Leo Burnett Loses Altoids to Hal Riney

Late last Friday, Altoids awarded its creative duties to San Francisco's Hal Riney causing those on the 31st floor of incumbent Leo Burnett in Chicago to, well, get a little unhappy. Though we love Burnett and think the early Altoids work was wonderful, we must say it is, perhaps, time for a change. In fairly clandestine review, we're told Burnett was bested by Dial House, BBDO and Crispin. Chin up, Leo. It was probably the client's fault anyway, right?

Advertising Age Names You Agency of the Year

Steve's Take: Surprise. Well, not really. You, yes you are the Agency of the Year! Mirroring Time's footsteps they promise they thought of it before Time published), Advertising Age has named the consumer the Ad Agency of the Year. Cool but we're sorta feeling sad for all those hard working agencies and any number of social media companies that made this possible in the first place. Of course, that's a pointless chicken and egg analogy but the notion of consumer control in the marketing space is, for sure, a powerful one.

We could list all the fun stuff that led up to this (Mentos, LonelyGirl15, etc.) but we're sure you've heard it all before. Agencies, we feel your pain at getting ripped off this year but take solace in consumer's love for marketing. Or something like that. But also note the slap upside the head you just got and realize you can't keep doing the same old thing lest their won't be any agencies left in the future to consider for this top spot. (Doesn't Jonah look imposingly hip in that pic? :-) )