June 1, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 3 Comments

David's post below suggests the attitude of Palestinians towards the United States can hardly be changed by advertising. And focus groups conducted in other Arab countries reveal the same thing.

Charney Research conducted focus groups among college educated people in Egypt, Morocco, and Indonesia. Their findings reveal that many Arabs hate America--but they have some very one-sided, and sometimes ridiculously false, ideas about the American people and its government.

It's the focus of my new column on Talent Zoo.

Preconceived notions can't be changed very easily--in international relations, or consumer advertising.

June 1, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Some dweebs are upset that Jib Jab "sold out" to Budweiser. Brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, famous for their "This Land" election-year animation, take a somewhat defensive posture (which is understandable, but in my opinion unnecessary) as they attempt to explain they've always been, and will continue to be, a commercial operation.

In the middle of the election madness of 2004, when my brother and I were scrambling to deal with crashing web servers and tens of thousands of incoming emails, we got an interesting phone call. The Budweiser brand team wanted to fly out from St. Louis to meet with us.

We were psyched. Budweiser is the reason a good portion of the world watches the Superbowl! The King of Beers is hands down the king of comedic advertising and, if you are going to be in the ad business, which we’ve always been, Budweiser is a dream client.

A couple of weeks after the phone call, a black Suburban pulled up to our office and out popped the top marketing execs for Anheuser-Busch. There were so many of them that we couldn’t fit them in our tiny little office. Instead, we held the meeting in the lobby area.

They wanted to hire us to produce Budweiser spots for the web and promised us the creative freedom to “do our thing”. To test that promise, we asked for permission to JibJab-ize our all time favorite marketing mascots, Frankie and Louie, the Budweiser lizards. When they gave us the green light, we knew they were serious.

June 1, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Common Dreams reports on the torching of a KFC in Pakistan.

Six people were burnt alive when a mob protesting a suicide bombing of a mosque torched an outlet of an American fast food chain in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.

Police and firemen recovered the bodies of six Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) employees after an angry mob set the restaurant on fire late Monday following a suicide attack on a Shiite Muslim mosque here that left five people dead.

I don't know what KFC has to do with any of this, but it does tell us something about how powerful our branded symbols are. To us, KFC seems benign, even friendly. The iconic Col. Sanders seems like a good guy. Not so, in another-- openly hostile to our ways--culture.

June 1, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Copy: Small but tough. Polo.

Print work from DDB London.

Thanks to Hidden Persuader for the image.

June 1, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From BBDO Minneapolis and Lincoln, NE design house, Archrival, comes SPAM Singles, a site so powerful in its persuasive arguments, it may even get you to eat SPAM. Here's an example:

1. Where can I keep my SPAM Singles when I'm not eating them?

There is no right answer here. SPAM Singles are like snowflakes, and each will have it's own special place in our hearts. Try a bookshelf, or in your pocket, or behind the TV, or even under your pillow. If you are not sure, stare intently at your SPAM Single. Eventually, through positive mind actualization properties, you will know where to put it.

8. I didn't know that SPAM came in single slices. What should I do now?

Remain calm. That's the most important thing. Secondly, use the power of your brain and imagine how your life will be changed. Go easy at first, because this is a delicate matter that could easily blow your mind. If you need to relax, make a sandwich. A SPAM sandwich!

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from New York Times: On broadcast television, the live-concert show "Pepsi Smash" drew only a modest audience, but Yahoo is betting that putting the program online will be a boon to its digital music offerings.

Yahoo plans to introduce a section of its Web site housing a redesigned version of "Smash," which as a program on the WB network attracted an average of just 1.3 million viewers in eight episodes last summer. Yahoo and Pepsi are reviving the show as a collection of video segments on the Web, with plans to serve up digital streams of live performances from Coldplay, Kanye West and Gwen Stefani, along with new clips designed for short-attention-span online viewing.

Yahoo will supervise production of the segments and promote the "Smash" series throughout its Web site, hoping that it will help Yahoo maintain an edge in the crowded field of digital music services, which includes rivals like America Online, Microsoft and Viacom's MTV.

The move comes as Yahoo is trying to draw customers to its new subscription-based music service and Pepsi is increasing its footprint online. David A. Burwick, senior vice president and the chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America, said, "That's where young consumers spend their time."

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Steve Rubel reports on a new documentary on blogs and bloggers. Steve will be appearing in the film, as will B.L. Ochman, Zeldman, Scoble, Rebecca Blood, Evan Williams, Jessa Crispin, Elizabeth Spiers, Lessig and many other blogging notables. The film is also looking for a corporate sponsor.

There's already another documentary about blogs in circulation, but hey, one's never enough.

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

from New York Times: Clients, facing relentless competition and consolidation in categories like automobiles, fast food and telecommunications, are anxiously squeezing every nickel of waste from their ad budgets.

"In the 80's, we used to fight with clients over creative. In the 90's, it was about strategy. Now, it's only about money," said Jonathan Bond, co-chairman of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York.

So in a trend-conscious industry, economizing is the new black. For instance, when Kirshenbaum Bond recently filmed a commercial for the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, retelling the tale of the Trojan horse, "instead of building a massive set, we used miniatures," said Rob Feakins, vice chairman and executive creative director.

That saved about $150,000, or about 10 percent of the budget for the commercial, he estimated.

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ernie Schenck is not impressed by Carl's Jr., nor GoDaddy. Pointing to their "sex sells" approaches, Ernie says the tactics are, "a weak-minded crutch that lame clients like Carl's Jr and GoDaddy and a thousand others invariably fall back on in a sad attempt to get noticed." He goes even further in his comments section.

Ever since I've been in this business, there's been creatively horrific crap that's proven to be groinnumbingly successful, yea though it has never gotten within a whisker of a One Show pencil. Their numbers are legion. Everything from Mr. Whipple to the Aflac duck to those freakin leprechauns in the new Foxwoods spots. And, of course, GoDaddy and now Carl's Jr and Paris.

It's always been so and it will always be so. But this is one of those choices that I think we as advertising people have to make. If all we want to do is cater to the crudest nature of society, if we believe all we are is a reflection of that society, then by all means, Carl's Jr is on the frequency and the rest of us are nothing more than a bunch of sniffling, whining, little Don Quixotes in black clothes.

But if you feel, on the other hand, that even the likes of us can play a part in elevating society, or at least in keeping it from sinking all the way to the bottom of the cultural food chain, then don't we have some obligation to not give in to those crude natures?

I've talked in the past about Creative No Fly Zones. Places we just should not go. I know that Linda Kaplan Thaler knows what people want. So do I. And if Linda wants to give it to them, fine. But me? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from CNN Money: Christopher Nelson's new job, which comes with a $100,000 salary and a one-year contract, will be to watch reruns of "The Dukes of Hazzard" weeknights on the Country Music Television cable channel and write blog postings for the network's Web site.

Nelson applied for the job along with almost 2,000 others in late February, shortly after an ad for the position was placed in several communication industry publications.

For his application, Nelson created a fictional character, called Slick, and a Web site to support Slick's candidacy for the position, slickforvp.org.

The site featured the mustachioed Slick (the clean-shaven Nelson dressed in a black Western-style outfit with fake mustache) standing in front of private jet digitally "painted" to resemble the General Lee.

Slickforvp.org also laid out Slick's positions on a number of social issues. Most of the planks in Slick's "campaign platform" could be considered offensive to a significant number of people, so we'll just share one... "Legalize prostitution as long as it's in an RV..." and leave it at that.

"Slick just got me in the door," said Nelson. "Then I had to close the door."

Before spending the $100,000 in salary, plus various other related costs, the most expensive promotion CMT had ever done for any show was the "Wizmark" talking urinal cake promotion for the network's "Outlaws" series.

June 2, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Another ad agency is using the sheep metaphor for self-promotion purposes. And not just any old agency, one of the best in the world.

John January what say you about this development?

June 2, 2005 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 0 Comments

Yahoo recently released their guidelines for personal blogging by their employees. Surprisingly, they are very clear, concise, forward thinking, and helpful.

The document is broken into two sections, Legal Parameters and Best Practice Guidelines, and is mostly common sense. The basic premise is to be intelligent about your posts, be mindful of your legal obligations and coworkers, make sure your facts are accurate, and if a topic generates outside media coverage, don't be afraid to get Yahoo PR involved to help you out.

It is a great starting point for any company looking to develop corporate blogging guidelines and for your convenience, we've provided a quick download for you:
Download PDF

June 3, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

White Castle is letting go of its butler in a charitable auction on eBay.

Like the butler in our latest television commercial? He could be yours. We're placing “Jeeves” on the auction block to help in the fight against hunger. Proceeds to benefit America’s Second Harvest - The Nation's Food Bank Network. This unique and one of a kind, beautifully crafted and hand painted wooden butler stands 32” tall and is ready, willing and able to serve you. Highest bidder not only gets Jeeves, but other goodies including 52 Crave Case coupons, good for one free Crave Case per week for an entire year.*** In total, they are worth almost $750 in value. Feed yourself, and others. Place your bid for Jeeves today. For more information, visit secondharvest.org.

June 3, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I like what Crunch is doing with its web site. They're providing community bulletin boards for Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, NYC, LA and Chicago. One of the categories is "Workout Partners," which make a lot of sense, but they extend beyond that to include jobs, housing, events, personals, etc. It's no Craig's List, but it doesn't need to meet that standard. From a branding perspective, this is a great way for Crunch to build a collaborative community, something the actual gyms also offer.

p.s. Crunch, long known for its out-of-the-box ads, places some of this work (like the ad above) on their Downloads page.

June 3, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today reports that BK is tentatively planning the launch this summer of a spicy, 4-inch-long, fried white-meat chicken snack that looks like a cross between a chicken strip and french fry.

"For me, they're like M&Ms," says Greg Brenneman, CEO of Burger King.

June 3, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Pittsburgh agency, Blattner Brunner has acquired Sawyer Riley Compton, one of Atlanta's more well known creative shops.

According to Adweek, SRC was down to but 15 staffers and $20 million in billings (a great per employee billings ratio).

SRC is Blattner Brunner's second acquisition in as many years. The shop acquired MHI in Washington, D.C., in September 2003.

June 3, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

from Detroit Free Press: A conservative Christian group launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co., saying the second-largest U.S. automaker has given thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offers benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruits gay employees.

"From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality... Ford leads the way," American Family Association chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement.

Tupelo, Miss.-based AFA said it e-mailed an announcement about the Ford boycott to 2.2 million supporters. AFA special projects director Randy Sharp said nearly 55,000 people had signed a pledge supporting the boycott by Tuesday afternoon.

Sharp is upset by Ford's marketing tactics in gay-oriented publications, including offering to donate $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for every Jaguar or Land Rover sold.

June 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from CNET: Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.

Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.

June 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Here's another entry in the dinosaur chronicles. According to the New York Times, many newspaper execs are totally clueless about where their classified revenue is going.

Surprisingly, the momentum of this online alternative with virtually free offerings had not drawn much attention as recently as last fall, when Creative Intelligence, a consulting firm based in Altamonte Springs, Fla., surveyed the newspaper industry. It discovered that many executives were unaware of the arrival of Craigslist in their own cities. Nor were all aware that aside from a sliver, ads on Craigslist were available free.

June 6, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to CNN, Citigroup is reporting the loss of personal info on almost 4 million credit card customers--the largest single incident of identity theft yet.

UPS lost a package of data tapes in transit from Citigroup to Experian, a credit-reporting agency. The tapes contained "Social Security numbers, names, account history and loan information about retail customers, and former customers, in the United States."

Identity theft is becoming a regular occurance. And with more marketers feverishly turning to credit organizations and other companies to get personal information on customers to improve their ROI and their CRM and other CYA-type DM acronyms, it'll keep happening.

So watch your info. And get a copy of your credit report.

June 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from USA Today: The first one-time-use video camera goes on sale this week at CVS drugstores in the Northeast.

The makers of the $29.95 camera and CVS hope the device will do for video what one-time-use cameras did for film sales: dramatically increase the market.

Sales of one-time-use cameras — a favorite cheap accessory for vacations, events and school trips — reached 218 million units last year, from 43 million in 1994.

June 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

We've got two series running on the site now�Agencies in Strange Places and Outstanding Mission Statements. Maybe we ought to add a third series�--Agency Lobby Art. Here's what the folks at W+K London see each time they pass reception.

"Blender Man" serves as a constant reminder of the ethos of the company and how we approach each day. As Dan Wieden says, "When you don't know, you try desperately to find out. But the minute you think you know, the minute you go - oh, yeah, we've been here before, no sense reinventing the wheel - you stop learning, stop questioning, and start believing in your own wisdom, you're dead. You're not stupid anymore, you are fucking dead."

June 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

Blogging has turned over another page. Thanks to Piers Fawkes of PSFK, we now have the subscription model to consider. Piers and cronies have debuted a new blog, IF, or Idea Forge, and they intend to charge for the content.

IF is a daily digest of inspiration for brand planners and creative marketers. IF is an Idea Forge. Whether you work in a marketing department, a communications agency or are just involved in the success of your business - we hope IF provides its members with fresh, effective stimulus.

IF is provided by PSFK, a web publisher who also publishes PSFK.COM. IF is a dedicated service to provide members with suggestions that fuel the rest of their day. We won't be one of those sites pointing out all the great ads around the world, but we may just be the site that will inspire the next set of great ads.

Come join us. We will be holding twice yearly events in the USA, Europe and Asia. The site has RSS, regular newsletters and IF will evolve to hold news of other events, breaking news, forums and a business directory.

The site is in public beta until June 20 2005. Current membership is $20 per month but we're pleased to also offer these introductory and license deals.

Discussing the launch via e-mail, Piers said, "Well you have to try to make this blog stuff pay, no?" Yes. If that's where you're coming from. And that's where AdPulp is coming from. So far, our idea is to find more advertising sponsors for this site and give the content away for free. It'll be interesting to watch this develop and see how many other blogs are willing/ready to jump on the subscription-based model.

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

In what appears to be a pop culture-like brand hijacking, a Japanese firm has launched Campbell's Seed. The seeds come in a tin that looks exactly the same as the red-and-white Campbell's can except the word "soup" is replaced by "seeds". Inside is a choice of seeds to grow miniature tomatoes, miniature pumpkins or green peas.

The company has sold 25,000 of the cans since they went on the market in Japan at the end of April, with the tomatoes the most popular of the three seeds.

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Nike brand planner, Russell Davies, has some choice words for those considering a career as a planner.

3. You Need An Enthusiasm For Brands And Communications And Advertising And That.

Yes, lots of your friends think brands suck and are manipulative and are ruining the world. If you think that, then a) you're mostly wrong and b) you probably shouldn't be a planner. If you think they're just trivial in the larger scheme of things, then a) you're mostly right and b) you probably shouldn't be a planner.

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

• Holds 36 quart to 50 quart coolers
• Holds up to 100 pounds of ice & beverages

And it's only ten dollars!

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

USA Today is running an article on the power of the Harvard University brand. Here's what I find interesting.

According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, the percentage of top executives at Fortune 100 companies who were Ivy League undergrads dropped from 14% to 10% from 1980 to 2001.

I wonder how many Ivy Leaguers we have in the ad ranks. One thing I've always enjoyed about this profession is the fact it matters not where you went to school. Sure, if you hope to be an art director someday, a degree from Parsons (an Ivy of the art world) is a great head start. But it's not a prerequisite.

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Columbus, OH ad agency, Young Issac, was written up in the print edition of Adweek recently. The source of their newfound fame is a viral effort directed not to unsuspecting and callous consumers, but to those jaded plebes who work in the ad biz, or hope to one day soon.

Get creative with the click of a mouse! Our Online Megastore is a true feat of technological amazement. Creativity is just minutes away. Buy a complete kit OR just get the parts you need. Have a soul-patch but no dickie? Glasses can't cut through a tomato? Fix it with these fine products! (not available in stores)

Soul-Patch - $20
- Italian Beaver Hair!
- Flame Resistant
- Completely Awesome

June 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Molly Wood, a CNET editor, has published a piece claiming social networking doesn't work.

I've gotten a lot of invitations to Friendster over the years, which, to be honest, I ignored. I always just assumed I didn't have time for that tomfoolery. Plus, I already had a boyfriend, and I already had friends. I know that all sounds horribly snobby, but there it is. But then, along came Orkut. Suddenly, because I was working in the Geek Zone, my coworkers were sending me Orkut invites. Every geek I knew was into it, and the peer pressure got too strong. I signed up. I filled out my little Orkut profile (I think I even uploaded a photo), and for about three weeks, my friends, coworkers, and I obsessively hung out on Orkut. And then, suddenly, we just got bored--weirdly, all at the same time. My entire Orkut generation, all the people who'd found it at the same time I did, just up and lost interest. Of course, round about that time, Orkut got painfully slow, and although it's better now (I just checked it out in the course of writing this column--hey, maybe I'll have a resurgence of interest!), it's still a heck of a lot easier to just e-mail or instant-message the people I know.

The thing I think is odd about these sites is the fact that they tend to be insular. That is, you can not link to a perma page. I guess that's the whole point--that the content belongs to the community in question, not to the entire web. But if networking is the objective and you can't share with everyone, what's the point? I know, I know...the point is exclusivity. Whatever. I, like Wood, am not that impressed.

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

The Newest Industry points to Google's logo de jour.

The logo commemorates Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday in 1867. And while Wright had nothing to do with advertising, the man was truly a creative's creative.

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Kevin Maney, USA Today's technology writer, claims now is the time to launch a web-based business.

"A savvy entrepreneur can get to proof-of-concept with a consumer Internet idea on less than $500,000 of capital," says Dave Whorton, a venture capitalist at TPG Ventures. "Five years ago, it required 15 times more capital and three times more time. Experimentation can happen faster and at lower cost."

If VC money is not your thing, you can always start a blog.

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Webby Awards--the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality--held their gala celebration Monday, June 6, in NYC, at the landmark Gotham Hall, a majestic turn of the century ballroom. The Webbys were emceed by comedian Rob Corddry of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which was surely worth the price of admission).

There are simply too many winners to list here, but I'll point to a few sites of interest.

McSweeney's won for Best Copy

Dogster won for Best Community Site

Emerald Nuts for Best Food + Beverage Site

RTM86 for Best Personal Site

Muzak for Best Professional Services Site

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

While watching 60 Minutes last Sunday, I was impressed with their piece on the artificially high pricing of pharmaceutical drugs in this country (and the simple remedy to this corporate ill). The centerpiece of the story, Pfizer's marketing vice president, Peter Rost, impressed me as a brave and honorable man. Of course, Pfizer is going to see him a bit differently, since he's calling them on their bullshit on national television.

Now, the New York Times is reporting Dr. Rost's troubles at the office.

First, his employees stopped reporting to him. Then his supervisors stopped returning his calls and now he does not know whom to report to. His secretary left, he said, and he was moved to an office near Pfizer's security department at a company building in Peapack, N.J. The latest blow came Monday, the morning after Dr. Rost, 46, appeared on a segment of "60 Minutes" on CBS about drug prices - a follow-up to his news conference on the subject last year with members of Congress and to the opinion pieces he has written for The New York Times and other newspapers. Ready, as always, to put in a full day at the office, Dr. Rost turned on his computer Monday and tried for the first time in almost two weeks to log into his Pfizer e-mail account.

Access denied.

"This is like being in some kind of corporate twilight zone," Dr. Rost said in an interview yesterday. "I guess everybody's waiting for me to get fired."

So, why is this man putting his lucrative career in such jeopardy?

"Every day we delay, Americans die because they cannot afford life-saving drugs," Rost said.

Pfizer responded at the time by saying that "Dr. Rost has no qualifications to speak on importation."

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Given that only slightly more than half of our eligible voters make an effort to go to the polls during any given election, we know what people think about the political process. But hey, you can (and do) vote with your pocketbook--a more meaningful and frequent act.

Eyeteeth: A journal of incisive ideas points us to Buy Blue, a site that analyzes the campaign giving of major corporations.

Naturally, Red Staters can also use this resource to identify firms that share their values. Or they could just head to the nearest Wal-Mart and be done with it.

June 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

According to Spiegel, German neo-Nazis are sporting New Balance running shoes and other brands that meet their approval (for reasons surely lost on the brands themselves).

So now they wear something they call the secret insignia of the right-wing scene: New Balance shoes. The "N" on the shoes is supposed to stand for "national."

Brands like Masterrace, Pit Bull Germany and Thor Steinar are especially popular among right-wing youth, whose dress code also includes Doc Marten boots, Fred Perry shirts and Lonsdale jackets.

June 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adweek: After more than 20 years working in New York at some of the nation's biggest agencies, Bob Potesky abandoned the capital of advertising for the capital of Mississippi.

A former creative director at WPP Group's Young & Rubicam, Potesky last month accepted the position of executive creative director at The Ramey Agency, a 55-person shop in Jackson, Miss., that claims about $30 million in billings. That may seem like an unusual move in the upwardly mobile advertising world, but executives said factors ranging from 2001's terrorist attacks to a tough economy in New York to the tightening screws of the holding companies on big agency life have made smaller shops in the South a more viable option than in the past. To lure talent from the North, Southern agencies use creative freedom and lifestyle perks to counter the salary disparities and unattractive stereotypes of life south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Talent Zoo in Atlanta, which operates a job board and recruits talent for shops nationwide, said the Southeast, led by Atlanta and Miami, is one of the most desired regions for job seekers. In fact, there are more ad people wanting to move south than there are jobs available for them, said Ragan Jones, associate vp of recruiting for the firm.

According to Talent Zoo, the median salary for a creative director in New York is $230,000; in Atlanta, it's $184,000 for the same job. But, executives who have made the move say the cost of living makes that a moot point.

June 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ad Age: Havas shareholder Vincent Bollore won the four seats he demanded on the holding company’s board of directors for himself and three allies after a stormy shareholder meeting that started at 10 a.m. this morning in Paris and lasted more than four hours.

Mr. Bollore, Havas’s largest shareholder with a 20% stake, wanted seats for himself and three employees of companies associated with Mr. Bollore’s Bollore Group.

Anticipating a large crowd, Havas rented a big hall in Paris rather than holding the meeting at its own offices as usual.

June 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

All agencies want to be Agency of Record. Just like all agencies want to be a partner, not a vendor. All agencies need to get over it.

According to Adweek, Old Navy, which used to do some great advertising in-house, is over it.

"We've changed our model," Jonathan Finn from Old Navy said. "We're looking at our business from a long-term perspective. Our creative needs are complex and they're evolving. Interactive, print partnerships and PR—all have added importance in our marketing mix. We just decided that we're better served having a small group of really creative agencies to work with rather than a single agency of record."

June 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

We recently reported on Casa Camper, the Spanish shoe manufacturer's boutique hotel in Barcelona. According to Hotel Chatter, Apple Computer is now getting in on the hospitality action.

The Tribeca Grand Hotel has just announced their new iStudio - a premium room outfitted with Apple's latest multimedia technology. The iStudio comes equipped with:

*a fully-loaded G5 computer outfitted with film, photo and sound editing software

*iSight cameras

*a user-friendly video conferencing camera with integrated microphone that will allow guests to have face-to-face chats with friends, families, co-workers and even Tribeca Grand's staff

*Apple wireless keyboards, Apple wireless mouses and a built-in Bluetooth module

* iPod and BOSE Sound Dock

June 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adrants points to this Toronto Star article on McGraw-Hill's efforts to place ads inside college text books.

Thankfully, the random ad man asked to comment blasted the idea.

"Textbooks are one of the last bastions," said Randy Stein, a partner at Grip Media Ltd., a Toronto ad agency. "There are some things that should remain pure and sacred. What's next, university professors with logos on their blazers like NASCAR?"

June 10, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

Here's a choice nugget from Lewis Lazare's column today, talking about the national ADDY awards:

Leo Burnett won the Best of Show in the print category at the 2005 ADDY Awards for a Cort Guitars campaign. With 18 gold and five silver ADDYs, Burnett also was the most awarded agency in the competition. Burnett's Deputy Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Mark Tutssel headed the judging at the show.

Guess it pays to judge your own work. From a distance, this sounds like it has all the legitimacy of an election in Zimbabwe.

UPDATE: I believe this is part of the winning campaign. You be the judge.

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Altoids is conducting an interesting promotion. They want customers to display other uses for the Altoids tin. Although, they do not mention this, it's a neat way to sell-in the recycling ethos.

Chances are Altoids was aware of this guy's iPod battery pack idea when they created the promo. I mean if Boing Boing knows about it, then everyone knows about it.

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Fresh Inc. points to the Organic Trade Association's inventive spin on Star Wars, called Grocery Store Wars.

All characters in Store Wars are live-action food puppets—organic vegetables, fruits, pastries and a couple canned goods. The only computer effects are the laser blasts and lightsabers. The rest of the action was brought to life with strings, sticks, wires and trick camera angles.

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Crispin Porter + Bogusky is so clever. And hip. And irreverent. Wow, I wish I was one tenth as clever, hip and irreverent as their most lowly intern. If I was, I would have racked up a tractor trailer full of industry awards by now.

Oh, here's how the Coconut Grovies promote an award show:

Hardly Legal contains material that may not be suitable for those under eighteen years of age. If you are under this age, it is strongly advised you seek parental permission before accessing hardly-legal.com. Additionally, it is recommended that those who are easily offended by creatives half their age racking up award after award refrain from viewing this site. YoungGuns’ Hardly Legal features real past winners of the YoungGuns competition, as well as images of rising stars and their work. All featured models are or were under thirty years of age at the time of photography. No images of either creatives or their work may be reproduced or distributed without prior express written consent of YoungGuns.

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

City Rag is running a photographic exposé on celebs who drink Starbux.

We spent a short time collecting photos from the past few months, and found more than we could possibly post... Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, Mary-Kate Olsen, Drew and Fabrizio, Jessica and Nick, Nicole and her DJ, Pamela Anderson, Macaulay, Jessica Alba, Renee Zellweger, Madonna!

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Flickr, the preeminent photo sharing site now owned by Yahoo, is offering free schwag.

Simply send a self-addressed envelope to:

Flickr
P.O.Box 3816
Sunnyvale, CA 94088

Flickr is covering the return postage, gratis.

June 10, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Blog Herald points to Nick Denton's latest offering, which surprise surprise is not another snarky blog, but snarky t-shirts that advertise his Gawker Media Empire blogs.

Here's the one I want:

June 12, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

My boss handed me a copy of Up The Agency: The Funny Business of Advertising by best-selling author, Peter Mayle, last week. Just finished it. It's wonderfully cynical through and through.

Historically, advertising had attracted individualists, entrepreneurs, and talented misfits. They came to advertising partly because it offered larger and faster rewards than other occupations, but mainly because it was more fun than other occupations, and they feel at home in it. Informal, unpredictable, and dependent on individual skills and creativity, it matched their personalities. It was an interesting and lucrative way of living by your wits.

But as the business becomes more structured, more respectable, more governed by money and corporate jockeying than by ideas, so it will lose its appeal for the individualist. A different animal will inhabit agency offices: The new advertising man, brought up on globalization and the need to maintain dividends and share prices, will take over. He will be good at meetings, adroit at politics, prudent, measured, solid, reliable—a carbon copy of his counterpart at Global Biscuits. And when that happens, working in advertising will be exactly like working in any other international business peddling an international commodity. (St. Martin's Press paperback edition, p. 140-141)

Mayle's book came out in 1990, on the upswing side of agency globalization. Now, it seems the pendulum is moving in the other direction, and small, independent shops are once again being courted by the mega-marketers.

June 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion has given marketers a new list of Commandments, based on how he sees the rise of participatory media forever altering the playing field.

Here are the 10 commandments for public relations professionals as I see them in the Golden Era of Participation…

1) Thou shall listen – Utilize every avenue available to you to listen actively to what your publics have to say and feed it back to the right parties.

2) Remember that all creatures great and small are holy – It doesn't matter if it's the New York Times calling on you or an individual blogger, both have power. Take them all seriously.

3) Honor thy customer – Create programs that celebrate customers and they will celebrate you.

4) Thou shall not be fake – Keep it real; don't hide behind characters and phony IDs.

5) Covet thy customers – Don’t sue your fans. You will alienate them.

6) Thou shall be open and engaging – Involve your customers in the PR process. Invite them to help you develop winning ideas and become your spokespeople.

7) Thou shall embrace blogging – It’s not a fad, it’s here to stay. Be part of it.

8) Thou shall banish corporate speak – People want to here from you in a human voice. Don’t hind behind corporate speak. It will soon sound like ye olde English.

9) Thou shall tell the truth – If you don’t tell the truth, it will come out anyway.

10) Thou shall thinketh in 360 degrees – Ask not what you can do for your customer, but also what your customer can do for you.

June 13, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

Here's an interesting story from the New York Post about the NIKEiD 255 Studio, an eye-catching storefront with a floor-to-ceiling sneaker display located in NYC's NoLIta neighborhood. Only the shoes aren't for sale--at least for the common folk.

It's a "design lab" where a select few (designers, celebrities and athletes) have been invited to customize their own Nike footwear. But that doesn't stop Nike from luring passersby in with a deceptively retail-like facade - only to be shot down when they dare to ask to buy sneakers on the spot.

Jen Beckman, who runs a gallery on nearby Spring Street, has ranted about the store on her blog, UnBeige, since the studio "opened" on March 31.

"My friend and I tried to go in the other day - and this big bouncer guy said to me, 'Do you have an appointment?'" she says.

"I said, 'Are you kidding me?' He was sort of sheepish about it. Because it's so dumb! I said, 'Well, could I make an appointment?' And he said, 'We're only inviting celebrities and designers right now.'"

Unless you're a "friend of the brand," you're out of luck, a Nike spokesman confirmed.

I always thought the essence of Nike's brand was that being physically active--in any way--was good for everybody. Doesn't this exclusivity fly in the face of that?

June 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Washington Post: Using carefully scripted on-premise marketing as the linchpin of hundred-million-dollar ad campaigns, the $15 billion-a-year liquor industry is pushing the concept of affordable luxury into the hands of people in their twenties and thirties as they lean over bars to order drinks. The idea is to get them to order not just a martini, but a Grey Goose vodka martini. To not just do shots of tequila, but to sip Jose Cuervo Reserva. To not order Scotch on the rocks, but Johnnie Walker Gold.

Which is perhaps why Ivan Menezes, chief executive of Diageo North America, the maker of Johnnie Walker, summarizes his strategy like this: "They may not be able to stay at the Four Seasons, but they can order a drink at the bar."

June 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Maryland commuters are being subjected to what one person has deemed, "authoritarian post-modernism," on their daily train ride.

Thanks to Articulatory Loop for the post.

June 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Adfreak's Gregory Solman posted an interesting tidbit on Ground Zero today.

It’s good to put one’s achievements in perspective. At Ground Zero in Marina del Rey, Calif., they go a step further: To remind themselves of what the awards are really worth, they store them in garbage cans en route to the lavatories. As you can see, the “trophy case” has a prominent new growth: a newly acquired tower of Belding bowls. “Basically, it is a symbiotic relationship,” says creative partner Court Crandall. “You need both the awards and the trash cans. If you have the awards but no trash cans, it’s self-indulgent. If you have the trash cans but no awards, that’s kind of pathetic. So you really need the two.” Empty-handed creatives, now you know where to go dumpster diving.

Adfreak reader Thulsa Doom sees it this way:

And if you have both awards and trash cans, that makes you pathetically self-indulgent.

Few things are as laughable as agencies who sneer at awards while entering every show in sight.

It is true that placing your awards in such a conspicuous configuration makes them more noticeable, not less. If Ground Zero truly disdained awards they would have put them out back in real dumpsters and told no one.

June 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Dooce posted this outdoor board to her Flickr page.

At first, I figured Utah Brides must be some kind of mail order service like they have in Russia. It's not. What it is, is Behive State ingenuity.

June 14, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Nat Ives of the New York Times put this ad guy on the defensive, with a question about Advertising Week.

"There is nothing wrong with celebrating a great industry," said O. Burtch Drake, president at the American Association of Advertising Agencies, which conceived of the first Advertising Week. "What's wrong with tooting our own horn?"

Brand mascots do some horn tooting at last year's event.

June 14, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 9 Comments

I don't know how someone as irreverent as Steven Grasse of Gyro got past my radar, but he did. Until now. Now, I know there is at least one kook running a major agency today. There may be hope for our kind yet.

Here are some excerpts from an Adweek piece on Grasse that ran last fall:

In addition to doing ads for clients such as Puma, RJ Reynolds and Virgin Records, Grasse, 40, has turned his avocations into vocations. He has cashed in on the lad-mag appeal of rude clothing with his G-Mart and Sailor Jerry lines, and he directs the cult-film series Bikini Bandits.

What do you think is the most overrated campaign?

iPod. What is it? A bunch of silhouettes standing around? What the fuck is that? It's kind of like my experience with MTV, making videos. If you've got a hit song, it doesn't matter what the video is. The iPod is a hit product; it didn't matter what the ads were.

Who do you despise most in advertising?

What's his name-Bogusky? I think he's a hypocrite. What's up with the Burger King shit? You can't do the "Truth" [anti-tobacco ads] and [handle a fast-food company like] Burger King at the same time.

What's the smartest business decision you've ever made?

To not get bought out.

June 14, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Veroni's meat wagon comes to us via Flickr user, Myriapod.

June 14, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Wired: Microsoft is cooperating with China's government to censor the company's newly launched Chinese-language web portal, a spokesman for the tech giant said.

The policy affects blogs created through the MSN Spaces service, said Adam Sohn, a global sales and marketing director at MSN.

Microsoft and its government-funded Chinese business partner work with authorities to omit certain forbidden language, Sohn said, declining to provide specific examples.

"I don't have access to the list at this point so I can't really comment specifically on what's there," he told The Associated Press.

On Monday, Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, said bloggers were not allowed to post terms to MSN Spaces such as "democracy," "human rights" and "Taiwan independence." Attempts to enter those words were said to generate a message saying the language was prohibited.

June 14, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Boing Boing, Gaping Void and Johnnie Moore have all posted on Ben Hammersley's presentation at Reboot in Copenhagen last week. Here's a slide from Ben's Power Point deck.

Mr. Moore reports:

He gave a great talk called Etiquette and the Singularity, including the notion that the first blogger was Sir Richard Steele back in 1709. Steele wanted to circulate his opinions so started writing a thrice-weekly letter which was widely distributed by street urchins.

He called it The Tatler and it mutated into what we'd now call a dinosaur blog (ie magazine). Ben went on to talk about how at the same time, people started dressing in ways that made status less easy to determine and spent a lot of time talking in coffee houses. A parallel for the freebooting conversations for which we now have the internet.

I like this way of thinking about blogging. Not as something extraordinary and techie, but as something simple and innately human. Back then, conversation led to The Enlightenment. Maybe we can have another one of those today?

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare: Late last week Harris, the city's third-largest financial institution, invited five shops to pitch the bank's ad business. Or more accurately five shops plus one. The plus one, in this instance, is Euro RSCG/Chicago, the corpse that former Leo Burnett creative whiz kid Steffan Postaer is trying to resuscitate. Euro RSCG has joined forces with Arnold Worldwide/ Chicago, the incumbent on the Harris account, to try to hang onto the business.

Both Arnold and Euro RSCG are part of the giant Paris-based Havas agency holding company. Bill Flynn, who heads the Arnold shop locally, refused comment, but he and his shop appear to be leaning heavily on Postaer and his troops to save the Harris Bank account.

Flynn confirmed the Harris account is now his shop's only piece of business, so if it were to lose in the review, the agency would almost certainly be forced to close its doors.

Even if incumbent Arnold retains the business, which is frequently not the way these reviews pan out, it could very well turn out the Arnold/Chicago outpost gets folded into Euro RSCG/Chicago, giving Postaer and company the Harris business to add to their small portfolio.

Cramer-Krasselt, Ogilvy & Mather/Chicago and Two by Four are also competing for the Harris account. Element 79 is bowing out.

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adweek: Former Mad Dogs & Englishmen creative director Deacon Webster and 10 staffers have absorbed the defunct shop's last four clients and this week opened under the banner Walrus.

With Grand Marnier, Radar magazine, the 21 Club and Wacoal's CW-X Conditioning Wear, Walrus has about $7 million in billings, said Webster, now chief creative officer.

Where Mad Dogs concentrated primarily on TV, print and guerilla, the Walrus team has already branched out into point-of-sale and package design for Grand Marnier and created design-heavy direct mail pieces for the 21 Club, Webster said.

Walrus will soon move to a 4,000-square-foot Union Square office in New York.

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ad Age: Podcasting comes home to the mother ship as Apple and the Sundance Channel announce a deal that will make content from the cable network exclusively available as podcast downloads from the Apple iTunes Web site.

The partnership with Sundance gives iTunes one of its first exclusive podcast partners and inches Apple's iTunes operations -- originally created as a music distribution hub -- toward becoming a broader, radio-like media entity.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the new iTunes will make it easier for audiences to create and distribute digital recordings, with a directory of podcasts, a registry for podcast creators and an editorial service that identifies the best podcasts. He also didn’t rule out charging for premium content.

In March, approximately 1.7 million U.S. households downloaded a song from iTunes, according to a study by NPD Group.

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Ernie Schenck reports that recorded music from American pop diva, Christina Aguilera, is being used to torture al Qaeda big wig, Mohammed al Qahtani, into fessing up about 9-11, Osama bin Laden and anything else he knows about the terrorist organization.

He says if it was up to him, he'd make the suspected terrorists listen to Coldplay. Way to take the gloves off, Ernie.

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Vermonters, Ben + Jerry, have developed a pint lock to fend off would be thieves lurking 'round the ice box.

Thanks to The Hidden Persuader and Cool Hunting for the pointers.

June 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Anti spam solution provider, Mail Frontier, is advertising in bathrooms.

Thanks to Room 116 for the post.

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Stuart Elliott: Absolut vodka is introducing an elaborate and extensive campaign to promote its flavored varieties - now seven, with the introduction last month of peach - separate from the familiar, long-running campaign that pitches the original unflavored version. The flavors campaign, with a budget estimated at $15 million, exhorts drinkers in a whimsical way to "Find your flavor."

The flavored varieties of Absolut - Apeach, Citron, Kurant, Mandrin, Peppar, Raspberri and Vanilia - made up about 12 percent, or 550,000 cases, of the estimated 4.6 million cases distributed in the United States last year.

Absolut is the No. 1 imported vodka and the No. 3 liquor brand over all, behind Bacardi rum and Smirnoff (domestic) vodka. But its growth has slowed in recent years in the face of the increasing popularity of other vodka brands.

Distilled spirits in flavors like lemon, apple, raspberry, mango and vanilla are a major ingredient in the rise of what is being called the cocktail culture. After a couple of decades of losing sales to beer and wine, liquor is in demand again as consumers from the legal drinking age into their 30's rediscover the appeal of dressing up for a night out and ordering from bartenders old-school favorites like martinis.

"We've seen the cocktail culture coming, we've seen it develop in bars, and this is an effort on our part to extend that to at-home occasions like parties and barbecues," said Tim Murphy, brand director for the Absolut portfolio at the Absolut Spirits Company in New York, a division of V&S Vin & Sprit of Sweden.

"The goal is 'owning' mixability," he added, "being the brand people turn to when they want cocktail ideas."

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Lewis Lazare: It's not easy trying to be cool in Chicago.

As we reported previously, Axe deodorant recently went to a lot of trouble to hire a legitimate local, but unidentified artist to create graffiti mural ads for the product at several locations around the city.

But it didn't take long for a band of anti-corporate graffiti artists who vehemently object to graffiti art being used as advertising to lash out out at the Axe guerrilla marketing effort and paint over at least one Axe mural at 1515 N. Milwaukee. That mural in the Wicker Park neighborhood is near the Blue Line's Damen stop that thousands of commuters use every day.

"Axe always looks for new and unique ways to reach guys 18 to 24, however we are disappointed someone would deface the mural we created in a bona fide advertising location," said Kevin George, marketing director of deodorants for Axe parent Unilever.

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

7-Eleven, Inc. has launched a month-long celebration of Slurpee's 40th birthday with Slurpee Summer Prize Fest, including free music downloads and the chance to win one of four MINI Cooper convertibles.

Here's how their dinosaur-speaking p.r. team wants us to see it:

Today, Slurpee is one of America's most recognized brands, but when Slurpee was introduced in 1965 it was a groundbreaking concept that took America by storm. Still served at a chilling 28 degrees, Slurpee enjoys worldwide popularity and is available in 14 countries and U.S. territories.

"A lot has changed since 1965, but not Slurpee. It's the ultimate retro drink, still cool even after 40 years," said Kevin Cooper, 7-Eleven category manager for Slurpee and fountain. "That's why we decided to have some fun this summer with some of the crazy '60s Slurpee flavors like Blue Blunder Berry and Gully Washer."

"Slurpee is truly an iconic American brand," said Wendy Liebmann, founder and president, WSL Strategic Retail. "Slurpee was one of the defining icons of American pop culture in the 1960s. Forty years later, it still resonates with a broad base of consumers who see it as their big chilly drink of choice."

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

MSNBC and Adfreak are reporting on two European artists who've managed to sell shop owners in Vienna on a unique two-week installation.

The coverings are part of a two-week art project dubbed "Delete!" — created by artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf to spark public debate about just how much advertising society can take.

As the two sought sponsors for the project, they were met by skepticism. City officials, who often sponsor art in public places, simply did not believe that the artists could get business owners to agree to have their signs covered up even temporarily.

But Dempf and Steinbrener succeeded, using economic arguments. They said the project would spark curiosity, attracting more shoppers to Neubaugasse, which intersects with Mariahilfe Strasse, one of Vienna's busiest shopping districts.

"Had we used just artistic arguments, we would never have succeeded," Steinbrener said.

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

If you're a street artist looking for a blank canvas, Diesel wants to cut you loose on a big wall in Berlin, Germany. The jeans maker is asking artists to submit ideas for the public space via their Temporary Art Award promotion.

Following two triumphant assaults on the 360M2 Wall in the center of Milan, Diesel is now looking for radical talents to take up the challenge of the Diesel Wall Berlin with more abrasive, demanding shapes of expression.

Situated in Oranienburgerstrasse N. 65, near Tacheles Cultural Centre in the hip part of town, this 500M2 of pure potential offers a controversial platform for young artists to realize their vision that will be seen by hundreds of people a day.

But don't just think bigger. Think texture. Think shape. Think depth. Climb out of the box and lock it behind you. The only barrier is your mind.

June 16, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

"a Nugget shoe polish can in which Slothrop now and then studies his blurry brass reflection" -Thomas Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow

I have a weakness for ads that boldly (and intelligently) display a product benefit. This ad for Nugget Shoe Polish from The Jupiter Drawing Room in Johannesburg is a classic example.

Thanks to Gari Cruze for the post.

June 17, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I can't say Steve Rubel's blog makes me laugh on a daily occasion (although I enjoy it for other perfectly good reasons), but today it did. He did. By posting this New Yorker cartoon.

June 17, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Forget Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. This is bigger! OK, not really, but in yet another upheaval in the Atlanta advertising market, Adweek is reporting the merger of two Interpublic-owned Atlanta shops, Austin Kelley and Fitzgerald+Co.

A few years ago, IPG persuaded Fitzgerald + Co. to merge with the Atlanta office of McCann-Erickson, so this latest consolidation isn't such a big shock.

According to Adweek,

The combined entity will have a staff of about 165 people and annual billings of almost $300 million, based on estimates compiled by Adweek. A "handful" of jobs are being eliminated in the merger because of duplication of staff positions, Fitzgerald said. He declined to give the exact number.

The merger will make the agency one of the top 3 or 4 in the Atlanta ad market, a market which never seems to gain significant new business or major growth, despite the city's reputation as a Sun Belt boomtown.

June 17, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today: McDonald's is beginning to sell skateboards and bikes bearing the fast-food company's brand in a new effort to get kids to burn off burgers and fries with exercise.

The McKids-branded outdoor play equipment will be rolled out internationally later this year and in 2006. A few McKids items are already sold at retailers like Amazon.com and Target.

McDonald's Global Chief Marketing Officer Larry Light said in a statement earlier this week that the skateboards and bikes will be a great value and are "designed to help make fitness fun."

McDonald's, the world's largest restaurant chain, is making an aggressive push to deflect criticism of its food as unhealthy and fattening.

June 17, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times is running a piece that would be right at home in W, showcasing the tensions that exist between old money and new money on Nantucket. The article—something a sociological study—points to the brands that signal membership in one group or another.

On the sidewalks, class speaks through clothes. "The old money wears Lilly Pulitzer, J. McLaughlin and C K Bradley," said one saleswoman, who wanted her name withheld to avoid offending customers. "They wear gold hoops, and if they buy new jewelry it is pearls or they upgrade their diamond rings. The new money wears Juicy Couture, Calypso and big necklaces. They even go to different restaurants. The old people go to 21 Federal and the new people go to the Pearl. They don't want to mix. They want to show off for each other."

A Juicy Couture house, no doubt.

But the lines cross. A handful of the hyper-rich gravitate toward Lily Pulitzer to give themselves a blue-blood look. And some pedigreed teenagers lust for Juicy Couture.

Daisy Soros, wife of the harbor designer Paul Soros and sister-in-law of the financier George Soros, has been coming to Nantucket since the 1960's, an era when few women, new money or old, dressed up. She thinks that the newcomers are beginning to influence the culture.

"Everybody is building monster houses now, and they are all dressing up," Mrs. Soros said. "Now even I wear Manolos," she added with a laugh.

Arlene Briard, a taxi driver who has lived here 35 years, said "Class has a certain grace. Just because you can go to Chanel and buy a dress does not mean you have class. A person who just pays their bills on time can have class."

June 17, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Cambridge Enchorial Press comes a new book by Clive Challis on one of the all time greats, Helmut Krone, the AD who worked with Bill Bernbach at Doyle Dane & Bernbach back in the day.

Helmut Krone (1925-1996) was a leading seditionary. He started out as a graphic designer who despised advertising -- and finished up as an art director claiming to be a graphic designer, 'the only one in hard-core advertising ,' he said.

Krone shaped the two most important ad campaigns ever: for Volkswagen and the 'We try harder.' campaign for Avis. These two campaigns explored the difference between graphic design and advertising art direction -- in fact Krone's work defined modern art direction for print.

Krone's work has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. He has been inducted into Art Directors' Halls of Fame from New York to Berlin.

June 18, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from the Honest Tea web site: Seth took a deep breath, quit his job at the Calvert Group, and started brewing batches of tea in his kitchen. Five weeks after taking the plunge, he brought thermoses of tea and a bottle with a mock-up label to Fresh Fields (Whole Foods Markets). During that meeting, the order came for 15,000 bottles, and so did the heavy pause as Seth's mind raced, trying to figure out how they would produce that much tea. They were, at that moment, in the tea business. Honest.

By the way, Honest Tea is great. I'm especially partial to their First Nation Organic Peppermint.

June 18, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Yes, I've had an ephiphany. As soon as I wrapped my hands around the buttery leather-like steering wheel of my shiny new Corolla, chicks were drawn to me.

Like these two dedicated Toyota employees who helped me with my new purchase:

I felt 10 years younger and I... oh wait a minute. Toyota's not paying me for this. Screw Toyotas.

But according to this BusinessWeek article, Toyota has approached magazine publishers about inserting itself into actual editorial stories:

It's a time, says Deborah Wahl Meyer, vice-president for marketing at Lexus, in which "ideas can cross between advertising and editorial. It doesn't always need to have the 'advertorial' note on top."

Toyota's notions aren't universally welcomed. "We'll sell our mothers, but this doesn't work," says a mystified magazine executive who attended one presentation and, fearing a major advertiser's wrath, insisted on anonymity. "I can't sell you an article. I don't even know how to price it."

Attention, all you folks at Toyota: Give me a free convertible, and I'll blog about the greatness of Toyotas every day. I can be bought!

June 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

Lewsis Lazare:: Sources confirm singer Sheryl Crow has been signed to star in upcoming Dell Computer commercials from DDB/Chicago, the company's ad agency of record. One source said DDB executives were in London recently working with Crow. DDB referred an inquiry to a Dell spokesman, who declined comment.

Commercials with Crow would represent a sharp turnabout in Dell's ad profile, which has been lackluster since the departure of the Dell Dude. A source said the Dude character still may return but most likely portrayed by someone other than Ben Curtis, who immortalized the phrase "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell."

June 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

The above ad space can be yours for a mere $20.00. The space belongs to Seattle-based geek, Chris Pirillo. Pirillo reports that 85 people have so far paid to have their message emblazoned on his chest. That's an extra $1700 in walking around money. Not bad.

June 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Subaru has solved one of the more perplexing questions facing those who would deploy a promotional blog. Who will do the actual blogging? We've seen several "character blogs" emerge, of late, none to our liking. For Subaru's "Race To The Tour" promotion, the car maker has a better answer: celebrity trainer/coach, Ian Jackson.

Ian Jackson has made an astounding career of physical fitness. As a trainer for Olympic cyclists, Ironman triathletes, and corporate executives, he has helped thousands of people reach their performance goals through innovative and revolutionary techniques. A former Ironman triathlete himself, he was selected in 1984 as a special coach and advisor to the legendary 7-Eleven team, the first American bicycling team to enter the Tour de France. He is also the author of three books that pioneer ideas and techniques in the field of Body-Mind fitness, including The BreathPlay Approach to Whole Life Fitness (Doubleday, 1986). Presently Jackson is sought after around the world, and especially within the French elite cycling community, as a workshop leader and individual coach.

June 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Sunday Times: It has been compared to an angry ant, a sawn-off shotgun and a wild boar, its twin headlights shining like angry piggy eyes. Whichever way you look at it, the new Triumph Speed Triple is a distinctive motorbike.

It’s a distinction that is paying off. Fresh out of the factory at Hinckley, Leicestershire, the latest incarnation of the Triumph spirit is getting great reviews in the American press and has already become Triumph’s fastest-selling bike.

In its glory days Triumph went head to head with Harley-Davidson in America. Those times are long gone, but the marque is making an impressive comeback, especially for a brand that until recently looked like a lesson in the decline of British manufacturing.

When Triumph was relaunched in America in 1995 the first task was to win back respect. It once had an impeccable pedigree in America. Marlon Brando rode a Triumph in The Wild One and both James Dean and Steve McQueen had been fans.

June 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

In his latest post, Ernie Schenck considers the growing ranks of anti-advertising forces.

These days, it seems like everyone is talking about the rise of the consumer as marketing ally. But what about the rise of the consumer as marketing antagonist?

It's one thing to put up a microsite and ask people to make movies about sneakers or write stories about their greatest hotel adventure or whatever. But what do you do when instead of brand mavens, you've got a bunch of brand malcontents seemingly driven to undermine you at every turn.

Consider Hummer. If it isn't a bunch of eco-terrorists sneaking into some hapless Califiornia Hummer dealership in the dead of night and torching every single one of the big ass SUV's on the lot, it's these guys. They call themselves The Green Hummer Project and I seriously doubt Hummer will be asking them to get involved with future marketing projects.

I once had the chance to work for an entrepreneur who used his Hummer as a private office, since his real loft-style office had no door. While sitting in his passenger seat one day, listening to his pitch as he motored around the West Loop, I thought there's no way I can work for this guy.

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Lewis Lazare: You live and learn. Or, in the case of ace advertising creative Jon Wyville, you work and learn.

Some 17 months ago, Wyville pulled up stakes at Young & Rubicam/Chicago, where he had been happily working for four years with partner Dave Loew on big accounts like Miller Brewing and took a job as group creative director at Fallon/Minneapolis, a shop with a strong creative reputation.

At the time Wyville believed it was a good move professionally.

But this week a happier -- and wiser -- Wyville returns to work at Y & R and to his old partnership with Loew. Wyville said the Fallon job never seemed like the right fit.

Wyville is a hands-on kind of ad man, but his managerial position at Fallon forced him to sit through meeting after meeting and oversee a large number of creative teams. He had no time to make ads, and he increasingly missed that.

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Spike Jones at Brains On Fire likes to order music from CD Baby, the independent musician's friend in distribution. Any site that sells discs by Garaj Mahal is okay by me. But what Spike points to is the extraordinary customer service touches, evident even in their packing letter.

Spike,

Thanks for your order!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, August 9th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ad Age: Joe Mansueto, the founder and chairman-CEO of Morningstar Inc., has emerged as the lead contender to buy Fast Company and Inc., Gruner & Jahr USA’s last remaining magazines, with a bid estimated at $40 million.

The German company will still recoup just a fraction of the half-billion dollars it spent to buy the two magazines in 2000, capping a late 1990s buying spree in the U.S. that never paid off.

Gruner + Jahr, Europe's largest newspaper and magazine publisher, publishes more than 120 newspapers, magazines and Web sites in 14 countries.

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Deadprogrammer's Cafe has published a visual history of the Starbucks logo. Here's where it all began.

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Patriot News: So, you want to buy a house in the country?

Some Lebanon County officials want to warn you that it might stink.

To drive the point home, they are developing a brochure that features scratch 'n sniff manure.

The scratch 'n sniff smell is coming from a company in Chattanooga, Tenn., called "Print a Scent." Its Web site lists more than 150 scents for sale, including anchovy, toothpaste and ashtray as well as familiar fruits, flowers and foods.

Curtis Kulp, South Lebanon Twp.'s manager, said he thinks the brochure is a good idea because his office gets calls when farmers spread manure in the spring and fall.

Some people "are not aware of what it's like to live in the country," he said.

June 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Jesus' General, this ad (if one can call it that) was rejected by the Young Republicans for inclusion in their National Convention official program. The future politicos claimed the tone of message was too negative.

June 21, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

It was only a matter of time. USA Today reports on the latest security breach involving "loyalty cards", this time at CVS.

The data security flaw in the ExtraCare card service was exposed Monday by the grassroots group Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, or CASPIAN.

It said anyone could learn what a customer had purchased with an ExtraCare card by logging on to a company Web site with the card number, the customer's zip code and first three letters of the customer's last name.

Once logged on, a list of recent purchases could be sent to an e-mail account.

"Loyalty Cards" are the biggest con game in retail marketing. And if you egg 'em on by actually giving your real name and address to these people, you get what you deserve. One day, your insurance company will get a hold of that information, and if you keep buying your condoms, beer, cigarettes, K-Y Jelly and home pregnancy tests at CVS, they'll know--and they'll jack up your insurance rates.

June 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare: After some initial confusion sparked by premature and inaccurate online chatter among advertising trade journalists about the results of electronics giant Sony's account review, the matter was clarified late Monday. Sony said it would not have one ad agency of record going forward, but rather three shops: Fallon/Minneapolis; McKinney + Silver in Durham, N.C. and Bagby and Co., which had been doing some superlative project work for Sony on an interim basis during the review.

For the Bagby organization -- and founding leader Steve Bagby in particular -- the Sony victory was a joyous confirmation that a quarter-century of hard work had paid off in a big way.

"There was a great feeling of pride when the announcement was made," said Bagby, who was in Los Angeles Tuesday, shooting new commercials for Sony's high-definition televisions.

The fact Sony wound up with three agencies working on its advertising did not surprise Bagby.

"It's a growing trend to look for a diversity of thinking and ideas from several agencies," he said. "I think more big clients now are realizing that small agencies can make a big difference."

June 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Carlton Beach, Cannes, France.

June 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times: The French advertising group Havas said on Tuesday that its chairman and chief executive, Alain de Pouzilhac, was stepping down, after a public clash with a big investor, Vincent Bolloré.

Mr. de Pouzilhac's exit from Havas ends an almost yearlong battle with Mr. Bolloré, the head of the manufacturing company, the Bolloré Groupe, which became Havas's largest shareholder after amassing 22 percent of the company.

Mr. Bolloré, a well-known activist investor, has purchased sizable stakes in lagging companies like Lazard and Mediobanco in the past, and often sold them for a profit after pressuring management to improve performance.

He told Le Monde last week that the head of the TBWA agency, Jean-Marie Dru, would have the right qualifications to lead Havas.

June 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Written by retired Publix vice president of human resources Joe Carvin, A Piece of the Pie takes readers on a journey through customers' experiences at Publix. It also highlights associates' experiences in making shopping a pleasure for customers.

"A Piece of the Pie" is now available for $9.95 in all Publix stores.

June 22, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

As long as you're in a book buying mood, I have one to recommend as well.

Every so often, a marketing book comes along that captures precisely what's going on at the moment--the "zeitgeist," if you will.

We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind by Martin Howard is a fascinating overview of all the marketing tactics that are working to influence consumers on a much subtler level than traditional advertising.

No, this isn't a conspiracy theory, naked chicks-hidden-in-the-ice-cubes kind of book. But in covering such tactics as event marketing, in-store marketing, targeted CRM, advergaming, word-of-mouth, PR, buzz marketing, etc., Howard lays it all out in a kitschy, well-designed book full of little graphics to keep you enthralled.

I read a lot of marketing stuff, but this book has quite a few "I can't believe someone's doing THAT" marketing ideas in here. It's well-done.

June 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Word of Mouth Marketing Association wants some good press for their upcoming conference in Chicago. So much so, they're willing to offer AdPulp readers $50 off the conference fee—$295 for WOMMA members and $545 for non-members. Of course, they're also offering 20% savings via a code published on their registration page, so I suppose there's no need to feel overly special.

Should you desire to spend July 13 in Chicago at the "first-ever conference on measurement, metrics, and standards in word of mouth marketing," then enter this code in the given box during registration: Blogsareawesome

Make sure to capitalize the "B".

June 23, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

According to Ad Age, TBWA/Paris Boulogne-Billancourt reinforced its already strong reputation as a hotbed of creativity in the Canes Lions print category by winning the Grand Prix for a beautiful and compelling campaign against music piracy for client EMI.

June 23, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today: The European Union said Wednesday that it reached an agreement with Coca-Cola that allows the world's largest soft-drink maker to escape a fine but puts restrictions on its sales practices in Europe.

Under the deal, the Atlanta-based company will no longer be able to strike exclusive arrangements with stores and cafes in Europe that stop them from serving rival brands, or offer them rebates for buying more of its brands.

Coke also will no longer be allowed to force retailers to stock its less popular brands alongside Coke or Fanta. And it will have to allow retailers provided coolers by Coca-Cola to stock them with rival brands, as well.

"This decision will benefit consumers by improving competition in the markets for carbonated soft drinks in Europe," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. "Thanks to the commission's decision, consumers will be able to choose from a larger range of fizzy drinks at competitive prices."

June 23, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Johnnie Moore spoke to Liam Mulhall, a co-founder of Blowfly Beer, via Skype last night. Today he makes the conversation available as a podcast.

Here's a quick look at the brewer's rather unique pitch.

It's an Open Source beer company. You drink it, you own it! We're about making sexy premium beer. You decide what we do and how we do it. No crap, no fancy bullshit about 'imported hops', 'first crop barley' or sweaty blokes hard at it in the coal mines. It's beer. You get drunk, fall over, start a fight and mozy on out of town.

Well, (here's the serious bit) everytime you buy a carton of our beers online you receive a right to a share in the company. It's about Owning the Beer You Drink. You can buy our classic Blowfly beer or customise your own brand or label! No other brewery has ever attempted this. (And yes, no other brewery is run by lunatics of our calibre either...we even show you the profit we make!)

June 23, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Daily News: First-time author Alison Pace managed to get Theory to bankroll a series of book parties for her book If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend after sending the upscale clothing line a copy of the first chapter, "A Girlfriend in Theory Only." The chapter was an homage to her favorite pair of pants.

"She told me about the book, and told me about how she shared our obsession with the amazing fit of the pants, and asked if she could send over a sample chapter," says Melissa Gellman, Theory's publicity director. The book's protagonist, she says, is "very much the Theory customer."

While first-time writers are typically paying for their own publicity agent and footing the bill to fly out to readings across the country, Theory was throwing parties for Pace in their stores - paying for her transportation costs, the invitations, liquor and snacks.

June 23, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

Check out Ad Age's photo diary from Cannes.

But if you're looking for diversity, you won't likely find it in this crop of photos. Cannes just seems like a haven for middle-aged white people.

Seriously, though, are the so-called "leaders" of the ad industry too far removed from the real audiences of ads? Would any of these folks be caught dead in a Wal-Mart outside of Tulsa?

June 23, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 3 Comments

Adweek is reporting that Proctor & Gamble has given 2 assignments, one for Eukanuba and one for Ivory Soap, to Wieden & Kennedy.

In general, P&G uses intergalactic shops like Saatchi for its brand advertising, and some smaller shops, many in Cincinnati, for packaging, POP and the like. So it'll be very interesting to see how the world's largest (and most conservative) marketer makes out with the fiercely independent and creative-minded Wieden folks.

I wonder if this is the first test of P&G's new creativity judging computer.

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Steve Hall points to A+E's new Inked Blog, deployed to promote a new show on the cable channel.

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Associated Press: A woman who won a radio contest that promised the winner "100 grand" sued after the station gave her a candy bar — a Nestle's 100 Grand — instead of $100,000.

Norreasha Gill filed a complaint Wednesday in Fayette District Court against Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, which owns WLTO-FM in Lexington. Gill, 28, says the station and its parent company breached a contract to pay $100,000 to the contest winner.

Night host DJ Slick sponsored the station's contest to "win 100 grand," Gill said in the lawsuit. Gill won by listening to the radio show for several hours and being the 10th caller at a specified time.

FCC regulations say contest descriptions can't be false or deceptive and that stations must conduct contests as advertised. Stations in two other states have been fined for contests that told listeners they'd won cash prizes without specifying they were in the Italian or Turkish lira, not the U.S. dollar.

Before her family went to sleep that night, Gill says, she promised her children — ages 1, 5 and 11 — that they'd have a minivan, a shopping spree, a savings account and a home with a back yard.

"What hurts me is they were going to get me in front of my children, all dressed up, and hand me a candy bar, after all those promises I made to them," she told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "You just don't do that to people."

A prank in Florida led to a similar lawsuit that was settled in 2002. A former waitress claimed Hooters promised to award her a new Toyota car — but instead gave her a toy Yoda.

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times: Charmin has a new low-rent cousin, Charmin Basic. It's slightly less "squeezably soft" - but it's a lot less pricey than Procter & Gamble's other toilet paper.

"The premium that consumers were traditionally willing to pay for a brand name is under attack," said Sridhar Balasubramanian, an associate professor of marketing at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

Of course, there is nothing new about using price as a come-on to increase sales. Cents-off coupons and store promotions were a staple of the shopping experience long before most current-day shoppers were born.

Nor is downward brand extension a radically new idea. Mercedes now sells relatively inexpensive versions of its luxury cars, and Apple has cheaper iPods. And unlike, say, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which put different names - Ted and Song, respectively - on the scaled-down versions of their premium products, these companies proudly slap their vaunted brands on their low-cost offerings.

What is new, the experts say, is the stress on budget-friendliness by sellers of branded consumer staples like toilet paper or batteries or detergents. They have normally operated on the theory that consumers who buy products based on the price probably switched to store brands or other low-cost alternatives long ago. Thus, their ads and marketing have primarily stressed product attributes - Charmin's softness, Bounty's strength, United's friendly skies - in hopes that their brand names will be automatically associated with quality.

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

According to a GM press release, Emmy and Golden Globe award nominated actor and musician Mos Def, is appearing in a new African American targeted television advertisement introducing the new Envoy Denali SUV. The ad was created by Oakland, California based Carol H. Williams Advertising, which specializes in the African American market.

Not everyone is pumped about this development.

B-Lo Tim on Rap News says, "In one sixty second spot for the GM Denali, Mos Def crossed the thin line from the entrepreneurial spirit of Hip-hop to total sellout and worst of all hypocrite. Let me explain why this really left a terrible taste in my mouth by an artist who in my eyes has lost his integrity. It has to do with my favorite song off his album Black on Both Sides, "New World Water". In this song Mos rails against large corporations for their exploitation of the earth and warns of the upcoming crisis that will soon be upon us when the earth’s resources are no longer enough to sustain us. "F*%$ a bank, I need a 20 year water tank" is one of the lines made sadly ironic by his current endorsement."

June 24, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Planning whiz, Russell Davies, recently unearthed an old t-shirt from 1999—a time when Wieden + Kennedy was living with the pain of the Microsoft account.

According to Russell, "We use to compromise on everything, all the time, just so we could get to the next meeting and then the next meeting and eventually get something on air. So one day, before a huge meeting some of the creatives had these t-shirts made."

June 25, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

A new study by Leo Burnett, quickly summarized here, suggests that "half the men in most parts of the world don't know what is expected of them in society and three-quarters of them think images of men in advertising are out of touch with reality."

"As the world is drifting toward a more feminine perspective, many of the social constructs men have taken for granted are undergoing significant shifts or being outright dismantled," said Tom Bernardin, chairman and chief executive of Leo Burnett Worldwide.

"It's a confusing time, not just for men, but for marketers as well as they try to target and depict men meaningfully," he said this week during a presentation in the south of France where the ad industry is gathered for its annual conference.

For a more in-depth look at the survey, look at Leo's website here.

I'd write more about this survey, but I'm late for my manicure.

June 25, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Fast Company is giving Apple's competitors a chance to talk about the iPod.

Henri Crohas Founder and CEO, Archos Paris, France

I do not share the opinion that Apple's design for the iPod is any good. That's because I define great design in terms of fantastic machinery. And if you look inside the iPod's technology, it's quite common and unimpressive. It isn't anything special. What Apple has done well isn't the iPod, but iTunes. It has been the first to pull together all of these music editors and convince them that they have to open a big store online. But there's a second phase coming. Like the cell phone, the technology to integrate photos and videos is now available. Microsoft has been working on this for years. Its Windows Media Center is well advanced and does everything iTunes does, plus more.

Thanks to Meta Filter for the pointer.

June 26, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine has been having ongoing problems with his new Dell. And he isn't afraid to tell the world about it.

Jeff is a prominent blogger and TV critic. And I think marketers like Dell had better pay attention to the customer service problems he's having, because he's an influencer--maybe not as pervasive as a Dell TV campaign, but people read Jeff's blog and respect his views.

Any marketer or ad agency that ignores the blogosphere is doing so at its own peril--word of mouth is powerful. I've written about this phenomenon before, focusing on some of my former clients whose products got mixed reviews on Amazon.com.

My dad also had some problems with Dell. Me, I'm a Mac guy, but put my dad's and Jeff's experiences together and my impression of Dell's products are quite negative. Brilliant advertising can't change that.

June 27, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

New York Times: Hate being stuck in a movie theater with no choice but to watch advertisements on the big screen?

Get used to it.

Advertisers like these spots, and have been buying more of them. Movie ads are one more alternative to television spots, which are losing favor as TiVo and other digital video recorders make it easier for viewers to zap them.

Vonage plans to use this character in an animated spot in movie theaters.

Last year, ads in United States movie theaters grew 23 percent to $438 million, according to the Cinema Advertising Council.

Consumer opposition to the screening of movie ads has led government officials in Connecticut, Illinois and New York City to introduce bills that would require theater owners to post, in all advertising, actual starting times for trailers and commercials, as well as for films. No bill has been passed yet.

June 27, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Promo Magazine: Oklahoma grocer Super H filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores for using a scanner to collect barcode data from products on Super H's shelves.

The suit, filed in Osage County District Court on June 13, alleges that Wal-Mart sent workers into Super H to check prices as Wal-Mart readies to open a supercenter nearby in August.

Super H isn't worried about the price information; its real concern is other data the scanner may have captured, such as inventory and wholesale price. "We're trying to get [the scanner] back and find out what's in there," said Super H manager Greg McNeil.

Police confiscated the scanner and still have it; a county judge granted Super H's request that the scanner not be returned to Wal-Mart.

Skiatook, OK-based Super H is a single, independent store.

It's not uncommon for retailers to check competitors' prices. The real question in this case is whether a scanner can capture proprietary data.

June 27, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Washington Post: The hard-nosed retailing tactics of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have transformed communities across the country, but none more so than the one in its own back yard. Benton County, once a sedate backwater, is quickly morphing into a swanky oasis in the middle of the Ozarks.

Wal-Mart's unchallenged dominance in American retailing--it now sells about 30 percent of many household consumables--has persuaded scores of suppliers to open satellite offices around its headquarters to ensure their products remain on the chain's coveted shelves.

The result is an unprecedented migration of high-paid executives to the northwest corner of Arkansas -- professionals from amenity-rich cities like New York, San Francisco, Atlanta and Miami, who bring not only their six-figure salaries, but an appetite for Jaguars, sushi, pet day-care centers, Gucci shoes and Chanel sunglasses.

Wal-Mart has produced a fair share of millionaires, but Walton's rigid code of humility -- even top executives stay at a Holiday Inn when traveling on the company dime -- remains deeply ingrained in the company's culture, discouraging conspicuous consumption.

Wal-Mart's suppliers, however, honor no such vow of modesty.

In Rogers, just north of Bentonville, nattily dressed executives from Kellogg Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. sip lattes and lunch on cold Thai salmon at the Market, a gourmet grocery store that offers sushi-making lessons. Up the street, at Murphy's Jewelry, the latest Versace fashion show flickers on a flat-panel television and $100,000 necklaces glimmer from behind a glass case.

From 1990 to 2000, Benton County's population jumped 57 percent, to 153,406 from 97,499, while the average household income rose to $40,281 from $26,021, according to census data.

June 27, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Sports Network, Miami Heat center, Shaquille O'Neal, picked up an advanced degree in Business Administration over the weekend.

O'Neal was one of the 2,200 University of Phoenix graduates honored at the Forum in Los Angeles.

"It's just something to have on my resume when I go back into reality," O'Neal said. "Someday I might have to put down a basketball and have a regular 9-to-5 like everybody else."

The 7-1 center went to LSU, but left school early to pursue an NBA career. However, O'Neal promised his family that he would graduate, which he did in 2000, and also said he would eventually receive an MBA.

O'Neal took a majority of his classes online and also attended many sessions several days a week at a West Los Angeles campus before he was traded.

June 27, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

According to Spinner, New Zealand brewer Tui, pulled an offensive billboard campaign after protest from concerned citizens.

“The people of New Zeland have come to love our cheeky brand of humour,” Tui brand manager Will Knight told reporters. “The “Yeah Right” slogan has become a catch phrase throughout the nation!”

“We reckon the best billboard ads leave the stories half told,” Knight continued. “Our aim with this campaign is to draw people to make their own assumptions about what it means to drink our beer.

Stories half told? Draw your own conclusions? Excuse me, Mr. Knight, but your totally tasteless ads pretty much say it all.

In the sample above, it's quite clear that getting drunk and beating one's wife is acceptable, even humorous behavior. That a brand would endorse this type of shock treatment to get noticed is painful to see. These ads aren't just bad, they're a complete crock of shit.

June 27, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Well, there's no such thing, really. And there probably can't be. But I float the idea as the focus of my new column on Talent Zoo.

Are clients truly getting their money's worth when good ideas are killed internally in agencies because of fear that "they'll never go for it?" How risky should a concept be? Are ad agencies giving their clients the best thinking and expertise and thinking they can possibly give?

Read the column. I want to hear your thoughts.

June 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

According to Adweek, Richard Kirshenbaum—one of the most sucecssful creatives in the ad business—just wants to have fun. He's sick of everyone showing up to industry events hagard looking and dressed in gray and black. He longs for the long lunch with wine, an afternoon at the movies and ad people unafraid to exhibit genuine glee.

Kirshenbaum's motives are not about fun being an end in itself. He believes better work will result when we let ourselves go a bit. When we remember to remember that we're the artists who signed on to play this commercial game. Not the other way around.

June 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

CNN Financial Editor Todd Benjamin spoke to Maurice Levy—President of Publicis, the world's fourth largest advertising company. Here's one of the more interesting things Levy said:

In all businesses there is room for innovation, there is room for entrepreneurship, there is room for sharing, there is room for values, for humanistic values and once again, my paradoxical approach is that I like very much the idea that we can be the best performer and at the same time the most humanistic company. And I like the clashes of ideas of this kind where people can give the best of themselves in a very tight organization with a lot constraints of performance because we are in a world of competition and at the same time feel they are valued, that they belong to something which is greater than just a company, a corporation.

We can change the idea of corporation by the idea of family and this may be because we are coming from a family business and we understand all these values.

June 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

MSNBC: Developers building a slice of suburbia in the piney woods near Durham, NC have partnered with tractor-builder John Deere in an unusual marketing deal they both hope will lead to improved sales.

As part of the partnership, the John Deere name will be featured on the entrance sign for the subdivision with homes ranging from roughly $375,000 to $500,000. The purchase price includes a choice of landscape designs prepared and installed by Deere. Thousands of dollars worth of riding lawnmowers, leaf-blowers and other equipment will fill one of the three garage bays.

St. Lawrence Homes vice president Rick Ohmann says the John Deere link should amount to a stamp of approval for people who care about having a beautifully landscaped yard from the day they move in.

“The ultimate message is to have homeowners consider John Deere as the place they can turn for all of the things they need to take care of their yard. Right now, we might only be considered as a place to buy equipment,” said Tosh Brinkerhoff with Deere & Co.’s consumer equipment division in nearby Cary. “We feel like this community is a way that we can showcase our abilities.”

June 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Ad Age executive editor, Jonah Bloom, recently had breakfast with former Ogilvy President Rick Boyko.

I voiced my anti-ad-school prejudices, a slightly risky proposition given that Boyko now runs such an institution, the VCU Adcenter.

My slightly nervous salvo went something like: “Surely ad schools are just teaching people with little understanding of business to fit a pre-prescribed solution to a big business problem. That’s not being creative, that’s making ads. If marketing departments and agencies are going to be the ones to infuse businesses with great new ideas, wouldn’t they be better off hiring architects, geographers or some kid who writes a great blog?”

Far from dunking me in my cornflakes, Boyko just sat there nodding. When I’d finished rambling he explained that I’d described VCU’s mission statement. “We’re schooling them in ideas, in business, in culture, in media planning,” he said. “They understand the bottom line, but they’re focused on great ideas that will create great brands.”

He also handed me a piece of paper outlining the curriculum for the school’s brand- management course for would-be marketers. While the course includes time spent on crucial skills such as accounting and research, it puts the emphasis on ideas. “Typically brand managers are M.B.A.s,” Boyko said. “They have been taught that building a brand is about dissecting and targeting audiences, fine-tuning operations into profit centers. They’ve trained these people to be mechanics, not creative, entrepreneurial idea movers.” VCU thinks companies are now realizing they need innovative thinkers in their marketing departments.

June 28, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

BusinessWeek reports on the new wave of testing being done by cable companies to target specific ads to different people.

A Q&A with Invidi Technologies CEO and President David Downey explains a little bit about how the technology will work.

But I love what he says here:

The hope is that consumers will actually want to opt in. If cable companies can earn more ad revenue, cable bills may stay low or even go lower.

I'd love for someone to point out to me one time in history where a cable bill actually went down voluntarily.

June 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Every company must be guided by a mission statement. Ours is to be known worldwide for pimping our customers' junk in the perfect attire for any occasion. -Richard T. Norcross, Durex Dickorations

Thanks to Adverblog and Hello Word for the, uh hum, pointers.

June 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today: Wm. Wrigley Jr. announced Wednesday that it has completed its acquisition of Life Savers and Altoids brands from Kraft Foods and plans to shutter some factories and lay off about 500 workers.

The $1.46 billion cash deal also gives the Chicago-based gum maker several other brands, including Creme Savers, Sugus candies and some local and regional brands in the United States, Europe, Indonesia and Thailand.

Bill Wrigley Jr., Wrigley's chairman and chief executive, said adding the brands "represents a significant reinforcement of our position as a world-class confectionery company."

For Kraft, the sale unloads confectionary brands that generated just 1.6% of its $31 billion in revenue last year.

Wrigley also said it would sell the Trolli gummy candies brand — part of the Kraft deal — including a Creston, Iowa, plant.

June 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Steve Hall reports on two new ad free blogs that lift content directly from Gawker and New York Post's Page Six, with no attempt to alter, nor add to the information presented.

In an email exchange, the anonymous "blogger" had this to say:

"This is a piece of performance art meets media. We wanted to see if we can draw viewership away from popular online blogs and news sites by removing the advertising. Would people actually enjoy the site more without the pop up advertising, drag overs, and other obtrusive types of online banner advertising?

Plus most people read the NY POST for the Gossip only so to us it was interesting to note that and really expose the NY POST for the right wing rag that it is. Also we have come to the conclusion that the registration process adopted by the POST was done in an effort to collect emails. We do not endorse spam dealers or peddlers!"

June 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Adweek reports that former Chief Marketing Officer at Coors, Ron Askew, is headed home to Dallas and the agency that gave him his start in the business. Askew is now the CEO of Omnicom-owned Tracy Locke.

The article fails to mention that Askew left Tracy Locke in 1993, when he and a group of partners (also from TLP) purchased the Coors marketing department and fashioned it into The Integer Group. Integer, literally born from the brewer's rib, is the sales promotion agency for Coors, and on the stregth of that account ranks as one of the largest promo shops in the business.

Omnicom held a minority interest in Integer from the beginning. In 2001, the megalithic holding company bought Askew and partners out and now owns the agency outright. For some, such a purchase would signal the start of a long golf-infused retirement. Askew instead took the marketing helm at Coors, his former client. While at the brewery, Askew put the "Somewhere Near Golden" spots on ice, opting for much sexier spots featuring the now infamous Coors Light twins.

June 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service." -Steve Jobs

Tom Asacker uses the above quotation in a post on authenticity in advertising, or the lack thereof.

McDonald's ads used to shout, "We like to see you smile?" Now it's, "I'm lovin' it." Really? Have you been to a McDonald's lately? Have you seen anyone smiling or lovin' anything? Veneer!

I'm with Eames as design relates to business: "Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose." Now I'm not bashing designers or ad agencies. My guess is that no one has explained the purpose (a.k.a brand) to them. So they do the best that they can do, right? Even if it's a huge waste of the client's money.

Maybe no one explained to the brand team that the product or service offered is not the "end all, be all" they think it is. Or maybe no one explained to anyone on either side of the agency/client fence that authenticity matters.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 16 Comments

Sun Times advertising writer, Lewis Lazare, has been on a role, of late. Today he blasts Crispin Porter + Bogusky for their lame remake of the 1971 classic, "I'd Like To Buy the World a Coke." Lazare likes to give out grades, and CP+B gets an "F" for the new "I'd Like to Teach the World to Chill."

They say advertising often reflects the culture in which we live. Well, if you want to confront the heart-rending truth about how creatively bankrupt our culture now is -- and the current American ad industry, too -- just look at and listen to the commercial nightmare breaking this week from the once-esteemed marketing behemoth known as Coca-Cola.

In his next segment Lazare uncovers Scott Wild's rumored plans for jumping the Cramer-Krasselt ship.

Almost from the beginning, Wild proved a difficult fit at C-K. One source who worked with Wild said he was not a good people person, but was a smart creative. "As long as you didn't mind working with someone who was like a 13-year-old, he was wonderful, and he really pushed us creatively," one source said.

As if that's not enough hard-nosed journalism for you, Lazare then quotes a source who claims Wild is making $275,000 a year at C-K. Damn. I'm sure Wild's team is going to love that little tid bit.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

PSFK points to a Honda press release, announcing the introduction of the "revolutionary FCX, an advanced hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle."

Jon and Sandy Spallino of Redondo Beach, California, who signed a two-year lease on the vehicle, become some of the first non-fleet users of this environmentally-friendly transportation technology.

The Spallino family will also be among the first individuals to begin utilizing the first of California's Hydrogen Highway refueling stations, a statewide infrastructure build out underway to offer hydrogen refueling station access to private individuals. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state's commitment to a Hydrogen Highway in April of this year, creating a public and private partnership to build California's Hydrogen Highway by 2010.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Image courtesy of Kastner.

Thanks to Cool Hunting for the pointer.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

I was a fan of Robert Shaw West, when he was running West + Vaughn, the Durham, NC hot shop. In 2001, West and some of his West + Vaughn cohorts refashioned themselves into The Republik, also in Durham. The small shop's big point of difference is the fact that they tie their compensation to performance.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Anthropologist, Grant McCracken, considers the Hegarty trade off.

At some point, almost all the important players in the world of marketing embraced the Hegarty trade off*. They stopped trying to appeal to everyone all the time. They gave up climbing to ever cheerier, cheesier heights of good humor. They surrendered the “fun in the sun” creative that made advertising the laughing stock of the educated world. Most important, they released marketing from its minstrel pursuit of the maximally agreeable.

The Hegarty trade-off understood that mass appeal was not just clueless, but wrong. It was extensive when it should have been intensive. Minstrel marketing prevents the power and acuity of a particular pitch to a particular segment. As the world segments ever more finely, the Hegarty trade-off becomes ever more important. No longer a “creative opportunity,” it is now the only sensible way of doing business.

* Notice please the "Hegarty trade-off" is a label of convenience. I do not know that Hegarty is the first or the best author of this trade-off. My guess is that many people embraced it, and that indeed this is one of those decision made in a collective manner, and not because there was a single hero of the piece. But we have to call it something, if only to give the client pause.

Thanks to Tom Asacker for the pointer.

June 30, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

So far we've looked at agencies located in Bend, Burlington, and Coeur d'Alene in this series. It's time to add Bozeman to the list.

Mercury Advertising, a precocious seven-year old, won 74 awards--including Best of Show--at the Montana Addy Awards held earlier this year in Great Falls.

According to Director of Business Development, Bob Jones, "We hire folks who are passionate about living in Montana, love great creative and who ski (or snowboard or mountain bike or climb...you get the picture)."

With more and more big time clients looking for gems in the rough to get the job done, it stands to reason that nimble shops with big ideas and little politics will thrive.