Craig McNamara writes

An interesting error I've seen made more than once in this business:  In emails or memos that reference the tactic of "guerrilla marketing" – eschewing traditional media for unconventional, attention-getting, and relatively cheaper message placements – the unknowing writer has misspelled it as  gorilla  marketing.   That, ironically, brings to mind the old "800-pound gorilla" designation for the biggest, most powerful brand in a given industry – one whose advertising budgets dwarfed their competitors' miniscule marketing dollars and thus had little for need for the cleverness of guerrilla advertising.   The term, incidentally, was coined by author Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book,  Guerrilla Marketing . He based it, of course, on the concept of guerrilla warfare, i.e, small independent groups using ambush, surprise, and mobility to effectively battle against larger forces.    Going back one step further, guerrilla is derived from the Spanish w...

In the art world, the minimalism movement that flourished in the early 1960s was about exposing the essence of a subject through the elimination all non-essential forms and features,  so the viewer responds only to what’s in front of them.   Minimalist painter Frank Stella summed it up this way: “What you see is what you see.”    Perhaps not surprisingly, as art directors and designers have often found inspiration in fine art, a parallel movement was simultaneously taking root in the world of advertising and design. By leveraging the simplicity of minimalism, ads could reach for a similar kind of honesty, purity, and truth – and hopefully, move some product.   This, of course, was the gold standard of advertising minimalism in the ‘60s, perhaps because a minimalist attitude could be found in the product as well as the designer. Yet despite the unified front most creative teams present to account management and clients, it’s possible that – like the warring spous...

A few months back, I was contacted by David Wojdyla, creator and curator of a blog commemorating the life and career of Ron Anderson, the storied creative director of Bozell Advertising and "the godfather of Minneapolis advertising." David and I both worked for Ron at different points, me in the 1980s as a copywriter in Minneapolis, and him in the 1990s as an executive creative director in New York. (Today, David is co-founder of ANDvertising Inc. in Chicago. When David was looking for new material for the blog, he came across one of my award-winning Bozell ads for Surdyk's liquor store and asked me if I had other Surdyk's ads he could show. It seemed a little presumptuous to show off my work on a blog about Ron  –  but maybe not if I put it in the context of an advertising approach first laid down by Ron (and his copywriter partner, Tom McElligott) a decade earlier. The link to my post is below  –  but if  you aren't familiar with Ron Anderson, his care...