At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona yesterday, Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy fessed up to the holding company's less-than-stellar growth this past year, saying: "We are not delivering the kind of growth we are used to and not what we should do. We are confident the situation will improve remarkably next year. The focus is to fix the organic growth of Publicis, integrate Sapient and to make sure it is generally the kind of growth that the market is expecting from us." He also acknowledged that the failed Publicis Omnicom merger was a detrimental distraction, but was quick to point out that Publicis is on track to deliver 42% of profits to its shareholders -- a figure he says is slightly above industry average.

Wait, what? The Apprentice is still a thing? Yup. Apparently all over the world. Who knew? And over in the UK where entrepreneur Lord Sugar rules the roost, it would appear that advertising agencies, much like Deutsch -- as represented by the over-eager Donny Deutsch -- did in the U.S. show's early days, are eager get their moment in the sunshine in as many episodes as they can. Trouble is, much like on the horrific The Pitch, they all end up looking like buffoons. And of the show, Ann Summers CEO Jacqueline Gold said: "Programs like The Apprentice give the impression you need to be a man or be aggressive in business, you don't." No, but you do need to be entertaining, and on The Apprentice, entertaining means screaming, yelling, crying, fighting and, generally acting like a baby who's hungry and needs a diaper change.

So working in an ad agency can be crazy at times. 72andSunny ECD Jason Norcross knows this and has some advice for those looking to make it in the ad world. His five tips include just try it, be decisive, make it personal, just do it and be specific. He adds: "In advertising, as in a lot of industries, it’s very easy to be trapped by theory. You can intellectualize things and debate things in theory when it can be faster and more efficient just to try it and see if it works. If it doesn’t work then you know and can try something different. You can’t be precious about it. If you have an idea you think is the right thing, as it starts to unfold, constantly evaluate it, constantly push it and constantly try things until it has to ship.” Hmm. He sounds like a Nike ad.