Vin Farrell

Another long-standing truth is that the tools don’t make the artist. Picasso with a piece of asparagus and cottage cheese could out-art most of us with the best italian horsehair brushes and oil paints. It’s which pixels are created and how they move in front of the end viewer that counts. That’s all that matters. So the big takeaway here is don’t sleep on small, nimble, and highly talented creative shops. They’ve put decades into developing the intelligence and know-how to create and refine the craft that AI is just now referencing for its training model. Go to the source.

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"Chaos asks questions of you order never will" The wonderful Colleen DeCourcy retells her experience working with Dan Wieden when she took over as Chief Creative Officer at Wieden+Kennedy Her immediate response to me asking about working with Dan was this quote about chaos. We have a natural reaction against chaos because it can be destructive and unsettling but what if we reframed it as a necessary condition for achieving something truly breakthrough 🌪 Chaos propels you forward while order maintains the status quo 🌪 Chaos creates leaders while order creates managers 🌪 Chaos demands a response while order delays it 🌪 Chaos reveals the cracks while order papers them up 🌪 Chaos forces ownership while order delegates it 🌪 Chaos fosters creativity while order fosters compliance 🌪 Chaos requires trust while order replaces it It got me thinking whether there is an optimal mix of Chaos and order required to achieve breakthrough ideas and momentum? We spend most of our time creating order but what if what we actually needed was an injection of chaos? To hear more from this episode check out the links in the comments John Kearon Kerry Collinge Orlando Wood

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AI is only as good as what goes into it. Diverse experiences and viewpoints are vital to making it useful.

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If you think content inflation is a problem now with all these streamers producing more content than we can consume, imagine when creators no longer need to rely on big budgets and big studios to bring their ideas to life. Yes, Artificial Intelligence willl likely reduce the number of people needed to do anything, including movies and tv series. On the other hand, it will also allow a lot more of those to get their ideas off the ground. That may reshape the ecosystem, change the current notion of what a career is, or how one thinks of their specialty… it will be dramatically and unfortunately some people will have a rough time, but looking at the transformations only through its challenges may hold us from tackling the opportunities it also presents. For more on this topic, listen to Paul Trillo ‘s interview below. Paul is a director and a pioneer in the field of AI-powered film making and when he talks about the subject, he’s not discussing what he read or heard. He talks about the future he had the chance to see while he kept his hands in the mud.

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adopt or go extinct

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I am not bashful about being a Liquid Death fan, both of the products but also their approach to marketing or, more accurately, anti-marketing. This post by Cheryl Miller Houser (she/her) succinctly explains the power of LD and their storytelling. Many brands have the ability to follow suit, but "you have to be confident about who you are and taking bold creative risks." #storytelling #bold #antimarketing #antibranding

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Conquering your fear of flying solo is just the beginning. So many more fears to squish. Crib Notes: Not flying solo was the answer. Thanks ADWEEK for the feature. #adweek #advertising #marketing #startuplife #creativeviolence

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I got that feeling, because Im at Target, Sipping a latte, Shopping for nothing, but buying everything. Isn't this Yargets overall strategy? They want us to stroll, roam, browse, and enjoy being in their store. This ad is absolutely hilarious and brilliant. It highlights the thing about Target that we all love and evokes emotion. While watching this commercial I saw myself in a few of these characters (cough, cough, the latte drinker, and plant enthusiast). 🎵 Perfect song choice. When it feels like a no-brainer that this ad worked.... that means its a real gem and a marketing win. Watch the Ad 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSQ2e9nY #Target #TargetStores #targetCommercial #FunnyCommercial #Marketing #MarketingWin #MarketingSuccess #MarketingInsights

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#CauseAndEffect #BurdenOfProof #BetterSafeThanSorry Unsolicited advice for advertisers making claims about net-zero emissions, bamboo products, or recyclability: Until there is clarity on what qualifies as an “internationally recognized methodology,” it’s probably best to stop making environmental claims - not just in the oil and gas sector -, or have a chat with legal.

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🚨Trend/Rant/Insight Alert🚨   Across almost every sector and industry, content production is moving in-house. I’ve seen a marked shift towards building out small to mid-level production capabilities inside major brands and agencies in the last six to eight months. From full-time, production and post-production ready teams to Creator-minded TikTok and Reels specialists armed with nothing but an iPhone and a ring light, companies are finding the investment and overhead worth it to ramp up their content mills.   I think there’s a few implications here. For one, the demand to increase speed and decrease the time between inception and publishing is real. Companies and marketing teams, especially for huge global brands, can see social trends come and fade before their processes and workflows can even be engaged, let alone capitalize on them. Smaller, faster teams, closer to the decision-makers give them a puncher’s chance at striking Trending gold. “Learn TikTok,” seems to be the “learn to code” for 2024 and if your marketing team isn’t hiring an in-house creator to be a TikTok machine, they’re one of the few.   And secondly, and likely what I think is truly driving this, brands and agencies want to hold on to as much revenue and fee as possible. Instead of outsourcing specialist contractors, vendors or freelancers on a project-by-project basis, they want established, known-quantity teams with consistent workflows, fixed cost structures and to minimize OOPs. When advertising and marketing budgets get tight, it’s easy to look at production (which is basically *all* OOPs) and see an easy area to trim.   I think there’s pros and cons to this approach. In-house teams can be fast, agile and will know your brand inside and out. They can also get stylistically stale and, at some point, cap out on capabilities and technical know-how. The upside of engaging a wide freelancer and vendor network is the ability to bring in new talent, exciting technologies and fresh perspectives regularly. Additionally, the vendor marketplace (hopefully) means there’s true competition on price and while revenue may be going out, it is (ideally) actually more efficient on a per project basis.   I think the most successful brands will balance a well-rounded internal team for regular, drumbeat content with an extensive network of freelancers and vendors for must-win moments and big swings. Going forward, it’s important brands that build in in-house production continue to train, grow and invest in those resources and not see it as a one-time hit to this fiscal year’s numbers. And production vendors need to understand what role agencies and brands want content to play and continue to bring innovative, efficient offerings to the table. It's never been easier to make great content and tell great stories. But who you choose to make those stories will determine just how successful those stories get told.

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This article has been written many, many times in my career, yet very little changes. I post this not to rant at the system, but to continue to acknowledge the obvious disparities. Advertising must do better. Let me know what you think, or simply vent. I think we at least deserve that. #advertising #diversity https://lnkd.in/eHmGk-yv

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It's time to move past the initial hype of generative AI. We should all be using AI as a strategic driver of tangible return on investment. For example, ADWEEK just reported exclusively on a first-of-its-kind use case in which AI identified and helped a brand (Shake Shack) scour over 80,000 active subreddits to identify contextual conversations around, in this case, people who were hungry and craving chicken sandwiches. The bot, Known's "The Big Lebotski," then found the most efficient and effective ways to introduce Shake Shack's "Chicken Shack Sundays."   The results are impressive. As AdWeek put it, The Big Lebotski "drove people into the Shack." The campaign blew past sales benchmarks by 31%. As my partner, Kern Schireson, said: “We’re not trying to use AI to be fancy or to make it complicated. We’re using AI in places where traditional age, gender and psychographic targeting aren’t sufficient to get to a level of detail that will cause a campaign like this to perform.” Let's move past the smoke & mirrors. Stop with hyperbole. This is real, it works, and the brands that use AI wisely are experiencing dramatic results.

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✅🖥️ The Hollywood Reporter (6/26): “By now everyone in Hollywood seems to accept that streaming is a cutthroat business. It may not be zero sum (most studies suggest that consumers will pay for about four streaming services at a time), but it is mighty close to it. And with Netflix holding a secure lock on one of those subscriptions for most consumers, there is increasingly little room for error. But the streaming wars between giant services like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney, Max, Peacock, Paramount+ and others also obscure an entire ecosystem of streaming offerings that are trying to carve out their own niches in an increasingly difficult environment. For all the press that the big streaming platforms get, there is a surprisingly vibrant world of boutique and specialty streamers chasing loyal and engaged fans at a much smaller scale. And new players continue to enter the space. In the world of comedy, there is Dropout, born out of the comedy website College Humor. And BuzzFeed veterans-turned YouTubers The Try Guys and Watcher have launched dedicated subscription streaming offerings of their own in recent weeks in an effort to more effectively monetize the sometimes fleeting audience that YouTube or social platforms deliver. Sony offers CrunchyRoll, an anime-focused service, which boasts 13MM subscribers; AMC Networks operates services like the horror-centric Shudder and the British-focused Acorn TV; and Cineverse operates the horror service Screambox and independent film service Fandor.” ⬇️ #streamingtv #ctvadvertising #avod #svod #fast #ott https://lnkd.in/eyBBAdWE

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Last week, Pesach Lattin, who I consider among our industry's most animated and entertaining personalities, published a 30 minute video podcast, which he and I recorded shortly after the last MFA bombshell and Google's (yet again) delay of Chrome cookie deprecation. The two primary topics haven't lost any relevance in the weeks between our recording and ADOTAT's publication. When I open a conversation here on LinkedIn, I write what I believe and try not to mince words. I stay true to this mantra in our video dialogue, which I hope at least some of you will watch. We had a good time bantering back and forth on a handful of heavy digital advertising subjects, and I have to hand it to Pesach, who makes the conversation all the more entertaining with his clever quips and fast-paced, provocative questions. Grab yourself a kale smoothie, a glass of Amarone or your favorite breakfast cereal ... and let me know what you think. I'd appreciate your comments.

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The term "non-working dollars" gets thrown around a lot as a way for people to justify production budgets. The basic idea being that money that isn't spent on media (i.e. getting the message in front of people) isn't doing anything beneficial for the advertiser and needs to be minimized as much as possible. Hence non-working. In reality, the WAY you say something is intrinsic to the way its perceived. This visual, originally shown to me by the one and only Michael Fanuele, is a great demonstration of the tight connection between message and delivery. Cheap can mean authentic, but it can also mean untrustworthy. Set budgets accordingly.

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✅🖥️ AdExchanger (6/3): “Seedtag was mainly attracted to Beachfront’s SSP direct integrations with TV and streaming publishers, which is something that Seedtag doesn’t have much of. These publishers will attract new demand and more scale for Seedtag’s contextual ad products. Seedtag entered the US market in 2022. But it wasn’t until earlier this year that it launched its first CTV-focused contextual ad product that allows advertisers to apply contextual targeting signals to their streaming buys. More advertisers are now looking for addressable alternatives in light of signal loss and privacy concerns, which, in turn, is driving more interest in streaming ad products. Hence Seedtag’s decision to buy rather than build in order to capture that growing demand. Beachfront operates both a video-focused supply-side platform and ad server.” ⬇️ #streamingtv #ssp #dsp #ctvadvertising #spo https://lnkd.in/evvUE4hY

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