans […]

Ever met some­one who never takes sides. Never makes a clear deci­sion. Always wants the group to decide so he doesn’t run the risk of mak­ing any­one upset. You prob­a­bly called this per­son wishy washy, inde­ci­sive or maybe even weak. And never a leader. Now imag­ine this per­son is your brand. A lot of marketers […]

As a writer and cre­ative per­son, inspi­ra­tion is some­thing I’m sup­posed to know a lot about. I shouldn’t need your help, because I’m inspired to write witty, inter­est­ing things all the time, right? Cer­tainly I’ve got a direct line to the muse? Unfor­tu­nately, there’s no bat phone for writ­ers. Arti­cle con­tin­ues here on agency blog.

There’s been a lot of dis­cus­sion lately about what the future’s cre­ative depart­ment should look like and who it should be headed by. Do tra­di­tional shops need to get rid of their old guard and make way for lead­ers and prac­ti­tion­ers steeped in the tra­di­tions of the dig­i­tal shops? Surely they need to get rid of […]

Too many mar­ket­ing depart­ments spend count­less hours navel gaz­ing, try­ing to find a omni­scient inner-voice. This ora­cle is sup­posed to com­mu­ni­cate who they are as a com­pany and what they need to tell their cus­tomers so that they will finally under­stand the value they offer the world. It never works. Sorry, navel gaz­ers, your belly button […]

Image by byzantin3 via Flickr David Ogilvy said 40 years ago “the con­sumer is not a moron, she’s your wife.” It seems not every­one lis­tened because the indus­try con­tin­ues to insult her. Ogilvy’s quip may be one of the most quoted phrases in mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing but mar­keters often don’t think it applies to them. […]