Experience

Substack

• United States
• Online Audio and Video Media
• 200 - 300 Employee

• Writer/Ad Critic

  • Nov 2021 - Present

  New York, New York, United States



Resumé

• Advertising Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Freelance Ad Critic

  • Nov 2018 - Present

  Stockholm, Sweden Currently writing a monthly article (in English) on the creativity, or the lack thereof, of (mostly) Nordic advertising.



Digiday

• United States
• Online Audio and Video Media
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Freelance Writer

  • Feb 2015 - Feb 2018

  Weekly column: I wrote about Advertising Creativity more incisively than anybody else in the industry. https://digiday.com/author/mark-duffy/



VICE Media

• United States
• Media Production
• 700 & Above Employee

• freelance ad critic

  • Nov 2013 - Apr 2014

  Greater New York City Area Weekly posts about the good and bad (mostly bad) of the ad industry. I also created a few posts where I made fake ads, including one where I imagined what some of the greatest ads of the Mad Men era would have looked like if kill-joy lawyers had final creative approval. http://www.vice.com/rss/tag/copyranter



BuzzFeed

• United States
• Technology, Information and Internet
• 700 & Above Employee

• Staff Writer

  • Apr 2012 - Oct 2013

  New York, NY I reviewed/ranted about ads and ad trends, good and bad. I also posted the greatest cat GIFs post in cat GIF history. I never plagiarized. Not once.



Gigante Vaz Partners

• United States
• Advertising Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• copywriter/associate creative director

  • 1992 - 2012

  New York, NY Started as a copywriter (the only copywriter), finished as a VP, associate creative director. I created thousands of executions of every kind of ad: TV, Print, Radio, Billboard, Brochures (short & long), Digital (branded content, not-terrible banners, page takeovers, etc), Phone Kiosks, Subway Car Takeovers, Matchbook Covers, etc. Though a writer, I always think visually first. That's where the best ideas come from. I never got a Puffin into a sold layout, a lifetime goal.



Animal New York

• Freelance Writer

  • Apr 2008 - Jul 2010

  Greater New York City Area Daily posts for what was then the leading underground culture website in NYC.



Gawker

• United States
• Online Media
• 1 - 100 Employee

• freelance writer

  • Sep 2006 - Oct 2007

  Greater New York City Area Wrote a weekly ad column, "Lies Well Disguised". Link: http://gawker.com/tag/lies-well-disguised?startTime=1168959648288 2014-2016: wrote several posts on the portrayal women in ads for Jezebel.com.



local daily and weekly newspapers

• Reporter

  • 1980 - 1992

  Northeast US Covered everything from local and pro sports to concert reviews to feature stories to courtroom proceedings to rural county freeholder meetings—where the big news of the month was competing bids for a new tractor. Also, covered one tractor-pull.



KPMG US

• United States
• Financial Services
• 700 & Above Employee

• Proofreader

  • 1984 - 1986

  Greater New York City Area Then Peat Marwick. Checked the financial statements of some of the biggest corporations in the world for grammar, consistency, and style.



Cub Scouts of America

• troop member

  • 1971 - 1971

  New Jersey I quit after two months because I got my ass kicked in the soap box derby.