Monday Morning Ad Thoughts

When I was at Hadrian’s Wall (now Zig in Chicago), I began reading Jim Aitchison’s Cutting Edge Advertising. I found a lot of great quotes in that book, and began emailing selected quotes to the agency (all six of us) every week. They became our Monday Morning Ad Thoughts. Here’s a sample:

"The more I judge shows, the more I realize that people do come up with similar ideas. That's why the presentation of an idea can make such a difference. Because people are thinking in similar ways, it's more and more incumbent on you to execute everything to the finest detail."

-Bruce Bildsten (creator of Fallon’s BMW Films)

“Instead of people pitting themselves against each other, and being rather petty and jealous, everybody was interested in what the other person was doing, just to see the great ideas that were coming out, and to want to do better through admiration rather than through jealousy.”

– Neil Godfrey on his early days at DDB.

“Advertising companies show reels of commercials when they make pitches to prospective clients. The reels are samples of past work; they can be as old as you like. But nine times out of ten, we show reels from only the last three months. The oldest reel we would show – if, for instance, we needed to make a specific point – would be six months old. We would never show a seven-month-old reel, even if it was great work. This pushes people to the limits very fast.”

- St. Luke’s Andy Law

I discontinued Monday Morning Ad Thoughts when I joined Y&R Chicago (I think I was too intimidated to email advice on creativity to people like Mark Figliulo and Tim Cawley).

Anyway, I’ve started Monday Morning Ad Thoughts again in Geneva. I send them out each week to our creative department, but if you’d like to be on the email list, too, just send me your email address to greg.christensen@yr.com. If you have any of your own, please pass them along.