Fairly Honest Bill's is a used furniture place on MLK and Burnside in Portland. Bill wants to let you know where he's coming from before you enter his environment. …
Happy Advertising Week!
As you revel in the non-stop orgiastic celebration of our industry of puffery, please give a thought to those icons who've been left behind and will remain uncelebrated this week. …
The NRA Weighs In
Bring The Goods. Get Paid. Period.
According to Ad Age, pay isn't yet under pressure at the agency management level. But agencies might be tightening their hiring standards. "People are looking for mature, aggressive, in-command personalities," Sharon Spielman, managing director at recruitment firm Jerry Fields Associates, said. "I think when the economy suffers, they're more concerned about stability and experienced management people who can command …
Union Square Ventures Gets Times Treatment
The New York Times ran a feature piece on Fred Wilson's venture capital firm in yesterday's edition. On his blog, Wilson says, "The last thing we needed was a puff piece saying we were the best VC out there or something. I've had that story written before and when it turned out not to be true, I've had it rubbed in my face." I don't think Fred has much to worry about this time around. The Times points out that three …
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Best Media Buy
Pandora is cashing in on the popularity of its iPhone application. Since it's introduction last summer, Pandora has been the 3rd most popular download on the iPhone. Now Best Buy and Beck’s beer are purchasing exclusive rights to advertise on the new mobile platform: Best Buy for the next thirty days, and Beck’s for the subsequent thirty days. “Pandora is out in front of this emerging platform which they …
Oppenheimer Adjusts Its Package
Financial services companies spend a lot of money getting their "get rich with us" message out. In fact, it's one of the largest industries served by Madison Avenue. All of which makes launching a new ad campaign in this tricky market a sleep depriving experience. According to The Wall Street Journal, Oppenheimer Funds is kicking off a $20 million ad effort tomorrow, but last week's fright caused the firm to scrap …
The Crisis Of Advertising
Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman/Lewis and otherwise known as The Ad Contrarian, is taking a deeper look at the factors hampering the ad industry in a series of posts titled The Crisis of Advertising: Advertising pundits are right about one thing. The ad industry is a fucking disaster. They are wrong, however, about what is causing the problems. The crisis is not being caused by the internet. The internet should be a boon …
Chipotle Lets An Agency Relationship Go Sour
Ad Age reveals a choice nugget regarding the parting of Chipotle and its' short-lived ad agency, Devito/Verdi: Chipotle is looking for a new agency, the company announced this morning. Its $15 million to $20 million business moved to DeVito/Verdi, New York, in January, following a review. It does not appear to be the most amicable of partings. "All of the agencies in the review may want to call us or the previous …
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“Banner Blindness” Wrong Diagnosis
From a branding perspective, click through rates are a poor metric, because one needn't click a banner to be impacted by it. According to The Wall Street Journal, ad-technology and Web-measurement companies (namely Microsoft) are trying to engineer a comeback for display ads, offering data that they say show display advertising is more effective than marketers think. The debate revolves around what leads consumers to …