Felisha is a ball of fire. Well not literally, because then we’d have to up our property insurance, but you get the idea. She is a can -do, get-it-done, but make sure it’s fantastic kind of person. She learned her p chops at AutoTrader, Crispin, Porter, and Bogusky and then at McKinney all of which taught her not only project management but a fluency in the digital space.

Fmidgett@baldwinand.com

919-680-0900

As we all know, if a company handles a situation badly one time out of ten they will likely get scorched by the aggrieved party. That’s just the way it works. And now with all the communication outlets available to us as consumers a complaint can go big, the United breaks guitars song fiasco, comes to mind.

I recently had an experience with Amazon.com that truly raised the bar from anything I’d previously seen.

I bought one of the first generation Kindles a little over a year ago. Within 11 months, the darned thing crapped out on me. The screen went blank and then filled with black lines and finally resolved into this:

I didn’t know if it was irreparably damaged or if it had just crashed and when I finally got around to researching it I realized that not only was it dead but I had let my warranty expire. To make things worse, I bought it from an Amazon reseller so it must have been a refurb. At the time, the Kindle was sold out on Amazon so it was my only choice.

I emailed the reseller and he told me that I was out of luck and that there was nothing he could do. Furthermore, he pointed out that I had refused the protection plan he’d tried to push on me.

So I emailed Amazon, thirteen months after I’d bought it, and asked if I had any options. They referred me to their Kindle customer service section on their site. The way it works is this, you can either choose to email with a representative or they will call you. If you want to talk in-person all you do is enter in your phone number and hit send and within seconds (SECONDS!) your phone rings and it’s a rep.

I was ready to do battle because my beloved Kindle died within warranty. I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on but hey, squeaky wheel and all that.

Well, I didn’t even have to ask. I explained my situation and that was it, they replaced my Kindle and paid for the shipping. All I had to do was return the damaged one. Now here’s the kicker, my phone call was on Saturday and I had my new Kindle on Tuesday. And it came pre-loaded with my Kindle settings all I had to do was re-download my content.

Obviously, they’ve inspired me to be an even more loyal customer than I had been before the incident.

We talk about walking the walk to our clients all the time. Don’t just say something, BE it. People have to ‘Buy in” before they buy long term. Amazon has stated, “We’re Building Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.” That’s a heck of a big statement but they proved they mean it.

Well, I’ve bought in.

Art & Copy will be playing at the Rialto on March 10, 6-9 sponsored by the AAF Raleigh-Durham. Executive producer, David Baldwin will be doing a Q&A after the film. The film premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and came out in theaters in the fall.

This is the core group. If this were Hollywood Squares does that mean David is Paul Lynde?

Come on, follow David. Adweek said so.

Amid the flurry of conversations about the allegedly fake 911 ad for the WWF in Brazil, there is a silver lining.

The One Club is taking a stand, listening to our members (particular thanks to Matt Morin for keeping a level head) and the rest of the industry, and saying, ‘enough is enough.

Here’s the new policy:

Effective beginning in 2010…

1. An agency or regional office of an agency network that enters an ad made for a nonexistent client, or made and run without a client’s approval, will be banned from entering the One Show for five years.

2. The entire team credited on the “fake” entry will be banned from entering the One Show for five years.

3. An agency or regional office of an agency network that enters an ad that has run once, on late-night TV, or only because the agency produced a single ad and paid to run it itself will be banned from entering the One Show for three years.

Here’s the AdAge article.

Without giving a value judgment to the ad itself, which I find a bit nonsensical more than offensive (though it is that as well) it seems to be sparking a debate about the value of the award show. Let’s make it a healthy debate.

I want to make it clear, I am not an apologist for award shows. There are too many of them, they’re too expensive, and it’s unclear as to their value to our business. That said, there a few shows that I love, in particular the One Show, The Kellys, CA and D&AD. They’re not perfect but they are what they are.

As far as the One Show, I can tell you, we really do try to weed out the fake work, or as I like to call it, Faux-bono. But it’s much more difficult than you think. This is a common topic at our board meetings and during judging.

During the judging we:

- We ask judges to flag work they think might be scam.

- We check each winning piece by asking for a tear sheet, a media plan and/or a letter from the client.

- No agency names/creative names are listed on the work while judging.

-No discussion is allowed while judging.

When we do discover fake work we do one or a combination of the following:

We strip the agency of the award.

We ask for the pencils back if given

We ban the agency/team from entering the next year.

Lastly, I’d like to remind everyone accusing the One Show of being all about greed that we are a non-profit. No one is making tons of money here, it just isn’t happening. If we have a good year it goes towards things like education, programs to further diversity in our industry and of course, into running the following year’s show and process. I served as chairman for 5 years for free as do all board members.

So back to the original point of this post, we have an all day board meeting coming up and I’d like to present some of your thoughts on what we might do to make the show and the process better.

If you’re going to be hater, and accuse all work of being fake, I ask you to step out from behind your anonymity and name the names and the work and more importantly, the proof that the award winning work you’re referencing is fake. Seriously.

Okay, have at it.

Oscar is perfect for Baldwin&. He’s a hell of a good designer/art director/thinker and he’s completely web 2.0. But it may be his non-advertising life that makes him even more interesting. He’s been a designer, photographer and animator for years and also a scout for Columbia records, all while touring with his band, Rodeia. How good is Oscar? He’s so good he almost didn’t finish school because he had so many job offers months before he was due to finish.

Indeed we did. In a way, Jerry Bodrie is rejoining us because we all worked together during our days at McKinney. Jerry is not only a smart guy he’s a heck of a good guy and knows how to get the right things done. Hence, his title, superconductor.

Not your typical suit, Jerry is our kind of account guy. He digs-in, learning everything he can about the product, the brand, the customer and the category because he knows that we can’t do our business if we don’t know your business. He contributes at every stage of the process, and he can foster a meeting of the minds without threat of abacination. As a leader on the team that tripled Audi’s business when the automotive press had already pronounced the brand dead, Jerry is always up for a challenge.

jbodrie@baldwinand.com

919.680.0900