Congratulations ADLAND Twitter Giveaway Winners

LEGAL COPY: Congratulations. With this valuable prize comes great (legally enforceable) responsibility. Please read carefully before accepting your gift. Winner agrees to become James P. Othmer's social media BFF (ie: #FF recos, Retweets, FB "Likes" and serial reposts). Winner agrees to write a five star Amazon review of no less than two paragraphs. Winner agrees to frequently troll the ad blogs and comment when necessary, praising Othmer and refuting slights against his career, writing ability and any mention of a hairpiece. Winner agrees to read the book in public places (or at least wrap the cover around another book) and laugh out loud (preferably a guffaw) while shaking the head and saying, things such as "That James P. Othmer just kills me!" or "They have to make a movie out of this!"

Advance Praise for Holy Water trickling in.

My second novel HOLY WATER comes out June 15 from Doubleday, and while I'm still working hard on behalf ADLAND, I wanted to share some of early blurbs that have come in from three of my favorite writers: Ben Greenman (of The New Yorker), Jonathan Evison, and John McNally.

"Saul Bellow had Henderson, the Rain King. Bioy Casares had The Invention of Morel. James P. Othmer has Holy Water, and you should, too. Othmer's hero is a modern man whose life has ceased to make sense to him, and his escape to a distant nation raises (and then gleefully answers) all kinds of questions about love, life, god(s), health, big business, and bottled water. They say that no man is an island, but Othmer's Henry Tuhoe comes close." -Ben Greenman, author of What He's Poised to Do and Please Step Back

"Holy Water is hilarious, disquieting, razor sharp, and Now with a capital N . . .Othmer is an absurdist straight from the trenches, a keen-eyed witness to the troubling but strangely hopeful times in which we live, and a stylist of the first order." --Jonathan Evison, author of All About Lulu and West of Here


“If you’ve been looking for Kurt Vonnegut’s successor, look no further. James P. Othmer has picked up the master satirist’s torch and taken off running with it. The moment you meet Henry Tuhoe, Vice President of Underarm Research, you know you’ve entered a world that is at once wildly absurd and frighteningly credible. If ever there was a novel for these troubled and bizarre times, this is it. What The Futurist predicted, Holy Water confirms: Mr. Othmer is on the brink of a major career. So it goes.” --John McNally, author of After the Workshop and The Book of Ralph

Also, stay tuned for Holy Water related news about an alliance with a major water charity, and hopefully a massive, yet well-intentioned launch party.

Speaking of Speaking Engagements

This is a big deal for me. A few weeks ago, the organizers of The Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto contacted me to see if I'd be interested in appearing as a speaker for the one day (March 2nd) event (theartofmarketing.ca). The other speakers: Seth Godin, Dan Heath, Sally Hogshead, Mitch Joel and Max Lenderman. Unlike me, they are all speaking circuit stars, and unlike me, they are all bestselling authors. I've presented before hundreds of clients, spoken to filled university auditoriums, and also to sales forces and marketing departments of corporate groups. But this kind of gig is a first.

I now realize there are several reasons for this: first, my 2006 novel THE FUTURIST, wasn't exactly kind to the denizens of the pro speaking circuit. In fact, when the book came out I received quite a few angry letters from futurists who claimed that I was out to undermine their livelihood. My response: if your livelihood is peddling bullshit, then that's the way it goes. If your livelihood is to share valuable insights about business and culture, then you have nothing to worry about (other than your incredibly thin skin). Other than university appearances, where my topics were corporate ethics, vocation and the search for meaning in work, speaking gigs were slow to materialize for THE FUTURIST. At one point I was asked to speak to the marketing and sales force of a large software company for a fee that was 10 times more than I'd ever made in a day. Then, three weeks before the event, the organizer called to cancel. Her boss did not get the humor or the message of the book. "What is he gonna do," her boss speculated, "tell us all to quit and go find meaning?"

With ADLAND, the speaking situation has been more encouraging, and I believe that the change in our economy and our place in the world has something to do with this. One would think that a recession would further increase the focus on profit, but I've found that people are increasingly eager to not just talk about work, but work with meaning. ADLAND looks at the ad industry and my career without sentimentality, or glorification, or the sort of "Top 10 Ways to Reinvigorate Your Brand and Your Life" lists that are requisite in the pop business book world. Instead, it describes the good and the bad of the business and my intention was that it would have value for anyone thinking of entering the ad profession, or who is rethinking their place in it. To be sure, there's plenty of wisdom and insights in ADLAND, including a straightforward look at the future of advertising (which I promise I will discuss on March 2 in Toronto). But it also speaks to the soul of the modern businessperson.

In 2010 people want more than rules to be successful in the workplace. They want insight into the human condition. More and more clients are getting this. For starters, they're calling more. And they're asking me to discuss the ethical questions that face not just branding folks, but anyone working in the information age. Audiences like the idea of someone telling tales from the trenches of adland, rather than from a corner office. They nod their heads when I tell them that there is value, opportunity and honor in learning and leading from the middle. At the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University I told an auditorium filled with some of the most promising ad students in the world that not all was exciting and sparkly in their chosen profession. I told them, from 20 years of experience, that not everyone would rise to have their name on the door of an agency, and that they should constantly evaluate their place in their agency and their life. Just to be sure, I threw in a list: Top Five Ways to Keep Your Career from Sucking. I'm looking forward to joining such an esteemed lineup in Toronto, and to not sucking.

The Futurist movie update: We Have a Script (sort of).

I don't get a ton of reader mail, but when I do, it often includes an inquiry about the status of the film version of my 2006 novel THE FUTURIST. Well, lately there's been some movement, and here's what I can report: After three years of seeking the perfect screenwriter and/or director, we found both at the start of last year, and get this -- it's the same person! This person, who has written and directed four successful films, and whose name I've been asked to not mention until we have real news, spent much of the last year writing a script. The first draft, I was told, was great and true to the book, but long. The second draft was also great, true to the book, and shorter, but still kind of long, which I find funny because the book was only 276 pages. The third and hopefully final draft is due soon. When everyone loves this draft the next step will be to take it to my dream choice for the role of Yates who, incidentally, has read the book and has met our writer/director and is quite interested in the part. If dream actor is good with it, and not previously committed to five years worth of other dream actor projects, I'm told that the script/writer-director/dream actor package will then go to the studios, seeking the proverbial green light. Which would be nice.

Belligerent Gnomes, Hitler, Art and Good Company

Lift Trucks Project is an exchange between artists and writers curated by Pam Hart of the Katonah Museum of Art. The opening/reading is 1/30 from 5-8pm and the exhibit runs through 3/27 at their space near the Croton Falls train station. A few months ago Pam asked me to participate and let me pick my subject from among many fine artists of international renown. I chose Ottmar Horl's Plastic Garden Gnomes Giving the Finger not because I knew anything about Horl, who is also the creator of Plastic Garden Gnomes Saluting Heil Hitler, but because who could resist not one but two garden gnomes giving the world the bird? My piece, from which they have generously invited me to read on 1/30, is actually a conversation between Adolph Hitler's Ghost and Joseph Goebbel's ghost about the racial purity of gnomes, censorship, Horl's controversial status in Germany, and Hitler's lost Rotweilers Playing Poker paintings. For more, see LTProject.com.

ADLAND is one of FAST COMPANY magazine's Best of 2009

The best books of the year have two stories to tell: How we got into this economic crisis (and how we can prevent it from happening again) and how there's a class of companies wreaking their own brand of havoc on their industries. Both offer fascinating tales of innovation, and you'll learn everything from the secret underpinning some of the world's fastest-growing companies to strategies and insights for building a more sustainable society in the wake of the recession.
Adland by James P. Othmer
State-of-the-industry advertising manifestos are usually written by titans of the business, not former mid-level creatives who bounced around a number of large agencies. Yet this unlikely guide is the perfect one to take us through the apocalypse current roiling "Adland." Othmer shows us what's wrong about the old model by telling war stories with a jaundiced eye, and he then uses that same eye to look in on the cutting-edge, next-generation "don't call us an ad agency" creative shops defining the future.
Essence in a quote: "Instead of the traditional copywriter/art-director dynamic employed by most ad agencies, 42 Entertainment (which is also the company behind the campaign for the highly successful launch of the box-office-record-breaking Batman film The Dark Knight) typically relies on its alternate-reality-game background and involves everyone from sci-fi authors and sitcom writers to video game developers to create an experience that they say is exponentially more engaging and immersive than any traditional TV commercial."
The full list: Adland, Bright-Sided, Busted, Change by Design, Create Your Own Economy, Googled, In Cheap We Trust, In-N-Out Burger, Leadership, Strategy for Sustainability, Viral Loop

In Ad Age, Cindy Gallop Gives Adland Three Martinis, Up

'Futurist' Author Returns to Share His Adman Past
Cindy Gallop Gives 'Adland' Three Martinis, Up

by Cindy Gallop on 12.02.09

Some months ago I came across @drapersbastard on Twitter, proclaiming himself the "branded spawn of a titanic ego and someone from the secretarial pool who had one too many gimlets." His tweets were funny, simultaneously pointed and poignant. So I started following him. I'm a big fan of clever faux industry Twitterers, like @NotSirSorrell, and actually find @BogusBogusky rather more entertaining than @bogusky. (Sorry, Alex!)

I became so intrigued I challenged @drapersbastard to a Three-Martini Lunch. Subsequent dialogue revealed that @drapersbastard was in fact James P. Othmer, author of bestselling novel "The Futurist" and, most recently, an industry romp called "Adland." James and I became "social media friends" -- that is, friends who'd never actually met until our most enjoyable Three-Martini Lunch at 11 Madison Park in September (thoroughly recommended, by the way).

I highlight this original encounter because it is emblematic of why I found "Adland" such an enjoyable and profound read. "Adland" is a meditation on our industry through the lens of a personal story, told by a veteran of the Old World Order who is rapidly acclimatizing to the new. It resonates with everything we love about this industry, everything we hate, everything that keeps us working in it, everything that makes us want to leave and everything that makes us believe in what could still be possible.

"Adland" had me at Chapter 1, which tells the story of Y&R, as the incumbent, trying to retain a very large account that's up for review. Othmer, a former Y&R creative director, is careful not to identify the account, but industry readers will place it immediately. (Especially if, like me and BBH, yours was one of the "younger, hipper" agencies on the pitch list.) It's a brilliant encapsulation of a mix of emotions, ridiculousness, error and desperation that's all too appallingly recognizable:

"With advertising there's something about the combination of having to solve a major corporation's strategic problem in a creative way, while a clock is ticking, the whole time knowing that others in your building and in buildings around the world are also trying to solve the same problem, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, that is thrilling and somewhat addictive. ... It is creativity. And in the right environment it is contagious. This is what happened to us that morning under the fluorescent lights at that ugly conference table. ... The negativity of the cynic was replaced by the enthusiasm of the creative evangelist. It's a great time. But it is also the most dangerous time for a creative advertising person or anyone in the business of creating ideas for others. Because it is when we begin to care."

"Adland" speaks to all of us who care. It combines Othmer's personal journey with an exploration of how our industry is facing the future via dialogues with Toy, BBDO, Fahrenheit 212, Droga5 and Goodby. Buy it now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, an extremely simple crowd-sourced web platform designed to turn good intentions into action that will be launched this fall. Ms. Gallop spent most of her advertising career at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where she launched the agency's New York office. She continues to work as an advertising and marketing consultant and is an adviser to a number of technology and media startups. In 2003, Advertising Women of New York named her its Advertising Woman of the Year.