The Last Advertising Agency On Earth

Great video, about what the future of advertising agencies could look like. I think its slightly alarmist but the point of the video is pretty clear, evolve or die.

Source: EXO

Welcome to Mecca, here are your keys to the office, and your login to the wiki.

Ok so it's been 1 week since I've been "living" this insanely new life of mine.

Needless to say, it's the most amazing thing ever.

For those of you who don't religiously read my twitter/facebook posts, I've made the move from Montreal to probably the mecca of the advertising world: New York effing City. It wasn't exactly easy. The short of it is that it was 4 weeks worth of interviews, flights to the US and back in under 48 hrs (btw - the security line up at Trudeau is longer than the flight to Laguardia), the insanely annoying fact that the company I was interviewing for's Headquarters was located in a timezone causing pretty much all my worries (read: indigestion) to begin at noon and end well after 8pm. Oh yeah, add to this the fact that I felt like I was cheating on my current employer and coworkers who I loved and have dedicated the better part of my young career to... but whatever; right? It helped me get here. I made it through alive (bruised and damn tired, but alive).

The company I'm working for (Videoegg) got me here without delay as I'm luckily not going through this experience alone. And they currently have me living out of a hotel room and a medium sized suitcase. The plan was that I be undergoing baptism-by-fire training in the US for 3 weeks, with a perma-move (with Visas!) occurring in May. I'll be back home in Montreal for Easter, and probably living there for 4 weeks while I get the chance to close up all my dossiers and begin thinking towards the US-oriented-future. During this week, I'll be working out in San Francisco, through one of the company's largest internal conferences, where both sales and back end teams come together to move the company forward at full force.

The deeper story here is that I'm at the beginning of one of the biggest adventures I could possibly imagine.

I'd be lying through my teeth if I told you that I wasn't nervous as hell, but it's more of a nervous/excited.

The New York mentality and advertising world is unlike any other.

My employer and all my coworkers are an incredibly forward thinking bunch (we use internal wikis, have internal seminars where we roll play and test different methods and hypothesize about new opportunities, and are just plain crazy-amazing). During my first week, it was as if I had been sideswiped by the most cerebral multi-vehicle accident ever. I had my brains blown out - by a company shotgun (read: full company immersion). If I had to re-do my first week over again, I'd voice that I had too much going on at once: it was the biggest career move of my life, I was distancing myself from my best friends and family, and the fact that the career move I was making was a general 180 (going from one side of the advertising table to the other is a kindof weird transition)....oh yeah, and in one of the fastest-paced markets in the world (online, and in NYC) and generally fast to begin with...example: landing at 8:30 at Laguardia, and being in the office for your first meeting for 9am.

The people I work with are pretty cool about it all - everyone's incredibly young, and most importantly for me: all very understanding (it being NYC kindof also helps - as almost nobody is from NYC). The way it was setup was that they gave us enough tools to move forward, and enough of a kick in the ass to get in gear from day 1. Within my first 3 days, I had gone on 2 sales calls, and met some pretty great people from the NYC agency world.

I know that part of my next challenge is to immerse myself within the American Online Landscape.

Which is exactly what the purpose of this blogpost was supposed to get to, but I had to circle around pretty wide to get to...I'm thorough, ok?

So I promise: the next posts from me will be all about US online...less personal.

But hey, I write about what I know, right?

Cheers,

P2

The Future of Publishing?

Direct from the offices of Videoegg NYC - straight from my new coworkers' blog....

Could this really be the future of publishing?

Fun-oh!

Media Planning

Ok so this is apparently what some publishers/media planners go through.

Came across it last night, thought it was funny.

If I ever sounded like this, or had something come across like this, and any of my pubs read this...you have the right to make fun of me all you want on this blog and suffer ZERO repercussions.

Enjoy.
Paolo

This is what i live for

Managed to get to work with http://www.25stanley.com/ for this amazing project for Bud Light and the craze that is Trade Deadline day in Quebec.

A trans-media platform, some amazing hockey content - and HUGE viewership

Here it is, live for you to enjoy.
Bud Light, and 25stanley.com brought it to you first!



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