Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

There’s an anal­ogy I’ve been toss­ing around for a few years to just about any ad pro that will lis­ten. And yes, there are excep­tions to my lit­tle the­ory so just take it for what it’s worth — a lit­tle fun. Most large ad agen­cies are like Major League Base­ball teams. I don’t mean cre­ative boutiques, […]

Last year I went out on a limb and made some pre­dic­tions about the year to come. It has now passed. Well, what do I have to say for myself? Some of the pre­dic­tions were wrong, some were right, and some were easy. Let’s start with the easy. “The kids will still text at an alarming […]

Imag­ine a tri­an­gle. On one side is push­ing tobacco. The other side is glam­or­iz­ing gam­bling. And the last side is exploit­ing chil­dren. When I started my career this was the ter­rain I promised myself I would never work. And I never have. And, frankly, my moral com­pass hasn’t wavered much through the years. But I’ve never […]

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 via Wikipedia Quick, how many copy points can you fit into a 60 sec­ond radio spot? The answer should be one. But many ads that really suck the big one are about two or three things – maybe even more. This is real easy to observe in a print ad. Just open your local newspaper […]

What’s worse than a yes man? Easy. A no man. (Or even a no woman.) Cor­po­rate cul­ture breeds them just as inces­santly as yes men. And, unfor­tu­nately, so do many large adver­tis­ing agen­cies. OK. So who is the “no per­son?” And how do they make your adver­tis­ing suck? Imag­ine a smart, no non­sense woman who has the power […]

Image by thorin­side via Flickr You prob­a­bly agree that most adver­tis­ing isn’t cre­atively great or even good. From the out­side, one might think it’s a busi­ness filled with dumb, untal­ented peo­ple serv­ing mar­ket­ing depart­ments filled with bean coun­ters who couldn’t care less if their dol­lars are pro­duc­ing a fetid mess. Truth is, too many adver­tis­ing agencies […]

This was 7:30 AM. Just dropped off the girls and went for a short hike. Had nowhere to be for the rest of the day really. Tak­ing a deep breath today. Hope you have a chance for one too. Have a great weekend.