Clout? What's That?

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Billetts Worldwide confirms something we've known about for quite some time (and something we've been saying since we founded the agency) - that ad buying clout doesn't matter. Whether you're a big agency or a small one, brains beat brawn in negotiations over media pricing. If I had a nickel for every time a new client transitioning from a big media buying agency said, "My old agency's CPMs weren't all that great..." I'd have, well, a monstrous jar full of nickels. ;-)

Weekend Weather...Ugh!

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This weekend's weather made me want to stay home all day and veg out. Cold, rainy and disgusting with no end in sight. Say all you want about April showers and May flowers, I'd be happy to sacrifice the first crocus of spring just to ensure that we don't have gorgeous summer-like weather during the week while we're all cooped up at the office and then have crummy, disgusting weather over the weekend when we'd all rather be mountain biking or something. Driving around on Sunday was like a giant game of Super Mario Kart. Idiots who insist on traveling at normal speed in record-setting rain invariably become an integral part of retaining walls or go flying off into trees when they hydroplane across flooded areas. Lauren and I saw several bad accidents on Sunrise Highway and the Southern State Parkway. Multi-car pileups and flipped SUVs seem the norm when we get flooding of this magnitude.

Tomorrow's Spin

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Tomorrow, my Spin column will discuss adherence to the IAB/AAAA Standard Terms and Conditions - specifically, that agencies and advertisers should be prepared to be more buttoned up in terms of meeting creative deadlines, lest it give sellers an excuse to deviate from the Ts and Cs in their own special ways. Folks, let's face it - we let deadlines slip only because there's no harsh penalty for missing them. I think this is something we can concede in order to ensure sellers adhere to their half of the terms and conditions that govern our ad contracts.