Once a upon a time, we created a fake holiday campaign to turn fruitcake back into America's most loved wintertime treat.

AdvertisingAshley VillarrealAugust 24, 2018fruitcake, project, parody, joke, funny, comedy, creative, media, agency, san francisco, group, test, subject, holiday, gift, Drake, store, grocery, bad, grossComment

Deconstructing our vision (eye chart included)

Everyone wants a good agency. But there’s a larger question: who’s it good for?

Many of us have worked at some remarkably creative shops. The work product was rewarding, but life for the rank and file came at a high price. Every Friday, word would come down from on hight: you were expected this weekend. The account people ran scared. And divorce rates skyrocketed.

Elsewhere, account-driven shops are either focused on profitability or happy to let the client dictate the creative. This leads to a short-term win: while the client got to (literally) direct, the campaigns will almost certainly underperform, and then nobody’s happy.

The point is, nobody’s gotten it right, to date—profit has come at the expense of quality, or people have come at the expense of the clients or the agency’s leadership.

It’s like a dysfunctional circle of life.

Tom GearyJuly 25, 2018

Pick Up The Phone

On average, email takes up roughly 23 percent of an employees workday. For every email they receive, it takes them about 16 minutes to refocus after receiving an email. That's while already receiving an average of 304 weekly business emails.

Culture, AdvertisingMike OsgoodJune 18, 2018account, agency, average, best, bond, business, cell, client, computer, connection, contact, creative, desk, email, employee, engagement, feedback, future, media, meeting, mission, office, opinion, partner, phone, project, relationship, school, small, speaking, strategy, talk, team, thought, top, weekly

Empowering Black Actuaries

At School of Thought, we feel a major part of any company is to offer up fresh perspectives that help their business stay progressive and effectual in our modern society. Bringing on staff with varied personal histories and atypical viewpoints will only further help to stay relevant and prosperous going forward.

CultureAshley VillarrealJune 6, 2018academic, access, African American, association, background, best, black, boot camp, candidates, career, connect, data, database, different, diversity, education, employee, equality, field, growth, healthcare, hunt, IABA, inclusion, industry, insurance, international, job, learning, management, Milliman, mind, money, network, now, opportunity, policy, program, public, race, report, resume, risk, school, search, social, software, speaking, statistics, study, top, union, workplace, workshop

For a Stronger Brand, Find a "Black Hat"

As I sit here typing this, Mark Zuckerberg is mea-culping live on CNN about Facebook’s privacy breaches. In parallel, our good friends (forgive the sarcasm) in Russia are endorsing their candidates for the 2018 U.S. elections. Not to mention, the credit reporting agency Equifax has—well, the kimono isn’t just open, it’s gone.

Advertising, Culture, NewsTom GearyMarch 26, 2018advantage, agency, benefit, best, black, brand, business, campaign, company, content, critical, data, Experian, Facebook, failure, finance, hat, headline, impact, important, Mark Zuckerberg, marketing, media, mistake, perspective, Prudential, retirement, Schwab, smart, speech, startup, strategy, success, tech, technology, thinking, tomorrow, transform

MTV Cribs: Montage Health

We knew Cribs viewers would be impressed we were there working on a campaign to promote healthier habits throughout Monterey County. They’d also be psyched to find our fridge teeming with zero calorie beverages, probiotic yogurt, and a very much still-functioning Brita filtration system.

CultureAshley VillarrealMarch 20, 2018actor, agency, Airbnb, apartment, beach, behind, best, California, camera, celebrity, client, comedy, county, cribs, documentary, donut, episode, film, funny, good, health, home, hospital, host, la croix, marketing, montage, monterey, MTV, popular, promote, rental, scenes, series, service, shooting, vacation, video, Vrbo, work

A weekend in Tahoe. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

As Agency of Record for North Lake Tahoe Visitor’s Bureau, our mission is to raise awareness of North Lake as the state’s top destination. The theme of our campaign: Escape to North Lake Tahoe.

Culture, AdvertisingTom GearyMarch 12, 2018ad, advertising, agency, awareness, best, bureau, business, campaign, communication, coverage, creative, destination, event, follower, friendly, growth, guide, hotel, Hyatt, insider, local, marketing, North Lake, photo, professional, promotion, record, Ritz, San Francisco, scale, scenic, ski, small, social, sponsor, Squaw, Tahoe, tech, ticket, top, tourism, travel, vertical, video, virtual, visitor, weekend

Oh, do we have thoughts