• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 2, 2014

Do you watch "Mad Men?' Silly question, I know. But have you seen the "Mad Men" spoof that Toronto-based agency Zulu Alpha Kilo did for Toronto's Agency of the Year event last week? If not, stop what you are doing right now and watch! The spoof depicts a 60's-era adman working in a current day agency. Yes, there's smoking. Yes, there's drinking. There's also a super-gross incident with running shorts. And then there's the best response ever in response to today's "specialization” of everything. Hilarious stuff! Technically, it's NSFW. But watch it anyway. You'll love it.

And speaking of crazy spoof videos created by ad agencies, have you seen the one john st. -- also based in Toronto -- did called Reactvertising? It's a no-holds-barred skewering of the rising obsession with real-time marketing. It's a brilliant piece of work -- much like the parodies of various advertising insanities the agency has done before -- that mocks the very lemming-like response the ad world had to what really should have a remained a one-off stroke of genius luck, MRY's "Oreo Dunk in the Dark" moment. Sadly, every brand attempted to copy that piece of brilliance, and for the most part, every single one has failed. As they should have. Because usually, good creative -- you know, that stuff our forefathers created before the Internet ruined everything -- takes time to develop. Give it a watch and then think long and hard before you encourage your client to jump on the Reactvertising bandwagon.

So what do bored Indian ad executives do when they're sick of working in an ad agency? They start an India-themed publication for the Bored at Work Network. In other words, they create a BuzzFeed killer otherwise known as the very successful Indian publication ScoopWhoop. The publication, which took just one month and $2,000 to launch, has 6.43 million unique monthly views with 17 million page views. None of the five founders are journalists. But they are well-versed in what it takes to make something go viral. And when you're publishing BuzzFeed-style editorial, sadly, that's all that really matters.

By now you've heard that Anheuser-Busch InBev has scuttled its 50 person in-house media-buying entity, Busch Media Group. On Friday, AB Inbev CEO Carlos Brito explained the decision in an earnings call. Basically, it's a move to improve the effectiveness of media-buying and to save money. More specifically, Brito said, the group is ”very, very good at buying sports and traditional media on TV" but when it comes to interactive media, the group “was not as well-equipped because of the volume they buy, not because of anything else, but because of the sheer scale of this other new media.” AB InBev will now work with WPP's media groups.

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