Frank Bennack Jr. got his start in business as the poor man's Dick Clark.Frank, now the executive vice chairman and former CEO at Hearst, hosted a dance program called "Times for Teens" in his hometown of San Antonio. He even sold ads for it.I asked him if he ever wanted to have a career in show business. "The short answer is not different from what I've been able to do, and that is to gather some assets from Hearst that fit the category [of entertainment] in general," he said. "Who would imagine that I would ultimately end up running a company that owned as many television stations and cable networks et cetera as we do? So, very valuable early training."Watch the full interview.

When Kay Koplovitz founded the first ad-supported cable channel, USA Network, in 1977, cable needed bundles of channels to succeed. Now, viewers are unbundling, making it "a very challenging time for advertising," she told Rance Crain prior to her induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame.An advertiser's message needs to be seen by "the exact person to whom it's going to matter," she said. "People don't mind the advertising, but they don't want to watch the advertising that doesn't address them. It's a chaotic time [and] a fascinating time."Kay said she's been surprised at how quickly some of the upstart streaming channels like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have produced "high-caliber" programming. And they've fostered the growth of binge viewing, a phenomenon that the established cable networks were forced to copy."I've always loved chaos because in chaos there's opportunity," she said. "Today we have some of the best-written and best-produced television series of all time."

Jerry Della Femina's reputation as a funnyman and a wiseguy have made it difficult for the ad industry to take him seriously. "I think about that all the time," Jerry admits to Rance Crain in a video interview prior to his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame."I'm working on my speech and I'm working very hard not to say just three words -- 'It's about time,'" he says with a laugh. "Actually, most people thought I was in the Advertising Hall of Fame. ... Yes, I want to be known as somebody."Jerry points to the fact that he's been connected to many marketing and client successes, such as Isuzu, Meow Mix, Air Wick, Beck's beer and Blue Nun wine as a reason for the assumption. "You don't get these accounts and you don't move these accounts where they went and where they are by being just a funny guy. There had to be some thinking behind it. And I had wonderful people. I had the best staff anyone has ever had."And a relatively diverse staff. Jerry tells me he had more women vice presidents than any other agency. "And I'm talking about agencies that were 10 times our size.It wasn't about, 'Oh, gee, let's do it for diversity or anything else.' It was, 'Let's just do it because it's good for everyone.'"Watch the full interview.

A "massive deficit" of brand building is dragging down the economy, according to Irwin Gotlieb, global chairman of GroupM.When the history books get written on the last 15 years, Irwin told me in a video interview for his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame, "I think they will say that the lack of brand building, the lack of effort on long-term marketing, destroyed and damaged more brand value than anyone can add up."Every client, Irwin said, is suffering from what his boss, WPP's Martin Sorrell, coined as "short-termism." Every client has to make the next quarterly report. "When you become more focused on the short term than the long term, you need to narrow your marketing funnel because that's where long-term effect happens. You focus on short-term ROI, and brand building doesn't give you short-term return, it gives you long-term return."Irwin is an endless supply of provocative opinions and observations about the state of today's ad business, and like others I've interviewed lately, he has decidedly mixed feelings about what lies ahead. Irwin was born in China, migrated to Israel, spent his formative years in Japan and arrived in the U.S. as a 15-year-old in 1965 "at a time when the United States fundamentally thought like an island."Watch the full interview.

Would "positioning" be as well-known throughout the world if it had been called "the rock"?Well, it almost was. In 1969, Al Ries and Jack Trout came up with the idea of making every ad based on a single powerful idea, and they initially called their concept "the rock.""What do we mean by a rock? An idea that people couldn't question," Al told me.

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