News that Coca-Cola Co. is launching a new mobile social network called "Sprite Yard" is all over the intertubes. Information Week, Online Media Daily, RCR Wireless News and Adweek are all running with it. According to RCR Wireless News: Coca-Cola Co. is moving aggressively onto the mobile marketing playground with a kind of mobile MySpace centered on the company’s Sprite brand. The soft drink titan plans to launch a …
I Can Be Your Facebook Stalker
The video above is the work of Penn Masala, the world's first Hindi a cappella group. The group's "Facebook Skit" is a parody of Enrique Iglesias' song "Hero." The video, which is critical of online social networking, has been viewed nearly one and half million times on YouTube. In related news, Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz wrote a humorous piece, "Searching for Friends," about being an "old guy" on …
Get More Out Of New York. Move to New Jersey.
The dream of home ownership is scaled back considerably for those Americans who chose Manhattan as their residence. Just how far that vision is scaled back is revealed in a new campaign from Woods Witt Dealy & Sons for real estate developer Newport Associates Development. Newport Associates highlights a typical young couple with child who finds themselves squeezed out of their rent-controlled apartment and into …
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It Takes A Village (of Bankers)
Lewis Lazare looks today at the departure of another creative department mucky muck from DDB/Chicago. Normally, I would hesitate to bring this "news" to your attention, but Lazare dangles the compensation carrot—something I find impossible to resist. As recently as last winter, (Senior Vice President and Director of Content Production, David) Rolfe threatened to leave DDB when he was offered a top production job at …
A Propagandist’s Threat
Dana Milbank attended a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC where he got to witness the Sudanese ambassador to Washington, John Ukec Lueth Ukec, make a fool of himself. In a bizarre twist of events, the ambassador threatened to cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola. "I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over …
A-B Heads To Margaritaville
According to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub req), Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV is under the spell of a Carribean crooner. In its latest move to test the liquor market, beer giant Anheuser-Busch Cos. said it reached an agreement with singer Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Spirits to distribute Margaritaville Tequila in Massachusetts. The St. Louis brewer has recently test-marketed several spirits products amid …
Amp’d Mobile Tries Not To Die
So what happens when you try to launch a new mobile phone service with edgy ads that say "Try not to die--Amp'd Mobile is coming"? Yeah, you get a lot of edgy cool hip viral buzz--and a whole lot of deadbeat customers. From BusinessWeek: The gold rush of specialized cell-phone companies targeting niche audiences took another hit on June 1 as Amp'd Mobile, an edgy upstart geared to free-spending youths, filed for …
Big Ideas In Bend
After I mentioned the StrawberryFrog ad that ran in Fortune magazine, I got a nice note from Peter Levitan of Ralston360 in Bend, Oregon. Peter mentioned that his agency too believes in promoting itself through ads, and he passed along a few examples that have run in Oregon markets. These ads use traditional print advertising to highlight the agency's non-traditional thinking. Click on them for a larger view. He …
The Bloatosphere Is A Planner’s Paradise
Cambridge-educated brand planner Richard Huntington wonders aloud on his blog adliterate if blogging is killing planning. The idea that blogging is killing planning is arrant nonsense. The main accusation is that it encourages people to share half thought through thinking. Well no shit, in a 2.0 world where you should always be in Beta test, this is the whole point. The plannersphere is not a journal of record for …
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Wieden To Make Job Site Look Good On Super Bowl Monday
In a sign that the more things change, the more they stay the same, Ad Age reminds us the degree of emphasis some brands place on running a winning Super Bowl spot. After a messy split with its previous agency, Cramer-Krasselt, CareerBuilder.com said it has handed its $60 million creative advertising account to Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The Chicago-based job website had placed its account into review after …
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