Ad Week Runs the Gamut From Causes to Cows

Social-Awareness Slate Pulls Record Attendance, According to Organizers

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Attendance leaped nearly 50% for the fourth annual Advertising Week in New York as 60,000 creative and media professionals, according to organizers, descended on some 200 events spanning the city from Central Park to Tribeca and the Jacob Javitz Convention Center. This time around, content was heavily slanted toward social-cause marketing, with panel discussions exploring the marketing landscape as it relates to issues such as the environment, breast cancer and the genocide in Darfur.

No More Hyperbole-Filled Panels: How to Fix Ad Week

Ito's Melancon: Please Make Me Hopeful Again

As another Advertising Week winds down, I'm left with the feeling that while advertising may be dying the slow, painful death everyone is talking about, it's entirely from self-inflicted wounds.

Video Highlights From Advertising Week

Martha Stewart Reflects on the Business Impact of Prison Time

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Looking back on the impact of her trial and prison time on her company's operations, Martha Stewart told an Advertising Week session on Thursday that "its no fun to be building so rapidly and beautifully and then have a halt to that growth." She referred to her court battle and five months in the federal prison at Alderson, W.Va., as "the legal chaos" that "affected my company when it really should have only affected me."

Photo Highlights From Advertising Week: Days 4 and 5

Martha Stewart Speaks, and Digital Gurus Reflect on Mobile Marketing

Industry Bigwigs Still Struggling to Define Agency Model of the Future

Not Much Consensus in Discussion Featuring Greenberg, Others

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- What will the agency model of the future look like? Heads of some of the biggest advertising agencies are still trying to figure that out, based on a panel discussion that took place during Advertising Week 2007. The session was moderated by New York Times columnist Stuart Elliott.

Microsoft Takes Over Times Square to Trumpet Gaming

At Advertising Week: A How-to to Buying Video-Game Ads

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Want to grab an advertiser's attention? Place an ad in Time Square. Microsoft commandeered two show screens to trumpet the power of in-game advertising during Advertising Week. The advertisement ran from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on video billboards located at two different corners and promoted Microsoft-owned groups: Massive Advertising, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Xbox.

Mobile Marketing Has Hurdles to Overcome

But Panelists Predict Category Will Be on Every Top Marketer's Budget in '08

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Mobile marketing is on the verge of breaking out in the U.S., but there are some real barriers to overcome first, said panelists at Ad Age's Digital Bites panel at Advertising Week today.

Making Strides in Diversifying the Workplace

Talk at AAF's Mosaic Awards Shows a Cautious Optimism for Change in Ad Industry

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Workplace diversity is a journey, not a destination, said the panelists at this year's American Advertising Federation's Diversity Achievement and Mosaic Awards.

Digital Will Continue to Reshape Media Agencies

Starcom MediaVest CEO: 'Commit to Change'

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Laura Desmond, CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group-the Americas, sees more digital ad spending in her very near future. By the end of 2008, she predicts digital will be the third-biggest ad expenditure at SMG, behind national and local TV.

Panel Extolls Virtues of Consumer-Generated Ads

As the Marketing Strategy Evolves, so Will Agency Role in Shaping Campaigns

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The secret to a successful consumer-generated campaign is to ensure its use as part of a broader marketing strategy designed to increase engagement. That message was one of the themes during a panel discussion about the increasingly popular marketing strategy that took place as part of the fourth annual Advertising Week conference.

Cause-Marketing Panel Calls on Ad Industry to Help With Darfur

Agencies Can Exert Media-Buying Pressure to Help Bring Issue to American Public

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Actress Mira Sorvino is calling on advertising professionals to take social-cause marketing efforts to the next level and devise novel ways of helping mobilize the international community to end the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.

Reading, 'Riting and ROI

Brooklyn Set to Open High School Dedicated to Advertising, Media

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Look out "Fame" -- the ad industry's getting its own themed school. Madison Ave. is set to lend its talents to the creation of a new Brooklyn-based high school dedicated to advertising and media education. Expected to open its doors in September 2008, organizers said the intent is to foster a relationship between minority youth and the ad industry, allowing students to explore careers in advertising and media while helping to promote diversity in the industry.

Ogilvy, Carat CEOs Clash on IAB Panel

Carla Hendra, David Verklin Spar Over Agency Structure at Mixx Conference

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Sparks were flying between Ogilvy North America co-CEO Carla Hendra and Carat Americas CEO David Verklin on the opening panel at IAB's Mixx Conference. And no, they weren't those kind of sparks.

Grey Wants to Set Green Example on Madison Ave.

Visits Ad Shops to Encourage Participation in New Initiative

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Grey wants to turn the ad industry green. At a time when environmentalism is at the marketing forefront, the WPP Group agency is encouraging Madison Avenue to aggregate and share energy-saving strategies with its new "Green It Forward" initiative.

Advertising Week Could Do Worse Than Mimic Tap Project

Instead of Panels, Let the Industry's Most Brilliant, Creative Minds Tackle a Noteworthy Cause

Unicef's The Tap Project is a case study in what Advertising Week could and should become. Pick your favorite cause. Then imagine how Advertising Week might tackle that problem. Imagine what could happen if even a 10th of the most brilliant, creative minds in the industry subjugated ego for a day to come up with the strategy, communications architecture and collateral for a one-week campaign of unprecedented scale.

Advertising Week Execs: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Organizers Claim This Year's Festival Will be Fabulous

This year's Advertising Week will attempt to keep all the elements closely tied to a sense of social responsibility, particularly when it comes to the industry's own future. Aside from reprising the Ad Forum's global cause-related exhibition that made its debut in Cannes this year and honoring Product Red founder Bobby Shriver at the kickoff luncheon, case studies discussed throughout the week will include the Save Darfur campaign and General Electric Co.'s Ecomagination work.