• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 21, 2014

Here's an odd juxtaposition of sorts. Over in Germany, Audi ad agency Thjnk is located on the second floor of an office building in Hamburg. Interesting -- Tesla Motors is about to open a showroom in the same building. On the first floor. Right below Audi's ad agency. And just like any ad agency would do in a situation like this, Thjnk created a gigantic mesh banner atop the banner Tesla placed in the window of its first floor location. The banner reads: "It's nice when neighbors have common interests." Now that's just way to polite if you ask me. You have to wonder what the agency folks are really saying when they walk by that giant Tesla banner on their way to work every day.

Deutsch LA has hired Zach Gallagher as EVP, Director of digital strategy. Most recently Zach led the Interactive, Social and Data Strategy disciplines at Wieden+Kennedy's Portland office. Before joining W+K in 2011, he was general manager of the IPG Emerging Media Lab in LA. Over the course of his 18-year career, he has worked on Virgin Atlantic, Toyota, Coca-Cola, American Express, Old Spice, Nike, Facebook and Sony. Of joining Deutsch, Gallagher said: "I'm really, really excited about getting to a place where digital plays such a big role in how we affect our clients' businesses. Being able to work under Jeffrey Blish and Winston Binch to bring the best integrated strategic thinking to the table is sort of the dream scenario. And the pressure to feed inspiration and opportunities to creative and design talent like Matt O'Rourke, Jerome Austria and Nathan Iverson is what strategists live for. I can't wait to get started."

So it's all about content marketing and native advertising now, right? Did you know there's an awards show for content marketing? Even if you didn't, you'd hardly be surprised there is. After all, there's an award event for everything in advertising. There might even be an award for marketing directors who say: "Can we make the logo bigger?" In any case, the Pearl Awards has issued its call for entry. Entries can be submitted through September 9th, will be judged by a team of content marketing experts in five cities; Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Winners will be announced and celebrated at a ceremony on Tuesday, November 11th at Apella in New York City. Last year’s top winners included Rodale Grow, McMURRY/TMG and Pace, as well as international entrants Head Office, Spafax and Bauer Media Group for clients such as Whole Foods, UPS, WebMD, Mercedes-Benz, Dove and more.

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