ADwire » Direct from the AAF National Conference

Direct from the AAF National Conference

June 10th, 2008 at 09:43am Chris Kelley

Last week a couple of daredevils scaled the New York Times building. Stewart Elliot, Advertising Columnist at the Times, said he was grateful for the event. Though he said he thought that only the people inside the Times offices were climbing the walls, it cured him of his writers block for the keynote speech to the American Advertising Federation luncheon yesterday.
Elliot said he wasn’t the only one suffering from writer’s block lately. Mr. Big has trouble with his wedding vows in the new Sex and the city movie. And the all male copy writing staff of the tv drama, Mad Men did too when, in one episode, struggled with an ad concept for a new client which provided a chance for a female secretary to break the glass ceiling.
Elliot pondered how Don Draper and Roger Sterling, the 1960’s ad execs, would adapt to the challenges of advertising today. Consumers are younger, mere tech-savvy, more diverse and at the same time harder than ever to reach. Then too are the new media, including user generated content, mobile marketing, behavioral adertising and environmental claims. And certainly they’d wonder why they couldn’t smoke and drink at the office.