As you have undoubtedly heard, Minneapolis ad man Pat Fallon died last week. In honor of Fallon, former Fallon staffer and current partner at GdB Doug deGrood created a tribute ad that appeared as a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Wednesday. But deGrood did much more than simply create a tribute ad.  deGrood, along with several other co-workers, went much further reaching out to the Minneapolis ad community asking for their participation in the ad. Over 40 agencies participated.  The ad contains the logo of all the businesses that participated along with the copy, "While any other day …

Most brands, according to a recent Association of National Advertisers study, will not be dropping their procurement departments.

On Monday, founder of Greenville ad agency Erwin Penland, Joe Erwin, announced his retirement. Erwin launched the agency in 1986 with his wife and one account. Since that time the agency has grown to 1,000 employees with offices in Greenville and New York. In a note to staff announcing his retirement, Erwin wrote: "While this might seem sudden to many of you, the fact is that Allen (Bosworth, the agency's COO) and I have been talking about succession planning for well over a year. I love Erwin Penland and what we have done for more than 29 years -- a …

Leo Burnett Sydney has reached out to the freelancer to see if fences can be mended, but the two parties have not yet connected.

Possible CEO Shane Atchison says digital agencies must connect with and speak the language of the client CEOs.

Edward Snowden, the poster boy for government shenanigans and consumer security, has weighed in on ad blockers and why he feels it's important for consumers to use them.  In an interview with technologist Micah Lee, Snowden said: "We've seen internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, or whoever it is, insert their own ads into your plaintext http connections. As long as service providers are serving ads with active content that require the use of Javascript to display, that have some kind of active content like Flash embedded in it, anything that can be a vector for attack in your web …

This Sunday VW launched a new campaign created by Deutsch LA that will run in 30 newspapers. Which of course pales in comparison with the terror that hit Paris and the death of a beloved ad man.

Penning an op-ed piece for Crain's New York, Trust Founder and CEO Adam Fine says it's time for brands to stop overcompensating for their inadequacies and, well, to stop lying plain and simple. He says: "Brands picture themselves how they want to be seen rather than how they really are."  Of course, there's no need for 100 percent honesty because, well, that would just be ugly. But Fine has a point and writes: "It’s time for clients to take a look in the mirror and, literally, stop lying. If a client is honest with us, the workflow, working environment and …

PepsiCo just announced they are getting rid of their global marketing procurement department and shifting that responsibility back to where it belongs.

Pharmaceutical research firm Industry Standard Research is out with a new report that examines ad agencies and their ability to serve healthcare clients. Making the list are Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare, FCB, Havas Life, McCann, Ogilvy, TBWA/World Health and many others.