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Lisa Seward

Member since July 2006Contact Lisa

  • Founder Mod Communications
  • 1067 Townline Road
  • Independence Minnesota
  • 55359 USA

Articles by Lisa All articles by Lisa

  • Free Agent: The Benefits of Extinction in Media Magazine on 07/14/2009

    Call it crappy-economy-inspired paranoia, but lately I've been feeling increasingly concerned that media planners and buyers could become extinct. My worry is not that the people themselves will die out (although enough years in the ad trenches can have that effect), but that the positions they work in today will be outsourced, downsized and flat-out eliminated.

  • Digging Out From Under in MediaDailyNews on 04/28/2009

    Think back about three months to the inauguration of our new president, a breathtaking moment the likes of which many of us had not experienced in our lifetimes. People from every corner of America are giddily hopeful, thrilled at what We the People are capable of, and our intent to change not only this country but the world.

  • Free Agent:Something Old, Something New  in Media Magazine on 02/02/2009

    Are you kidding me? Those words reverberated in my head upon reading a recent column in this magazine. The piece, "Don't Give Up Just Yet" (October 2008), reported on a major study conducted by Yankelovich and Sequent Partners that revealed what was posited as a silver lining amidst the storm clouds facing traditional media today: Despite their rapid migration to new media, consumers like - and are more responsive to - advertising in traditional channels. The author, J. Walker Smith, suggested this finding might be a reason not to lose faith in old-school media quite yet.

  • Free Agent: The Customer's Always Right in Media Magazine on 12/02/2008

    Here's a phrase you don't often hear: "I had the best customer-service experience the other day." But I really did, and it made me think about how rarely marketing communications actually serve consumers' needs in a valuable way.

  • Free Agent: Seeing What Sticks in Media Magazine on 10/02/2008

    What a difference a decade makes. This thought struck me recently while I was dining with some colleagues from the interactive advertising ranks. They were talking (okay, complaining) about clients and agency partners who spend too much time and money trying to perfect their ads - even relatively simple banners - on the front end rather than just putting them out on the Web and seeing what works best. Their experiences sounded surprisingly similar to those of my colleagues in more traditional ad arenas.

  • Free Agent: All Talk and No Action in Media Magazine on 06/23/2008

    It seems fashionble lately for people in our business to eschew the word "advertising." Somewhere along the line the term became distasteful, linked to earlier times when one-way, one-message communication was enough to do the job of selling goods to the public. Heard of any new ad agencies launching lately? Probably not. Instead, we hear terms like "brand studio," "brand-messaging lab" and myriad other newfangled labels that make what we do for a living sound far more complex and sophisticated.

  • Free Agent: The Power of Multiplicity in Media Magazine on 05/20/2008

    You know you're getting old when you start looking back at certain parts of your career as the good old days. I admit I fall victim to the rose-colored-rear-view-mirror mentality once in a while. But you know what's worse? Thinking back on those halcyon days and realizing just how antiquated and irrelevant the work you were doing then is today. It's humbling.

  • Free Agent: A Separation Anxiety in Media Magazine on 02/22/2008

    One of the key reasons I became a consultant was to help agencies figure out how to reinvent themselves in order to meet the need for modern, media-influenced communications solutions. More and more shops were questioning how to build for the future, usually by some means of getting media and strategy and/or creative to work together more closely, and in my 20 years on the agency side one of my favorite parts of the job was breaking down the walls between those disciplines.

  • Free Agent: Collaborate or Die in Media Magazine on 11/29/2007

    A realization hit me as I started on the road home. Hours and even days after leaving the first-ever connection-planning conference, hosted by New Orleans agency Trumpet, I still could feel all the fresh, provocative thinking reverberating in my brain.

  • Free Agent: A Cart With No Horse in Media Magazine on 10/01/2007

    In the pressure to be (or at least appear) current in today's onslaught of new-media opportunities, many in our profession are finding themselves making or receiving channel dictates like this - which is fine, as long as one critical criterion has been met beforehand: the core idea has been cracked.

Comments by Lisa All comments by Lisa

  • Meanwhile, A Gondolier Ride Across The Ocean… by Joe Mandese (Show Daily on 03/01/2007)

    I know! How about, instead of convening at yet another exotic location and talking yet some more about the need for creativity, we just put our time and effort into BEING more creative? I love the idea of celebrating media innovation, but as Joe points out plenty of organizations are doing that already. Better in my mind to walk it than talk it.

  • Media X: Decades of Disconnect by Jack Feuer (MediaDailyNews on 04/29/2009)

    Hilarious and sad, Jack. Thanks for posting this. Agencies are on their way to learning hard lessons the way Detroit is: reinvent or die. Finally it is not enough to merely, mildly evolve. Only the bravest will survive.

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