• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, December 11, 2013

Hmm. Looks like the content and advertising landscape is about to get a whole lot more family friendly. Walmart EVP and CMO Stephen Quinn has been named Chairman of the Association of National Advertisers' Alliance for Family Entertainment. In this role, Quinn will work with national advertisers, agencies and programmers with an eye towards creating more family-friendly content. Of his role, Quinn said, “The advertising community has consistently demonstrated that it will support family content because it’s good for business. Family brands need smart, sophisticated family content to succeed. Yet there continues to be an insufficient supply of programming to meet family advertising needs. The AFE hopes to change that. I am committed to this initiative and will be reaching out to my colleagues in the coming weeks to share our vision.” Watch out, Awkward. Stephen Quinn is not your fan.

So in this business we hear a lot of "marketing gurus" spouting off about trends and the next big thing. Most of it comes off as pompous puffery. Now, it's a forgone conclusion that any discussion of the future, by default, sounds very much like puffery but wouldn't it be nice if we could hear from some pontificators other than those working in the ad business who, by definition, are all about puffery? San Francisco-based School of Thought created a video entitled These 5 Trends Are Changing Marketing for Good. In the video, we hear from Facebook Developer Prashant Sridharan, Sega Director of Mobile David Zemke, Shazam CTO Jason Titus, Hacker Educator Kalimah Priforce and Ekso Bionics CTO Russ Angold. The five trends discussed are multitasking, screen engagement, the increasing importance of brand values, technology as a leading indicator of behavior and the fact the customer truly rules the relationship now.

Today it's all about content and mobile, right? Is your agency making the right moves to dovetail with these trends? Carrot Creative is. They've hooked up with Vice Media to help the publisher build and create new ways to distribute the brand's editorial content. But it's not a client/agency relationship. Vice bought Carrot Creative making it an integral component of its operation. Of the hook up, Vice Media President Andrew Creighton said, “We take our learnings as a media company and offer them to brands which are now trying to work like media companies. It gives us an extra resource.” So if it's all about content being consumed on mobile devices, does your agency have the proper resources to help make this happen for brands? If you can't answer with a confident "yes," you had better do some soul searching.

Paid vacations are great, right? A couple weeks a year to go and do whatever you want. But what if you had 500 hours, roughly 12 weeks, to pursue your passions...while getting paid? That's what Minneapolis-based Barrie, D'Rozario, Murphy is offering its employees. BDM ECD Stuart D'Rozario told staffers, "You have 500 hours of your life back, figure out what you're passionate about and go and do it." The agency has built up enough cash reserves in its first seven years of business to afford such a program. All 18 employees took the summer off to pursue their dreams. One employee, Kim Schmitt volunteered at a horse shelter. Another employee, Andrew Langdell, spent the summer designing a hands-free dog leash he hopes to market. D'Rozario spent his summer writing a cookbook, creating a musical album and penning a self-help book. What would you do if you had a paid summer off?

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