Meet The Toad aka Alan Wolk, the man behind the long running and previously anonymous ad blog, The Toad Stool. That's right kiddos! He's out of the adblog closet and ready to talk shop. Grab your lunch and settle in. Alan is going to take us through why he was anonymous; what his agency, DraftFCB thought about his blogging, as well as his take on what role and how social media plays out in the ad biz. Enjoy!

1. You've been penning your blog, The Toad Stool, anonymously since December 2006. Why did you originally seek out anonymity and why now, have you discarded it?

When I started the blog, it was really just as an experiment, to familiarize myself with the space. I didn't think anyone other than the three or four friends I'd told would actually read it. I also didn't know where I was going with it, and so a pseudonym seemed like a good idea.

Once it actually did start to take off , "Toad" became an incredibly strong branding device. Goofy as the name may be, it set me apart from other bloggers and added an air of mystery. But more importantly, it allowed people to focus on what I had to say, rather than who I was. So people were reading things like "Your Brand Is Not My Friend" without any preconceived notions as to who the author was and where he was coming from. That proved to be a real benefit.

Once my blog was established and I became a real voice in the social media and blogging community, I realized that the next step needed to be merging the actual Alan Wolk with the "Toad" brand. The anonymity had served its purpose, and the time was right to bring everything together and take advantage of all the equity I'd built up as "Toad."


2. You describe yourself as tradigitalist. What's your experience in both of these realms and how does it inform your view of advertising?

I call myself a "tradigitalist" (and hat tip to Techno//Marketer's Matt Dickman for inventing that phrase) because I have a traditional ad creative's grasp of conceptual advertising along with a native understanding of the digital realm and how people operate in it. It's proven to be a more unique combination than I'd realized.

As for background, I started out in traditional advertising - my longest stint was at Anderson & Lembke, which was a hot boutique shop in the mid-90s. It was a wonderful place, sort of this advertising Brigadoon that rose up from the mist for about ten years and then disappeared. There were so many smart and talented people working there and the guys who started it really had some great ideas about process and structure and the value of an ad agency.

After A&L's demise, I wound up at Atmosphere, which became BBDO's web shop. I was employee #8, I think-- I remember using boxes as desks those first weeks because we didn't have furniture yet. Those were pretty heady days, during Web 1.0, as we were inventing it all from scratch, doing everything for the dot com clients from shooting their TV commercials to building their websites. But eventually the party came to an end and I went back to working in traditional for a few years at Ogilvy and JWT and then back to digital at Ogilvy and finally DraftFCB. Which left everyone confused as to what it was I actually did.

The real excitement of those 1.0 days didn't start coming back until about a year or two ago, when all the 2.0 technology really took off. My role, as I see it, is to be the voice of reason, to be an evangelist for this new paradigm, while providing a reality check for all the Kool-Aid drinkers. Hence series like "Social Media Is Only Social If You're Alone."

3. What did your last agency, DraftFCB, think about your blogging? You just left a week or so ago.

Brad Kay, who runs the interactive department there, was very into it- he's recently started his own blog - and he 100% got why it was a good thing for me to be so involved in this arena.

The rest of the agency, beyond the digital department (the old FCBi) was still busy sorting out the effects of the merger, so there wasn't much opportunity to open up about it. I was only there a short time - maybe 14 months- so there wasn't a whole lot of history or expectation to deal with either.


4. What role, if any, do you think ad blogs play in the industry? What role did your blog play?

What The Toad Stool hopefully does, is introduce social media and the major paradigm shift that comes with it to a traditional advertising audience while showing people on the other side of that equation how the lessons of traditional advertising still matter.

In "Your Brand Is Not My Friend" I talk about the mistakes marketers and their agencies make in social media by assuming that people want to hear from them and then I offer suggestions for the 99% of brands who aren't lucky enough to be "Prom King Brands" - the Apples and Nikes of the world who people really do want to hear from. That series really got a lot of people thinking about how much we were assuming and how consumers were as likely to tune out a Facebook app as they were a TV spot. So I feel like I accomplished something there.

The other thing my blog does - and there are a bunch of bloggers, from all sorts of backgrounds who also make up this community - is give people a forum to figure all this out. Everything is changing so quickly, new technologies are being introduced daily, and it's nice to be able to discuss them with likeminded people. It's all pretty geeky, but the idea of how and when to use video on a website, will a video microblogging service like Seesmic take off - that's all fascinating to me. And so it's been great to find out there's a whole community of people who share my fascination. (And as you know, Agency Spy, we are all always continuing the conversation on Twitter.)

As for blogs in general, there are so many different flavors out there, and they all serve their own purpose, from taking a poke at some of the industry's more pompous characters to showcasing really amazing new work. They all have their own audiences and I'm not sure how much overlap you really get. I have a pretty distinct audience and a goodly percentage of them aren't traditional ad agency people, but rather marketing consultants, journalists, clients, VCs, strategists, and even students. And it's been great to get introduced to all those different viewpoints.


5. Now that you are out of the blogging closet what are your plans for the future? Do you want to work full time at an agency or is there a book or lecture series in your future?

Well, first on the agenda is to land a full-time job. My goal is to find something that lets me use my leadership position in social media, someplace that sees me as more than a CD who can write clever headlines or sell a $100K microsite to a client, but rather as someone who's able to get involved in the strategic end of things, in a major way, right from the start.

And yes, once I'm settled, I'd love to start speaking at conferences and spreading the word around. I do also have the outline of a (long-promised) book prepared and the start of a few chapters, so that's definitely in the works as well.

6. Everyone seems confused about social media. As an expert, when it comes to such tools/technologies, what lessons do you think shops need to learn right now that would help them to create more successful, stronger campaigns?

Internalizing "Your Brand Is Not My Friend" is a start. And what's important about that is the notion that social media is all about "what do I want to hear from you" not "what do you want to tell me." That's a huge paradigm shift and too many marketers get in their own way by trying to cram all sorts of marketing speak and selling points into their social media efforts, as if they were product brochures or something. Which is the marketing equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting out "I'm not listening!"

A good example of what to do right is Travelocity's "Cities I've Visited" Facebook app, which is just that: a world map that lets you mark off the various cities you've been to. The underlying message is something to the effect of "travel is cool" but that's it - there's no sell there beyond the Travelocity logo at the bottom, no desperate attempt at "messaging." Which is likely why 7.8 million people installed the app.

You've also got to be prepared for pushback. Consumers expect a conversation and they're not always going to say something nice. Rather than try and censor them, use the encounter as an opportunity to learn and to actually listen to what your consumers have to say - remember, if they didn't care about your brand at all, they likely wouldn't bother commenting in the first place. To wit: When I wrote about Zappos.com and their Twitter campaign, someone left a comment on my blog detailing a customer service issue they'd had. Tony Hsieh, who is the CEO of Zappos, left a follow-up comment (and his email address) offering to rectify it. He did, the reader left a follow-up comment to that effect and not only does Hsieh have a satisfied customer, he has a Google-able record of Zappos' extremely proactive and personalized customer service. And that encounter alone is worth more so much more than a throwaway line about great service crammed into the body copy of a print ad.

7. Everyone is concerned about the future of the ad biz and its slow shift toward innovating the business and its model. What do you think the biggest change is that general market agencies could make to stay at the top of the game and successfully fend off over eager PR and media agencies?

It's a tough one. As I've written, there's only so much agencies can do to change the paradigm if their clients aren't willing to play along. Agencies can say they want to get involved with things like product design and customer service training and everything in between. But clients have to be willing to pay them for those services, and all too often that's not the case: they already have a product design vendor and don't see why they should turn that role over to the people who make funny TV commercials for them.

So step one has got to be to get clients to start seeing agencies as resources for things other than banner ads. And then finding ways to get paid for those services the way the McKinseys and Bains of the world do, so we're not just focusing on specific deliverables.

Step two in that process is for agencies to bring in the sort of people who truly understand that things have changed and that it's never going back to the way it was.

Ever.

A comparison I keep coming back to, is the immigrant experience in America: there are some immigrants who realize that the old country, the old way of doing things, is permanently and forever behind them, and that it's time to become Americans and start adapting to the new culture. And their experience is a lot different than those immigrants who cling tenaciously to their old culture, who resist even learning English and spend a large portion of their time negatively comparing everything American to the way things were back home.

You've got the same thing going on in agencies now. People who were brought up in traditional advertising implement changes only to the degree necessary to stay in business, while idealizing the good old days and griping about the clear banality and uselessness of the new world they find themselves in.

And changing that mindset is not as easy as bringing in a bunch of twenty year olds, as Lee Clow recently suggested at the 4A's. It's about bringing in people who are more strategic, more collaborative, more concerned about finding out what consumers want to hear than they are about finding the exact right shade of blue.

Which is not to say we need to throw craft out the window. Craft is more important than ever. It's just that we need to realize that craft is mostly about the consumer these days, and to paraphrase David Ogilvy, the consumer isn't another art director, she's your wife. Ads - in whatever form they take - don't have to be boring to be consumer friendly. In fact, just the opposite should prove true, since "what I want to hear" is never going to be a series of pre-packaged, client-dictated selling points.

I know it's a cliche and then some, but I really do feel like this is an incredible time to be in the business. So much is changing, on a daily basis, and I find it really exciting and energizing to be a part of it.

Right now, anyway.

As if calling your agency Da inci wasn't silly enough (put down the hubris kids!), the agency has been renamed, Synarchy Worldwide, according to a report in AdAge.com and other sources.

So what does that SAT worthy word actually mean? Synarchism is from the Greek words meaning "to rule together" or "harmonious rule". Those who took a political science course will be familiar with the concept.

Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, an occultist, also used the word "synarchy." He wrote the book La France Vraie (1882), in reaction to anarchist movements and described what he believed was the ideal form of government - an organic unit. He defended social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups. As part of this concept of government, Alexandre gave an important role to esoteric societies, which are composed of oracles and who safeguarded the government from behind the scenes.

Yeaahhhh... Dude was on some next level shit, ok?

"Synarchy" is also the name of the ideology of a political movement in Mexico dating from the 1930s. In Mexico it was historically a movement of the Roman Catholic extreme right. They were violently opposed to secularist policies of the governments of the time. A little fascist even.

Conspiracy theorists also use the word synarchy to describe a shadow government where all the power rests in the hands of few men and women.

Yowza! Good choice guys! Bravo! Great name. Did you do any research on the historical context of this word?

[image is of The Skull And Bones Secret Society - source]

Hi gang,
I'm sorry. I'm very tied up today. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to post an item or two, but I can't bank on it.

Just as a FYI - new candidates for my position are being vetted as we speak. Soon, you'll have a more reliable spy posting on the site.
Please be patient while we make the transition?

Apologies.
Super Spy

ABC is looking to face off against Nieslen with their new "Advertising Value Index," which takes a lot of criteria (income, employment, etc.) and marketing objectives, which spits it back out as a list of shows that a viewer is likely to watch. Then, it comes up with a single index number per network to be used in comparison to other networks. ABC will essentially, be recommending where advertisers should place their dollars.

How often do you think that ABC will say, score 174 against CBS whose score might be something like, 157? How can buyers actually trust the ABC system. It's a bit biased. Adweek has Mike Shaw, President of Sales at the network, admitting that ABC comes out better than the other networks, both cumulatively and when compared to each of the other broadcast networks individually.

Yeah, so it's like Nielsen's own metric system, but useless and tilted, owned by ABC and with a slimmed down operating system. They're calling it "evolutionary, not revolutionary." Lets just call it what it really is shall we? B.S. Bullshit. Dirty diaper. Crap. Poop. Insert your own word here.

TBWA used to have that huge Playstation account until Deutsch swept in and took their cake. THANK HEAVENS, because those Playstation ads were getting a bit awful. Like, um this concept ad from TBWA\Wien in Vienna, Austria which replaces a penis with a thumb. WTF? What guy, in his right mind, wants to imagine his prized possession taken over by a thumb? On the subconscious level it's a bit emasculating. On the conscious level, it's just down right unappealing.

Sony made a shitty machine turning off consumers left and right. TBWA has done their part to alienate the brand even further with a load of crap, nonsensical and offensive print ads like this one or that one.

As a gamer, I'm begging Deutsch to make this right. Make that brand right again. Tough task as there is nothing you guys can do about the product, but at least, make the advertising imagery not make me hurl, yeah?

[source: Gizmodo]

Just Ask The Locals (JATL) is a New York City tourism campaign, which has featured the likes of Robert Deniro and Jonathan Adler. Cunning, that British band of wackos who launched Mini Cooper and also did some nice work for HSBC recently, were charged with developing supporting concepts for Mayor Bloomberg's desired expansion of the JATL tourist appreciation campaign.

Cunning created the cunning 'Ultimate Local' - an information booth at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Passers-by pose questions to 'The Ultimate Local' shown on a plasma screen fixed to the front of the booth. 'The Ultimate Local' could see and hear them in real time and answer any, any, any question about Manhatta. Examples: Where to get the best slice of pizza, how many rooms are in the Gramercy Park Hotel and what happened to the peep shows in Times Square?

Okay. Good idea, right? It's simple, provides a service and is also just a little fun. What other agencies specialize in experiential executions, ideas that get people involved on the street level through technology, mobility, events, kiosks, gimmicks and games? What are the names of these smaller shops mucking things up? Comments please. In the mean time, here's a meager starting list:

- Area/Code
- Cunning
- Iris Nation
- The Happy Corp Global

What... you guys thought she wouldn't see her picture in the Paris subway. This is fricking Uma Thurman. Hello? The lady is beyond global. She's intergalactic planetary.

Lancome is calling bullshit with a countersuit saying they don't owe her a dime. They even trotted out a fuckwit of a PR rep for L'Oreal (Lancome's parent company) who basically admitted their guilt:

"The use of Ms. Thurman's image after her contract expired, however minor, was neither deliberate nor intentional."

McCann is L'Oreal's AOR. Not to say they are to blame or anything. A funny note about that... Overheard at the death star agency - a bigwig admitting that they just spend L'Oreal's money on digital, just to say they've fulfilled their digital obligations. Forget strategy, social media, blah, blah... Just build something expensive, throw in some e-commerce, bill the client and hope for the best. How McCann continues to survive while their leadership wastes great talent and churns out mediocre work? No idea. None.

Turns out he is working. In a New York Time piece about business professional using Facebook as a networking tool (that one should win a Pultizer), a Steve Biegel from small Manhattan agency Scarlet Heifer is quoted as saying:

"My partner and I are constantly on these sites mingling with prospective clients or people we can hire for our company. It's like pollination. You just go from flower to flower."

Hey now Steve. Watch that language. Someone might think you have sex on the brain or something.

So, what is a Scarlet Heifer? It is a purification ritual from the Old Testament that calls for a sacrifice of a rare red heifer (a young cow who has yet to have a calf). In Judaism, the heifer is is slaughtered and the ashes are used to purify people who have come in contact with a corpse. As the agency's website explains, it is also a paradox: "In order to become pure, you must first perform a rite that renders you impure. The profound insight lies in the idea that the moment you clearly face the reality you are at the bottom, is the same moment you begin your ascent to the top."

The agency goes on to talk about taking brands who have fallen on hard time, as well as tackling the difficult issues facing emerging brands and getting them on the right track. It's also a lovely metaphor Steve's personal troubles.

Steve's new partner in crime is Dan Howald who has worked at FCB, Waring & LaRosa, Grey, and Young & Rubicam. The pair is pushing the new model of getting paid for their I.P. through ownership points.
And, the agency is ready to do it all from the digital to the outdoors.

Well, you gotta give Steve some credit for getting back on the bucking bronco, no?

AdAge notes that "Mr. Andree has been trying to revitalize the agency, steering a major reorganization of U.S. operations -- including staff overhauls and acquisitions such as its purchase of San Francisco shop Attik."

Isn't nice to hear something coming out of Dentsu that has nothing to do with Steve Biegel? The latest with all that hoopla is that the case is meandering it's away around the U.S. District Court in New York with pre-trail hearing set for November 24.

Susan Giannino, Chairman and CEO of Publicis USA, was out there visiting a couple of weeks ago -- and we were told that it was a routine visit and that everything was going great.

Maybe not so much -- we'll hit up the PR people to see how they spin it this time...keeps "hump day" interesting if nothing else.

We don't have exact numbers yet, but the Omnicom-owned digital agency laid off "several" including creative director Mike Rezac who worked on the Las Vegas Tourism. Sources say "financial concerns" were the reason.

Sure you can drive traffic to the website mentioned in the ad (and this is going along with the whole "integration" theme that agencies work with their clients) -- but I don't see the point to the entire thing.

It is one of a series of ads themed around skydiving -- but someone please tell me what it has to do with selling cars -- or cars in general, at all?

It's spring! Right about now, you should be thinking about quitting your job and getting a little Sex And The City, yeah? It's time for No Wukkas - the job hunt. The Minneapolis edition.

1. Unknown - Account Manager, MN
Growing mission-driven experiential marketing agency has an opportunity for a full-time Account Manager. Qualified candidates will have 3-5 years experience in an Event Marketing related position. Individuals must also have superior time-management skills and a keen eye for detail. The ability to develop and manage a budget is also essential.

Get more details here.

2. Campbell Mithun - Media Planner, MN
You will be responsible for:
- You enjoy the opportunity to develop analysis, documentation, and rationale for media plan recommendations that will meet pre-determined objectives.
- You excel at executing media plans promptly and thoroughly while providing on-going maintenance of approved media plans.
- You effectively use agency systems and procedures to monitor client expenditures.
- You have a knack for presenting media work to appropriate client and agency personnel.
- You are a pro at effectively representing agency and clients with media representatives.

Get more details here.

3. Carmichael Lynch - Account Manager, MN

Heads up! You must have 5+ year of experience! You have to be able to lead teams, be insightful, blah, blah, blah.

Get more details here.

4. Periscope - Senior Designer, Packaging, MN

The marketing agency was recently tapped by Regal Boats, one of the largest independent boat builders in the U.S., to provide a full slate of marketing services.

They are looking for a senior designer with a passion for all forms of design, especially packaging. You should have 5+ years' experience working on projects that range from boutique to hardworking packaging to traditional print formats.

Get more details here.

5. Colle + McVoy (who has many open spots) - Account Supervisor, MN

- Build and nurture strong client relationships that are honest, fun and built on a mutual respect for one another
- Instigate and champion great ideas internally and externally
- Be the "glue" or key integrator for all advertising and marketing functions, including strategic and creative development, creative contact management and integrated marketing activities
- Lead strategic development of marketing communication plans to grow the client's business strategy and positioning

Get more details here.

6. Yamamoto Moss Mackenzie - Unnamed Job, MN

From their website:

"There are always jobs at Yamamoto Moss Mackenzie. We're looking for people who are smarter, tougher, more ambitious and more creative than we are. You should be so good the end up taking our jobs away from us. That's capitalism and we'll deal with it."

Okay. Yeah. A little college-y at the end there with that realism shot out to capitalistic societies, but you know... couldn't hurt to fire over your resume.

Get more details on the agency here.

Martin Williams press is on full steam. Choo-choo! WE HEAR THAT... today, the shop is laying off least 9 people with some staffers saying the total will go up to 15. Question is - who is doing the firing? We know that high level staff is out of office. Please... did they leave this to the HR lady to do? Crap. Craptastic.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..." We actually chatted with some high level folks at MW and we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, that we were getting full disclosure. Silly us. Silly cow.

We're going to do a No Wukkas post before EOD for those who got the shit end of the stick today.

Campbell Mithun is like, is like... um, Mariah Carey. You know, just when you think she can't get any more zonked on her own fame (surprise weddings, strange press releases, weird beauty rituals), out she comes with a hit album. In today's Minneapolis Tribune, we get to take a look inside a stalwart of The Twin Cities scene and all the changes taking place to bring the shop back to its high flying origins.

Recent changes at Campbell Mithun include new CEO, Steve Wehrenberg; account wins such as National City Bank, and an expected bump in media billings ($750 million this year, following three consecutive years of between $650 million and $700 million). AdAge has them up 2.6& in 2007 in their Agency Report. The Star has them up 3%. Either way, they're turning a few more dollars beating out other Minneapolis based agencies in revenue such as Carmichael Lynch (-1.5%), Fallon (-26.5%), and Martin Williams (7.4% but still ranked below Mithun).

In the article, the shop makes it clear they are going back to basics.
Jonathon Hoffman, CM's president and chief creative officer, returned to the agency in 2004 after 15 years at Leo Burnett Worldwide of Chicago. Hoffamn told the paper that CM was going back to ethos of founder Ray Mithun: "a big, pioneering brand idea that communicates the point of the product and its value, driving increased sales and profits."

Wait. Isn't that the whole point of advertising? Shouldn't everyone be looking to do that at the base level? Yeah. Ray was onto something, but how did Campbell Mithun come to be anyway? Glad you asked...

Campbell Mithun was founded by Ralph Campbell who had been dismissed from BBDO after he refused to relocate to New York. Campbell, nearing the age of 50, teamed up with the then 24 year old Raymond Mithun who had worked beneath him as a copywriter. Their first three accounts were Andersen Corporation, Land O'Lakes, and Northwestern National Bank. Not bad, right? The shop did what all small shops do - hustle. Campbell Mithun survived the great depression and the war years with flying colors. Campbell died in the fall of 1949 during the halftime festivities of an Iowa-Minnesota football game. Nonetheless, the shop surged on and became well known for its highly creative work and determination to pitch, as well as win big accounts.

Mithun was getting old and so, he encouraged his staff to become invested in the company, so they would carry on being an independent force in the industry. It didn't take. Mithun sold all of his stock back to the company in 1972, and retired in 1978. One year later, management sold out to New York-based Ted Bates. Bates was later bought by the legendarily reckless Saatchi boys.

CM was merged with another Saatchi holding, The William Esty Company, to create the most powerful Midwestern agency at the time. The New York-based William Esty Company held many automotive accounts in Detroit, Michigan. In 1988, the new company had combined billings of $740.8 million and offices in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Toronto, and Windsor, Canada. Hot shit.

In 1992, Campbell Mithun Etsy acquired Goodwin, Dannenbaum, Littman & Wingfield - an independent advertising agency based in Texas. CME was then merged with and London-based KHBB to form a new international advertising agency network. CME-KHBB Advertising, Inc., with combined billings of $1.2 billion, was listed as the 17th largest ad agency in the world. The agency's offices were located not only in the United States, but throughout Europe and Asia. The idea behind the merger, according to Saatchi & Saatchi management, was to create a network of small offices located in major cities around the world.

When Saatchi blew, so did CME. The 50% of interest in the shop was put up for sale and purchased by The Interpublic Group of Companies in 1995 for $40M.

[source, source, source]