http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/business/media/the-top-5-changes-on-madison-ave-over-the-last-25-years.html 2014-12-19 02:28:40 The Top 5 Changes on Madison Ave. Over the Last 25 Years There are profound differences from the past; clearly, the astonishing shift from analog to digital ranks as the most disruptive. === FROM the early 1990s to the mid-2010s — almost a quarter-century of fundamental changes for Madison Avenue, and for those who have covered the advertising industry. There are profound differences from the past; clearly, the astonishing shift from analog to digital ranks as the most disruptive. At the same time, there are a rash of similarities that could comfort a time traveler from the days when Mitsubishi was Take, for instance, the headline on an article that was posted Tuesday on Yet as 2015 approaches agencies are still fighting each other fiercely for business — in this instance, Johnsonville Sausage — just as they did almost 25 years ago. And there are still publications covering those scrums, even if the one named Adweek no longer provides a weekly print edition. As transformative as recent changes have been for the advertising business — Joe Mandese, editor in chief of MediaPost, describes them as part of “ On the other hand, “When people say our industry is dead, we are always able to reinvent ourselves,” said Stephen Martincic, executive vice president for global branding and corporate affairs at the agency FCB. After all, how many major agencies were forced to close during the financial crisis? How many global agency holding groups went bankrupt during the Great Recession? No-spoiler alert: none and none. Compare that enviable track record with how much the automotive, financial and retail industries suffered during those years. On the occasion of my last advertising column for The New York Times, and with a hat tip to Chris Rock, here, in my opinion, are the Top 5 most significant differences between advertising then and now. THE RISE OF DIVERSITY MARKETING And as same-sex marriage becomes more prevalent and accepted, Madison Avenue is running ads with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender consumers in mainstream media, not only in media aimed at this market. This year alone, brands climbing aboard the rainbow bandwagon included Beats Music, Brita, Cheerios, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Heineken Light, Honey Maid, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Clean, Revlon, Starbucks, Taco Bell and Tide. TV OR NOT TV? BACK TO THE FUTURE ADS AS ‘CONTENT’ CONSOLIDATION — AND ‘FRACTIONATION’ What has been unexpected is a countertrend: The success of independent agencies prized by clients that perceive entrepreneurial service providers to be more nimble, less hidebound, more innovative and, with less overhead, less costly. In the early ’90s, principals of one- or two-person agencies would pretend their shops were larger by starting off the phone extensions at 12 or 13. Perhaps 2015 will be when a big agency pretends to be smaller.