Avi Dan, Founder
P: 718.997.6463
M: 646.595.8606
F: 718.261.2491
E: avi@avidanstrategies.com
By Avi Dan
Published in 
What would Don Draper, the brilliant creative director of the fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper in the show Mad Men do if he joined the business today?
by Avi Dan Published in;){kind=logo}
One of the most important decisions a CMO makes is agency selection.
What is the “aha!” moment when a marketer should realise that their company needs a new agency?
Client-agency tenure the USA is receding alarmingly: from 7.2 years in the mid 80’s, to 5.1 years by 2000, to hovering at an estimated 3 years in 2010.
Why so many bad marriages and quick divorces? What is the “aha” moment when a Marketer should realized “our company needs a review
How A Redefined Client-Agency Relationship Must Spur Change Within Client Organizations
Capitulation came down with a thud last Wednesday morning at the 4A’s annual conference in Austin. Perhaps missing the irony, the CEOs of the biggest advertising holding companies pointed to fiercely independent micro-network Wieden + Kennedy as the agency they admire most.
By Avi Dan Published: January 26, 2011
Stop Blaming Procurement -- CMOs Can Help Matters By Demanding Focus Shift Away From Price
Most agencies are pretty much the same. They have the same basic capabilities. They all claim to have proprietary tools or processes. They may have different labels for what they do, but the approach and yield is essentially the same at any holding company, global agency or small agency.
Avi Dan, Founder of Avidan Strategies LLC, a marketing consulting firm that specializes in optimizing client-agency relationships, knows a lot
about being a CMO. Not only did he serve as Saatchi’s Chief Marketing Officer, but his career spans top roles at Publicis, Y&R, Euro RSCG and Berlin Cameron working with some of the world’s top marketing leaders. Yet, he asks, "Why would anyone aspire to be a global chief marketing officer?" Dan sees it as a tough job today, but one of the most critical for a company's success.
10 Changes That Will Continue to Affect the Top Marketing Job Going Into 2011
by Avi Dan Published: October 12, 2010file:
The economic recovery is shaky. Consumers are spending cautiously. Unemployment remains stubbornly in double digits.
CMOs, Use Your Intuition and Get to Know Shops Well
by Avi Dan Published: August 25, 2010
One of the most important decisions a CMO makes is agency selection. These days, client-agency relationships fray faster than ever.
Borrow From Six Sigma For Greater Effectiveness And Efficiency
by Avi Dan
Published: June 15, 2010
Call it the "Goldilocks" approach to getting the best out of your agency. As agencies converge on Cannes next week to celebrate creative excellence,
A Real Boon to CMOs, There Is Far More to Sourcing Than Cutting Agency Compensation
by Avi Dan
Published: March 02, 2010
Some big marketers have begun shifting to value-based compensation instead of paying agencies a fee for labor hours. Value-based compensation aligns remuneration more closely with results, such as sales, share of market or brand awareness.
Avi Dan, Forbes, February 22, 2010
Technology and good deeds will help.
Brand loyalty is crucial for brand health. Ad agency founder Jim Mullen once said: "Of all the things that your company owns, brands are far and away the most important and the toughest. Founders die. Factories burn down. Machinery wears out. Inventories get depleted. Technology becomes obsolete. Brand loyalty is the only sound foundation on which business leaders can build enduring, profitable growth."
CMOs, Go Beyond Tolerating the Rapid Shifts to Participating in Them
by Avi Dan,
Published: January 19, 2010
It took the telephone 45 years to penetrate half the homes in America; radio, less than 20; color TV, 15; computers, 10; cellphones, eight; and the internet, a mere six years. The speed of change is accelerating.
by Avi Dan
Published: May 19, 2009 in Advertising Age
If today's frugality and shrinking markets are the new normal, are marketers ready for it?
By Avi Dan
Published Oct 13, 2008 in Adweek
Wells, Rich, Greene. Scali, McCabe, Sloves. Ally & Gargano. Ammirati &
Puris. Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver. RIP.
These were some of the hottest creative shops of the '70s and '80s. As they
disappeared, swallowed by bigger fish, some of the creativity in our
business disappeared with them. Agencies today are not as entrepreneurial as
those who set the creative standard a generation ago.
By Avi Dan
Published July 28, 2008 in Adweek
What would Don Draper, the brilliant creative director of the fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper in the show Mad Men do if he joined the business today? If he were catapulted back into advertising agency future in a souped up DeLorean, he won’t recognize it: no cigarettes, no sexism, and no three martini lunches. The business got dull for the frat boys.
By Avi Dan
Published: January 28, 2008 in Advertising Age
Welcome to 2008. It's going to be ugly.
For CMOs, existential danger lurks with every incoming report about the sagging economy and the looming recession. Recessions are tough for those in charge of top-line growth, especially considering the average two-year tenure -- in good times.
It's probably one thing we can't blame on climate change, but the talent pool on Madison Avenue has been depleted in recent years. It's a common lament from senior agency leadership and something that comes up in conversations and surveys as one of their main challenges. For an industry that loses all of its assets every day at 5 p.m. when its employees take the proverbial elevator to the ground floor and walk out of the building, talent is paramount.
By Avi Dan
Published: September 24, 2007 in Advertising Age
In the 1993 film "Groundhog Day," Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman grudgingly covering the annual event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Just when he thinks the hated assignment can't get any worse, he finds himself trapped in an endless loop of repeating it over and over again.
By Avi Dan
Published Sept 10, 2007 in Adweek
Michael Deaver, who passed away last month, was my hero. Deaver was a member of the famous "holy trinity"—along with Jim Baker and Ed Meese—who ruled the Reagan White House. While Baker, the chief of staff, and Meese, counselor to the president, ran the country, Deaver ran Reagan. His job was to handle Reagan's image. Maybe because he came from Hollywood, Reagan understood the value of a good director. And because he was a pitchman for GE in his waning days as an actor, he understood the value of image.
By Avi Dan
Published Dec 4, 2006 in Adweek
Hollywood's legendary studio system has been in ruins for longer than it existed, so long that many people are unfamiliar with why it collapsed in the first place. Here's why you should care about what happened in Hollywood over 50 years ago: Because it could happen to you. To us. To the entire agency business. And as long as we know it's coming and prepare for it, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
By Avi Dan
Published: March 06, 2006 in Advertising Age
Today, chief executives at many leading companies are frustrated by marketing's inability to produce measurable results. Increasingly, they view the marketing department as an expense rather than an investment, and as a result, marketing is losing power in many corporations.
The majority of CMOs have lacked the organization, processes and tools to prove marketing's worth, and because of this, they have taken a backseat in the boardroom.
Share Article