• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 17, 2014

Australian ad man Tim Bond is happy. Really, really happy. In 1985 Bond was working for D'Arcy MacManus and Masius and was asked to come up with a tagline for Queensland. He thought about the task for ten weeks. And out came "Beautiful one day, perfect the next." It became Queensland's most iconic tagline. Fast-forward 29 years to a speech given by President Barack Obama at the University of Queensland. During his speech, Obama said: "This city, this part of Australia, is just stunning. Beautiful one day, and then perfect the next. That's what I understand." Following Obama's utterance, Bond's phone blew up with eager and excited "did you hear?” text messages and phone calls. Of the surprise, Bond said: "It was pretty amazing, really. When the most powerful man in the world quotes something you wrote, it feels good. It makes you feel proud of Queensland - that's another emotion that comes into it." Currently, Bond works for Brisbane ad firm The Ideas Bunker. Good on ya, mate! (Did I say that right?)

Yay, IPG! Wait, what? Who gets excited about an ad agency holding company? No one. Except the holding company itself. Which is why IPG is hyping itself today for five of its agencies making Ad Age's Best Places to work list. IPG agencies making the list include Carmichael Lynch, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN; Tierney, headquartered in Philadelphia, PA; TM, headquartered in Dallas, TX; UM and Weber Shandwick, both headquartered in New York, NY. The "Best Places to Work" list tracks companies that attract, develop, and reward the best minds in the marketing, technology and media industries. Advertising Age surveyed more than 20,000 people and looked at compensation, benefits packages and hiring practices, as well as work-life balance to determine the results. Of course, Ad Age's list has so many categories and so many geographic breakdowns that practically every agency in the country made the list. I mean SQ1? Who's heard of them?

Poor DDB. No idea if they made the Best Places to Work list, but they did just lose the New York Lottery account which the agency has handled for 23 of the past 26 years. And while that may be sad for DDB, it's great news for McCann Erickson New York, which just picked up the account besting FCB Garfinkel, JWT, and others. Interestingly, it appears that perhaps the move was an effort to rid the account of a certain degree of cronyism stemming from the fact that FCB Chairman Lee Garfinkel was chairman and CCO at DDB from 2003 to 2009 and DDB CCO Matt Eastwood bailed during the review to join JWT as CCO to help that agency win the account. Having worked on government accounts myself, there's always a layer of back-slapping boys club stuff running rampant throughout the relationship.

Ten years ago, after she participated in a pitch -- which was lost -- for a well-known cereal brand, UK MediaCom CEO Karen Blackett was told by a colleague that two middle-aged white guys said: “MediaCom were quite good but there’s no way we’d have a female director in this account, let alone a black one.” Yes, Blackett is black. Yes, this happened ten years ago but it doesn't seem as though things have changed much. Of the statement, Blackett said: “That’s hurtful because that was personal. It was nothing to do with my work. I’d have preferred them to say the proposal was rubbish. But you then have to think, more fool them. They would have got a bloody brilliant team. Does it still occur behind my back? I’m sure it does.” Of the state of diversity in the UK ad industry, Blackett added: “I still think it’s odd that I’m the only senior black woman in the advertising industry. I was at a Marketing Society event earlier this year where Justin King was honored as a Fellow. In the room there were a handful of women and two people of colour. I was one of them.”

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