Hire the younger, and better

"We hire from a generation of people, younger than me, who understand the way the world is currently configured and want to be the first people to create an app or redesign something rather than just get a 30-second film out of the building shot by the latest director."
— Laurence Green, Fallon London

A new advertising agency for companies that would rather outsmart the competition than outspend them

I'm currently reading Juicing the Orange by Fallon and Senn. Blown was I, when my eyes hit the third page. The third page shows the opening ad of Fallon McElligott Rice. A manifesto with an almost absurd amount of copy. Certainly because straight down (long)copy ads were long time out of fashion by the time the ad ran, July 20, 1981. They felt it was essential to articulate their vision. Twenty-five years later, the statistics are worse, and globalization and technology have changed the marketing environment, but the solution is the same: applied creativity. I read the tiny typeset ad 4 bloody times in a row. Because it was a nifty crafted piece of copy, but mostly because what the ad said was so "now" even though it ran 28 years ago.

Like so many in our business I find myself a numerous amount of times listening to some self-proclaimed guru who walks the talk and thinks he himself should be awarded a medal for sharing his mastermind visions with you. More often than not scraping pieces from manifesto's of some decades ago. It sickens me to see and hear these gut-shots claim eternal greatness while the same story has been told much better by guys who've shaped the industry years ago. Lots of people waive Ogilvy's rules and bold statements as old fashioned and out of business. But, many seem to have forgotten that he cemented the foundations of the industry, and envisioned the rise and importance of Direct long time ago. He should be studied and praised by everyone who tries to advertise anything at all. As too for this legendary Fallon ad which I've included further down this post. Of course one must note that the ad sings widely from the Bernbach bible but its message and content remains key to what most agencies strife for nowadays.


A new advertising agency for companies that would rather outsmart the competition than outspend them.

"I know that only half of my advertising works. The trouble is I don't know which half."
— John Wanamaker

If you're spending money on advertising, you've probably wondered: Is anybody out there listening?
The answer to that question is a shock.
Consider the following facts: American business will spend over $54 billion on advertising this year. According to one estimate cited in The Journal of Advertising Research, that money will buy over 200 thousand messages per person, or approximately 560 messages every day for every man, woman and child in America.
Of those 560 messages, the average person will notice only 76.
Of those 76, only 12 will be remembered.
And of those 12, 3 will be remembered negatively.
From 560 to 76 to 12 to 9 — an attrition rate of more than 98%!
Sobering isn't it?
But the news gets worse before it gets better.

The clutter trap.
In an effort to counteract the dwindling effectiveness of their messages, more and more companies increase their media frequency.
This leads to clutter.
Advertisers like Wisk and Sanka, once content to run their shrill, tedious commercials several times a week, now may run them several times an hour, trying to bore their way into the consumer's consciousness.
Ironically, while the number of messages (and media costs) have doubled in the past several years, consumers pay less attention than ever before.
In fact, a growing body of evidence suggests that increased frequency may actually be self-defeating.
In 1976, The Harvard Business Review warned,
"Heavy media spending can even work against you... repeated exposure to an advertisement may give rise to what psychologists label 'perceptual defense', to irritation, or even outright rejection."

Raising awareness, Not budgets.
It's clear that if you want to be one of the precious few that are remembered — less than 2% — you've got your work cut out for you. Outspending the competition is increasingly expensive and, as we've seen, may even work against you.
Instead of trying to outspend the competition, why not try to out-think them? With messages so interesting that even the most indifferent consumer will stop and look.
According to researcher Daniel Starch, one advertisement can outperform another advertisement for the same product in the same media at the same time by 500%.
Obviously, the preferred way to improve effectiveness is not to increase the spending level of your advertising, but to increase the interest level of your advertising.

Scarcity of imagination.
Unfortunately, raising the interest level of your advertising is easier said than done. The creative imagination to make great advertising — advertising that builds bridges between products and customers — is rare.
As The Harvard Business Review once observed,
"...creativity is like peace. Everybody wants it, everyone seems to have some ideas about it, but nobody seems able to produce it."
Once every several years, however, an advertising agency with the ability to produce truly exciting, original and compelling advertising appears. Fallon McElligott Rice is such an agency.
Although we've just opened our doors, the campaigns we've created at past agencies are famous. They've won market share for our clients, and a lion's share of awards for us. They've been studied in journalism schools, and copied by our competitors. In every case, these campaigns seemed like they had more money behind them than they did.
The ideas weer big; the budgets small.

What we believe.
At Fallon McElligott Rice we believe in advertising the way Ray Rubicam, Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach once practiced it.
We believe that imagination is one of the last remaining legal means you have to gain an unfair advantage over your competition.
We believe you shouldn't have to repeat yourself ten times to be heard once.
We believe there is no such thing as a "me-too" product, only "me-too" advertising.
And we believe that great advertising is, has been, and always will be created in full partnership with great clients.
If you're beginning to have some questions about whether anybody out there is listening to your advertising, perhaps you should talk to us. Soon.
We have a lot of ideas, a lot of energy, and a lot to prove.


This ad is everything I believe in, it is what drives most of us to fight the horror of adverbatims today. Please consider addressing me to talk about the content of this post in depth. Soon.

Who the fuck is Pat Fallon?

I don't quite agree with The Washington Post targeting, or attacking, creative agency Fallon for launching their new aggregating application, logo and website.



According to The Wash Fallon is an unknown agency, and I quote: "Why is an ad agency creating a Twitter app? Had you ever heard of Fallon before this? Didn't think so. Moving on. Folks have pointed out they did the BMW films and a few other campaigns. Feel free to ask some people on the street who they are, though, and I believe you'll be quite surprised." — What 'man on the street' knows the name of one or more ad agencies ... The answer being: none. If I get it right Fallon.co.uk is the same agency as Fallon.com and is very renown within the ad industry. Think about the most awarded viral of last year: Cadbury's Gorilla and the latest Glass and a Half Full Production: Cadbury's Eyebrows. The Skoda Fabia baking ad might ring a bell... Or maybe you still remember that bouncing balls Sony Bravia spot or that Bravia paint ad. Btw it's not just a Twitter app.



Fallon works for top clients globally and swear by a very innovative philosophy. Also, I don't think the agency was presumably named after the great comedian and talk-show host Johnny Carson aka Jimmy Fallon, Wash, consider this guy called Pat Fallon. He worked very hard for more than 15 years, to get his company on track. And he did. Pat founded Fallon in 1981 with the single-minded desire to stand for excellence—in the people hired, in the partnerships forged, in the work produced, and in the results achieved.

He spends his time today nurturing the company’s culture, managing and evolving the global vision across four continents, and working on clients' businesses from the frontlines. Pat's deep knowledge of branding issues, combined with a strong strategic approach to marketing problems of all kinds and his relentless need to achieve, make him particularly valuable to our clients’ CEOs.

In creating Fallon, Pat carefully considered every facet of achievement in order to build an organization where great people came, stayed, and did the best work of their careers and had fun in the process. That culture flourishes today. Pat makes sure that everyone at Fallon knows that marketplace accountability must always be the ultimate measure of success.

Pat has won virtually every recognition in the business during his career. But his most valued achievement is the trust he has earned from his clients. Pat still spends 80% of his time on client business. That is why to this day Fallon limits itself to a very small group of accounts, so that Pat and his senior executives can be intimately involved with each and every client.

I'm sorry Wash, you're full of shit. The TechCrunch referral on your website is a disgrace for the strength of all TC writers


Brave work that makes a difference
via the Fallon corporate website

Twenty seven years ago, five Minneapolis entrepreneurs met at a downtown diner and pooled their life savings to buy a single print advertisement that ran in two metro newspapers.

On that day Fallon opened its doors, without a single client, under the headline, “A new advertising agency for companies that would rather outsmart the competition than outspend them.”

Where others viewed our geography as a disadvantage, we found opportunity. Bob Dylan had already proven that if you’re determined to surprise the world, Minnesota is as good a place as any to raise your voice. Unlike the big ad shops on Madison Avenue and the left coast, we have the advantage of actually living in America where the people are; where brands not trends are built.

Fallon’s ambition to outsmart has been unwavering. Today outsmarting requires a more generous approach to marketing. Generous brands create something of value in the world: entertainment value, social value, and belief value. Generous brands are additive to peoples’ lives and to culture. They help build ideas in the world; they leave something behind. Modern branding is learning to give as much as you take.


Skimmer: a lifestreaming thing that let's you do it all in one place.
A social aggregator for designers.
via the Fallon corporate website



Skimmer℠ is an Adobe AIR desktop application designed to streamline, beautify, and enhance the experience of participating in your most frequently used social networking activities. It improves upon your day-to-day interaction with multiple social networks, removing distractions and providing a rich experience that is particularly suited to multimedia content.



• Skimmer's primary view is an aggregated view of all your friends’ updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger.
• For those with larger monitors, the feed can also be viewed in a medium view that shows thumbnails of multimedia posts such as an upload of a new Flickr set, YouTube video, or Twitpic.
• Any update in the aggregated feed view can be expanded in one click to reveal the content of the post. A Flickr set, for example, can be viewed in its entirety without ever leaving the feed view.
• YouTube videos can also be expanded and played right in the feed view.
• Skimmer has a Flickr-specific view, which allows you to browse your entire photostream as well as the photostreams of all your Flickr contacts.
• You can also use Skimmer to browse any of your own or your Flickr contacts’ photo sets.
• Skimmer also has a view devoted to browsing your own videos.
• In Skimmer's YouTube view you can also browse the most recent videos from all your friends.
• Any YouTube video can be played full-screen.
• Any group of photos or videos can be viewed full screen in a slideshow mode.
• Skimmer allows you to create your own customized page that summarizes your most recent lifestreaming content from whichever services you choose. Other Skimmer users will see this customized view through the app, or Skimmer will give you an embed code to make a webpage so anyone on the web can see all your social activity in one spot.


About the founder
via the Fallon corporate website


Fallon Worldwide co-founders Pat Fallon, right, and Fred Senn will release a book this month about the lessons they’ve learned running Minneapolis’ best-known advertising agency.
via milwaukee.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2006/07/10/s...

In 2006, to mark the agency’s 25th anniversary, Pat and Co-Founder of Fallon Worldwide Fred Senn co-authored Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity Into a Powerful Business Advantage (Harvard Business School Press). The book features the agency’s principles and it’s most famous cases and gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at how creativity can be leveraged for startling business results. (bookreview by Businessweek)

With Pat’s personal passion for helping children, the agency has several pro bono clients, including Camp Heartland, Children’s Defense Fund, and Keep a Child Alive. While all this work occupies most of Pat’s waking hours, he has found time to serve on the boards for The Guthrie Theater, Minnesota Orchestra, and the Minnesota Zoo.


Related posts from others:
Download the Skimmer app at Fallon's homepage
The Creativity Online portal about the Fallon act
This guy helped create Skimmer: Nerdery
A little bit more technical on Skimmer: BlackCJ