After considering this New York Times report on Google's corporate culture, it certainly makes me wonder why we settle for so much less in the ad biz. Google, like I.B.M., says that it is forging a corporate culture in which success depends on performance. But while I.B.M. is an old company that has revamped the social contract with its workers, Google is writing a new one from scratch. Some of Google's benefit and …
Peace
Lewis Lazare: "Peace" is the central message in two new public service spots being released this month from Romani Bros./Chicago for Rotary International. The campaign tagline, as it was in an earlier campaign spotlighting Rotary's efforts to eradicate polio, is "Humanity in Motion." The more arresting of the two new commercials is "Symbols," a well-edited montage of unusual peace symbol imagery. A second spot called …
The Bald Midget And The Furniture Store Owner’s Daughter
The spot opens at the counter of a pizza place. Behind the counter is a middle-aged worker. The customer, a bald midget, stands in front of the counter, ready to order. He is in a hurry. CUSTOMER: "Quick! What makes Pizza Pan pizza so unique?" WORKER: (He spends 20 seconds going on about fresh dough, fresh ingredients, fast delivery, etc.) "Did ya get all that?" CUSTOMER: (Holding a cell phone) "Oh, I'm sorry. I was …
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67 Sliders
IFOCE: Japan's Takeru Kobayashi consumed 67 Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes to win the 2005 Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship in Chattanooga, TN. To the amazement of the more than 2,000 fans gathered in Chattanooga for the event, San Jose's Joey Chestnut was in front of Kobayashi for the bulk of the contest. At one point Chestnut led by as many as 6 Krystals but finished 5 behind Kobayashi, …
Don’t Touch That Dollar Bill. It’s Been Near A Gay Person.
Rangelife points to this story from Focus on the Family (a misnomer if there ever was one): Focus on the Family has fired its banker; Wells Fargo because the bank is among the largest corporate contributors to homosexual causes. In 2003 alone, Wells Fargo gave $2.1 million to more than 95 non-profit agencies serving the homosexual community. That brings their total giving since the 1980’s to more than $14 …
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Will “TiVo” As A Verb Outlast TiVo As A Company?
Ad Age has an article pondering the future of the company. “These are the death throes,” said Alex Tamayo, VP at Media Contacts, the interactive buying unit of Havas’ MPG. He noted that while TiVo has put a brand name on time-shifting, it’s struggling to gain subscribers and is being outpaced by cable operators who are aggressively rolling out their own DVRs. In fact, TiVo’s new developments came the same week that …
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Organized Resistance Vol. 1
As protestors get creative with their continued attacks on Wal-Mart, it pays to look back in American history at protest campaigns with like-minded goals. Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), has written eloquently on the anti-chain store campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s. With Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward corporations trying to squeeze local merchants with their mail-order version …
I Know, Let’s Order Up Some Bananas
Bruce Nussbaum: Michael Bierut of Pentagram fame has cut through the blather to raise a really fascinating--and funny-- issue in Corporate America. Everyone loves design but no one wants to call it design. Top CEOs and managers want to call design something else--innovation. Innovation, that they are comfortable with. Design, well, its a little too wild and crazy for them. So they call it innovation. I've been seeing …
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