Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

Ok, so I stole the “col­lab­o­ra­tion is the new com­pe­ti­tion” hook from Alex Bogusky, a true sage of our indus­try. You can read about his inter­pre­ta­tions of this phrase on his site, but let me take a moment to explain how it affects my busi­ness oper­a­tionally and one way I think it effects every­one involved […]

A year ago I began a jour­ney that started at my for­mer employer. My job tran­si­tioned from being sim­ply a writer to a video con­tent cre­ator. Not only did I love this new role, I dis­cov­ered I had a real pas­sion for it. I also believed in what I was doing. It was the right thing […]

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 90s I was on a list serve (remem­ber those?) on the con­ver­gence of media. The think­ing back then was that sooner or later tele­vi­sion would no longer be bound to the liv­ing room and that the Web wouldn’t be bound to the desk­top. They would con­verge. If con­tent could be deliv­ered at […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

I don’t know a sin­gle per­son in my pro­fes­sion of adver­tis­ing, or in an ancil­lary field, who isn’t work­ing much harder for the same or less money then they were a few years ago. Most indus­tries have been hit real hard. But mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing pro­fes­sion­als got it right in the teeth. Mar­ket­ing depart­ments are now […]