Tuesday, March 19, 2024

16581: IPG = Interminable Pruning Group…?

Adweek published an interview with Kristen Cavallo, who recently relinquished her CEO role with The Martin Agency, and now announced bailing out of her Global CEO role with MullenLowe too. So, Cavallo goes from dual CEO to CUL8R ASAP.

 

Given the latest pruning of White advertising agencies within the IPG network, one can’t help but wonder if Cavallo dodged potential corporate rejiggering. Time will tell.

 

Then again, she admitted spending a year contemplating career transformations before assuming the MullenLowe Global CEO position in 2022, so her retirement from Adland could be a result of that soul searching.

 

“This is a glass half-full industry,” Cavallo said. “We have important skills that the world needs more of, and we need to stop beating ourselves up and start getting to work on some of those bigger issues.” Um, like diversity?

 

Cavallo would probably declare she’s on it.

 

Kristen Cavallo Retires From Advertising After 30 Years in the Industry

 

Cavallo will put her experience toward social and political causes

 

By Jameson Fleming

 

Throughout Kristen Cavallo’s 30-year career, she’s never backed down from an opportunity to defend creativity.

 

Cavallo rose to the top of the industry by leading the rebuilding of The Martin Agency into a powerhouse. But she became arguably one of the industry’s biggest provocateurs by defending agencies’ work following comments about Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad in 2022, as well as championing the value of creativity after that Snoop Dogg Solo Stove campaign earlier this year.

 

“I don’t know that I’ve said anything special or unique, but when I do say something, oftentimes I hear ‘you said exactly what we were thinking,’” Cavallo told ADWEEK during an hour-long interview on Friday. “The difference [is] maybe I was stupid enough or idealistic enough to say it. I hope that someone else picks up that flag.”

 

Cavallo is retiring from advertising, having ascended from strategic planner—at what was then Mullen Advertising—to come full circle at MullenLowe Group as global CEO. But once a strategist, always a strategist: Cavallo is leaving the industry to pursue a new kind of fulfillment.

 

After completing a grueling five-week 500-mile el Camino de Santiago trail in Spain, Cavallo will put her three decades of strategy experience influencing human behavior toward social and political activism. Next year, she’s working on the Virginia governorship campaign, one of 2025’s most important races in the U.S. for being “the last state in the South to protect women’s rights,” she said.

 

Cavallo sends a resolute message to the industry about the value of creativity through her pick of successors. Former chief creative Danny Robinson will lead The Martin Agency as CEO, while Frank Cartagena, the former CCO of The Community, will lead MullenLowe in the U.S. Alex Leikikh will return as global MullenLowe CEO.

 

Defending creativity

 

Cavallo’s formative years in advertising came during 18 months at Mullen. A stint at Arnold followed, where the agency’s 1995 “Drivers Wanted” campaign for Volkswagen hooked her on an industry where “every day is different,” she said.

 

“It was a different kind of car advertising. One that prioritized the people in that story just as much as it did the car,” Cavallo said. That work on VW led to her winning the 4A’s Jay Chiat Award for Strategic Excellence.

 

During her career, Cavallo has never shied away from defending the value of an agency’s work.

 

In 2022, she challenged Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong after he tweeted that no agency could have conceived of its Super Bowl ad.

 

As Cavallo pointed out, three of them—R/GA, Droga5 and The Martin Agency—all pitched similar ideas.

 

Cavallo also advocated for subscription payment methods after former client Discover was still running TV ads The Martin Agency created five years after the relationship ended.

 

Many agency CEOs start their careers as account execs—that path through the agency often affords staffers the best opportunity to learn how to balance client needs with the agency’s business. With her background in strategy—her first advertising internship as an account exec didn’t last the summer, she finished the internship as a strategic planner—and consistently championing creativity, Cavallo bucks industry norms.

 

“It’s one thing for the business world to question [the value of creativity]. It’s another thing for us to question ourselves, our own value that we provide,” Cavallo explained, adding Robinson and Cartagena know how hard, special, rare and important it is to make something that “breaks through … and makes an impression. And I hope that the industry notices that.”

 

Messages to a changing industry

 

Mass layoffs across holding company-owned creative shops and indies alike are contributing to the ad industry’s fatalistic cries growing louder.

 

Cavallo, however, has “done a 180 on this sense of doom and gloom,” she said.

 

She does see an industry morphing out of necessity, which she notes is nerve-wracking for people who cling to stability. But it’s an industry that will always be needed, especially in a “capitalistic society” that needs “to persuade people of a point of view.”

 

“In the last 30 years, the industry has said this is the end of itself, or the end of print, or the end of television, or the end of something as we know it,” Cavallo said. “The truth is we still have static images. They just may not live in a magazine. We still have video. It just may not live on television. We’re so quick to write ourselves off.”

 

Cavallo points out that the goal in every brief is to build, unify, grow or give voice to something important—all positives in her eyes.

 

“This is a glass half-full industry … we have important skills that the world needs more of, and we need to stop beating ourselves up and start getting to work on some of those bigger issues.”

Monday, March 18, 2024

16580: Take A Pass On Password Security Campaign.

 

TBWA\Peru is responsible for this BCP campaign raising awareness for strengthening the security of passwords. If the creative hacks behind the concept had any self-respect, they’d wear bulky hoodies to hide their identities like the cyber criminals symbolized in the advertisements. 

 


Sunday, March 17, 2024

16579: Overstatement Of Biblical Proportions.

Ad Age is our industry bible…? Holy shit—or holy bullshit. Sounds like someone needs spiritual direction.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

16578: IPG Pruning Proceeding.

 

MediaPost reported IPG continues to prune its monotone monolith, blending White advertising agency Tierney into White advertising agency Carmichael Lynch. There’s a joke in there somewhere about lots of White people getting lynched…

 

IPG Agency Carmichael Lynch Absorbs Sibling Shop Tierney

 

By Steve McClellan

 

Interpublic Group continues to streamline its agency roster with the merger of Minneapolis-based Carmichael Lynch and Philadelphia-based Tierney.

 

Carmichael Lynch is the surviving agency and Tierney will become its Philadelphia office effective May 1. In addition to its Minneapolis HQ operation, the agency also has an office in New York.

 

Carmichael Lynch CEO Marcus Fischer retains his role post-merger. He has been with the agency for a dozen years and was named CEO in 2017.

 

Mary Stengel Austen, co-founder and CEO of Tierney, is stepping down on March 31 and Tracey Santilli, who Austen appointed President of Tierney in 2022, will continue in that role, reporting to Fischer. The agency was founded 1989 by Austen and Brian Tierney who left about 20 years ago.

 

The 62-year-old agency’s client list includes brands such as Subaru, Sherwin-Williams, Hostess Brands, Bush’s Beans, Post Consumer Brands, and Saputo.

 

Tierney’s client roster includes Independence Blue Cross, Cencora, Comcast, McDonald’s, Choice Hotels, and TD Bank.

 

The merger follows IPG’s sale in January of both Hill Holliday and Deutsch New York to New Zealand holding group Attivo.

Friday, March 15, 2024

16577: General Mills Says, “Cheerio, White Advertising Agencies!”

 

Advertising Age reported General Mills is staging a global creative shootout across its portfolio of products, featuring up to 100 brands including Annie’s, Cheerios, and Fiber One—the latter being appropriately highlighted, as the impending review is sure to be a shitshow.

 

A General Mills statement declared: “As we continue to build iconic brands, we are always looking at our internal and partner capabilities. We are in the early stages to kick off a review of our creative capabilities, including our project-based agency roster.”

 

The General Mills corporate speak could be translated as follows: “We’re gonna dump as much work as possible into our in-house outhouses. Then we’ll divvy up major projects to an exclusive stable of White advertising agencies, awarding stuff to the lowest bidders. All White women celebrations—eg, Women’s History Month, International Women’s Day, Equal Pay Day, Menopause Awareness, etc—will receive generous marketing budgets and be handled by the White advertising agencies too. We’ll proudly and performatively allocate cautious consideration and cash for the LGBTQIA+ community. Finally, we’ll toss crumbs to minority firms for one-offs of color—like Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and Native American Heritage Month.”

 

As the industry continues to devolve into a cage fight for the right to participate on tactical initiatives, AOR has come to mean Assignee Of Record—emphasis on Ass.

 

General Mills launches global creative review

 

Marketer of brands including Annie’s, Cheerios and Fiber One named UM media agency of record last October

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

General Mills has launched a global creative agency review across its portfolio of 100 brands, which include Annie’s, Cheerios and Fiber One.

 

The review will be handled by consultancy R3, which declined comment.

 

Last October, General Mills named a new global media agency of record, Interpublic Group of Cos.’ UM, which took that account from WPP’s Mindshare, following a review led by Mediasense.

 

“As we continue to build iconic brands, we are always looking at our internal and partner capabilities,” a General Mills spokesperson said in a statement. “We are in the early stages to kick off a review of our creative capabilities, including our project-based agency roster.”

 

The company currently works with different agencies on different brands. For example, Stagwell-owned Anomaly works on creative for brands including Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Reese’s Puffs and Honey Nut Cheerios, while Pereira O’Dell has done work for Annie’s. Specialty food marketing shop Ingredient is the company’s content marketing agency of record. Independent shop Erich and Kallman is also on the roster.

 

It’s unclear if General Mills is looking to consolidate its account with one agency, or which shops are pitching.

 

General Mills spent $810 million on worldwide advertising and media in its fiscal year 2023, which ended in May, according to its annual regulatory filing. The Minneapolis-based food company spent $657 million on measured media in the U.S. in 2023, up from $507 million in 2022, according to Vivvix, including paid social data from Pathmatics.

 

Analysts will get their next look at General Mills’ financials on March 20, when it reports fiscal third-quarter results. The company reported lower volume sales, which contributed to net sales falling 2% to $5.1 billion, in its second fiscal quarter ended in November. General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening cited “a continued challenging consumer landscape.” By comparison, cereal rival WK Kellogg Co.’s sales were down 3.7% to nearly $651 million in its fourth quarter.

 

General Mills has recently been trying to find new, younger audiences for some of its household food brands. It’s done so with a new emerging brand partnerships approach that’s seen collaborations between FaZe Clan and Totinos and Betty Crocker and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” among others. The company also introduced last month a “Loaded” cereal lineup, with vanilla creme-filled versions of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa Puffs, among others, in its attempts to attract more Gen Z consumers.

 

Contributing: Erika Wheless

Thursday, March 14, 2024

16576: International Invisible Women’s Day In Advertising…?

 

More About Advertising spotlighted the annual CreativeX Gender in Advertising Report, which stated women of colour and older women were grossly underrepresented in ads in 2023. This revelation is the equivalent of declaring the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Adland is White.

 

Newsflash! Women of colour face discrimination and underrepresentation in White advertising agencies too.

 

In the industry, however, women like Susan Storm are definitely not invisible.

 

Some women still discriminated against in ads says new report

 

Women of colour and older women were nearly invisible in ads in 2023 says CreativeX, launching its annual Gender in Advertising Report, timed for International Women’s Day.

 

In 2023 CreativeX says, older women appeared in just 1.5% of all ads (D&G below is a positive example); women with lighter skin tones appeared 4X more frequently than darker-skinned women and women with the darkest skin tones received only 2.6% of brands’ total ad spend.

 

The report found that ads predominantly confine women to traditional roles, such as family and domestic settings. While the representation of women in these roles decreased from 66% to 30% between 2022 and 2023, their representation in non-traditional roles like leadership (3.4%) and professional (8.5%) settings remains disproportionately low.

 

Even when women are depicted in non-traditional roles, ad spend decisions “undermine” their visibility, according to CreativeX. Although ad spend on women in physical roles increased 1060% in 2023 compared to 2022, the overall investment in these portrayals of women remains low, accounting for only 3.7% of spend on ads featuring women.

 

The new analysis includes data from 32,213 “assets” backed by over $260 million in ad spend from 322 brands, 81 markets, across 8 digital channels in 2023.

 

Founder and CEO Anastasia Leng says: “For years, the lack of progress on representative advertising has been blamed on a lack of data, which hindered our ability to quantify the gap between where we wanted to be and where we were. Our industry dedicated lots of air time to talking about the problem, so many assumed we were getting better at inclusively representing people in ads.

 

Well the data’s here and it shows yet again that intent isn’t translating to action. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and it requires ongoing measurement to drive sustainable progress. Advances in technology now enable us to track and measure the creative decisions we’re making, in near real-time, including breaking out how we’re casting and portraying people in ads and determining if those decisions map to what we know about our consumers and our markets’ changing demographic trends.”

 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

16575: Bewildering & Baffling Britt Bashing By Business Blog.

 

At MediaPost, MADBlog columnist Barbara Lippert joined the political pundits, talk show hosts, and comedians who’ve ripped Senator Katie Britt for her ridiculous rebuttal of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.

 

Not sure what inspired the perspective, as Britt is hardly an advertising figure—and her spectacle barely qualifies as a media event worthy of industry-related examination.

 

Also peculiar is Lippert referring to Britt as a Fundy exhibiting Christian Fundamentalist characteristics. Of course, Lippert spotlighted Britt’s Republican affiliation—which likely triggered Carl Warner, wherever he might be. The columnist remarked on gender-focused qualities too.

 

In today’s business world—now, more than ever—people are cautioned to avoid engaging in conversations about sex, politics, or religion. Lippert hit the trifecta, seemingly without hesitation. Then again, the woman was once positioned as a curator of popular culture.