• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, October 19, 2014

Commenting on the increasingly fickle nature of today's high-speed advertising landscape, former Leo Burnett CCO Michael Conrad said: “Do you even remember the people who did that video where they had two people meeting for the first time kissing? Of course not. That is the point I’m trying to make,” he said, in reference to the viral YouTube video First Kiss. “Social media and the Internet are all just new communication platforms that have made things faster. You can do faster research. Get faster answers. Everything is faster but the concept of communicating ideas is still the same. It may be faster but there is also the tendency of being superficial.” He also thinks creatives, rather than business-type bean counters, should run creative agencies -- and he has a simple solution for client agency strife. He adds: “This can easily be fixed. Cross-functional brand teams involving the client. Get everyone involved to sit in a room during discussion and make sure the button pusher of the client that can say yes is part of the team. It’s very simple." Gee, we've never heard that one before.

So what do you get when you get when you're an upcoming band and you hook up with an ad agency's creative residency program? Well, if you're New York indie artist Superhuman Happiness and you hook up with 72andSunny's 72U, you get a really cool interactive video that takes place entirely on Craigslist. On CoCreate, it's described thus: "As the song plays from a popup window, viewers can poke around the site and catch glimpses of people’s lives: the story of a breakup is told through an ad selling a record player without any records (his ex took them); an adventurous but kinda lonely guy posts looking for a road trip buddy; and a listing for an old camera includes a photo log of the previous owner’s life." It's actually quite cool. Nice work, 72U.

Well, after a long, drawn-out review process, Crispin Porter + Bogusky has prevailed and won the Infiniti account. The account had been with TBWA since the late 1990's and TBWA did defend the account. Sadly, they didn't make it to the final round, But TBWA will continue to work with Infiniti sibling Nissan through its newly formed Nissan United division. CP+B beat out BBH, Goodby, Silverstein and Anomoly. The move follows the exodus of Infiniti CEO Johan de Nysschen last July and the installation of BMW exec Roland Krueger in September. As for reasons behind the switch, Infiniti North America VP Michael Bartsch said: "We've been working with Omnicom for the past 10 to 15 years, and they've done a fantastic job for us. But this is part of the separation process of making sure we're not perceived as the 'Nissan-plus' brand. There is a bleeding of styles between the brands. It's hard to avoid. An agency that's focused so intently on Nissan can't simply turn its attention to us and think in a completely different creative way."

Things appear a bit rocky over at Steve Stoute's Translation. Earlier this year, the agency closed its Chicago office. In February, former Tom's Shoes CMO Nils Peyron joined Translation as president. Just last week, Peyron left the agency along with ECDs Marc d'Avignon and Jay Berry, both of whom joined Translation shortly after Peyron. In April, Stoute said, “As an agency our mission has always been to provide exceptional service to our clients, and to bring purpose and precision to our creative output." It seems that output has been slightly stunted for the time being.

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