Bill Green at Make the Logo Bigger cracks me up. Here’s what the fast food industry playbook for 2007 appears to be: let’s just all do weird shit. BK did it first with Subservient, so let’s copy them, right? Maybe some of it will work. Maybe some of it won’t. Doesn’t matter. Let’s just try anything. So go to this contest page on YouTube and watch Napolean Quarter Pounder dude change into shorts. You could win stuff. …
Discriminating Blog Readers Read Adverganza
Catharine P. Taylor is a little bummed that Tom Messner's Adweek article didn't mention her blog, Adverganza. Whatevs. His piece typically decries the rise of the form. At any rate, I'm always happy to point to great ad resources. Catharine does a particularly nice job on Monday mornings, rounding up the latest ad news. In today's post, the not-to-miss stories are: 300 Dentsu staffers climb Mt. Fuji and Jim Beam is …
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Open Source Concepting a.k.a. Cheap Ideas Aplenty
Matthew Creamer at Ad Age introduces us to OpenAd.net, a Slovenian-based online marketplace where ad and design ideas from about 9,000 creatives worldwide are bought and sold. OpenAd, with input from members in 122 countries, calls itself "the biggest creative department in the world." Our Creatives are advertising specialists. And because we want to provide you with the most complete range of talented individuals …
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Philly Purists Deflate Papers’ Inflatables
Since taking over The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News last year, Brian P. Tierney, a former ad man, has incresed the advertising budget at the papers to $14 million from $300,000. With money and Tierney's encouragement come ideas. One idea the paper had was to place a large inflatable honeybee and two large banners to promote the Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger film “Bee Movie,” scheduled for …
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To The City Goes AOL
According to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.), Time Warner Inc. said its AOL unit will move its corporate headquarters to New York City from Dulles, Va., and combine its various advertising business into a new subsidiary. The new entity will also include AOL's Advertising.com unit, which buys ad banners on thousands of Web sites for clients. "New York City is the center of advertising, so it makes perfect …
Greenpeace Performance Ad
Spencer Tunick is an American photographer known for staging mass nude photo shoots across the globe. This one, shot at Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps, is intended to be both a piece of art and a political statement aimed at raising global warming awareness. Greenpeace, who helped organize and publicize the event, said the purpose of the photographs is to "establish a symbolic relationship between the …
The New Traditionalists
According to The New York Times, American ad men and ad women are increasingly taking to the beach with balls that don't float. Bocce, the genteel Italian sport once played exclusively by leathery men in alabaster outfits on courts made of crushed seashells, has been adopted by young professionals. One hundred men and women, most of whom work in the advertising industry, play in the Los Angeles chapter of the Beach …
Will Write Code For A Million Dollars
According to Chicago Sun Times, two-year-old Particiapte Media, maker of Buzz Tracker (which is still in Beta), has been acquired by Yahoo for an undisclosed sum. The price for is rumored to be five million dollars. Buzz Tracker aggregates news, blog postings and other forms of Internet-based content from more than 90,000 sources. Buzz Tracker's Alan Warms, 41, was named general manager of Yahoo! News and will …
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Celestial Seasonings Is Schoenberg’s Cup Of Tea
Celestial Seasonings wants to spice up its tea sales, so it is undertaking the most extensive rebranding in its 37-year history. The Boulder, Colo.-based company, which produces more than 90 varieties of natural teas, is unveiling new packaging, a new logo and new products, including an organic premium line, Saphara (MSRP: $7.99). Celestial also is entering the coffee category with an organic line to launch in …
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Emerging From The Wasp’s Nest
Hiding out in the Home & Garden section of The New York Times, is a story about one man's radical downsizing. Michael Gates Gill, who once made about $160,000 a year as an advertising executive at JWT and who now earns around $10.50 an hour making coffee at Starbucks, has written a book called How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else, and it is so admiring of the firm, one …