Al Gore sure loves advertising

OK, so now I see why the ad industry can't get rid of Al Gore: the guy's about to launch an ad campaign to tell us what to do to stop global warming, and he's going to spend $100 million to $200 million a year to do it, according to this story. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, or, more likely, I'm suffering from Al Gore burnout now that the guy has appeared at Cannes, and just last week at Google's Zeitgeist, the ANA conference and also, in his spare time, won the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, here's a guy who could hang out with anyone he wanted—with the probable exception of Dubya—but apparently actually likes to hang out with people in advertising. Anyway, the campaign is from The Martin Agency, and, if his ANA speech is any indication, expect lots of TV. Gore said that, "Television still works more powerfully than anything else by far." I'm not sure he's right, but hey, it's not my $100 mill. BUT, WAIT, THERE'S MORE: I kinda forgot about the Current TV thing when I wrote this last night. The guy has more reasons to love the ad biz than Don Draper.

ANA study: Media, creative should re-marry

Cool report just out from the ANA conference in Phoenix: 60 percent of those who were polled think media and creative belong back together. Sixty percent. But lest you think this means that, say, Mediacom should just get it over with and tie the knot again with Grey, that's not exactly the kind of marriage the respondents are looking for: they think "partnerships between media companies and media agencies would become more important than traditional full-service agency partnerships going forward," according to this story in Adweek. (I haven't been able to find the full report online yet.) Personally, I'm lying in wait for the creation of OMD/ABC/Chiat.