For more insights and opinions, visit Steve Bland's
Thoughts
on advertising, agency and business.
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35 years into the ad business, here's what I've learned:
- I'm lucky to be living in the best time and place and status in human history.
- Advertising in its purest form connects buyers with sellers, and vice versa.
- Propaganda is as old as human speech — portraying a point-of-view and/or a solicitation.
- Good advertising, characteristically, is relatable and/or appealing. And, there's no substitute for good taste.
- Effective advertising helps seduce an audience toward an opinion or action, and helps drive business growth.
Done well, advertising can help shape attitudes and behaviors.
- It's been said before (by people like TBWA's Rob Schwartz) — the most "important real estate" is a share or a piece of a person's mind.
- Agree with the "Ad Contrarian", the legendary Bob Hoffman said something to the effect, "Advertising is really the only way to BUY fame."
- The idea of brand can go beyond convenience, selection and value — to the emotional, impulsive,
- Most important rule in business — never run out of money.
- We live in an imbalanced world where malcontents have a huge, instant voice and platform(s).
This is both an age of "personal but public outrage", "distraction", and of "surveillance".
- The business world has always been defined both by making order out of chaos and building trust.
- The worst sins in business are lying and laziness.
- We should aim to keep client success and satisfaction high by keeping the excesses in the name of "creativity" in check.
- I started and cultivated my career in the right place at the right time. I had the privilege of working at Advertising Age's
Agency of the Decade beginning in 1988 and learned from at the foot of the master impresario himself: Jay Chiat.