50 Excellent Ad Agency Blogs Worth Reading

Ad Majorem is #7

Recently, MonetizePros.com published a list of 50 Excellent Ad Agency Blogs Worth Reading.  Astoundingly, Ad Majorem was #7.

We're in good company.  The list includes blogs published by global agencies, boutique agencies, and -- importantly -- PR agencies.

They missed some good ones, which you can see by looking at our blogroll in the right-hand column.

"Net Neutrality"

Following Wednesday's post about the role of government at the intersection of Marketing and the Internet comes the latest news about "net neutrality".

Net Neutrality

The actual term is "network neutrality", a concept where all Internet access would be treated equally. All access to all content would be available at the same speed. There's a complete article on Wikipedia describing it fully. In any case, it sounds like an appealing concept, doesn't it?

Not so fast...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission tried to enforce net neutrality last year, but the courts ruled that the Internet falls outside their jurisdiction. The FCC regulates broadcast communications only, not even cable television, while the Internet counts as an "information service".

You get what you pay for

The opposite of net neutrality is a tiered system, where Internet users would pay their service providers a premium to access certain content faster. This would depend on an arrangement among Internet service providers such as Verizon, content providers and users willing to pay more.

The latest news

Since the FCC is powerless (for now) to enforce net neutrality, those who own the networks are starting to arrange tiered systems. This week the New York Times reported that Google and Verizon are close to such a deal; today Google and Verizon denied it, saying they were continuing to talk to the government. The FCC says that the talks are on hold for the moment.

What's my position on net neutrality?

No one can say how this will play out. The starry-eyed idealist in me wants to believe in net neutrality because it sounds fair and equal. Yet the Internet is not a government program, it's a commercial enterprise. Said differently, it's publishing.

If net neutrality had been applied to newspapers and magazines, then every consumer would have paid the same price for each magazine they received, no matter how premium the content or how many pages it required.

You may perceive that I haven't decided what I think about this. Please use the comments section to sway me to one side or the other.

The "marketing kill switch"

You just arrived at this page from somewhere else on the Internet, perhaps by link, RSS feed or a tweet. Thanks to a combination of 1s and 0s, a microprocessor, some network switching technology and electricity, everything worked. We take this for granted.

No Internet?

When you can’t get a connection, it’s usually a problem with your server or your Internet service provider. But what about a mass outage where no one can get online? This situation was memorably captured in an episode of South Park, but some recent news items report very real threats.

“We’re from the government, and we’re here to help”

The U.S. Congress is considering the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (S. 3480), which has been reported as an “Internet kill switch”. The truth is a little more complicated, but undeniably the law would allow for circumstances where the executive branch of the U.S. Government could shut down the Internet. You can read the law for yourself and this letter from civil liberties groups opposing it.

Force majeure

NASA reported earlier this summer that an expected increase in solar activity will threaten our telecommunications infrastructure. “Our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms,” said NASA scientist Richard Fisher. The good news is that they’re watching the Sun carefully. If you’re reading this today it means we suffered no consequence from a “solar tsunami” that hit Earth last night.

Downtime

By act of Congress or act of God, a major shutdown would be catastrophic and few people would care if we couldn't sell our clients’ products. Fortunately, everyday life is much less dramatic. Technical downtime happens here and there every day, affecting about 0.1% of operating time in most commercial applications. Someone fixes it and we get back to business pretty quickly.

Marketing kill switch

The bigger concern is protecting commercial speech. There has been a lot of press lately about how corporations invade privacy via Internet data collection, and we should take those concerns seriously. At the same time, let's be aware of government abuse. Just as a local government used Google Earth to spy on residents' backyards, there are other efforts to restrict how we advertise and sell products online. These amount to a "marketing kill switch" that would a cause a scene in your office like the one in South Park.

Tell me your thoughts, readers, in the comments section below.

Latin America: Cannes, World Cup, and the Economy

I've been thinking about Latin America, my former home, a lot this week, partly because Mrs. Ad Majorem is in Guatemala on a missions trip helping run a medical clinic.

A few other things keep Latin America top of mind.

Cannes

Every year at Cannes the Latin American countries win recognition for their work, and this year was no exception. This morning AdLatina.com published a rundown of festival performance, with Brasil and Argentina leading the pack. (They list Spain as #2 because AdLatina represents an Ibero-American perspective.)

World Cup

Going into this weekend's games, four of the eight quarter-finalists are from South America. I'll be cheering for Brasil over Holland, Uruguay over Ghana, Argentina over Germany, and Paraguay over Spain.

The Economy

Beyond Cannes and the Cup, the region enjoys some economic success, at least for the moment. NYTimes.com has a good roundup this morning. Also see this article on Brasil's tax policies.

Three lawyers walk into a blog about advertising...

It seems lawyers and the law kept popping up in my world this week. Yes, lawyers. Those people who water down our claims and tone down our prose.

Carla Michelotti and the CAF. Carla (pictured here) is the general counsel at Leo Burnett and an effective, tireless advocate for commercial speech. She's a key player in the AAAA, ABA, IAA and other industry groups. She is also one of the most ethical people in business today. For all this and more, the Chicago Advertising Federation yesterday gave her the Silver Medal Award for outstanding contribution to the industry. The event was a fitting tribute with speeches by industry leaders past and present. On a personal note, Carla also saved my Super Bowl spot from a legal technicality. Thank you, Carla, for saving our spot and giving many other people the means of saving theirs.

Trademarks and IMC. Regular readers know that we've been working on a multi-agency IMC project. As part of the process we make sure our selling language is accurate and ownable. One of the lawyers we work with observed that messages in one channel may have a slightly different legal interpretation in another so we should be careful to compare notes with our partners in other disciplines.

Argentina's new law governing media. As a former Argentine resident, I follow all news about my former home, especially when it concerns our industry. The current government passed a law restricting media ownership and airing of foreign-made advertising. Two Argentine journalists explained on AdAge.com this week how these aren't just legislative developments; they force advertisers to rethink media strategy.

The rule of law is important and in the United States we often take it for granted. Lawyers remind us what we have and how to use it.