Big Picture - September 2015 - (Page 2)

insight Weather Report I September 2015 t is rainy. Not some gentle mist or a pleasant sprinkle. Really coming down in ways The Weather Channel typically presents as apocalyptic. They missed this one. They say rain is something you can get used to; a Vancouverite once told me she couldn't sleep soundly without the patter of raindrops against her window. But here in Cincinnati, rain is a scourge, something that creates black sludge from winter snowfalls and muddy boot prints each spring and fall. The economy is not so different from rain. It can be hard to tell when a mist will become a downpour, and the direction the wind blows can change fortune and favor among various industries. When stocks are up, of course, bonds are down. Low interest rates help first-time homebuyers, but hurt those who expected higher returns on their retirement investments. Magazines have a tendency to turn everything into news. Show me five photos, and I can pull them together into a convincing trend. Let me read a few articles on the same topic, and I'm on Google looking for more. So, maybe that's why, when I look back, I see that many publications began to celebrate the end of the recession as early as 2009. They (we) were technically correct: the National Bureau of Economic Research pointed to an uptick in the summer of 2009 and called off the official recession. Still, the worrying effects of the dip linger. Career tracks, forever altered, have left a chunk of millennials still living at home, or returning to create what sociologists have dubbed the "boomerang generation." Employees working into their seventies is no longer uncommon. There are effects that are harder to measure: job satisfaction, mental health, stress-induced illness. A Gallup study of 2.5 million workplaces in April found that only 30 percent of employees and 35 percent of managers in the US are engaged by their work. On the other hand, there is a surge in second (and third and fourth) careers, people heading back to school after finding that what pays the bills isn't satisfying. There's a movement among younger people to enjoy the perks of retirement a bit sooner. As the job market rebounds, frugal thirty- and forty-somethings are leaving their jobs to travel inexpensively for a year. One former ad executive quit, bought a van, and is meandering through the US. So, while there have been hardships and derailed careers, there's also some sense of realism, a better understanding of who we are, what we want. That trickles down to how receptive we are to the many messages we receive in the world, including advertising. "Authenticity" is the new buzzword, and if we prized highly paid jobs in 1985, we're starting to celebrate highly developed humans in 2015. And we've learned that not all development is reflected in a paycheck. Advertisers have jumped on this bandwagon; check out our cover story on the Outdoor Advertising Association of America's awards on page 16 for a sampling of this brave new world. bigpicture.net EDITORIAL Robin Donovan Editor-in-Chief robin.donovan@stmediagroup.com Adrienne Palmer Associate Editor adrienne.palmer@stmediagroup.com Kiersten Wones Editorial Assistant kiersten.wones@stmediagroup.com Kathleen DeZarn Art Director kathy.dezarn@stmediagroup.com Marty McGhie, Craig Miller, Beth Osborne Columnists Rick Bachelder, Kathy Boydstun, Terry Corman, Scott Crosby, Brandon Gabriel, Michael Garcia, Kirk Green, Robert Kissel, Tina McLaughlin, Craig Miller, Carmen Rad, Greg Root, Jared Smith, Mark Taylor Editorial Advisory Board SALES Murray Kasmenn Senior VP/Group Publisher 770/578-2577 murray.kasmenn@stmediagroup.com Lou Arneberg Senior Market Strategist East and Midwest US, E Canada 800/654-5169 lou.arneberg@stmediagroup.com Ben Stauss Senior Market Strategist West and South US, W Canada, Europe, Asia 513/263-9363 ben.stauss@stmediagroup.com Linda Volz Production Supervisor linda.volz@stmediagroup.com Tedd Swormstedt President Steve Duccilli Senior VP of Content Christine Baloga Audience Development Director Kari Freudenberger Director, Online Media BIG PICTURE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES 2 BY ROBIN DONOVAN, editor-in-chief BIG PICTURE (ISSN 1082-9660) is published 9 times annually (Jan/Feb, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October, Nov/Dec) by ST Media Group International Inc., 11262 Cornell Park Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45242-1812. Telephone: (513) 421-2050, Fax: (513) 362-0317. No charge for subscriptions to qualiﬁed individuals. Annual rate for subscriptions to non-qualiﬁed individuals in the U.S.A.: $46 USD. Annual rate for subscriptions in Canada: $77 USD (includes GST & postage); all other countries: $101 (Int'l mail) payable in U.S. funds. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 2015, by ST Media Group International Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for product claims and representations. Periodicals Postage Paid at Cincinnati, OH and at additional mailing oﬃces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. Change of address: Send old address label along with new address to Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. 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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - September 2015

Big Picture - September 2015
Contents
Insight
Wide Angle
Upfront
Business + Management
Brands to Believe in
Repackaging RIPs
The Writing’s on the Wall...and Paper ...and Acrylic.
R+D
Explorer

Big Picture - September 2015