1/11/10 - - Sky High Inspiration. (Los Angeles Business Journal - Jan 11, 2010)
When people need to get away to think, they often take a walk or go for a drive. Dan Katz goes flying. Katz, the president of ad agency LA ads in Northridge, gets his best ideas when tooking through the clouds. "When you fly, you have to be very focused. It's suchy a consciousness shift that it actually frees up the subconscious part of your mind to do its work," Katz explained. He believes his in-flight insights are similar to the great ideas that some people get in the middle of the night. Click here for more.

12/22/09 - - Dare to be Different. (Blog post)
Our poor brains, not just mine, can retain only so much information. And the first thing that goes is the stuff that doesn’t grab our attention and burn itself into the memory banks in the first place.  It’s just so much background noise that gets filtered out. So what sticks? Things that break the pattern. The unexpected. That which is different. And therein lies the secret to all successful advertising. If it’s not different, it won’t get noticed, let alone retained. Click here for more.

12/11/09 - - It's not ads. It's not Web. It's ideas that count. (Blog post)
It’s ideas that drive people to act, not headlines, not fancy Flash animation, not even the Tweet-of-the-moment.  People buy because they look to improve their lives, make pain go away, find a better future, satisfy their egos, or make the world better. That’s where the focus needs to be, not whether to add a new page on Facebook. Click here for more.

12/04/09 - - What's a WSAC? You'd better ask. (Blog post)
The first step in building your marketing is to give serious thought about what kind of message would a disinterested audience CARE about, that affects them personally and expresses how their lives are made better by reading further…particularly when it comes to marketing funeral services that by nature no one really wants even if it’s something everybody needs. And then, once you’ve crafted that message, the next step is to come up with a compelling, eye-stopping – I might even say disruptive – way of communicating that message within the headline and art. Click here for more.

11/06/09 - Successful LA Ad Man Launches Agency During a Recession for the Second Time.
Los Angeles advertising creative director Dan Katz started his first ad agency, LA ads, during the recession of the early 90’s and built it into one of the top independents in Los Angeles. Now Katz has announced that he is re-launching LA ads, again during a recession. Click here for more.

10/22/09 - What's wrong with the medium du jour? (Blog post)
Today I attended a meeting of angels. No, not the kind with wings but the more earthly ones with money to invest. Presenting to them were a bevy of start-up companies looking to become the next big thing. As each presented his (I’m not sexist; they were all guys) story, I was surprised at how uniformly they said they intended to market using social media alone. Click here for more.

7/04/09 - The problem with incestuous thinking. (Blog post)
Seeking good ideas from within your own industry is just a step away from examining your own navel. It’s incestuous thinking. What you need in order to grow is to branch out. And how you do that is by looking at industries and businesses outside your own. Click here for more.