Martin Bihl

Crash & Burn 10 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Career in Marketing & Advertising (Or Any Other Industry)

Kickstarter update: I can't wait for this to be over.

Working on the Kickstarter campaign to help me bring the book to life means that I can't write the book.

It's funny how this works. It is either promote the campaign or write, not both.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cra...

Everyone is a writer until they have to write a headline.

And let's be clear - subject lines for emails, text opening lines, and the first line of social media posts are all a form of headlines.

Copywriting looks easy. It is just words, until it isn't.

The King of Madison Avenue [Note: This review originally ran in Advertising Age on February 19, 2009, and is reposted here by kind permission] There are three questions one can justifiably ask of a biography: 1) who the hell…

Being #DavidOgilvy, before, during & after @Ogilvy. We review @kennethroman6’s #biography #KingofMadisonAvenue wp.me/P23AlC-yg

Episode 02-Gary Hudson Podcast Episode · You're On Mute · 02/29/2024 · 12m

“You can have regrets and live through that and still have an awesome life”. #GaryHudson explores the idea of regret on the second episode of #YoureOnMuteThePodcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e... #podcasts #regrets #mistakes

Talk Talk Talk: Observations about language and change — Martin Bihl Words matter, of course, but do ALL words matter? Or are some just sounds we make without really thinking about what we're doing? No, those count too. Here's why.

The things we say don’t only convey what we mean to communicate, they also convey things we don’t even know we’re saying. I dive into some language to try to make sense of THAT can of worms. www.martinbihl.com/business-thi... #language #meaning #discoursemarkers

It’s the 4th quarter – when CFOs tell marketers to spend their $s or lose them next year! So they kick off dozens of projects to invoice before 12/31. While agencies are telling their employees to use up their PTO by year end or lose it.

Result? 3x the work & 1/2 the staff

Call for help

When the idea or thought about a project just comes to you as you're doing something else - that's working.

Employers and clients benefit from this without compensating for it.

There's no way to track working subconsciously, but we should acknowledge it to clients.

Lynch’s second law: mediocrity endures

Doing some back of the napkin math on the Free Press acquisition, I've determined The Onion is worth $2 trillion.

Crash & Burn 10 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Career in Marketing & Advertising (Or Any Other Industry)

Kickstarter update - 15 days to go: Stage why is derek smiling?

Because I ain't right in the head.😂

Doing this campaign has forced me to think about what success for all of this looks like to me. I'm liking the derek who is taking this chance.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cra...

It was advertising creatives playing music or games or sitting around thinking who produced much of the work that had agencies printing money, which led to holding companies buying agencies.

And then holding companies cut all that "foolishness" out in the name of efficiency.

Episode 01-Bob Hawthorne Podcast Episode · You're On Mute · 02/29/2024 · 15m

Is legacy just all the stuff your kids have to clean out of your basement or is it more about how people remember you? Or both? #BobHawthorne and I discuss this with sidetracks into Van Gogh, death and more. #YoureOnMuteThePodcast Episode 1: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Agency: Starting a Creative Firm in the Age of Digital Marketing Perhaps the only thing more challenging than writing Rick Webb’s brilliant, dense, and comprehensive Agency, is writing a review of it. For Mr. Webb had it easy – 300+ pages in which to explore eve…

Nobody who starts, runs, or uses an #agency today should ignore this book. We review @RickWebb’s @AgencyTheBook. wp.me/P23AlC-IG

The Write Stuff: Observations from an awards show — Martin Bihl Judging awards shows is a terrific opportunity to be inspired by the great work of peers and competitors. So imagine my surprise when i found myself inspired by work that was somewhat "less than great...

How I found inspiration for copywriters – and everyone else in advertising - while reading mediocre copywriting.

www.martinbihl.com/business-thi...

#advertising #copywriting #AI

If you really want to know how creative an adv. person or an adv. agency is - ask to see their timesheets.

Timesheets are pure fiction.

Very seldom does any human being work a 6 hours (lunch and breaks) day, let alone an 8 hour one.

We've perfected looking like we are working.

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture [Note: This review originally ran in Advertising Age on October 22, 2009, and is reposted here by kind permission] My first job out of high school was in a local family-owned department store. It h…

The costs behind the #cheap things you buy. We review @EllenRuppelShel’s #CheapTheHighCostofDiscountCulture: wp.me/P23AlC-DW

Episode 00-Introduction to the Podcast Podcast Episode · You're On Mute · 02/29/2024 · 2m

I recorded an intro episode because people told me I should. But then they also told me I shouldn’t post the whole season’s episodes at once, and I DID do that. So much for consistency. #YoureOnMuteThePodcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

I Think I Can: an alternative strategy for business — Martin Bihl Businesses have made a fetish out of doing more with less and extracting every last ounce of "value" from everything. What if there's a different way?

.#Charles Duhigg’s #ThePowerOfHabit was full of great insights, but there’s one part involving the insights of football coach #TonyDungy that has always intrigued me, though I didn’t quite understand why until a line in #JohanCruyff’s memoir lit the lightbulb: www.martinbihl.com/business-thi...

The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation One day in late January 1997, 87-year-old John Pierce – who had spent his career at Bell Labs before becoming Chief Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory – wrote out in large capital letters th…

My review of a really great book about just exactly that: the-agency-review.com/bell-labs/

A series of brief conversations, because this is a podcast and quantity is more important than quality. #YoureOnMuteThePodcast: open.spotify.com/show/06dqbvu... #podcast #YoureOnMuteThePodcast #conversation

Users Not Customers [Note: This review originally ran in Advertising Age on November 21, 2011, and is reposted here by kind permission] Once upon a time, when you wrote up concepts, you could refer to the people you w…

Why it matters whether you’re marketing to users or customers. We review @hugeinc's @amshap #UsersNotCustomers wp.me/P23AlC-Hr

WFH and the Randomness That Drives Creativity | Muse by Clios I had a boss once who said that the creative process can always be made efficient-er, it just can't be made efficient. And what he meant was, there are always parts of what creatives do that are stupi...

I’m not saying we’re all gonna run out of new ideas in the next few months; I’m just suggesting a few ways to help you not worry about it. Some thoughts on the #creativeprocess during a #globalpandemic musebyclios.com/musings/wfh-... @MusebyClio #advertising

Episode 33-Rob Fields

Historians, pundits & sportscasters love to look at key moments & say “that was the turning point” – but can we identify these moments in our lives as we live them? Art Advisor Rob Fields & I discuss this & other topics on episode 33 of #YoureOnMuteThePodcast: open.spotify.com/episode/44dW...

The Man Who Sold America [Note: This review originally ran in Advertising Age on May 17, 2011, and is reposted here by kind permission] At first, one wonders how Cruickshank and Schultz ever managed to write Albert Lasker …

How #AlbertLasker changed #advertising. More than once. We review #TheManWhoSoldAmerica wp.me/P23AlC-yS @FCBglobal #marketing

The Agency Review Thanks for clicking on the link. When I was cleaning out some old files i found this this presentation I wrote in 2016. Back then I shared it with a couple of universities, a few agencies and a cli…

I guess people had other more important things on their minds when I showed them this in #2016 than #demographiccliff #artificialintelligence and #theendofadvertising. Maybe now’s a better time. the-agency-review.com/presentation/ #advertising

Episode 32-Marta LaRock Podcast Episode · You're On Mute · 01/30/2025 · 14m

Strategist Marta La Rock – who spends a lot of time thinking about why people do what they do – believes you shouldn’t have regrets. With, however, two important caveats. Agree? Disagree? Discuss. Episode 32 of #YoureOnMuteThePodcast:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
#regret #MartaLaRock #podcast

Humankind [Note: This review originally ran in Advertising Age on September 20, 2011, and is reposted here by kind permission] Leo Burnett once said of advertising “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it…

What @LeoBurnett’s #Humankind means & how it can work for you. @TomBernardin & @marktutssel’s #Humankind reviewed wp.me/P23AlC-Dm

We Were Promised Jetpacks: More Thoughts on Creativity and AI — Martin Bihl A sort of rallying cry for creatives where AI is concerned. By way of an apocryphal HenryFord quotation.

People are worried about #AI but perhaps for the wrong reasons. I try to give you some “right” reasons to worry about it. Sort of. More thoughts on #Creativity and #AI: www.martinbihl.com/business-thinking/creativity-ai-horses-cars-jetpacks-buggywhips #creativity #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit As advertising people, we spend much of our time trying to create images that become icons of the era and language that becomes the argot of the age. (Or at least, some of us do). We mine the cultu…

Why #SloanWilson’s #TheManintheGrayFlannelSuit still has things to teach us 60 years later. Our review: wp.me/P23AlC-FV #novel #1955

Are #loyalty, #friendship and #love just aspects of the same thing? Can you have one without the others? I push the bounds of my friendship with Fanny Krivoy – and probably her loyalty as well – with the question I asked Cameron Weston in Season 1: tinyurl.com/bddk7k6y #YoureOnMuteThePodcast