The next day these people have to go out and cover up the work. In fact I call for Mother NY to be held responsible for any and all action both civil actions as well as criminal actions based on vandalism charges if they proceeds.

Spray painting the side of someone’s house or office isn’t what I considering advertising, it’s called vandalism. It’s not hip, it’s not cool. It’s giving someone a headache that has to clean up the mess.

Mother New York is teaming up with Animal, also known as Animalnewyork — a daily Web magazine — to bring BNE to New York on Dec. 10. Details are being kept under wraps for now because BNE, who has not been publicly identified, has had some run-ins with the law over his or her work.

Many New Yorkers who lived in the city during the 1970s and 1980s are not as enamored of graffiti and street art as advertising agencies are. They consider such work nuisances and scribbling, if not vandalism and illegal.
The New York Times is reporting

Because of course everyone feels this is valid advertising.

I am sorry Mother New York, this isn’t valid advertising. This is crap, literally. I really feel sorry for Mr. Deitchman, that feels that vandalism is a valid advertising option.

“There are a lot of people who’ve started their art in the street,” said Andrew Deichtman, a co-founder of and strategist at Mother New York,

“We’re generally, and genuinely, interested in these kinds of phenomenons,” Mr. Deitchman said.

Seriously Andrew, just resign now.. you don’t deserve to be getting a paycheck for hiring criminals to vandalise other people’s property.

So we find this advertising less than truthful, how about this AT&T .. instead of spending money on 30 second spots, how about putting up a few more towers that we can use 3G .. or how about covering areas you actually claim you cover.

The article has a picture of the house and a google maps satellite view of the house.

Whisnant is a senior vice president and director of film and digital production at Energy BBDO, a full-service advertising agency. She previously served as a senior producer at Fallon and worked with Cliff Freeman & Partners.

Looks like someone isn’t worried about losing her job like the rest of us.

Plus it reads like it came from Washington… oh wait..

This is pretty horrific stuff, I don’t know why they just didn’t say “people can buy into medicare” or something akin to that for a fixed rate… instead they make this massive bill.

Regardless, feel free to read the document, larger than the book of war and peace.

So the question is, why is everyone else calling Google an advertising agency. From the linked article “To understand these moves is to realise that Google is an advertising agency;”

But Google themselves and the Advertising agency holding companies?

We believe that if a company looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.. it is a duck. In this case Google provides copywriting services for adwords (IE: creative) they serve those ads via their own content network. They allow for media purchases though adwords though their properties and other peoples properties via adsense, and they provide a way to measure clients ROI via Google Analytics.

That’s not an advertising agency? You have to think about it, just because it’s not a 30 second spot (which they can provide via Youtube in 1080p ) doesn’t mean it’s not an Advertising agency because it’s different than what you are accustomed to.

Then the other question is why does Google say that Yahoo is a competitor to WPP group plc, but not themselves?

Doesn’t this raise any other questions? For example, We’ve been saying for years that JWT should stop using “largest Advertising in the USA” because they are not the largest, that is Google.

So what is your thoughts, most importantly we find it fitting that they called second rate Yahoo! as the competitor. Tells you what Google is thinking.

I have bought a brand new spanking HP Notebook computer. It’s wonderful. In fact I am taking a screen shot of myself using it now.

Notice something? I am not using Windows 7, it came with the computer. When I got this machine, on boot I put in an Ubuntu CD. The machine never booted in Windows. So why did I pay for it?

It’s an honest question and I want an honest answer. If I never wanted to buy the product, I never wanted to use the product, why do I have to pay for the product?

The home premium version goes for $200, I’m guessing the OEM’s get a better deal, so let’s say they pay half that… and the craplets that normally come with HP machines might drive the cost down slightly lower… I’m guessing that from the $200 retail price, I should at least get a $50 break.

So Microsoft, you have somewhere between $50 – $200 that you stole. I want that money back.

Just tell me where the refund process is on your site and I will happily fill it out, but clearly I can’t find such a “upgrade from Windows 7 to Linux Refund page” so just tell me what document I need to fill out and I will expect your check in 30 days… right?

“Free content devalues everything in the food chain. It is disintermediating everything, including ad agencies and advertising revenues,” he said.

Really, and people want to spend money to see a guy falling off a donkey on Youtube shot by a cell phone camera?

What Maurice doesn’t understand however is that people don’t like to shell out money, the services online has to be compelling enough to make people feel the need to shell out their hard earned money during the great recession. Good luck with that. Mostly because there is an expectation that if I pay money for a service, I don’t want any of his services included.

Think about it, would you pay money for something if it was filled with advertising? I had no problem shelling out money for Modern Warfare 2, because I am not expecting to be see some unwanted advertising. So yes Maurice, I will pay for some online services, just as long as your services are not there. Also if you guys want to take a pot shot at me for stating this, feel free to attack me all you want.. my Xbox Live account username is “AdAgency”.

I’m fine with advertising on Hulu because it’s free… I’m not fine with advertising while playing Modern Warfare 2 because I paid for it. Understand the concept yet Maurice?

“Advertising cannot cover the cost of everything in the new digital media world. Other sources of generating revenues will have to be created, such as having consumers pay for some content. It cannot all be free or paid for with advertising,” Levy told me in a weekend interview at the Monaco Media Forum, co-sponsored by Publicis. Seeking Alpha is reporting

What these ad agency folks are not getting, is the fact that people should be wanting to see their video, not using their client money to force it on others.

It’s like they completely forgot Youtube isn’t TV.. the average video lasts about 3 minutes. Now they want to put a 30 second spot in front of the 3 minute video.

Doesn’t anyone see the problem with this? The average video doesn’t run long enough on Youtube to justify a big spot like that. Another problem is more problematic.

Shouldn’t these ad agencies be making that 3 minute video in the first place? Like why are they using client media spend dollars for something that they should be doing themselves?

People won’t remember the ad, they’ll remember the video they were trying to reach in the first place? The point being that when advertising agencies are forced to rely on client spends rather than innovation and creative… at that exact moment the agency lost their way.

This isn’t TV, this isn’t print ads.. this is online. Anyone in the world with an internet connection can reach the url you are trying to promote… there are a million sites and methods of getting a website popular without media spends, yet these agencies consistently throw their clients money around like Washington DC does with your tax money.

We were told that the company is looking for a strong digital presence with a bias towards social media and “good google rankings” IE: SEO.

We were told that a handful of agencies are being solicited for an RFP. We were also told that “Social Media” will include viral videos and the goal is to get them “embedded on as many relevant blogs as possible”

Pretty interesting stuff.

Some people have complained to Microsoft that their banned console wasn’t their doing as they just purchased it on Ebay a few days ago… Microsoft has refused to activate their XBox… in other words, they bought a brick. This is turning out to be a public relations disaster that not even the best PR / Ad Agency can handle.

Many of these X-Boxes found on Ebay have ZERO disclaimers that they are banned, in fact we were able to reach one of the sellers and asked them if they knew they were selling a brick. The response “It wasn’t banned when I sent it” ..

Hot stuff… the sellers are saying they didn’t know as the ban took place today, and the buyers don’t know because it’s not labelled as a banned product on the Microsoft Live Network on the E-bay profile.

So what about these thousands of banned Xbox units being shipped though Ebay? This problem isn’t going away, a million Xbox owners just got the shaft this morning, and it’s a safe bet to say that tens of thousands of them (if not more) are going to show up on Ebay within days.

This is bad, and the interesting thing is that the one going to catch the slack for this isn’t Microsoft, it’s Ebay… When the first reports of this hit our desk, one of the e-mails to us stated “Why doesn’t Ebay have some sort of check option there that asks the people to list if it’s banned or not” — good point.

This is becoming more and more of a problem, as many firms are calling themselves digital, but yet all they do is throw clients money into Google Adwords.

This is not exactly digital, it’s an online media buy.. but it’s not digital. If you do digital you’re left promoting what you can using SEO, blogging, twitter, facebook, youtube, Google News, Digg, and whatever you can muster together to get your client’s site popular without forking over a credit card.

Hence why since I made that post no one was able to define it, I’ll do it for you guys.

Digital Advertising = Armed with a domain name, FTP and no budget
Media Buy = anything that requires a budget

Don’t like the terms, then please elaborate on it. Perhaps I am old school and believe that a site should rank well and become popular on it’s own merit. Perhaps I am in the minority when I say SEO can brand a site.. even though the evidence points to me being correct.

The point I am trying to make is simple, media spends are not digital. They are just what they are called, media spends. Unless someone can argue the contrary to me the fact is that digital advertising doesn’t include media spends. The second you start spending to buy media, the second that aspect of the advertising campaign happens you are venturing from digital to media buy.

This is a huge distinction. It takes far more talent to get something promoted with no budget than to get it promoted with one. If you’re reading this news article now, remember how you got here. Was it Twitter? Was it Digg? Was it facebook? Was it a Google Search? Was it Google News? Was it a hyperlink from another site?

Notice none of these required a media spend. Yet you’re reading this now. This is the definition of digital.

And to make it more clear, a bunch of crowdsourcing startups also existing prior to Victors & Spoils. I know because I’m 1 of 3 people in an office doing it at AdHack (http://adhack.com). Another is Genius Rocket.

We have to ask the question: is Victors and Spoils being truthful when they state that they are the first startup for crowdsourcing, we already proved in the previous article (linked above) that they were not the first advertising agency to do crowdsourcing, but now it appears they were not even the first startup to do crowdsourcing. In fact from looking at Adhack’s site, it appears that they are not even the first startup to use crowdsourcing as the basis for their business model.

So what exactly justified the press that this startup got? There appears to be nothing unique about a few guys that were kicked out or left from their pervious ad agency and started their own.

They weren’t the first for crowdsourcing, and they weren’t even the first startup for crowdsourcing.

So please clarify yourself Victors and Spoils, are you the first or no? The evidence points to not… prove us wrong.

And to make it more clear, a bunch of crowdsourcing startups also existing prior to Victors & Spoils. I know because I’m 1 of 3 people in an office doing it at AdHack (http://adhack.com). Another is Genius Rocket.

Today Victors and Spoils have issued a press release stating that they are.. well the first agency that is built on crowdsourcing.

About Victors & Spoils
Victors & Spoils is the first advertising agency built on crowdsourcing principles, with both curation and direction. Co-Founders John Winsor, Claudia Batten and Evan Fry launched Victors & Spoils as a strategic alternative to
the current advertising landscape and as a marketing partner in crowdsourcing that offers the strategic direction, engagement and relationship management that brands rely on their agencies to provide. Victors & Spoils is located in
Boulder, Colorado. For more information, visit: www.victorsandspoils.com.

Now the problem is that we have found at least 15 agencies that have stated the same thing many of them dating back nearly 1/2 a decade. Jeff Howe coined the phrase in a June 2006 Wired magazine article. Earlier this year, Unilever went on a crowdsourcing campaign as well did IKEA.

To make it clear, Victors & Spoils is not the first advertising agency that went into crowdsourcing. Their claim to fame is the first advertising agency that is a startup that does it.

This is a huge diffrence, 3 people in a office saying “we’re a new crowdsourcing startup” vs people doing it for years with the resources of a big, medium or small firm.

We wish them luck on their travels.

They claimed they sent invoices, however NONE of them arrived making is question the validity of them claiming they were sent.

A year later, believing the insurance company paid the invoices in full we discover a negative mark on our credit report. Believe it or not, the first thing instance of us finding out “we owed money” was via a credit report check. Blue Cross and Blue Shield have stated to us via phone that their is no record of them in their system.

Think about it, no invoice, no insurance records of it, just direct to your credit report. Something that you wouldn’t have found unless you paid money to a credit reporting agency or you waited a full year to check the Annual credit report site. This thing was sitting on our credit report for a year. Remember, this is the first instance of us finding out about the invoice. The credit collection agency sent no invoices as well, as well as no phone calls. The only action we can verify that took place is they placed it on a credit report.

So the second we found out that we owed $225 we paid it (within minutes via phone via credit card). But this is where it becomes even more interesting. After paying the very first invoice (IE: abit the one found on a credit report, if you want to call that an invoice) both PH Anaesthesia Associates and Creditech refuse to remove it from the credit report. Even though clearly they are in the wrong. To make matters even uglier, Creditech has stated they won’t even mark it as paid until the end of December (nearly 2 months from now).

We have already filed an online dispute with Experian which the credit reporting agency has stated it will take months, however until the matter is settled, we are forced to live with an error on our credit report. We are also contemplating a small claims suit against both firms if no positive action is done.

Firms should not be allowed to just plaster inaccurate information on your credit report without verification from the end user.

If you work for either PH Anaesthesia Associates or Creditech feel free to file an online dispute over the contents of this story, we will follow the same procedure you are forcing us though.

We have been reporting on this issue for the past 2 years and were one of the first media outlets to report the story. In other words, we have been keeping a close eye on the case of the missing Publicis West Ad Agency executive.

Evidently there are many questions, such as why did he change his name? Why the haste in leaving? Why abandon everything at home? What state did he move to? Of course the granddaddy of all the questions, what name did he adopt while he was missing?

Regardless we are happy he is found alive and well.

Story is developing.