November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Reporter Kate MacArthur of Crain's Chicago Business writes today:

McDonald's is giving its new advertising tagline a break in Great Britain.

The fast-food giant declared a two-week hiatus, to have ended Friday, for "I'm lovin' it" in the United Kingdom. Critics of the campaign from the outset have said the tagline could backfire in markets where poor service or the stigma of junk food make "I'm lovin' it" a tough sell.

To win over skeptical Britons, Oak Brook-based McDonald's Corp. launched a new campaign Oct. 15, dubbed "Changes." The campaign replaces the famous Golden Arches logo with a yellow question mark and carries the line, "McDonald's. But not as you know it." Aimed at jolting consumers from an image of the food cultivated by films like "Super Size Me," the effort preceded a direct-mail campaign to 17 million households touting more healthful menu items and smaller portion sizes. The campaign was crafted by the London office of Chicago-based Leo Burnett.

McDonald's executives concede that despite launching a sales juggernaut in the U.S., overseas consumers haven't fallen head over heels for the "I'm lovin' it" marketing. Yet leadership of the iconic brand is steadfast that its "Changes" campaign is merely the second phase of a two-part push. The first was to reinforce its brand among loyalists; now, it needs to change perceptions among those who aren't.

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Once upon a time, the image of an everyday ad man was projected to the multitudes by the likes of Darren Stevens on Bewitched or the guys on Thirty Something. Now in this time of reality television, real CEOs are offering themselves up as fodder, as entities in the modern cultural brandscape. Today, Donny Deutsch is the face of the agency business, thanks in large part to his show on CNBC.

Should you require more of the inside scoop on Donny, Steve Fishman's New York Metro piece is an interesting read.

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Crain's Chicago Business newly released "40 Under 40":

Nicole Ertas, senior brand manager, joined Jim Beam Brands Worldwide Inc. in May 2002 and launched tequila into the cocktail age. She renamed little-known El Tesoro Silver tequila as El Tesoro Platinum, marketed it as a mixable liquor and watched proudly as it appeared as a product placement in two episodes of HBO's series "Sex and the City." Now, El Tesoro Platinum martinis are on bar menus across the country.

Ms. Ertas "looked at spirits in a whole new way. She said, 'What are we missing?' We were missing the whole cocktail trend," says Kathleen DiBenedetto, director of sales and marketing integration for Jim Beam Brands and Ms. Ertas' boss during the El Tesoro transformation. "She's a maverick in her thinking."

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adweek reports that Haggar Clothing Co. chief marketing officer Alan Burks made the Power 100 List of the most influential leaders of the men's fashion industry as ranked by DNR magazine.

Burks was noted for his role in shaping advertising and new ideas for business and licensing opportunities for the Dallas-based clothier. Working under an agreement with BMB Group Ltd., Haggar has expanded its presence in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Burks also plans expansion in Asia, the magazine said.

Haggar recently launched a multimillion-dollar campaign for a new line of wrinkle and fade-resistant clothing with television, radio and print ads created by Foundation Design, an independent Seattle agency.

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Ad Age: When the behemoth U.S. Postal Service found out that a young rock band had named itself "Postal Service," executives weren't happy. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to the band's label, Seattle-based independent Sub Pop Records.

But what began as an argument over name rights turned into the mail-delivering institution's first cross-promotional music deal. Sub Pop executives suggested that the USPS turn the musicians into marketing partners instead of adversaries. The USPS ultimately agreed to let the band keep using the name via a licensing deal, and will take advantage of the musicians' hipster cachet through some innovative co-promotions.

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to the company's home page, Leap Wireless is a customer-focussed company that provides innovative, wireless, communication services for the mass market.

According to Adweek, this San Diego firm moved their account from Sausalito's Butler Shine and Stern to Chicago's Element 79 without a review.

Excellent, now can someone please get to work on that bit of copy above? It does not reveal a thing. Leap, tell me who you are and what you do, please. In five seconds. Go.

November 1, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

You don't see a lot of English jokes in advertising. Perhaps the copywriters are mostly WASPs. Anyway, I found one. Rick Johnson Advertising in New Mexico has created an ad that both celebrates the English and denigrates them.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Will consumer blogs bypass professional advertising agencies?" -Rance Crain* in Crain's Ad Age

The publisher of Ad Age considers consumers' power to shape brand images on their own today, in both positive and negative ways. He wonders if consumer-run sites will become more meaningful to brands than anything their ad agency or internal communications department might ever create. These are good questions.

I'd like to see consumer sites that help define what the brand really means in the culture. This will only help the brand in the end, and those charged with its care.

I also propose brands enter the conversation now. Find the bloggers in your midst corporate America. Then empower these people to become voices for the corporation. You will humanize your corporation in the doing. People like to buy from their friends. So be a friend, hang out for a while, discuss.

*Rance Crain's company publishes 30 magazines including Advertising Age, Electronic Media and Crain's Chicago Business. The company was founded in 1916 by Rance's father, G.D. Crain, Jr, and his mother, Gertrude Crain later served as company chairman.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Since it's election day here in America, I thought I'd go ahead and thank Diesel and KesselsKramer for providing us another, equally just, way to exercise our individual credit cards, I mean freedoms.

KesselsKramer, an agency that is deft at the art of camp, must be credited for sporting one of the more daring agency web sites. Each time one comes to this Amsterdam agency's home page, another cheesy pitch is there to greet you. One's first thought is this must be the wrong address. It's not the wrong address. It's dynamic content. It's also funny and insightful and a blueprint for brands that want to make their own sites worth visiting.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Wired: China has closed 1,600 internet cafes and fined operators a total of $12 million for letting children play violent games and for other violations, the government said.

The announcement came amid a campaign launched in March to reduce or eliminate sex and violence in websites, video games and other material that Communist leaders consider harmful to public morality.

Investigators have inspected 1.8 million internet cafes looking for unlicensed operations or those that let children play violent games meant for adults, the Ministry of Culture said. China encourages internet use for education and business but bans sexually oriented content on Chinese websites and tries to block access to foreign sites deemed pornographic or subversive.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

We will learn today where Pete Coors will be and what he'll be working on for the next several years. Will it be the interests of Colorado? Or the continued interests of the family business?

According to E.J. Dionne, writing in the Washington Post, the campaign hasn't been all that great for the folks back home at the brewery.

from Dionne's article: "Yes, it's tough having to sell beer and win votes from conservatives. At one point in the primary campaign, Coors said his brewery would change its health care plan so that it would no longer cover abortions. But, hey, Coors had to win a primary and he couldn't alienate right-to-lifers."

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Luerzer's Archive has an updated web presence with excellent data base functionality. One factoid I pulled from the site:

Most appearances in Archive, by agency
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London
DDB, London
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London
KesselsKramer, Amsterdam
DM9DDB, Sao Paulo
Mother Ltd., London
Saatchi & Saatchi, London
TBWA GGT Simons Palmer, London
Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam
D´Adda, Lorenzini, Vigorelli, BBDO, Milan
Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis
Springer & Jacoby Werbung GmbH. & Co. KG, Hamburg
Scholz & Friends, Berlin
Jung von Matt, Hamburg
Cliff Freeman & Partners, New York

And what might an American working in advertising extract from this list? One, that Archive is published in Europe. Two, that American creativity is not being expressed as widely or as freely as it might be.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

from New York Times: The average circulation of the nation's newspapers fell in the six months ended in September, as new federal restrictions on telemarketing and a more conservative approach by some publications to counting paid readership put further pressure on an already struggling industry.

The losses were widespread, with two-thirds of papers reporting flat or declining circulation, including The Washington Post and The Daily News, according to an analysis by the Newspaper Association of America of figures released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The average daily circulation for the nation's 841 daily newspapers fell 0.9 percent, to 47,711,751, for the six months ended Sept. 30, as compared with the period a year earlier, according to the newspaper association.

November 2, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Two years ago copywriter Sally Hogshead asked in Creativity "Is your career kicking you in the nuts?" For those who would answer yes, she offered, "Kick back."

Here's how she charms: So what exactly is radical careering? It's the relentless dedication to having exactly the job you want -- no matter how daunting it might seem or how discouraged you might feel. You always have the power to revolutionize your career, at any stage, at any agency, in any economy. And with that power comes a significant responsibility: being accountable for your own success.

Read the remainder of this Hogsheadian manifesto.

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

IKEA is the latest in a string of marketers to deploy a faux web site to create buzz for their brand. Seattle agency, Wong Doody unleashed Skyhigh Airlines to make fun of high cost carriers (they have Alaska Airlines as a client); more recently Wieden + Kennedy's NYC office teased gamers with Beta-7, a faux fan site that drew a lot of attention; plus you have the kids in Coconut Grove toying with Burger King fans via various nefarious means.

And now the world has Elite Designers Against Ikea dot org. Here's where they are coming from:

"We are the Elite Designers. We design profound and beautiful furniture for those with wealth and taste. Which is why IKEA makes us furious livid and angry. Do their designs live, breathe and growl? Are they born from tears of pain? Do they gently touch the bottom of the human soul? Pah! Of course not, no more than weeds can attract a bee. The big blue place is odious, its affordable design is sickeningly shallow and we loathe it even more than we loathe football. Please join us in our unqualified hatred."

Van Den Puup, EDAI spokesperson

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

General Motors enters the blogosphere with GM Smallblock Engine Blog. I applaud the car maker's initiative.

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Blogversations are a new, not evil way to market your products and services through discussions. Here's how it works:

1) We match advertisers with bloggers
2) Advertisers propose a topic or question (not an advertorial)
3) Bloggers accept or reject the proposal
4) If they accept, bloggers discuss the topic or question, and link to the discussion on their blog's front page
5) Advertisers truly engage audiences without doing evil; bloggers get paid for doing what they do best - blogging!

Advantages for advertisers:

Instantly build real engagement with tuned-out audiences. Leverage engagement to build credibility, authority, and authenticity for your brands. Provide consumers advertising that creates benefits - not that imposes costs and annoys.

Advantages for bloggers:

Leverage your authority and audience to earn money - without losing control over what you've got to say. Turn your ideas, criticisms, opinions, and reader share into money - and not muddy up your site with clunky ads in the process. Engage your audience with thought-provoking issues and questions.

Why We Don't Encourage Advertorials

Evil is a shortsighted strategy. If bloggers sell out, they lose readers; if they lose readers, we lose sponsors. The pie shrinks for everyone. That's why we don't want bloggers to sell out.

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Political blog Daliy Kos, the work of one partisan man, has been attracting some 400,000 readers a day, the size of a large daily newspaper. I'm all for it, but I wonder what Kos's traffic will do now? On the other hand, I have no doubt that political humorist, Ana Marie Cox, will continue to be highly relevant since she busts on both sides with equal fervor.

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from AdAge: WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson today said it has named Ty Montague executive vice president and chief creative officer and co-president of its New York office, a move that is meant to infuse the old-line agency with a jolt of nontraditional marketing energy.

Mr. Montague, 41, comes to JWT from independent Wieden & Kennedy, New York, where he was co-executive creative director and was one of the brains behind "Beta-7," a Blair Witch Project-esque four-month campaign for the Sega ESPN NFL video game.

November 3, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Modern Marketing says, there is a new player in the media business. It is staffed by millions of people all round the world, creates mountains of varied content, is highly trusted by its readership, is growing exponentially and has a zero overhead.

It's called Citizen's Media or Consumer Generated Media and is the result of cheap, accessible digital publishing tools being available to a mass market for the first time.

Or as respected US commentator Jeff Jarvis puts it, "people now own the printing press and the broadcast tower and the barrier to entry to media has been blown away."

Blogs are the highest profile type of Citizen’s Media. To date they have been viewed as a niche activity pursued by navel-gazers and geeks. However, they are growing fast. Online blog monitor Technorati.com tracks more than 4 million blogs and adds 20,000 a day to its register.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The words, "I'm just browsing," have no place in the battle for desktop supremacy. For sure, Rob Davis is doing more than just browsing. Mr. Davis is young geek with big ideas. His latest is SpreadFirefox.com, a site where he not only spreads the word, he collects money to run an ad for Firefox in the New York Times. Correction, he collects a lot of money from a lot of people to run an ad for a firm he does not work for.

According to Davis, "I currently work as communications and marketing consultant for Minneapolis-based Haberman & Associates. The 12-person firm is full of fun, entrepreneurial over-achievers. I was brought in Sept. 1 to complement the firm's existing strengths for pioneering stories and grassroots advocacy with my experience in web-based organizing."

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

A reader in San Francisco pointed us to this post from Whisper Blog:

One of the branding lessons that can be taken from the 2004 U.S. Presidential election is that in the States, voters are consumers and candidates are brands. And just like consumers of Uncrustables, Budweiser or Volkswagen, they make emotional, not logical decisions.

The best way to get the consumer to make you their choice is with a singular top-of-mind emotional message, a message that allows you to own the conversation. Once that message has been established, all sub-messaging must work in the same direction as the main message.

The fate of the Democratic challenger in yesterday's election vividly demonstrated what happens to a brand that becomes bogged-down with multidirectional logical messages. If you need more proof consider this: there isn't a single human being on the planet, no matter how busy, who doesn't have the time to make a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and yet Uncrustables have convinced millions of American's otherwise.

Imagine if you actually had a product with a logical benefit and an emotional hook? You would own the conversation.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

I understand our overly litigous society prevents a corporation like McDonald's from accepting unsolicited ideas. I also understand how 20th century this policy is. Larry Light, my man, the copy below is a big red STOP SIGN on the McD's web site--a site that needs to be scrapped and rebuilt on a better, more open, communications foundation.

Unsolicited Ideas

Thank you for your interest to share an idea for a product or service that you believe would be beneficial to McDonald's. Please know, however, that it is McDonald's company's policy not to consider unsolicited ideas from anyone other than our corporate employees, franchise owners and dedicated suppliers.

It's not that great ideas cannot come from our valued customers. Each year, however, McDonald's receives thousands of unsolicited ideas and proposals for products and services. Due to the mass volume of these unsolicited ideas and the business challenge of determining what is truly a "new" idea versus a concept that is already in development, being tested, or previously considered, we must adhere to a strict policy not to accept or review any unsolicited ideas that come from outside the McDonald's system of our corporate employees, franchise owners and suppliers.

As a result, we must decline your invitation to review your idea, and hope you can understand and appreciate our business reasons for making this company decision. We do, however, greatly appreciate your interest in McDonald's.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from ClickZ News

A new take on the social networking phenomenon hopes to create online communities around specific brands. Outburst, a new marketing unit from digital media and tech firm POPstick, aims to leverage consumers' natural affinity for brands and allow marketers to communicate with those fans.

Agency veteran Steve Dworin has signed on as president of the business unit. Dworin was formerly vice chairman of EURO RSCG. He earlier led NW Ayer as CEO, and Deutsch/Dworin as president.

POPstick describes its new service as "social network marketing." It offers an online dashboard through which brand loyalists can meet and share their enthusiasm for a given product or service. As with social networking services like Friendster, Orkut and LinkedIn , Outburst lets users create personalized profiles through which they interact with others. The new company has not yet announced any clients.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"This century will be won on intuition, emotion and networking. Who gets straight A+s in all these fundamental skills? Women." -Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi and author of Lovemarks

While it's not a blog, Kevin Roberts does keep a personal web site where he warehouses his speeches, press clippings, links and the like.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I like a book site where the first chapter, or first few chapters, are available to download as a PDF. Books are small investments. The free PDF is a prospectus.

November 4, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading civil rights organization is seeking an experienced writer with proven research, investigative, analytical and editing skills. This individual will produce major articles focusing on extremism, terrorism and hate groups for the Center’s quarterly Intelligence Report and will assist in editing the magazine and producing other research and written materials for the Center. Strong journalistic skills are essential and magazine writing experience is a plus. This is a full-time, permanent position that requires relocating to Montgomery, Alabama. Send a resumé, writing samples, two references and a letter outlining your qualifications to:

Human Resources
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL, 36104.

November 4, 2004 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 0 Comments

Not officially.

Officially, Mr. Wendy's gets the boot. Effective end of the month (via AdAge). Same-store sales dropped 5.8% in October. Don Calhoon, Wendy's Executive VP of Marketing, says Wendy's is "refocusing its advertising direction to more prominently position Wendy's food and heritage of quality."

Wendy's, you have the best burgers of the big 3 and the founder, the late Dave Thomas, was very well respected; not only in the fast food world, but within the circles of social change with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Why did you change your focus (away from the heritage and quality) in the first place?

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare reports today in the Sun Times that David T. Jones, a Foote Cone & Belding/Chicago group creative director is launching a new comic strip called "Art & Commerce." Some of the strip's action takes place inside a fictional mid-sized Midwestern agency called Corneigh & Foarste, a shop that made its name in the 1960s with an animated critter called Henry Hemorrhoid, who was always on the run from a giant tube of Simon hemorrhoid cream.

Jones drew a strip called "Emerson" for the school newspaper at his alma mater, Indiana University, often drawing on topical events at the school for inspiration. Jones says he liked the discipline he developed having to draw on a daily basis. What's more, it helped him get his first job in advertising. An ad agency recruiter thought his sample ads were only OK, but she loved his "Emerson" strip.

So now that he's fully immersed in the ad world, Jones said he longed to get back to doing a strip. Samples from "Art & Commerce," which he has submitted for consideration to ad trade publications, show Jones has developed a wicked attitude about the ad biz.

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Chicago's Cramer/Krasselt has declined an invitation to defend its Moen business, reports Adweek. Yeah, those lifestyle shoots can be a bit rough.

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from AdAge: In a new version of product placement, the WE Women's Entertainment network will open each weekly segment of this month's Cinematherapy show in the front seat a Pontiac G6 sedan.

The car model was recently the subject of massive media coverage after Oprah Winfrey gave a free G6 to each member of the audience of her season-opening show in September.

Mary Kubitskey, advertising manager at Pontiac, said that "with a new product such as G6 we must look for innovative avenues to raise the public's awareness and get them talking about the car."

Some Pontiac dealers criticized the carmaker in the weeks after Oprah's G6 giveaway, saying they didn't have either any or enough cars in stock to meet demand generated by that deal, according to Automotive News.

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"The single biggest explanation for fragile brands is the swelling strength of the consumer. We've seen a pronounced jump in the amount of information available about goods and services. It's not just bellwethers like Consumers Union and J.D. Power, established authorities that unquestionably shape people's buying decisions, but also the crush of magazines, Web sites, and message boards scrutinizing products." -James Surowiecki, staff writer for The New Yorker, and author of The Wisdom of Crowds writing in Wired

In short, this is why I suggest that brands make friends with their customers. To do this, they need to conduct multiple ongoing conversations. Think of it as a party, this new world embracing the customer.

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The owner of Best Buy Sux is tiring. The same cannot be said of the corporation under attack.

"I am still debating what to do with the site... I may be interested in just having someone else maintain it for me. That sounds like it may be the best thing, (unless someone wants to pay me good money for it, LOL!!!).

I may be closing down the site really soon.  I simply don't have the time or drive to keep it open anymore. The cash is getting to be too much as well...

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Copywriter and author, Bob Bly, wrote a piece for DM News about how blogs are little more than vanity publishing with no real future for brands.

Bloggers are, of course, hacking this man's argument to bits.

See:
The Copywriter Who Didn't Get It
Steve Hall's rant or
Rick Bluner's critique.

November 5, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Bog Cargill of Yellowfin Direct Marketing in Boston points out on his blog, A Fine Kettle of Fish, the number of brands jumping on the winner's wagon. He rates Metamucil's entry the best of the lot.

CONGRATULATIONS BOSTON ON YOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.
LET'S HOPE IT BECOMES A REGULAR THING!

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adweek published a near book-length article today about corruption at Grey Global Group's New York office. The centerpiece of the article reveals how the print production department was lavished with expensive gifts by vendors, particularly Color Wheel, a print shop. It goes on to describe a viscous billing cycle, where the vendor has to cover their gift costs by inflating the price of their services, which are then passed on to unsuspecting (no more) clients.

Advertising as a profession has long been viewed by the public as a field with no moral compass. Thus, it may not surprise many to learn that two Grey creatives wanted to hook up with some ladies of the night while on a shoot in Paris. The Color Wheel executive traveling with the horn dogs wasn't sure if this was an expense his firm could cover, so he phoned the boss in New York for approval.

The boss said, "Whatever. If they're going to be happy and it's going to keep them happy, do it.'"

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Cingular Wireless has merged with AT&T Wireless. New TV spots from BBDO New York--and their newly hired creative chief from Fallon, David Lubars--are now running. One spot features "The Weight" by The Band.

I understand why Cadillac uses Led Zepellin. The people looking to buy once listened to the world's first heavy metal band. And they can imagine themselves doing so still, especially while stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

Cingular's use of "The Weight," on the other hand, perplexes me. Is this song even known to the target audience? Perhaps, they've seen The Big Chill on DVD. To me, the use of this track, which is the most memorable aspect of the commercial, conveys that the new Cingular is for old farts.

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

On Saturday, AdPulp received a tip from Asa Bailey, a Brit excited by his firm's hijacking of domain name, ogilvymather.co.uk. I fail to see the significance, for O+M uses ogilvy dot com for their worldwide web presence.

This morning, I see Marketing Wonk has picked up the non-story.

So what is a modern marketer to do? Buy up every possible domain name that might relate to their brand? What a waste of time.

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Oh, you ask, what's a blog?" -Catharine P. Taylor writing today in Adweek

Is advertising a home to cutting edge creative people busy developing new and better ways to reach an audience? Or is advertising the province of self-important yes men (and yes women) focused on little more than preserving their place in the world?

Given that the industry's trade journal of choice felt the need to publish an ABCs of blogging today, I'd have to say signs point to the latter.

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Five months after David Lubars departed Minnesota for Manahttan, Paul Silburn has been hired to head Fallon's creative department, reports AdAge.

Silburn is well-known for his work on brands including John Smith beer, Adidas and Lockets throat lozenges. In 2000, while at Publicis' Leo Burnett, London, he was the art director and copywriter for a John West canned salmon ad in which a fisherman fights a grizzly bear for the best salmon in the river. The TV ad made its way around the world via e-mail, an example of viral marketing.

Fallon became a pioneer in branded entertainment and the use of the Internet as an ad vehicle with its BMW Films effort a few years ago; an online film effort for Amazon is breaking soon. Mr. Silburn said he plans to lead efforts along this line.

Fallon is "getting into interesting areas of advertising beyond" traditional TV ads, he said.

November 8, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"I read blogs, I think about blogs, I shake my head in wonderment at the bloggers' seeming indefatigability. But, more to the point, I shake my head in disappointment at how, in taking advantage of the Web's freedom to post a perspective, many of them fail even to aspire to the pursuit of perspicacity. That is, they publish because they hear 'something' from 'someone' who is 'reliable.' Sorry, not good enough." -Owen Youngman, Tribune V.P.

What?

Mr. Youngman, blogs are not newspapers. They are personal expressions. Take this blog. One might find much of the information we share here on his or her own. But in most cases it would be naked data. It's the opinion of the writer that makes a blog interesting reading.

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Seth Godin--blogger, marketing guru and author of several famous books--had another in a long line of great ideas last summer. With the help of some smart and motivated interns, Change This was born. Change This publishes manifestos that call for positive social, cultural or economic change.

Today my manifesto, New Tactics | New Tools: Marketers Embrace the New Democracy of the Web is now available on the Change This site. And I must say, they make really nice PDFs in which to showcase one's thinking.

The Change This team, minus Godin

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

James W. Walter, an eccentric millionaire from Santa Barbara, Calif., who over the years has financed programs promoting voter registration in low-income neighborhoods and prison reform, has recently taken a growing interest in the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, Walter is so interested he opened his wallet to the tune of $3 million in order to finance a national ad campaign pressing for the reopening of the investigation by the independent Sept. 11 commission.

Speaking with a NY Tines reporter, Walter said, "It just isn't possible that 19 screw-ups with box cutters pulled this whole thing off."

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

"As the election campaign unfolded, operators of some of the internet’s politics-oriented blogs, no doubt high on the perfume of many "hits" and their own developing sense of community, envisioned a future when they would diminish then replace the traditional media as the nation’s primary source of political news and commentary.

The public is now assaulted by news and pretend-news from many directions, thanks to the now infamous "information superhighway." But the ability to transmit words, we learned during the Citizens Band radio fad of the 70’s, does not mean that any knowledge is being passed along. One of the verdicts rendered by election night 2004 is that, given their lack of expertise, standards and, yes, humility, the chances of the bloggers replacing mainstream journalism are about as good as the parasite replacing the dog it fastens on." -Eric Engberg, formerly of CBS News

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Hugh over at Gaping Void has been carrying the torch for the idea that "Branding Is Dead." It's a hot topic, if the long list of comments he generates is any proof.

Here's my favorite response to Hugh's claim:

"You're making an assumption that branding is all about advertising so that if you do shitty advertising you're not branding. Nothing can be further from the truth, in my opinion. Branding is what your customers ultimately decide you are as a brand. You're a brand even if you don't think you're a brand, only the business you get defines what kind of brand you are. Award winning advertising doesn't mean squat if you attract people in the door and the staff pisses in their boots. The assumption you make that everything is dead is also suspect. Nothing really dies, it just morphs and shitty marketing, advertising, PR and the like goes by the wayside as customers vote with their feet and take their word-of-mouth to the marketplace." -Alain Jourdier

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

At the risk of sounding totally out of touch, I watched my first complete episode of MTV's Pimp My Ride last night. The show is hosted by rapper and Columbia recording artist, Xzibit and showcases the work of West Coast Customs, a Los Angeles body shop.

In a nutshell, the show's producers find the worst rust buckets on the street, Xzibit shows up and let's the vehicle owner know their ride is about to be pimped, or in a more commonly used vernacular, undergo a makeover.

West Coast Customs, nor any firm for that matter, could ever pay for this type of positive brand exposure. It's basically a 30 minute infomercial, but one that's hip and refreshed on a weekly basis.

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Just weeks after the term "Third Screen" entered the marketing lexicon, Motorola debuts a short film exhibit from renowned cinematographer, Edward Lachman of "The Virgin Suicides" and "Erin Brockovich" fame. All in effort to hype their new 710 camera phone.

Research suggests that worldwide revenue from mobile information and entertainment is expected to grow to $39 billion by 2007.

Lachman in Telluride, CO

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the PBS web site: FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public. In this documentary essay, correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (correspondent for FRONTLINE's "The Merchants of Cool") also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions, and stay in power.

November 9, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Crain's Chicago Business, Kraft is rumored to be preparing sales of its Altoids and Life Savers candy brands, which could reap about $1 billion. The Northfield, IL-based food marketer is preparing to split from corporate parent Altria, and several lesser known brands are also slated to be sold off as part of the corporate restructuring.

I wonder what the valuation for Altoids would be pre-Steffan Postaer. I've said before that the ad biz is bloated with overpaid egomaniacs who add little value to their clients' bottom lines. Then there are cases--rare as they may be--where the agency adds such value to the brand it cannot be accurately calculated.

Ask yourself this, had you ever heard of Altoids before Postaer and his former Leo Burnett team got the assignment to reinvent this brand?

It seems to me that after the sale is final, Kraft ought to reward Postaer with a vacation home, a yacht or free Mac and Cheese for life. Something.

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Olson + Co, a Minneapolis agency with the Detroit Pistons on the client roster, has received four diamond encrusted NBA Champions rings, each worth $15,000.

Speaking to Adweek's Tim Nunn, agency president John Olson joked, "They obviously lowered their standards as to who gets a ring."

In the five years it has had the account, the agency has built attendance with a campaign touting the team's (and its fans') blue-collar work ethic, even going so far as to make tickets look like time cards. In fact, the organization took to the campaign to heart to such a degree that the tagline, "Going to work," is emblazoned on the rings of players and agency staffers alike.

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from USA Today: A new strain of spam soon could have consumers spitting mad.

"Spit" - spam over Internet telephony - is beginning to surface as more people make phone calls over the Internet instead of regular phone lines, security experts say.

Marketers can program their computers to send 1,000 voice messages a minute over Internet-telephony technology, according to one recent test.

Web-based phone systems ensnared in spam will "trash voice-mail systems," says Michael Osterman, an independent Internet researcher. "You can easily delete 100 spam text messages. But try to weed through a voice-mail system filled with 100 unsolicited pitches. That's a pain."

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

It appears that the outrageous sums required to attend Penn, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth may actually be well worth the investment.

from NY Times: Nestled between the articles in Harvard Magazine or Princeton Alumni Weekly are advertisements for $20,000 watches, $150,000 cars, investment advice and high-end retirement communities. As the magazine tells advertisers: "Want millionaires? More than half of Harvard Magazine's readers qualify."

The 930,000 readers in the Ivy League Magazine Network, a marketing bloc formed to sell national advertising in nine publications, make up one of the most affluent groups of readers in the United States, with a median household income of $136,000, far more than the national figure of $51,000.

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

One of the more fascinating aspects of Frontline's "The Persuaders," which aired last night on PBS was the close up look at Republican pollster, Frank Luntz. If you watch the news at all, you've seen this guy's spin, I mean work.

Luntz advised his political cronies, I mean clients, to say "climate change" not "global warming" and "death tax" not "estate tax." He helped Newt define his "Contract With America" and Dubya with his "healthy forest initiative."

Here's what he has to offer corporate America:

"I am amazed at how eager the CEOs of the biggest companies are today to communicate as effectively as possible. They want to know that they can talk to a shareholder one-on-one, not just through their head but also through their heart. They want to know that they can reach their consumer not just on an intellectual basis, but on an emotional basis. In fact, I'd argue that CEOs, with all the corporate scandals that have taken place, are more interested in effective communication than even political people, because corporate people are interested in the bottom line, and so for them good words, good phrases, good presentation matter more than anything.

If we're getting information from 200 cable channels, if we're talking to 200 people a day, there are so many different messages that are cluttering our heads. It's the same way in corporate America. If a CEO speaks and no one hears it, it doesn't matter. And so they're looking for people like me to help them cut through the clutter, to help them explain and educate why their product or their service or their company is better. And the challenge for CEOs is that they generally came up through the ranks by being good numbers people. And I have seen 99 out of 100 cases, if you're a good numbers person, you're a bad language person."

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons guru, Larry Lessig, has quite a following. Rightfully so. Borrowing from his thinking, a student group on campuses around the country is now advocating for an open source economy.

"The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure.

We believe that culture is a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption. We will not sit at the end of a one-way media tube and buy things until we look like the people on Friends. With the Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections, but on their merit.

We refuse to accept a future of digital feudalism where we do not actually own the products we buy, but we are merely granted limited uses of them as long as we pay the rent.

We won't allow the RIAA and the MPAA to cling to obsolete modes of distribution through bad legislation and market dominance. We will be active participants in a free culture of connectivity and production, made possible as it never was before by the Internet and digital technology, and we will fight to prevent this new potential from being locked down by corporate and legislative control. If we allow the bottom-up, participatory structure of the Internet to be twisted into a glorified cable TV service -- if we allow the established paradigm of creation and distribution to reassert itself -- then the window of opportunity opened by the Internet will have been closed, and we will have lost something beautiful, revolutionary, and irretrievable.

The future is in our hands; we must build a technological and cultural movement to defend the digital commons."

November 10, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Independent reports that the US Army and Chicago manufacturer International Truck and Engine Corporation are jointly developing a replacement for the venerable Humvee troop transporter, from which the Hummer was derived.

Last week, prototypes of the so-called "Smart Truck 3" were displayed at a trade show in Las Vegas. The commercial version will not have the electronics designed to detect anthrax, the Kevlar armouring on the underside, the night-vision cameras and the 25-inch LCD touch-screen computer monitors, but at 8000 pounds, the vehicle will be just as large.

November 11, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Sales promotions tend to be distracting from the brand promise. For instance, a sweeps that awards one winner a trip to Disneyworld may appeal to a brand's core target, but in most cases it has nothing whatsoever to do with the product or service offering the pie-in-the-sky vacation.

General Motors, with the help of McCann and campaign spokesperson Suze Orman, is taking a different approach. For a limited time consumers who qualify for a low interest, or zero interest loan, can lock the rate in for their next vehicle purchase from GM, provided they buy again within three years.

November 11, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Business Week: Ask David Sifry when his little San Francisco startup called Technorati will turn a profit, and he laughs contagiously. No, Technorati, which tracks Web logs, or blogs, and will soon offer blog searches, is a long way from turning a profit. But it has big-league venture-capital backers like Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mobius Venture Capital, and they're willing to wait as blog entrepreneurs cast around for a good business mode.

The independent-minded blogging community may be chagrined to see, however, that the most obvious money in blogging is in the software that helps big companies establish and manage corporate blogs, as well as software that culls data from the ever-growing blogosphere. It's much like the early days of e-commerce. While e-tailers were spending and spending to build their Web sites, e-commerce software makers were raking in the cash. To use an analogy to California's gold rush: It wasn't the miners who got rich, it was the people who sold the picks and shovels.

November 11, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Some may question the wisdom of introducing holiday-flavored sodas, for they do sound disgusting.

-Turkey & Gravy Soda
-Cranberry Soda (okay, this one sounds good)
-Mashed Potato & Butter
-Green Bean Casserole
-Fruitcake Soda

Yet the latest offering from Seattle's Jones Soda Co. is already sold out (in three days time). Maybe all those carb avoiders are loading up on this liquid meal alternative.

November 11, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Not since the high-flying days of David Thompson have the Denver Nuggets had any real star power on their roster. That changed last year, thanks to Carmelo Anthony's outstanding rookie season.

Now, Nike and Mr. Michael Jordan are preparing to launch the player's first shoe--the Jordan Carmelo 1.5--and signature clothing line, available in stores the day after Thanksgiving, according to Brandweek.

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Steve Hall reports that McDonald's Japan has ditched the iconic Ronald McDonald in favor of a couple of "McHotties," one male and one female.

Maybe an outing to McD's is something special in Japan. Never been there. I have been to a McD's in Berlin, however and I was shocked to learn they sold beer and that the quick service restaurant was popular among hipsters out on dates.

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Kris Oser reporting in AdAge writes: In its quest to be close to consumers wherever they are online, HP has bought the rights to tens of thousands of search engine keywords, according to the company's interactive global brand marketing chief.

Speaking yesterday at the AdTech Conference at the New York Hilton, Mary Bermel said HP has recognized there has been a marketplace revolution and that consumers now control advertising content. She said the company has made sweeping changes to address that new reality and she warned that other marketers ultimately had no choice but to do the same or be left behind.

The intense focus on owning search engine terms is only one part of the tech giant's overall new marketing strategy for consumers who expect the marketing message to be always available when they want it and always as personal as possible, she said.

Online, HP increasingly spends time listening and talking to people on Web journals, or blogs, and chat rooms, she added. Bloggers are influencers, she noted, and HP pays close attention to the "neighborhood affect" they have on the community of people who visit blogs.

Microsoft understands the power of blogs very well, she said, referring to a brand-enhancing blog Microsoft's engineers operate to casually discuss products with customers. HP supports its own engineers and tech staffers running their own blogs, Ms. Bermel said.

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Engaging in spec work is eroding the image of designers. It perpetuates the falsehood that what we do is easy or valueless." -Drew Davies, founder of Oxide Design

I was happy to see Omaha designer, Drew Davies, in the CA Design Annual this year. Not as a winner, but as a judge--which may be even more impressive. This is pretty refined air for Nebraska, as Drew himself states on his updated home page. On top of all this, he's quoted in a call out saying something mildly controversial (see above).

For sure, I've done my share of "spec work," or noncommissioned work, in order to build my portfolio. Then I moved on to "free work." Free work is real work for a real client that actually runs, but compensation for the agency or design shop is limited. "Pro-bono" lawyers like to call it.

I've bartered and traded services, as I did with Omaha coffee entrepreneur, Jason Beck, owner of Java Rocket. I've helped friends launch or refine their brand identities because I could.

Yet, I know where Drew Davies is coming from and I honor that reality. The reality of making a living and getting clients to invest in design or copy or anything that might be described as "creative."

Iowa Hawkeye by Drew Davies

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

After an 18-month hiatus from the newsstand, Red Herring returns to a printed edition, available now. Perhaps "The Business of Technology" is getting better. Could it be?

note: Red Herring's web edition suffered no down time as the media company struggled to regain its footing.

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Hidden Persuader brings to attention the following print ad for the venerable English media brand, Economist.

created by Ogilvy + Mather, Singapore

All ads lead with either copy or art direction. This one is all art direction. Yet it speaks.

November 12, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Vanessa Friedman of The New York Times reports that luxury goods brand, Chanel No. 5, is launching a short "film" that will then be edited down to 60-second and 30-second spots. The short is a quick-cut version of a love story that tells a tale of the most famous woman in the world (Nicole Kidman), who flees a horde of paparazzi and jumps into a taxi where she meets a young writer (Brazilian star Rodrigo Santoro) so immersed in his own world that he does not know who she is. They share a lost weekend in his garret before she acknowledges her responsibilities and returns to the outside world.

Marianne Etchebarne, international marketing director of Chanel fragrances, says: "This campaign launches at a time when the market is more and more promotionally oriented. However, No 5 is the benchmark of the market, and this new campaign will be the strongest to date in terms of making all women dream about No 5."

I think people get into the story and want to live it," says Ms Etchebarne. "It is a commercial that is a real piece of art."

In 2001 BMW commissioned from Hollywood directors Guy Ritchie, Ang Lee and John Frankenheimer, among others, to direct Clive Owen in eight shorts called "The Hire". All were downloaded from the BMW website and featured the car as a prop in a larger story.

Other brands followed suit, most notably American Express, which produced a series of internet mini-films starring Jerry Seinfeld. The Unilever hair care brand Sunsilk commissioned four directors to make shorts in Latin America while Mercedes created a television "trailer" for a non-existent thriller called "Lucky Star", directed by Michael Miami Vice Mann and starring Benicio Del Toro - and, tangentially, the 500 SL convertible.

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Have you seen the Miller Brewing commercials where a long line of people stand outside of the Budweiser brewery, each waiting their turn to speak to "The King of Beers" through a megaphone? This is classic challenger brand material.

The main take-away is the idea that an individual cannot gain an audience with such a powerful (and insulated) corporation.

Miller also makes a cogent point that debunks one of Bud's major product claims. The Miller "citizen activists" say all beer brewed in the US is fresh. It's a simple truth, and one that effectively undermines Bud's "born on dating" proposition.

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Adweek reports that Chicago-based Leo Burnett will let 25 employees go today, despite recent account wins.

Tom Bernadin, Leo's CEO

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

To ensure you make the 6:00 am opening of a Target store near you on Black Friday, Target is offering wake up calls from the likes of Heidi Klum.

Even though loyal shoppers may have an alarm clock handy, this concept neatly advances the permission marketing ethos, and is likely to create significant buzz among tar-jay zealots.

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Starting tomorrow and running through December 6th, Staples will host an online charity auction called, "Staplers of the Stars." The items up for bid? Staplers, of course. But not just any old staplers. These staplers are autographed by celebs like Tiger Woods, Paris Hilton and Bill Gates to name but a few.

Opening bid=$40

All proceeds benefit the celeb's charity of choice, a fact Staples wants to make clear, in case you happen to disagree with the activities of a given non-profit. Here's their corporate disclaimer: "Each celebrity selected his or her charity. The inclusion of a charity on this web site as selected by a celebrity does not necessarily imply the endorsement of such charity by Staples. Before placing a bid, please make sure you take note of the celebrity's selected charity."

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Outdoor advertising will never be the same.

I found this image at Welcome to Optimism the blog belonging to Wieden + Kennedy's London office. There's no copy, only a header which reads, "The Power of Football."

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Corona, with over 100 million cases a year sold in the US, has surpassed Heineken as the number one selling imported beer in this country. But Heineken is not taking this news lying down. Effective Jan. 1, Heineken USA will take over the sales, distribution and marketing of five Mexican-made beer brands - Bohemia, Carta Blanca, Dos Equis, Sol and Tecate - from InBev, formerly Interbrew.

The reassignments are the result of a three-year agreement between Mexican brewer Fomento Economico Mexicano, or Femsa, and the American unit of the Dutch brewer. Heineken USA will concentrate its efforts on the two largest of the five Femsa brands: Tecate, with estimated sales at 13.5 million cases a year, and Dos Equis, at more than 5 million cases.

Hispanic agency, Grupo Gallegos, of Long Beach, Calif. will now handle the Tecate brand, while Euro RSCG New York picks up duties on Dos Equis. Bohemia, Carta Blanca and Sol will be handled by Omnicom promotions agency, Alcone Marketing Group.

Corona's advertising account is at Chicago independent, Cramer-Crasselt.

November 15, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Committed to Uncommon Culture

We prefer the human scale to the corporate, vagabonding to tourism, the quirky and lively to the toned down and flattened out. We used to call our own world of alpinists and surfers a dirtbag culture: of temp jobs and long summers; of foraged meals and tribal travel that followed the seasons, from summer climbs in Yosemite to Baja’s winter surfbreaks to spring kayaking. And if many of us now work more than we climb, and care more for our families than for bumming about, we still sound our appeal to the dirtbag within, the need for the wild dirtbag spirit to survive in our e’d-out culture.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

The Paris office of Ogilvy + Mather has unleashed a new b-to-b ad campaign meant to attract investors to France.

For sure, I'm not among the targeted group of money men, but if this creative is indicative of "The New France," I'll gladly stick with the France of old.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Always-on, Seth Godin, pontificates on the nature of what makes a blog work.

Seth says blogs work when they are based on:
-Candor
-Urgency
-Timeliness
-Pithiness and
-Controversy

He further advises, "If you can't be at least four of the five things listed above, please don't bother. People have a choice (4.5 million choices, in fact) and nobody is going to read your blog, link to your blog or quote your blog unless there's something in it for them."

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"Somewhere in between receiving awards in Cannes, France and writing on-hold messages in Dubuque, Iowa, there’s The Never Never Land of Subjectivity Hell. Many creatives spend a good deal of time there.

The collaborative, creative process is a messy affair. We’re in the business of solving marketing problems, yet there is never “THE” answer, never a definitive right and wrong way to approach a problem. A receptionist can have an earth-shattering idea and an Executive Creative Director can have an awful one. But all ideas are not treated with equal attentiveness. So how do you maneuver your way through an agency where your work must get through a layered maze of approvals and egos?" -Danny G.

Read the piece in its entirety.

Here's my retort.

Lots of creatives are capable of doing great work, but few are able to see it produced. Why? The skill set required to fill a blank page with creative genius is rarely attended by political savvy, that's why.

Sad as it is, becoming a sycophant is the best hope for a creative relegated to a second- or third-tier shop. By the way, I can count first-tier shops on my fingers, and maybe a couple of toes. Therefore 99.9% of all creatives work for shops that wouldn't recognize a great advertising idea if it bit them in the ass. This is not to say mediocre agencies never produce great work for their clients. Sometimes they do, but it's almost always by accident.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"I think that blogging is about to leave the province of visionaries (early adopters) and become the subject of intense evaluation by the early majority who need to use blogging to break through the increasing consumer resistance to corporate flackery." -David St Lawrence

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Last night, during the taping the second annual Vibe Music Awards in Santa Monica, a man approached Dr. Dre and punched him. Dre's bodyguards and Dre himself--who was just about to accept a lifetime achievement award from Snoop and Quincy Jones--pounced. A 26-year old man was stabbed in the melee and is now in stable condition.

Maybe some of the sleepytime ad industry awards shows could learn something from this bad Vibes incident.

Finding someone to punch certainly wouldn't pose much of a problem.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Crispin Porter + Bogusky has resigned the Ikea account, citing irreconcilable differences over the company's marketing plan, according to Adweek.

"For quite some time, it has been clear to us that we do not share the same vision for Ikea's business," CP+B said in a statement on Monday. "While we pride ourselves on the longevity of our client relationships, we also believe that it is in neither parties best interest to continue this relationship."


In 2003, CP+B won the Grand Prix at the International Advertising Festival at Cannes for an Ikea TV spot called "Lamp."

Which begs the question, how does an agency go from the industry's top honor to irreconcilable differences in a year's time?

1) The agency thinks too highly of itself.
Or
2) The client does not respect the value the agency brings.

CP+B, or the kids from Coconut Grove, as I like to refer to them, are some of the top creatives in the game today. I respect their abilities. Yet, I think we're beginning to see some "creative for creative's sake" from this shop. Their work for Burger King is the clearest indication to date. It's attention grabbing and funny in places, but what does it say about BK's brand promise? Nada. "Have it your way," may not have landed anyone in the Copywriter's Hall of Fame, but it said something about BK and provided the consumer a clear point-of-difference.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Playboy dot com is running a new feature--"The Women of McDonald's"--available exclusively on the publisher's web site.

"We neither condone, nor encourage participating in this type of activity. It is inconsistent with our brand," McDonald's spokeswoman Anna Rozenich said.

Well, she's right about that. High fat diets and public nudity do not normally go well together.

November 16, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Okay, I can retire now. You too Steve Hall.

Mainstream media has just entered the advertising blog space. Adweek has wisely decided to not let us "amateurs" have all the fun. Now they have their own blog. Interestingly, the tone of this new blog matches the zany name and whimsical logo (quite a departure for this trade journal). I bet the contributing writers are going to relish this gloves off approach. Although, I imagine it will be hard for them to go back-and-forth between blogging and the journalism of old. I guess we shall see.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The discount retailer Kmart Holding Corp. is combining with one of the most venerable names in U.S. retailing, Sears, Roebuck & Co., in an $11 billion deal that will create the nation's third largest retailer.

The company will continue to operate the Kmart and Sears stores under their current brand names.

The combined company is expected to have $55 billion in annual revenues, and trail only Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. as the biggest U.S. retailers.

The newly merged firm will be headquartered at Sears in Hoffman Estates, outside of Chicago.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

I have no idea what this lifestyle brand is attempting to convey here. Perhaps, you can help me understand. If so, your wit and wisdom will, as always, be most appreciated.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"People are good. That's what Pierre Omidyar was thinking when he started eBay in his living room back in 1995. His idea was simple: That people could buy and sell goods and services from one another honestly, fairly and openly. Almost 10 years and millions of transactions later, his idea has proven to be more successful than anyone ever imagined. Today, people are doing more than just buying and selling on eBay. They're establishing personal connections with like-minded strangers, discovering the things they love, and starting and running their own businesses. They're joining a community where anything is possible if we all put our mind to it, and believe. eBay. The Power Of All Of Us."

The above feel-good copy is part of the new eBay campaign from San Francisco's finest, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

While the notion that anything is possible if we just believe is pure hyperbole, the insight that eBay is a community--like Friendster or LinkedIn--that consumers can and do join is rock solid. And in this time of intense political divisions in our country, it's nice to be reminded of our common ground, even when that reminder is actually a large corporation's effort to sell more product.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

U.K. digital entertainment firm, Inspired Broadcast Networks, is preparing to launch the world's first vending machines that dispense music, not snacks.

According to the News Telegraph, Norman Crowley, the company's chief executive officer, said: "All you need is a mobile phone or an MP3 player and a coin in your pocket. You select the track you want and, depending on what type of device you have, it will either download using a wireless connection, or you can plug it in directly.''

The company claims to be in the final stages of negotiations with major record labels over rights. However, it has been unable to sign an agreement with Apple, which means owners of i-Pods will not be able to use the kiosks for some time.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Shaving my head was worth millions of dollars in advertising because people recognized me, and for some reason that made them believe what I said." -Seth Godin

Wow! That's a major revelation. I had no idea such a simple, cosmetic alteration could lead one to fame and fortune.

note: Godin quote lifted from this Reveries interview.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Bad Ass Coffee Company, a purveyor of fine Kona coffees, is about to open a new store in Antioch, IL--a small town north of Chicago. But some residents of Antioch are none too pleased.

Long-time Antioch resident Marion Rush said "I just can't see going up and saying, 'Can I have a Bad Ass mocha please,'" resident Rush said. "I just don't understand it. How do I tell my children that it is inappropriate to use this type of language, but it is acceptable to use it for a store name," she added.

Harold Hill, chief operating officer and secretary for The Bad Ass Coffee Company, said this isn't the first time people have spoken up about the company's name.

"We don't consider them to be complaints. We consider them to be misunderstandings," Hill said. "It's about a donkey," he said. "The word 'ass' is in the dictionary and it refers to a donkey. And it's in the Bible."

Thanks to Jim Romenesko for bringing this story to our attention.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I first came across Edward Lampert's name earlier this week, while preparing for a phone interview with Kmart (yes, I'm open to a client-side move). I was surprised to discover that this old-school discount retailer was run by such a young man. Lampert, a Yale grad, is 42.

Today, Lampert is all over the news, due to his arranged marriage between Kmart and Sears.

Some pundits suggest that Lampert will take a page from Warren Buffet's playbook and turn Kmart into a pure investment vehicle. Investment junkies and brand historians may recall that Buffet's firm, Berkshire Hathaway, was once a Massachusetts shirt maker.

What's even more interesting is the fact that Lampert--#140 on Forbes 400 richest Americans list--was kidnapped in Janurary of 2003. Lampert established a rapport with the villains, who at one point used his credit card to order a pizza, leading police to their location.

November 17, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Downhill Battle: MPAA has hired Junior Achievement to go into schools and teach an anti-filesharing, "safety on the internet" class, intimidatingly-dubbed, "What's the Diff?". The Business Software Alliance, meanwhile, is paying the Weekly Reader to include their anti-piracy curriculum in the publication which goes out to millions of students. Putting aside the extremely problematic nature of an education system that lets companies buy their way into the classroom, both of these curriculums are narrow, misleading, and intended simply to scare students away from using filesharing software (and the internet).

Downhill Battle is fighting back with Copyright Curriculum, a wiki-like site aimed at adults and Kids Smell Bullshit, for kids.

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Hooters is fighting for the sanctity of its "intellectual property rights," according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Since opening its first sports bar in Clearwater in 1983, Hooters now earns more than $750 million a year from nearly 400 restaurants encircling the world. And a host of copycats followed, according to a deposition by Hooters' Senior Vice President Michael McNeil, who cited competition from such sports bars as Melons, Show-Me's, Bazookas and Mugs 'n Jugs.

The new contender is Crawford Ker, a former NFL lineman. Ker opened his first breastaurant, WingHouse, in 1994 and now runs 15 restaurants, including five in greater Orlando, according to testimony. In 2003, the chain pulled in annual revenue of $26 million -- money Hooters claims came from unfair competition.

Ker disagrees. "Hooters wants to use the court system to accomplish what it can't do in the marketplace. It's going to ask you to create a monopoly," Ker's lead lawyer Don Conwell said in opening comments. "They're a 25-year-old chain. There's new blood coming into town and they're not up to the competition."

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Wired: According to Sam Whitmore, editor of Sam Whitmore's Media Survey, over the next 12 to 24 months you will probably see big media companies scarf up these cult destinations (blogs), where a growing number of people are going for opinions, analysis and community. "Look at what happened politically," Whitmore said, when blogs hit the big time during the presidential campaign. "The same thing will happen in business, because people know they don't need to head to branded sites for good information. Bloggers can be trusted to be independent and people will turn to self-published experts for information."

Whitmore, a former editor and chief of PC Week, believes that established media brands will have no choice but to adopt blog strategies -- and acquisitions will be a part of it. He predicts that by this time next year, Nick Denton, founder of Gawker and Wonkette, or Jason Calacanis, who co-founded micropublisher Weblogs Inc., will have sold a couple of their blogs.

In fact, it may have begun. Last week, Military.com, a unit of Monster, bought Defense Tech, a popular weblog operated by freelance writer and Wired News contributor Noah Shachtman.

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Euro RSCG Chicago, an agency on the mend, has won a $2 million account without a review.

According to Adweek, European crackers brand, Wasa, offers some interesting creative opportunities and serves as the first small step toward rebuilding the shop, executives said.

"A snowball starts small at the top of the hill," said the Havas shop's President and Chief Creative Office, Steffan Postaer.

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

May O.D.B. R.I.P.

Here's one of the more interesting sentences I've read in awhile:

"Somehow an entropic octet obsessed with obscure kung fu movies and even more obscure neo-Gnostic theology became one of the decade's most visible pop-culture brand names." -Kelefa Sanneh, for the NY Times

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Decorated copywriter Ernie Schenck recently wrote, "According to Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, consumers are like roaches. They've been sprayed so much, they're beginning to develop immunities. Can't argue with that. How else to explain the emergence of alternative branding tactics of every ilk, everything from experiential marketing to product placement to television programming developed around brands.

Klein made her roach comment on a special 90-minute documentary airing tonight on PBS called The Persuaders. If those of us in advertising and marketing felt like bathroom fungus before, this show makes us look all but indistinguishable from that gelatinous alien ooze in Dreamcatchers.

What is it with these people like Klein? They just can never seem to get it through their heads, there is nothing fundamentally unethical about attempting to sell somebody something."

Actually Schenck calls her "Naomi Watts" throughout his post, but I fixed that for him. Least I could do.

As to Klein and her ilk, I welcome them with open arms. Advertising needs reform. And we who create it would do well to absorb the criticism with our defenses down.

November 18, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Gareth Kay, a planner for Modernista, posted this gorgeous plateware on his blog recently.

In his comments area, one person suggests that this item would be perfect for a lovely afternoon of skeet shooting. I concur.

A more responsible type (and former Deutsch staffer) says "The Donny" did not, in fact, commission this personal artifact. His staff did. Whatever. It exists.

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The CEO of S.C. Johnson in Racine, WI--one of the world's largest makers of consumer chemical products, including Drano, Glade, Johnson, OFF!, Pledge, Raid, Shout, Windex, and Ziploc--is on his way to Beaverton, OR and the campus of Nike. Nike founder, Phil Knight, 66 is letting go of the day-to-day operations (and his corner suite) in favor of this marathon runner from outside his cultish organization.

Nike execs, deeply enamored with their brand, have been known to brandish their swoosh tattoos to prove their loyalty. My advise to Mr. Perez...put it where everyone can see, like Iverson and Puffy, on your neck.

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

TBWA Portugal has a blog. I can't read it, but I salute their efforts, just the same. Oh, they also do great work, like their surf dude peers in Playa Del Rey.

Unique outdoor placement for Amnesty International.

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to this South African news service, an expensive team-building trip for employees of the Coega development corporation to the Fish River Sun hotel allegedly turned into an orgy of sex and booze.

More than one reliable source confirmed that at least six married managers were involved in steaming sex scenes with colleagues next to the pool of this luxury casino hotel near Port Alfred on Thursday night.

The aim of the trip, which excluded spouses, was to address racial diversity issues.

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Magazine reports that True advertising agency staged a kind of interactive street theater for Nissan on the corners of Houston and Lafayette, Third and 13th and West Broadway and Grand.

Christopher Davis, True’s executive creative director, says the Nissan “Hotness” campaign is simple: “Hotness. Just the idea of hotness. People don’t say ‘cool’ anymore. It’s almost uncool to. ‘Hot’ is the vernacular.”

To which I cannot help but say, "Damn, this is so cool."

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Corporate Message from the Billboard Liberation Front

Headquartered in San Francisco, the BLF is a privately-held, worker-controlled shadow entity with no phone number and no permanent address. Our highly secure operating environment and extralegal status guarantee our clients the acme of service, while our internationally recognized creative team delivers unmatched "wow."

Unlike traditional agencies, the BLF is not available for general hire, and offers its services only to an exclusive list of advertisers. Our clients are carefully selected on the basis of a complex formula known only to cabal insiders, and our improvement actions are undertaken on a pro-bono basis, unfettered by the petty demands of clueless executives and weak-kneed middle managers. This unique position of independence allows us unlimited creative freedom, and provides the key to "unlocking" messages that might otherwise have been lost in the bureaucratic natterings of some spineless "account team." We pride ourselves on our total lack of customer service, and our laser-like focus on Message.

Founded in 1977, the BLF is fueled by a single passion: the timely improvement of outdoor advertising. From the humble kiosk insert to the mighty freeway mega-sign, our experienced operatives possess both the technical skills and the creative vision to execute world-class media campaigns.

November 19, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, wants you to refrain from catching and/or eating fish.

According to Associated Press, Bruce Friedrich, PETA's director of vegan outreach, said, "No one would ever put a hook through a dog's or cat's mouth. Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they'll stop eating them."

To press their argument, PETA activists plan demonstrations starting next month at selected seafood restaurants nationwide. PETA also will urge changes in commercial fishing practices, for example proposing that trawler crews stun fish before cutting them up.

November 22, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

from Adweek: Interpublic Group's Deutsch has established Media Bridge Entertainment, a product placement company that the agency said would be able to measure results for clients.

The new company, based at Deutsch in New York, uses a proprietary tool called Results Oriented Integration that measures and pays only for a product's onscreen exposure.

The agency's chief media officer, Peter Gardiner said, "Product placement is an increasingly important way to connect with consumers in content, but marketers demand return on investment. Our program takes the guesswork out of the equation by using the industry's best and most rigorous measurement system to deliver results-oriented integration for the first time."

Deutsch's clients include Mitsubishi, Coors, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Bank of America, Expedia, Pier 1 Imports, Old Navy and Monster.

November 22, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Crain's Chicago Business: According to consumer research firm Leo J. Shapiro & Associates LLC, which conducts an annual brand preference survey for trade magazine DSN Retailing Today 81% of consumers had a brand preference for groceries and canned foods in 1996. This year, only 63% of consumers said so.

With the massive growth of discount retailers, or big box stores, consumers are increasingly purchasing on price. And because retailers control shelf space, companies like Kraft or Sara Lee can't put much pressure on private labels.

Yet brand powerhouses seem to be taking the news in stride. "In the past year, we've found that if you have your brand value equation right — the right benefits at the right price — then people want to buy brands," a Kraft spokeswoman says. "Getting the price right always is important, but winning in the long term is about innovation in product, packaging and marketing."

November 22, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Novelist Daniel Akst writing in The New York Times ponders the future of novel writing, given emerging prose-generating technology like Brutus.1--a program developed by Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and David A. Ferrucci, a researcher at I.B.M.

Hard as it is to imagine, another competing program, StoryBook, is capable of "end-to-end narrative prose generation that utilizes narrative planning, sentence planning, a discourse history, lexical choice, revision, a full-scale lexicon and the well-known Fuf/Surge surface realizer."

I say let's bring this technology to advertising. With the sad state of creativity on display in the market today, agencies and marketers alike could possibly benefit from such automation. Plus, machines need no daily stroking or kid gloves treatment. Just plug them in and away they go.

November 22, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I have to give Adweek's Adfreak bloggers some props. They're dishing up the gossip like seasoned blogerati.

Case in point, Catherine P. Taylor's delivery of the goods on DDB Worldwide chairman, Keith Reinhard. Taylor reports that Reinhard resides in a four-bedroom, $9.1-million spread on the 70th floor of the south building of the Time Warner Center.

Not bad for a creative who got his first break in the business at the age of 29.

November 23, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

There are brand overhauls and then there are brand overhauls. While DHL is a leader in many overseas markets, their US presence has been weak. But all that has changed in recent months with a major ad campaign from O+M New York and a total repackaging of the German-based firm's corporate identity.

The new look popped up virtually overnight this summer on 426 warehouses, 2,841 retail store locations, 15,338 drop boxes, 17,000 uniformed personnel, 18,000 vehicles and 275 million pieces of packaging.

"We said we have to paint everything yellow as quickly as we can," says Dick Metzler, executive vice president marketing of DHL Americas. "We really did fast-track this. It was almost a military operation."

November 23, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

According to USA TODAY, Apple stores represent 50% of the company's retail sales. That's great news for the computer maker, but not such welcome news for independent Apple resellers. In fact, some resellers are upset enough to litigate. Tom Santos, a San Francisco reseller said his business dropped 50% overnight, following the opening of the Apple store in Union Square.

November 23, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

At only 25, Michael Kobold is the youngest president in the luxury goods industry. Kobold watches range in price from $1,500 to $22,500. Kobold personally designs every watch and ensures that each and every one meets his personal expectations of quality. He also acts as his own ad agency, creating the ads that represent his namesake firm. Here's his latest effort, which is running in The Economist:

"With the James Gandolfini ad, I went into a new direction and tried to capitalize on Kobold’s anti-establishment way of doing business," Kobold said.

These watches seem really nice and who knows, I might even like to sport one. Even so, I feel it my duty to point out the glaring absurdity of a firm that markets watches that can cost as much as a new car referring to itself as anti-establishment.

November 23, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Chicago Sun Times advertising columnist Lewis Lazare reports that Leo Burnett svp/cd Kash Sree has departed the Wacker Avenue agency for greener pastures. Sree arrived at Burnett in 2002 from Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Ore., where he was a key creative on the high-profile Nike account.

Lazare writes, "His departure from Burnett suggests he was unable to fully integrate himself into the highly political and complex culture in Burnett's creative department."

If Lazare's assertion is correct, it saddens me, for the agency business fashions itself a meritocracy. Yet, I know, as do countless others, how far that lofty claim is from the truth.

November 23, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"Has the sport become too edgy, too young and culturally black, for the predominantly corporate and well-heeled white audiences that have helped make Stern's league a major Madison Avenue player over the last two decades?" -Harvey Araton in The New York Times

Indiana Pacer, Ron Artest going after "the fan" who threw a drink on him in Detroit last Friday.

Following the most infamous brawl in NBA history, league commissioner David Stern, levied the stiffest punishment in league history--$11 million in lost income for nine players and the entire season off for Artest. In my estimation this is not meant to make fans feel safe at courtside. It's meant to keep corporate America interested in a game dominated by urban, often disenfranchised African-American youth.

The Wall Street Journal puts it this way: "The National Basketball Association swiftly punished players who brawled with fans. Now it is trying to prevent bad blood from spreading to its business partners." The nation's premier business paper goes on to list the top ten advertisers on NBA broadcasts for 2004. They are: GM, Miller, Nissan, Verizon, Coors, GE, Anheuser-Busch, Toyota, DaimlerChrysler and McDonald's.

I wonder whose job it will be to save the NBA from well-deserved allegations of racism. If you question whether Stern's decision was racist take a look at hockey. It's perfectly fine for white guys from Canada to beat the crap out of each other every night. But when a black basketball player leaves the court and charges an idiot who had it coming in the sacrosanct area of $100 seats, that somehow crosses the line.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather associate my product with a sport that suffers from periodic outbursts of violence than a sport that brings to mind the systemic violence of slavery.

November 24, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The U.S. Army has given a facelift to its Web site, www. goarmy.com, to make the enlistment decision easier for potential recruits and their families. Some 12,000 pages of content and a half-million lines of code were condensed to 2,500 pages to make the "soldier experience" easier to understand.

You won't be a killer, you'll be a P.R. professional!

November 24, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from The New York Times: A large client of Young & Rubicam Advertising in New York, the Campbell Soup Company, has quietly decided to seek ideas to promote a major product line from a far smaller agency specializing in unconventional creative approaches.

The Pepperidge Farm unit of Campbell Soup has asked BrightHouse Live in Atlanta to develop concepts for advertising the Goldfish line of crackers, pretzels and other snacks, which Y.& R. Advertising has handled since 1998.

Although Y.& R. Advertising remains the agency of record for Goldfish, as it does for other Pepperidge Farm products, it is now BrightHouse Live's assignment to present Pepperidge Farm with what the company hopes will be the next clever campaign.

Marketers besides Campbell Soup that are expanding their agency relationships in unexpected directions include Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

November 24, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY reports on the amazing turnaround engineered by internet search firm Jeeves. For its recent third quarter, Jeeves reported $75.7 million in revenue, up 178% from the same quarter a year ago, similar to Google's third-quarter results, which were up 105%, and Yahoo's 157% revenue growth.

This is a case where better product, not better marketing, has paid dividends. Jeeves chose to invest $4 million in a tiny New Jersey search company, Teoma. That enabled Jeeves to acquire its own search technology and make its search results more relevant to queries. But Jeeves' most profitable move of all: deciding to partner with rival Google. It agreed to have the online company place its text-based search ads on Jeeves. Google-placed text ads, which appear atop Jeeves' search results, represent nearly 70% of Jeeves' income.

Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz, left, and Jim Lanzone, senior vice president with the web's favorite butler.

November 24, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the Wizmark web site: Discover Wizmark, the interactive urinal communicator, its advertising you can't help but look at. An idea so original, it has everyone talking. Wizmark is based on one unwritten rule of men's room etiquette; when using a urinal, never stare at the person next to you. Every male knows that when he is using a urinal, he can look anyway he wants, except left or right. Realizing this unwritten code, the appeal of this marketing concept to you as an advertiser is that it effectively assures your ad will attract the attention of, and be read by, the ever elusive targeted male audience you are constantly aiming for. Wizmark's interactive capabilities will get results, providing the perfect guerilla marketing medium for men of all ages.

November 24, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

American actress, Sarah Jessica Parker, is helping Unilever sell soap. But Orthodox Jews in Tel Aviv aren't having it. Within 24 hours of the billboard's unveiling, Unilever was contacted by one of Israel's senior rabbis with a threat that if the offending image was not removed, then the ultra-Orthodox community would receive orders to boycott the company's products.

A compromise seems to have been struck. The "Sex In The City" star has had her shoulders covered and her patented short dress considerably lengthened.

November 25, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Red Herring reports that eBay has banned the N-word. The new eBay policy is clear: “Sellers may not use offensive words and phrases such as ‘Jap’ or ‘Nigger’ in the title or description of their listing, even if that word is part of the proper name or trademark of the item.”

The policy, which makes exemptions for creative works such as books or movies, does not single out any other racial or ethnic slurs - such as faggot, spic or chink.

Not everyone is wowed by the move. “The energy that they spent changing the language on eBay could have been redirected to something economic, something political, something structural,” said Earl Dunovant, an Internet activist whose web site, Prometheus6.org, focuses on African-American issues. “Just like it was nice of Oprah to give away all those cars, it won’t change anything.”

November 25, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

"Candidly, our advertising has not been as consistently effective as it needs to be." -Chuck Fruit, Coca-Cola's Chief Marketing Officer

Coca-Cola issued a manifesto for change earlier this month. Admitting that they have under-invested in some of their core brands, the soft drink giant is prepared to spend an additional $400 million on advertising in the coming year. "Through innovation, leadership and execution, this company can be great again," said Chairman-CEO E. Neville Isdell. "We're not talking radical change in strategy, we're talking about dramatic change in execution."

According to Ad Age the company is looking for less TV-dependent integrated marketing communications centered around one big idea.

Here's an idea for free. Spend one percent of the $400 million increase on conversational media.

November 26, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from The New York Times: During the summer, before the premiere of "Desperate Housewives," the marketing executives for ABC Entertainment and their media planning agency, OMD, part of the Omnicom Group, came up with a list of unconventional promotions meant to help the series, a darkly comic nighttime soap, stand out amid the clutter of the new season. Among the ideas was emblazoning plastic dry-cleaning bags with ads for "Desperate Housewives."

In early September, a company called Ambient Planet distributed about a million such bags in Los Angeles and New York. They bore photographs of four principal cast members of the series and the "Desperate Housewives" slogan, "Everybody has some dirty laundry."

Fast-forward to last Sunday, when during the episode titled "Anything You Can Do," the desperate housewife Lynnette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), trying to help her husband, Tom (Doug Savant), succeed, interrupted his presentation to business clients. Her suggestion to improve his campaign to sell the clients' make-believe product, Spotless Scrub, to women: advertise on dry-cleaning bags.

November 27, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Prominent blogger, Jeremy Wright, is auctioning himself on eBay. The move is designed to raise the profile of blogging as well as to provide companies with an industry expert to guide them.

"Blogging gives your customers a real view into your company in ways that newsletters and seminars simply aren't able to do." says Jeremy Wright, who writes the popular Ensight business and technical blog, which is read by more than 60,000 readers a month. His blog recently made news by being the first blog to ever be sold.

The winner of the auction will be able to have Jeremy Wright work for them for three months. He will produce between 5-10 posts a week. In addition, Mr. Wright would work with the winning bidder to see what potential there is for blogging for them and their company - in effect acting as a blogging consultant for the period.

November 28, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Daily News reports that German supermodel, Heidi Klum is McDonald's newest celebrity spokesperson. Klum joins Justin Timberlake and Beyonce as corporate mouthpieces for the fast-food giant.

Klum is also the spokeswoman for Target stores and Birkenstock shoes.

"Heidi is the best partner. She's a young mother and represents modern lifestyle," said McDonald's spokesman Alexander Schramm.

Klum, who gave birth to a girl in May, admitted a taste for junk food long before landing her McDonald's gig. "I like to be healthy and eat well, but I also like to have a good time and have an occasional glass of wine or French fries," Klum said in an interview earlier this year with the London newspaper the Mirror.

Her Victoria's Secret's colleague Gisele Bundchen might be a little jealous of Klum's new job, especially if it includes free Big Macs. Bundchen was discovered by a talent scout for the Elite modeling agency while eating a Big Mac at a McDonald's in Brazil.

November 28, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

British marketing consultant, James Cherkoff, has written an eloquent piece for companies trying to figure out this whole blog thing.

here are some excerpts: "Imagine a room with tens of thousands of your customers talking about your company and your products. That's one way to think about the blogging community (the blogosphere). The choice for companies is whether they want to be in that room or not.  And increasingly, staying out is just too risky.

While consumer power is not a new thing, the passion that the blogging community creates and the speed at which communities build definitely is.

As well as creating a voice in the blogosphere corporates should carefully monitor issues that are being raised which affect them. A number of tools have sprung up on the web (Technorati, PubSub, Blogdex, Sitemeter) which allow anyone to follow the trends and issues driving the big discussion. Blogging is a grassroots platform and it’s vital for even the biggest players to respect that if they are to benefit from taking part. And that means listening carefully."

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from USA TODAY: Billionaires Bill and Nancy Laurie angered University of Missouri fans, students and alumni by naming the new sports arena on campus after their daughter Paige, who did not attend Mizzou. The couple were given the naming rights after donating $25 million toward the $75 million athletic complex.

Nancy Laurie is the daughter of the late Bud Walton, co-founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Then, last week, Paige Laurie's freshman roommate at the University of Southern California, Elena Martinez, said in an interview on ABC's 20/20 that Laurie paid her about $20,000 over 3½ years to write papers and complete other assignments for her.

In the wake of this bad press, the Laurie's have released their naming rights and the building will now be renamed.

In a similar controversy, university officials have also indicated they will remove Enron founder Ken Lay's name from an economics professorship if he is convicted in the scandal that brought down the energy giant.

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

We reported earlier in this space that The Bad Ass Coffee Company was being given a hard time in puritanical Antioch, Il. Chicagoist and The Trib now report that the franchisee has withdrawn his lease after the Antioch Village Board passed a resolution 5-1 that read in part:

"The shop's name is found to be utterly vulgar, to be highly offensive to the ordinary moral sensibilities of this community and to be repugnant to the entire concept of family values and traditional American ideals."

Remind me never to step foot in this bassackwards small-minded town ever again. Especially when I'm jonseing for a hit of espresso.

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

The Guardian and Johnnie Moore have brought our attention to a unique, and complicated, new method to bring harm to corporations with questionable human rights and environmental records.

from The Guardian: An anti-capitalist former stockbroker and the son of Sir James Goldsmith have launched an audacious attempt to halve the value of Coca-Cola's shares.

The radical activist Max Keiser has joined forces with the editor of the Ecologist magazine, Zak Goldsmith, to launch a hedge fund that will donate the profits from short-sales in Coke's stock to the "victims of Coke's business model in places like India and Colombia".

Mr Keiser, founder of activist website Karmabanque.com, believes the stunt will reduce Coca-Cola shares from their current value of $41 (£22) to $22 (£11). The campaign says it will "commit to as much money as it takes to take down Coke", but Mr Keiser refused to say whether the son of the late billionaire had invested any money of his own in the project.

The high-risk strategy would see the hedge fund borrow shares in Coke from a broker and sell them at less than their market value, gambling on them dropping in value thanks to the boycott. It would then buy them back at less than it sold them for and pocket the difference before handing them back to the broker. But if the value of the stock goes up, the hedge fund will lose money.

Any profit made would be ploughed into supporting communities around the world that investors felt had suffered at the hands of Coca-Cola.

As Coca-Cola is one of the world's largest corporations and valued at about $95bn (£50bn), the attempt is unlikely to succeed.

But Mr Keiser remained optimistic. "There's a general anti-American feeling out there which is growing all over the world," he said. "People now associate Coke's brand with the American brand and they are rejecting it across the globe. The company has never been more vulnerable."

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the Chicago Tribune: President Bush today chose Carlos Gutierrez, a native of Cuba who rose from truck driver to chief executive officer of Kellogg Co., to be Secretary of Commerce.

"Carlos's family came to America from Cuba when he was a boy," Bush said in the Roosevelt Room. "He learned English from a bellhop in a Miami hotel and later became an American citizen. When his family eventually settled in Mexico City, Carlos took his first job for Kellogg as a truck driver, delivering Frosted Flakes to local stores."

"I believe passionately in your leadership and direction you've set," Gutierrez told Bush. "I believe in your call for a vibrant, growing, entrepreneurial society where everyone has the opportunity to experience the joy and the pride of ownership, where everyone can contribute and where everyone can benefit. I have had the opportunity to live that American dream, so I know that the president's vision is noble, I know it's real and I know it's tangible."

Gutierrez, Kellogg's CEO since April 1999, is credited with shaping a major corporate and marketing overhaul at Kellogg, narrowing the company's primary focus to cereal and wholesome snacks and reducing the company's debt.

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the Washington Post: Brandon Singleton was 8 when he first saw the movie "Clueless," and it changed his life. He was entranced by the paradise of teenage consumption that the 1995 film portrayed, a Hollywood world of valet parking and designer duds. So when he entered Suitland High School in Prince George's County four years ago, he was determined to make it his reality.

Now 17, he wears Armani sunglasses inside his mother's modest townhome on a recent afternoon as he rattles off a list of his favorite designer brands: Dolce & Gabbana, Coach and "a little Burberry here and there." His first luxury purchase was a pair of shiny black Gucci pants that he bought freshman year for $450 -- all the money he had received for his 14th birthday.

Like my closet is so my comfort zone

Unlike the flannel-clad generation before them, today's teenagers are indulging more than ever in luxury goods once marketed to adults -- and paying grownup prices for them.

Designer labels account for about 7 percent of U.S. clothing purchases. But among teen purchases, the figure doubles to 14 percent, said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst with the marketing research company NPD Fashionworld. Marketing experts said those numbers reflect the increasingly sophisticated tastes of American teenagers, who spent $191 billion last year: They don't drink just coffee. They drink grande skim vanilla lattes with extra foam.

The marketers have been quick to catch on. Some of the latest ads for designer Marc Jacobs feature youthful, freckled faces. Versace enlisted pop singer Christina Aguilera to showcase its couture. Dooney & Burke, which makes handbags, has signed teen singer-actress Lindsay Lohan as the face of the brand and is giving away her CDs at its flagship stores.

November 29, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Have you seen the new Hummer ad where the mom drives her boy to his first day at his new school? Mom is worried, but the kid is not. He jumps out and casually walks past all the gawking students. He even manages a "Whazzup?" But the kids barely notice him. They are all drooling over his mom's truck.

So, if you want your kid to be safeguarded from bullies drive a Hummer. It creates instant respect, or street cred, and if any punks get out of line, you can always rev the engine and threaten to run over their parent's puny little cars.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the Chicago Tribune: The growing demand for goat meat in metropolitan New York has provided a boost for farms that are worlds away from Queens Discount Halal Meat, geographically and culturally. Despite New Holland's relative isolation in rural Pennsylvania, farmers from as far away as Texas ship their goats here because of its relative proximity to major East Coast cities.

According to the most recent Census of Agriculture, which the Department of Agriculture publishes every five years, goats are among the fastest growing sectors of the livestock industry. The number of goats raised annually for meat increased from 1.2 million to 1.9 million--a jump of 58 percent--from 1997 to 2002. The number of farms that raise meat goats grew to 74,980 from 63,422.

At a time when many other sectors of agriculture are consolidating, "the meat goat business is the bright spot in agriculture," said Robert Herr, an agricultural consultant and sometime goat buyer who conducts seminars for people--from retirees to down-on-their-luck farmers--considering the goat trade. "Goats are bringing more [money] per pound than any other livestock."

While the idea of eating goat is considered distasteful by some in the United States, goat is the primary meat dish in many parts of the world. With the number of immigrants arriving from the Middle East, Mexico and Asia surging, so, too, does the demand for goat meat.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Lewis Lazare: Convinced the gay and lesbian market is one of the largest untapped audiences in the communications marketplace, public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard on Monday announced it is launching FH Out Front, a dedicated practice aimed at that community. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered audience is estimated to encompass as much as 10 percent of the United States population with an estimated buying power of $450 billion annually.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Woodford Reserve, a super-premium small batch bourbon is the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby. According to Adweek, a new campaign from Arnold will tout this relationship. But what's more exciting is this spirit's bond with its best customers, a relationship fed by premium event marketing.

The Woodford Reserve Bourbon Academy

For the third year in a row, we are excited to offer our friends the opportunity to join us for an in-depth course on the “art of making fine bourbon”. Chris Morris, Woodford Reserve’s Master Distiller, will guide you through the bourbon-making process - from grains to bottling- in an in-depth but relaxed, course at the distillery.

The 2005 Bourbon Academy will be conducted from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm on Friday, January 21st, Saturday, February 12th and Saturday, March 5th.

The cost is $100 per person plus tax. Lunch will be provided.

To make a reservation, please complete the form below or contact us at 859-879-1934. Guests must be 21 or older to attend this event.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Martha Stewart's handling of her prison term is working wonders for the Martha Stewart brand. Forbes reports that subscription renewals to her namesake magazine, Martha Stewart Living are 17% better than the magazine industry average.

(thanks to Les at Trylon Communications for the tip)

Kmart has also noted increased loyalty to the Martha Stewart brand sold in their retail locations. But my best source on this phenomenon is my mother. Last week over Thanksgiving my mom mentioned to me how she felt about Martha. We agreed that she got a raw deal, while friends of Dubya, namely Enron jerkoff Kenneth Lay, are at this time free to do as they please. My mom said she intends to buy more of Martha's products as a means of showing her support. Clearly, she is not alone in this pursuit.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Talent Zoo, the high-profile Atlanta-based headhunting firm, is starting to add more content to its web pages, aside from the job postings one might expect. They're currently featuring an interesting article on women in advertising rising to power at long last by Deborah Geering. Here's an excerpt:

"Women are just better at multi-tasking; that's just the honest truth," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO of the Kaplan Thaler Group and co-author of Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in A Noisy World. "I think our brains are wired to deal with a lot of different demands at the same time."

Then, there's the infamous Danny G. and his "View From The Cheap Seats" column. His latest entry deals with the flood of pharmaceutical advertising consumers are increasingly faced with. Here's an excerpt:

"I wonder if the ad industry is helping drug makers create false demand, and in this case, really messing with people’s lives. I’d like to think that working on medical services clients would bring some inner satisfaction, at least more so than working on a car dealer account.

Once, I wrote some ads for a company that made medical devices. As I read through the marketing objectives, I started thinking that there was an altruism to the work, and that I was helping people live better lives. But at the same time, I was helping a company suck up to doctors in order to become the 'partner' of choice, to the exclusion of other alternative treatments."

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Forbes: The number of kids armed with cell phones is surprisingly high. By the end of this year, half of all children between the age of 11 or 17 will have their own phone, according to the Yankee Group. They're profitable consumers, too: Kids use more minutes on their cell plans and spend freely on premium, paid services. All told, users under the age of 18 probably account for as much as a quarter of the $100 million a year cellular service market.

It's a big enough market to have attracted the attention of folks outside the telecommunications world who want a piece of the action. The major movie studios have been some of the first businesses to market to kids using mobiles.

"We have content on all the major carriers, and on 40 or so carriers worldwide," says Larry Shapiro, executive vice president of business development and operations for the Walt Disney Internet Group. "I think we are one of the few companies in the space who are in every category, with ring tones, wallpaper, games, data applications...We've been pretty pleased with our success and our balance."

With each premium phone service sold, Disney doesn't just get kids excited about its new movie--it makes money. A videogame download or new ring tone can cost a user several dollars, charged to his phone bill. Content providers share the earnings with the mobile network operator, making these services an attractive--and booming--new revenue stream for both industries.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Crain's Chicago Business the Chicago Cubs want to hold rock concerts at Wrigley Field, possibly as soon as next season. Aging crooner Jimmy Buffett could be the lead off hitter.

Mr. Buffett’s followers, known as “parrotheads,” invading the neighborhood could re-ignite the long-running feud between the team and its neighbors. The two sides reached a tentative peace in February, when the City Council passed an ordinance requiring the Cubs to address neighborhood problems like traffic congestion and litter in exchange for permission to hold more night games at the stadium.

“I can’t think of them doing a more stupid thing at a time they’re trying to have a warm and fuzzy relationship with their neighbors,” says Charlotte Newfeld, of Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine. “People are going to go ape.”

Baseball fields have become fashionable concert venues in recent years. Last year, rocker Bruce Springsteen’s tour played the first-ever concert at Boston’s historic Fenway Park, as well as shows at baseball venues in New York, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and San Francisco. Mr. Springsteen also played at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field, which also hosted the Rolling Stones in 2002

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Nick Wreden, author of Fusion Branding, has made several poignant points on his blog. Expounding on Tom Peters' 1997 "Brand Called You" mantra, he debates the new reality of "The Brand Called We."

from his post: "Once, companies could define, or 'position,' their brand based on their control over media and messages. Today, however, it’s customers who define brands, based on experiential, emotional or functional relationships. Just as the rise of the customer economy has meant the loss of corporate capabilities to 'position' their brands, increasing personal reliance on the Internet means a weakening of our ability to define our personal brands for several reasons.

First, we no longer control the information others can access. Once, we could shape our reputation with selectively distributed resumes, articles or personal references, but online search engines such as Google have undercut that capability. When someone googles your name, they can come up with intemperate personal postings, petty attacks (I, along with many other authors, have been hit by drive-by reviews from competitors on Amazon) or even political, religious or other views that may be distasteful to others."

All this begs the question, "Will I ever work in advertising again?" I know Donny Deutsch won't be calling anytime soon. I've also brought prominent creative shops like Modernista and Crispin Porter + Bogusky down to size. This list will only grow longer the more I continue to use this space as a forum for criticism of an industry sorely in need of candid analysis and reform.

Thus, the answer to my rhetorical question is, "Yes, I will work in advertising again. But only for a team that grasps the nature of what I'm up to here." In a way, having all this data to comb through is an excellent filter. Should a firm considering my potential to help them feel that I'm too outspoken, then clearly I'm not the right candidate for them. I can live with that, because the inverse is also true. For a firm that likes what they see here, I may be the perfect fit.

November 30, 2004 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

According to Promo Magazine, SpongeBob SquarePants figures have been swiped from Burger King roofs in New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Tennessee and Utah over the past two weeks. The giant inflatables are on select BK locations to promote The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie and the QSR's Kids Meals and promotional watches.

At one BK in Utah, employees handed out fliers to try and locate their missing SpongeBob. In Minnesota, a BK manager received a ransom note demanding two "Krabby Patties" in exchange for SpongeBob's return.

According to a franchisee in New York, the inflatables are worth $350 each. Police in the six states said they do not think the crimes are connected.