• by December 14, 2007

I left the big agencies back in the early to mid-'90s due to them not "getting" direct marketing, which at the time was limited to DRTV, radio and direct mail, with just a hint of the coming digital wave to come.

As progressive as they always tell everyone that they are, they're still not adopting to anything new, anytime soon. To me, part of their problem was the amount of effort they had to put into a marketing program vs. the rewards they'd reap and bottom line profits. It took a lot more effort to put together the nontraditional programs than a vast buy of 30 magazine titles, all using the same version of creative.

LINTAS went away because of this, and many other reasons as well. So did Earl Palmer Brown. I like to say that because I was pushing the nontraditional, I was a very unpopular account person at several agencies. They saw me as a threat. Perhaps if the real biggies listened, and I did have their ear a bit, things could have been different. Too bad they didn't get it before the ships sank!