Promo Magazine: Departing from standard practice, the National Hockey League has hired an entertainment marketing agency to help restore the brand's image and build a stronger emotional fan-player connection following a 301-day lockout during the 2004-05 season. Conductor, a Los Angeles, CA-based agency, will serve as the NHL's lead marketing communications and integration agency to help unite fans and players for …
Snow White’s A Sister
Here's some of that "dramatize the product benefit stuff" I like to talk about. This ad for Nivea self-tanning spray, care of TBWA\ Brussels does that, but in this case, one might be inclined to ask why. Thanks to Frederik Samuel for the pointer. …
From The Land Of Birkenstocks
From the land of Birkenstocks, comes Bionade—the world's first purely organic non-alcoholic refreshment drink. Hey, Heiko Hebig likes it. …
What Color Is Your Stationery?
Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced the availability of PANTONE UNIVERSE Stationery, a collection of stationery and office supplies. This extends the PANTONE UNIVERSE brand of colorful, design-driven consumer products. "Hundreds of thousands of design professionals rely on Pantone for color standards and color trend …
Open Hearts Open Doors
Displaced Designer is a new site dedicated to helping people in the industry get back on their work feet. We reported last week on Brains On Fire's effort to help Gulf Coast agency staff relocate temporarily to Greenville, SC. Now Adweek reports, Trumpet’s 32 employees were celebrating the agency's eighth anniversary just two nights before Katrina rolled ashore. Co-founder Robbie Vitrano said that all 32 employees …
Hugh’s Turn
I'm kind of surprised I did not see this earlier, but today I stumbled upon B.L. Ochman's interview with Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void. Hugh supports himself with income from blogvertising. He resides in rural England, where his rent is one fifteeenth of what he paid in New York. He says he makes close to what he made in New York as a copywriter. I don't know what Hugh made, but copywriters can be paid pretty well in …
We All Need Brand Camp
For 79 more wickedly insightful marketing 'toons from this artist, visit Tom Fishburne's …
Volkwagen Cruises Over To Crispin
From Adweek: Volkswagen said it has named MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky to handle creative chores in the U.S. and Canada. Havas' Arnold here had previously handled the business for the past 10 years. Arnold has done quite a lot of good and memorable work for VW over the years, but as VW sales have been slipping lately, this serves as a potent reminder that no agency-client relationship is ever safe. The …
GSD&M To The Rescue
Brand New Day: Advertising agencies are generally viewed as nothing more than organized, high priced hucksters. But here is what one agency did, quickly, to dispel that stereotype. Austin, Texas shop GSD&M called the Ad Council on Wednesday morning, when the rest of us got the full picture of how awful the situation is, to volunteer to put together radio and television advertisements for the Red Cross. By Thursday …
Let The Product Or Service Speak
The Hidden Persuader posted this Neil Frenchism last week. "The answer to making an ad is always in the product, if you look for it. Our task is not just to find that answer though - it's to make the answer relevant to someone who, at present, doesn't give a shit about it. So first I look at the product and deconstruct it ... what Robin Wight used to call 'interrogating it until it confesses to its …