Over the past two decades, there has been an enormous shift in defining the work and the role of agencies and design studios. Years ago, the two entities did similar ...

Writers, and advertising writers in general, sometimes say they've run out of story ideas. The question comes up constantly: "Where can I get the seeds for wonderful tales that ...

Agency principals often sense a gap in their creative department before they can name it. Is it another art director or designer they need? An idea person? Some combination of ...

Bill Bernbach, the founder of Doyle Dane Bernbach, once said that for advertising to work, it has to leave the recipient of the message a little happier. In other words ...

We need to "hack" human behavior to succeed in advertising.

It's a word that gets thrown around in creative circles, and for good reason. "Hack" in this context doesn ...

Break pricing into three phases, tied to the three stages of development below, with payment due at the start of each phase or at specified milestones. Estimate the application of ...

…Or, ten reasons why your copy editor needs medications (and how to make it all better). Now I am not making light of any medical conditions; to the contrary, I ...

Jeff Welch, principal of Mercury Advertising in Bozeman, MT, tells us how his agency started very, very small (just Jeff and co-founder Jamie Hurd) and grew to 25+ employees largely ...

If you are a marathoner, “hitting the wall” can be very bad. But in reference to the creative community, the “wall” we refer to is a tool for brainstorming.

The ...

When what we invent, imagine and create are our primary products, it is important to create an environment that fosters imagination and exploration. One great, but frequently overlooked, method of ...

One of the most efficient tactics we've learned here at Second Wind is to give creatives some decent “groove” time each day, enabling them to become more productive. Instead ...

Differing priorities, work methods and viewpoints generate conflict. And that is all to the good in a creative agency looking to use all of its employees to fuel agency creative ...

Well, SELL, like, literally is, by the law of the letter, four letters long, but figuratively, it’s just the opposite. In my mind, “like” has become a four-letter word ...

Being innovative is seen as a way to distinguish an agency from its more routine competition. But agency owners need to dig deeper to decide if they can claim innovation ...

Like many trendy phrases, “failing forward” gets tossed around quite a bit in marketing and advertising blogs, trade mags and industry interviews. I’m seriously thinking of adding it to ...

Brainstorming was born in the late 1940s, when Alex Osborn of Madison Avenue agency BBDO formalized a process for group idea generation. He later wrote a best-seller, Your Creative Power ...

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” - Mario Andretti

Mario Andretti, legendary racer, was talking about driving Formula 1 race cars, but his quote is ...

The art of writing a creative brief involves reduction: you want a simple, telegraphic idea from which the designer or creative team can start their work. But no matter how ...

Can encouraging mindfulness in your agency increase creativity? There’s been a lot of buzz lately about mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. From daytime TV to popular print and digital magazines ...