• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, February 2, 2014

A week ago we posited several reasons why Hill Holliday Chairman Mike Sheehan, who was only in the role for a few months of a promised two-year stint, left the agency so quickly. One of the reasons was that Sheehan was taking on a role at the Boston Globe. Today that has come to fruition with the announcement that Sheehan will become the CEO of The Boston Globe. John Henry, who purchased the paper in October, will assume the role of publisher. Prior to taking on the role of CEO, Sheehan, 53, was working with the Globe as a consultant on ad sales. "I'm excited about the opportunity to work for John Henry, whose track record at transforming Boston institutions is unblemished," Sheehan said. "I would never bet against John Henry's ability to turn Boston Globe Media into something spectacular in very short order."

Oh, and that violentPSA created by Perth ad agency Henry & Aaron for the Learn For Life Foundation which to date has achieved close to 9 million views on YouTube and coverage from every major media outlet? Fake. Learn For Life does not exist and the whole thing was just a promotion for the agency. We all fell for it hook, line and sinker. Thoughts? Was this brilliant or inexcusably lame?

Boston-based Allen & Gerritsen has a Web series they call #AFewGoodMinutes. It's a video series chronicling intimate conversations with innovators in pop culture and marketing. So far, the series has had discussions with Donnie Wahlberg, PepsiCo Global Head of Digital Shiv Singh, JetBlue SVP Marty St. George, Russell Simmons, Google Creative Lab CCO Robert Wong and Warby Parker Co-Founder Neil Blumenthal. This week, Allen & Gerritsen EVP Joel Idelson sits down with Elle Creative Director Joe Zee to discuss the cutthroat business of marketing and advertising and the "individual" culture of Elle.

Horizon Media Founder and CEO (for 25 years) Bill Koenigsberg has a few things to say about Publicis and Omnicom and the whole "bigger is better" thing. Of the merger giving Publicis Omnicom Group tremendous access to Big Data and an edge over the competition, Koenigsberg says, "I don't buy that. The data that Publicis and Omnicom will have is derived from their own backyard. Will clients allow them to trade on that data? How much is proprietary from each individual client, and how much they can actually open up and make decisions on, from a larger universe, is yet to be seen." And on why he thinks his agency is much better suited to handle big clients like the Burger King account they just won, Koenigsberg adds: "Because we haven't built the company through acquisitions, we're incredibly integrated, we're not distracted by corporate intricacies, and decision-making is faster."

Okay -- now back to your regularly scheduled Super Bowl coverage.

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