Kiran Aditham Adotas takes over Media Bistro
June 15, 2009
It looks like Kiran Aditham from Adotas is going to be writing for Media Bistro / Agency Spy. He was the guy that started the flame war on the site listing Digital Agencies that are not really digital, So it will be interesting to see how this take evolves on the losing side of the battle.
Regardless we do welcome him to the ad agency reporting community and wish him the best.
Interview with Matt Van Hoven AKA: Agency Spy
May 20, 2009
Matt Van Hoven is one of the most polarizing figures in the advertising agency blogging world. He freely admits that he never worked at an ad agency, yet he sometimes breaks some of the most polarizing agency dirt and wins the industry has ever seen.
It seems that every layoff, every lost account, every “lost pension” plan that develops in the industry you can find it first at Agency Spy with the author generally being Matt.
So here’s the interview :)
Question: How the hell do you get all these leads?
agencyspy: From a healthy mix of anonymous tips, which I chase down to having drinks with people that know to generally being a really skeptical person. The community helps me out a lot, it’s just my job to dig into what they give me.
Question: You run the popular twitter feed @adagencylayoffs Do you find twitter to be a reliable source of information, or more of just an initial contact that requires extensive followups?
agencyspy: Well first off, the layoff feed is half the equation. Lately I’ve focused a lot more time on @agencyspy because I was getting replies saying things like, “@adagencylayoffs is the most depressing feed I follow” etc. And that’s no fun. But nowadays Twitter is both an info provider and a relationship builder for AgencySpy. People DM me tips just as much as they e-mail or use the anonymous tips box, which is cool - it allows me to get more info right off the bat. I could write a book about the value of Twitter in general, so this is just the surface.
Question: What are your thoughts on Adage and Adweek?
agencyspy: oh boy, where do I begin. I think that they both do really well at what they do, which is just so different than AgencySpy. So as far as being traditional publications go, they have some challenges ahead of them. Both have had staff cuts, both still have print editions and just a ton of work to do and few people to do it. That said, moving forward they’ll have to adapt - and quickly. But they beat us to the punch sometimes and that always ticks me off…and makes me work harder.
Question : We get our weekly giggle at the “the week in advertising” videos… is that your favorite part of the job?
agencyspy: In some ways, yes. It gets me away from the desk and lets me use the left brain for a bit the secret to the show is that we kinda make things up as we go (as if you couldn’t tell) I just pick some ads I liked that week and kinda make up the script as I go. I heard somewhere the first rule of TV is to stay on script, so being that we’re all about doing things our own way, Pip, Weston and I just make up little quips as we go. Our 12 viewers seem to like it.
Question: Do you think the holding company model is flawed, or it’s successful during a recession?
agencyspy: Completely screwed up. I was talking to a very savvy source of mine about this very subject and we both agree that unless your business is tied directly to the client’s, you can’t hope to win these days. Holding companies have a whole other set of concerns, ie stock holders, that independent agencies just don’t have. The focus must always be the client’s business, the work. To me that just seems like the logical answer, but I know very little about how the HC model really works and I’m sure people much smarter than me will take issue with that remark. But when all else fails, I say get back to fundamentals - inside a holding company agency it’s just harder to do that.
Question: After reporting on the industry did it change your thoughts on Advertising? Do you find advertising enjoyable or far more shady?
agencyspy: Well I tend to look at advertising from a consumer’s perspective, so I tend to have a different perspective than a lot of my readers - which is good, it fosters discussion whether I say something stupid or salient. That said, I am an advertising addict - my roommates get pissed that they pay for DVR because I don’t let them fast forward through ads. So no matter how screwed up things get I will always love it - the challenge of advertising is much greater than that of TV and movies IMO, because you have 15 or 30 or 60 seconds to entertain, convince, please etc and that’s it. Well, depending on how much ad space your buyer purchased. Anyway, the agencies that don’t have as much internal drama tend to do better work and to me that’s a good thing - it allays my skepticism about the industry - at least until the next scandal pops up.
And of course the obligatory photo :)
All Hell Breaks out at Media Bistro
May 1, 2009
Did hell’s gates open tonight. Matt @ Media Bistro allowed a ghost writer in to publish an article , that raised all sorts of hell 63 comments and rising as of 11:15pm on Friday night… The vast majority of them nasty. It really paints the industry in a new light…
In essence what was posted was a “fluff piece” singling out three agencies The Barbarian Group , Firstborn, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for their digital skillset.
The article itself wasn’t what blew our mind however, we see these “advertorials” everyday coming from Adage and Adweek. What blew our mind were the comments. We took a few of the best ones for you see.
Kids, kids - we’re not really making our industry look very good here. How about we keep the histrionics and name calling where they belong - in the Firstborn offices, 14 hours per day.
all the way down to the mean and nasty.
Dude, you’re a fucking tool.
and even better:
It’s obvious this “reporter” doesn’t know shit about agency interactive. They do however seem to read a lot of industry pubs to cobble this “overview” together.
What these ad agency guys don’t realize is that clearly it showed them at face value.. a bunch of stuck up ego loving snobs…
So what your agency was listed in the stupid article? Does it matter that much to you? Or does it imply that by you not being mentioned it pushes you even further down the irrelevancy ladder?
You guys sound like William Shatner when he found out he wasn’t allowed to play in the new Star Trek Movie.
Either big money is made by fluff pieces.. or your egos are so big that a hot air balloon would be too small to use as a hat….
If I were to bet, it would be the latter.
Adweek has a “no MediaBistro / AgencySpy link policy”
April 21, 2009
We were told that Adweek has a “no link out policy” that stems from a previous row with Media Bistro. Meaning that Adweek’s policy is not to link out to other news sources, and to just “rewrite” other people’s stories.
From our understanding of the story, some time ago there was a big issue with linking out to Media Bistro / Agency Spy .. and then Adweek put in place a draconian policy that disallows linking out to sources… even if that source is what initiated the story.
Now we like some of the people there, Brian Morrissey for example is one of the best reporters / authors that I know in the industry.. and he works for Adweek… and generally speaking I do like reading Adweek… as they tend to get the official story from the agency … rather than the leak and slams from the blogs when only 80% of the story is out…. with half of it coming from posts on twitter and direct e-mails from people that are still exiting the building after being fired… in other words seriously slanted.
Hypothetical example:
Aug 1, 3:05pm: Adscam / Parker = X fires 30 people under disguise of a company lunch
Aug 1, 3:15pm: Media Bistro / agency spy = X cans 30 during lunch time (links to adscam)
Aug 1, 3:25pm Tribble Agency = 30 X staffers find pink slips in lunch-box (links to adscam)
Aug 2, 8:01am Adweek = X loses account Y , fires 30, plans more layoffs (links to no one)
Clearly they are all reporting the same story, but Adweek tends to take the time to research the full article and goes more in depth than the blogging community does, but at the expense of being a day late for the article.
However this is our beef with it, Adweek most likely read Adscam, AgencySpy and Tribble, but yet didn’t mention it as the initial source… or in this case George Parker would have been the first to report whereas the others citied adscam …
The question is that did Adweek learn of the layoffs and was working on the story before the bloggers discovered it… or did they read it like everyone else did on adscam.. then started making calls / e-mails..
Regardless, the policy at Adweek (if true, and we suspect it is) is draconian and should not be a rule for journalists there.
MediaBistro / AgencySpy and Matt Van Hoven
October 14, 2008
AgencySpy / Matt Van Hoven is literally taking his pants off during the news report on Agency Spy Crying funny!!! … We had a good laugh.. we think you should as well…
We do like the format however… it’s funny… and it also does tell a story… with the best part that Matt wears a tie to work…
Enjoy!
The Media Bistro Saga Continues
August 25, 2008
SuperSpy is Back Again on Media Bistro…
Being friends with both Her, Matt as well as having conversations with a few of the senior members there.. this was a drama that we wished didn’t happen. Especially when it spilled over to Parker’s blog where a full fledged war took place…. of course things settled out with Matt and George eventually and all is well between them now.
From our understanding, she will continue blogging for them until her original non-compete would have ended with Media Bistro.
Meaning that she’s only writing through May at Media Bistro.
This allows for a orderly shutdown of her work for Media Bistro. Also from our understanding, Gimmethebrief is not to be touched.. updated or anything of material done to it. Meaning that nothing will be updated on that site until the end of May, 2009….
It’s our understanding that even comments will be turned off, as to literally keep the site frozen in time.
It’s also worth noting that this is a work in progress… meaning that there is a potential for her to stay at MB / go on her own… or work for another outlet… but none of this will happen prior to May… and for the most part the entire part of May, 2009.
Hopefully things will go even better than outlined above, because honestly we here respect both Matt, and SuperSpy…. and feel that they do work better together…
Our only beef is the still horrific Blogging software that both Matt and SuperSpy must deal with….. but of course.. that’s another post….
Gawker to run the Agency Spy Fiasco
August 12, 2008
We are hearing reports that there soon MIGHT be a report out on Gawker regarding the Agency Spy Fiasco… regarding former employees and other tidbits….
Story is developing… keep checking back for commentary when it’s out.
Want to note… we have zero idea what is going to be there…. however it was leaked to us from multiple sources that this is happening…
EDIT: The Media Bistro / Agency Spy article is now live on Gawker
The title of the article is called “Mediabistro Scared Of Competition”
This doesn’t look good…. Going though the comments on the gawker page… speechless to say the least.
Owen J. Dougherty lies to OnDownLow and Media Bistro
May 20, 2008
This is directly from the Media Bistro / Agency Spy site:
We published a story just over a month ago that mentioned that Stephen Ward had left Grey Atlanta for the greener pastures of Arnold in Boston to work on the Volvo account.
Owen dispatched us a quick e-mail that afternoon to let us know that it was not true and to remove the story — which we did.
Well it turns out today, wouldn’t you know, Grey Atlanta named a new President — replacing who else — Stephen Ward. Replacing a president of a networked agency doesn’t happen in a short period of time — so essential the piece that was written was true today as it was at the time.
Then this is what he got from Owen J. Dougherty
Your item about Stephen Ward leaving Grey Atlanta is untrue. I’d appreciate it if you’d remove it. Stephen Ward can confirm. Thanks for your cooperation.
Owen J. Dougherty
Chief Communications Officer
What a load of crap… like Grey should of just told the truth from the start… why try to throw this under a bridge…. just so it pops up a month later 20 times stronger…
Grey needs some PR lessons…..
Parker : “Campbell Ewald is about to kiss the Michelin account goodbye.”
May 15, 2008
Parker has a great 2 topic post going on at Ad Scam….. the first is a lead he got that Campbell Ewald is about 2 inches from losing Michelin… one of their bigger accounts… this is going to be ugly.
Classic Stuff… but until the advertising agency community start learning SEO / InterActive and stop their crack addiction to print it’s going to continue since they can’t deliver the ROI needed to save the account.
Word from one of my “Mo-Town” deep throats is that Campbell Ewald is about to kiss the Michelin account goodbye. Don’t have the hard facts just yet… But they will hopefully be coming down the motorway soon. Having said that, I am sure I will momentarily have a couple of emails from Bill Ludwig asking why I am being mean and ganging up on Campbell Ewald again — more
Then there was this side burner nailing Media Bistro —-
Speaking of which, have you noticed that with its new uber hard to use MediaBistro format, agencyspy now gets virtually zero fucking comments… Laurel Baby… Rule number one… Stop making fucking rules!!! People don’t like being fucked around!
I have to admit that this is the truth… Agency Spy busted her tail over there bringing the site from zero to record high levels of traffic… then Media Bistro turns off the switch… get’s clammy and forces her to post on their crappy windows driven media bistro platform that doesn’t work half the time… in the words of one of their bloggers “It’s the biggest piece of shit the world has ever seen… it works like it was built circa 1995).
Who the hell hosts on Windows for a production environment anyway?
Media Bistro, if you had 1/1000th of a brain you would choose an open source platform… Linux or FreeBSD as the host… and code the freaking thing in PHP not whatever crappy CMS system you got going there…
Wikpedia gives AgencySpy an entry
April 30, 2008
It appears that Wikipedia validates the noteworthiness of AgencySpy as it’s own entry is granted independent of the main MediaBistro.Com site.
We want to extend a congratulations to AgencySpy for her work associated with bringing the site from zero to where it is today with help of course form onthedownlow and Agent C. Pretty amazing stuff… now one of the most respected authorities on breaking news surrounding advertising agencies.
MediaBistro is lucky to have someone famous on their staff :)
Congrats!!!!!
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