• by Jack Feuer , January 9, 2008

Monday afternoon rolls around and Ad Age breaks the news that Initiative won Hyundai's global media review. This story is true, which is refreshing. And it comes from "executives familiar with the matter," which is reassuring. Unlike Adweek, which would attribute the news to "sources," which naturally is far more suspect.

If you know automotive marketing execs in the West (particularly the ones with accents), and you know which contenders are likely to talk when a review is decided (hint: it's not the gruntled one), and you know which magazine adores which media agency executives (not the quiet ones), it's pretty easy to figure out who must have leaked this story.

Now, I could be completely wrong, and the story could have come from an angry Kia dealer with a pinky ring in San Bernardino. But odds are it came from one or two "executives familiar with the matter" -- and I bet I know both of them. (Although if I was still in hard news, I would call them "sources.")

Either way, I settle in to read an entertaining tale, which offers no explanation for why the decision was made, who made it, and how it was made. (For example, the review was launched because the incumbent made a completely unacceptable demand -- to actually make money on the business.)

Then I wait a decent interval for Adweek to catch up and go see what their story says. Which is hard to do, considering that in the middle of the column is a video of Adweek's Best Spots of 2007 from Firebrand, which features a hostess who looks like the GoDaddy babe with the same impressive, you know, talents, and enough makeup to stock a salon. So who remembers what the Best Spots of 2007 were, let alone what else there is to learn about the Hyundai review?

Let's give props to Nielsen for realizing it's so far behind in the digital race that the only way to catch up is to invent online ad porn.

"Oh well," quips a former colleague, "at least they've finally discovered video-casting."

The point is, this victory is a bracing change. Finally, something shook up the media agency hierarchy.

Sure, it took 10 years for Initiative to win a pitch that was this big and didn't come from Alan Cohen's old entertainment contacts. OK, this Initiative hardly resembles the same endearing also-ran I flacked for last century and covered in the early part of this one. And yep, this is a client with the ethics of a mongoose that nobody in their right mind would covet.

But it's great for an industry that talks incessantly about change -- but effects far too little of it. Life in the media marketplace was getting really boring before Monday.

A competitive Initiative? What's next, the Rapture?

Folks, your business is fun again. I know this is true, because I heard it from an executive familiar with the situation.