By now all the hype about the value of "online conversations" has reached the corner offices and executive suites of the world's top marketers (some bookshevles may even sport a ragged copy of The Cluetrain Manifesto), but sadly the dark side of this new communications model has also reared its ugly head more than once. BusinessWeek takes a look: The venom of crowds isn't new. Ancient Rome was smothered in graffiti. …
Coke Reigns Supreme
According to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.), Coca-Cola Co. topped the list of Harris Interactive's annual poll of "best brands" for the first time, as Sony Corp. slipped from the top spot, where it sat for seven straight years. Coca-Cola Sony Toyota Dell Ford Kraft Foods Pepsi Cola Microsoft Apple Honda To compile the list, Harris surveyed 2,372 adults online, asking them to consider the brands of …
Coming To An Agency Near You: The Four-Headed Creative
Anne Benvenuto is executive vice president of strategic services at R/GA. In the May 2007 issue of Admap Magazine she wrote an article called "Planning: the challenge of complexity" which introduces her concept of the creative hydra and other new media challenges. The creative hydra was born when a few new roles were grafted on to the traditional copywriter-art director team to help conceive programmes and …
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Crackle Paves The Path To Hollywood
The online video site formerly known as Grouper — the one purchased by Sony for $65 million last August — has a new name and a new direction. Now known as Crackle, the Sausalito-based startup will function as a Sony Pictures-backed online talent studio. The hope is that in between Hollywood and YouTube, there is an opportunity to bring together nascent actors and film-makers and turn them into tomorrow’s …
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Mad Men: Coming Thursday
Once upon a time, advertising was glamorous hucksterism...for white people in suits living the dream on Madison Avenue, growing fat on three-martini lunches and TV media commissions. From the AMC website: Mad Men is AMC's provocative new original series from writer and executive producer Matthew Weiner of The Sopranos. Set in 1960 New York, Mad Men pulls the viewer into an unexpected new world - the high-powered and …
10 Candles Burning Bright
The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.) is celebrating blogging's 10th anniversary, although they afix no hard and fast date to the form's emergence. The business paper asked a number of people to pontificate on the subject. Blogerati chairwoman emeritus, Elizabeth Spiers, offers some nice insight into the practice (as does Scott Karp...see video above). So I'll share some of her commentary here: Of the various …
Condom Ads Get Cock Blocked In Pittsburgh
According to The New York Times, TV execs in Pittsburgh are saving the local populace from the harmful effects of condom advertising. Controversy over a new advertising campaign by Trojan, the condom maker, has trickled down to the local level, with television stations in Pittsburgh roundly refusing to show it, and stations in Seattle giving it the green light. When Trojan introduced the condom commercial last month, …
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Chan Suh Back In The Game
According to Ad Age, Chan Suh is pulling a Steve Jobs. He's back in the role of CEO at Agency.com, the company he founded in 1995. "It's like getting the band back together," Mr. Suh said. "It's time to agitate again." Mr. Suh, had stepped away from agency operations in 2004, the year after it became wholly owned by Omnicom. Mr. Suh's goal for Agency.com is to boost its emerging-media capabilities and bring the shop …