Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

A couple of things struck me about today’s announcement that Sen. Hillary Clinton, has begun tapping into Madison Avenue to build her marketing team for her 2008 presidential bid. Actually, if you think about it, she hasn’t just started, ‘cos it seems to me that these days, politicians never stop running! The ad hacks involved include Roy Spence, longtime Clinton friend and CEO of GSD&M; Andy Berlin, CEO of WPP Group's Voluntary United Group of Creative Agencies; (which is one of the dumber agency names around!) and Jimmy Siegel, a former BBDO senior executive creative director who is now CD at a-political, an issues advocacy marketing firm. OK, sounds like a bunch of the usual suspects… But here’s the funny bit… It would seem that Andy Berlin had previously worked on Bob Dole's 1996 presidential bid. To which I have to say… OK, Andy, I could understand if Dole and Clinton were two different kinds of soap powders, but the last time I heard, Dole was a Republican and Hillary is a Democrat (well kind of!) Does this mean that apart from running an agency with a really pretentious and stupid name, you will, in the true spirit of the ad business, do anything for money?

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