Lindsey’s Daily Deal: Admen Are Cutthroat, Breaking Up With 30-Second Spots and Ice Cream—It’s Cool

By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry

Hey Captains’ readers,

Here’s your Monday Deal:

1. Admen. They’re cutthroat.

I missed Mad Men last night. In my body’s battle to stay awake, my eyelids won victoriously. So, in an effort to satiate my weekly jones for smoking, drinking, sexism, feminism and adultery, I decided to check out Dan Goldgeier’s recent post on AdPulp called “The City of Brotherly MadMen.” Apparently, The Philadelphia Inquirer did a story about their city’s own past ad history this past week. And if you thought Don Draper was cutthroat, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Gene Shay, 75, a former copywriter and sly dog shared one way ad men used to crush the competition.

“Ad executives from four different agencies were taking the train to New York, all with appointments at different times but at the same place,” said Shay. “They all sat together, and two guys made the mistake of visiting the club car – and two other guys threw their portfolios out the train windows.”

I bet it just slipped.

If you’re not in the ad biz, messing with someone’s portfolio is like messing with their spouse. In fact, knowing Don Draper, it’s probably way worse.

Do you have any MadMen-like stories to share?

2. Breaking up with 30-second spots is hard to do

This is the age of content creation. You’ve heard it before, and you’ll probably hear it again. But some advertisers still haven’t bought into the idea that content can work for a brand just as well, or even better, than traditional advertising. However, after reading David Burn’s latest post on AdPulp, I think I found a statistic that will peak these non-believer’s interests. According to a survey done by the Custom Content Council, companies spent $47.2 billion on custom content in 2009.

Shall I say that again?

FOURTY SEVEN POINT TWO BILLION ON CONTENT. That’s a lot of dough—a chunk of change that’s hard to ignore. Hopefully a stat like this can show skeptics that some of our clients might need more content than they do commercials. Just something to chew on.

3.  Ice cream. It’s cool.

Over here at Captains of Industry, we’re just crazy about videos. In fact, creating corporate videos is one of our favorite ways to tell our clients’ stories. These days, it’s so much easier to ingest a 2-minute web video than it is to search through pages of information to find what you’re looking for. Which is why I like how Ben & Jerry’s created a web video describing the process of making their new campaign. It’s like a corporate video within a corporate video. Check out this video if you’ve always wondered how an agency takes an idea and makes it come to life. Or, if you really want to know what’s in New York Super Fudge Chunk. Either way, it’s a win-win.