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

New York Times: Google, which built a lucrative business in online advertising, has found a new medium for its ad sales: print.

The company is buying ad space in magazines and filling it with half a dozen ads from clients of its vast online system.

The first incarnation of Google's program resembles an old-fashioned business known as ad brokering, which has largely been shunned by major publishers.

Google said yesterday that the program was a test and declined to elaborate.

September 1, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Following a judge's order, former O&M Account Director Shona Seifert has submitted an 18-page code of ethics for the advertising industry.

Adweek has the story:

In the document, Seifert also said the industry faces some unique ethics challenges in part because "the advertising industry places a higher value on big ideas than we do on process."

She continued: "However accurately we capture our time and costs, it isn't going to build a brand or help create famous advertising. So timekeeping and cost controls tend to be delegated and managers focus on 'bigger issues.' Until the timekeeping and cost controls are a bigger issue."

Part of her conclusion reads: "Boring work has never resulted in a prison sentence. Poor timekeeping practices have."

When can we get a copy?

UPDATE: Here it is, thanks to Ad Age.

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

One of America's great poets—James Dickey—worked in advertising. From 1956 to 1959 he was as a copywriter for McCann-Erickson in New York. He then worked for agencies in Atlanta until 1961, before being rescued by a Guggeheim Fellowship.

Dickey liked to say he was "selling his soul to the devil in the daytime and buying it back at night."

As he grew more successful in advertising, Mr. Dickey said, he realized he was ''living half a life,'' stealing time for poetry. He was also feeling guilty, looking on advertising as a corrupter of the values of both its creators and the public. ''I knew how to manipulate those poor sheep,'' he said, ''but the fact I felt that way about them was an indication of my own corruption.''

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

Business Week: Is there a glut of students graduating from graphic design programs in the United States today? A 2004 National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) survey indicates that out of 18,000 graphic design majors in 152 four-year programs conferring B.A. and B.F.A. degrees 3,500 are graduated annually. This figure is strongly disputed, however, by North Carolina State's Meredith Davis, who claims the comparatively low number does not account for approximately 1,300 two-year associate degree programs (according to the GDEA), other schools that confer fine art degrees with limited design study, and schools that are not NASAD accredited. If there are overall 450 four-year programs, 1,300 two-year programs, and each graduates, on average, 25 students a year, then Davis estimates these schools could be releasing as many as 40,000 students (with and without degrees) into a field supporting around 200,000 (1) practitioners (not including interactive designers).

A few educators interviewed for this article further estimate that as many as 50 percent of their own B.A. and B.F.A. graduates or certificate holders actually quit design within a year after graduation. The reasons for this vary: Certain programs provide inadequate tutelage and job counseling; or just as critical, many students are simply ill-suited to be graphic designers. Yet once accepted into a school or program, administrators are reluctant to "thin the herd." Instead they allow natural selection to take its course, and while survival of the fittest is widely accepted in the professional jungle, for an educational institution to release unprepared grads is irresponsible to the student and the profession.

September 1, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

The Register: There is some welcome relief today for those people left wading through the remains of New Orleans - T-Mobile has announced it will offer free Wi-Fi access across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama until the end of the week, and "possibly beyond that if the situation warrants it".

T-Mobile said in a statement: "The free service is intended for those who have been displaced from their homes or are seeking refuge from the hurricane," adding: "This free offer for the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is for Wi-Fi service only, not T-Mobile voice services. There will be no charge for T-Mobile HotSpot service, at these locations, through the end of day Friday, September 2, 2005. The situation will be re-evaluated at that time to determine if the free service will continue."

While we're not entirely convinced that the company has actually been watching the TV footage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - and let's be honest, swimming to the nearest Starbucks to enjoy a double mocha chocka latte decaf while, ahem, surfing the web as the Louisiana National Guard battle gamely to protect the store's blueberry muffins from looters - the company can at least be applauded for the gesture.

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

Room 116 points to this expertly rendered Leo Burnett web site, courtesy of the network's Canadian operation.

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

Brains On Fire, a Greenville, South Carolina identity firm is offering office space to ad peeps displaced by Katrina.

Dear All,

We have been watching, as I am sure everyone has, the complete devastation along he Gulf. And wondering what to do. This morning I had a thought.

Brains on Fire occupies a space in Greenville, South Carolina that is about 11,000 square feet. We have some extra space toward the back of our first floor that we are planning to use for future growth. There are about 10-12 office spaces in total, complete with a furniture system. I was planning on short term subleasing the space, but I would be happy to donate it to a design/creative firm that has been displaced. We would, of course, consider any business in need, but my thinking is someone might benefit from our resources and vendor connections.

We have two T1 lines (one for data and one for voice) and could probably add on some extra phone lines if needed. We might even be able to find some extra laptops among us. With the help of realtor groups in town, we could also try to find some temporary housing solutions.

If anyone out there knows anyone in the Gulf area that may need this offer, please pass on our name and contact information. And if there are any associations that might know of ways to reach firms in need, again, please feel free to forward this information.

I am sure right now it is all about safety and basic needs, but very shortly - I hope - it will turn to “how can we get back to work."

Robbin Phillips
Brains on Fire
864.676.9663
www.brainsonfire.com

According to Orange Yeti, Greenville also has a new tea bar where one can enjoy a Bubble Tea.

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

New York Times: The United States Open tennis tournament, which got under way this week, appears to be aptly named - the blue-chip sponsors for 2005 are more open than ever to trying nontraditional methods to reach consumers.

For example, Canon hired tall blonde women dressed to resemble the tennis star Maria Sharapova to mingle with passers-by at busy sites like Rockefeller Center and Times Square, handing out Sharapova fans - the paper kind - and subway maps bearing ads for the Canon PowerShot line of digital cameras.

At Canon, "We've got our TV to hit everyone," said Rick Booth, marketing services director for the consumer imaging group at Canon USA in Lake Success, N.Y. He was referring to commercials for PowerShot featuring Ms. Sharapova, created by DCA Advertising in New York, owned by Dentsu.

At the same time, Mr. Booth said, "we want to go beyond that and utilize Maria from a total marketing standpoint." So DCA worked with agencies like PSP Sports in New York; Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, part of Daniel J. Edelman Inc.; and the Canon USA internal marketing and public relations teams on TV alternatives.

In addition to the look-alike models, there are online ads and so-called wild postings of signs bearing a slogan from the commercials ("Maria was here"). Mobile billboards - trucks decorated with ads - are being driven around Manhattan.

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

USA Today: Cadillac is killing DeVille — the name, not the car.

It has redesigned the model that's been DeVille and renamed it DTS — which has stood for DeVille Touring Sedan on previous models — to conform with Caddy's three-letter model names: SRX, XLR, STS. (Submit questions now: Chat with James R. Healey, 2 p.m. ET)

Caddy says it has used the name DeVille continuously since 1949 and has sold 6 million quite profitably. But it is willing to dump the venerable moniker because it's come to have a dowdier image than the brand wants.

September 2, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

Yes. THIS Mr. Bill...

In 2004, he appeared in a number of PSA's designed to inform New Orleans citizens about the importance of protecting our wetlands.

Click here. Watch "Hurricane Sluggo." (I think you need Windows Media Player to watch it).

Walter Williams, Mr. Bill's creator, is a native of New Orleans, I believe. I'm sure he had no idea how exactly right he turned out to be.

September 4, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Hugh MacLeod points to a new Technorati feature, where it's easy to find blogs by category. In the Advertising category, Adjab is ranked atop the list. Whereas Adrants is not ranked at all. I expect that to change shortly, when Steve Hall finds out about this and enters appropriate "tags" that will lead to his media property being ranked high, if not at the top of this list. The fact Adrants is not there now calls into question the validity of this ranking system.

In Hugh's comments, Kathy Sierra says:

Blog Finder is ludicrously easy to game. I just made myself the #3 authority on Microsoft ; ) But Scoble temporarily made himself the #1 authority on Apple, so what the hell...

It's probably only a matter of days before every major topic returns an identical list of the most-linked blogs, in order, regardless of the true nature of the blog.

I'll add that I prefer human-generated rankings to any computer's. Sure the number of incoming links give an indication of the blog's "market value," but a numeric popularity system lacks nuance and detail. For instance, I can say I like American Copywriter and the fact that I do, leads me to believe Sullivan Higdon & Sink (the agency where the blog is hosted) is a progressive place where smart people thrive. No computer is ever going to tell you that.

September 5, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

The Gap did some wonderful ads a few years back. The reason I say "wonderful" is because the ads used celebrities in a refreshing way. Jack Kerouac Wore Khakis. That's clean. And clean is nice.

Now, The Gap has a new set of celebs—Liz Phair, Keith Urban, Joss Stone, Jason Mraz and Alanis Morissette—plus a new look-and-feel to the ads. The photography is striking, for sure, but the ads lack that certain "throwback to a simpler time with The Gap" feel of the earlier work.

September 5, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Tom Asacker unleashed a pearl on change.

There are two types of change: change within a system of beliefs; beliefs that stay the same. And change in your system of beliefs; e.g. your assumptions about the marketplace, customers, and your role. If you want to change, you have to change twice. Yes, you must change the reality of the situation. But you must also change how you view that reality.

The business world is teeming with companies engaged in the first type of change. They continue to erode profitability and morale by changing within their old, ineffectual system of beliefs. A system of beliefs perpetuated, by the way, by many well-intentioned people (and many not so well-intentioned).

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

Beer is sold through a distribution channel. Often times, beer marketers even call the distributor "the customer," since the distributor has to be sold first, before the end user.

According to Adweek, Budweiser is placing increased empahasis on their distribution channel.

Anheuser-Busch is about to debut folksy TV ads in its bid to be more local by loosening compliance standards for its wholesaler network, giving distributors more flexibility to be entrepreneurs.

A-B executives had said during past wholesaler gatherings that distributors needed to adopt an incremental growth perspective with new products rather than always looking for the big market share home run. The brewer also encouraged wholesalers to lead more grassroots initiatives.

Chairman August Busch III reiterated the street marketing push during a recent conference in Orlando, Fla., and assured distributors that they would be less encumbered by equity contract reporting exercises so they can spend more time selling beer.

"[A-B executives] are saying we have to be open and flexible for whatever comes down the pike because the marketing of the future will be niche marketing," said a Southern wholesaler.

September 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

The Hidden Persuader posted this Neil Frenchism last week.

"The answer to making an ad is always in the product, if you look for it. Our task is not just to find that answer though - it's to make the answer relevant to someone who, at present, doesn't give a shit about it. So first I look at the product and deconstruct it ... what Robin Wight used to call 'interrogating it until it confesses to its strenghts'."

Perhaps French and I are old-fashioned, if not old, but I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment. My favorite works always reveals a product attribute in some new way I wouldn't have considered.

For instance, Starbucks bottled frappuccino drinks are currently supported by a spot where a woman walks through her office place while burdensome objects magically attach themselves to her as she progresses toward the kitchen. The product benefit here is that Starbucks can help—if only temporarily—remove stress from your day. It's a memorable and modern take on the time-honored coffee break.

Burger King's advertainment angle, care of CP+B, takes another approach—one that has nothing to do with BK's inherent advantages over McDonald's and Wendy's. I'd love to see the Coconut Grovesters come up with a refreshing spin on flame-broiled. Mr. French might enjoy that, as well.

September 6, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Brand New Day: Advertising agencies are generally viewed as nothing more than organized, high priced hucksters. But here is what one agency did, quickly, to dispel that stereotype. Austin, Texas shop GSD&M called the Ad Council on Wednesday morning, when the rest of us got the full picture of how awful the situation is, to volunteer to put together radio and television advertisements for the Red Cross.

By Thursday morning, the ads, which featured celebrities such as New Orleans native Aaron Neville, were done. Next, the agency is sending people to Louisiana over the holiday weekend with clothes and supplies for shelters.

As reported by the Austin American Statesman: "The ads show hurricane footage with a series of red minus signs, followed by the words "home," "electricity," "food" and "water." The next frame shows two people hugging, with the sign of the Red Cross and the word "hope," and a voice-over that says: "Hope is more powerful than a hurricane."

September 6, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

From Adweek:

Volkswagen said it has named MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky to handle creative chores in the U.S. and Canada.

Havas' Arnold here had previously handled the business for the past 10 years.

Arnold has done quite a lot of good and memorable work for VW over the years, but as VW sales have been slipping lately, this serves as a potent reminder that no agency-client relationship is ever safe.

The other thing that's interesting here is that Arnold & Crispin collaborated for years on the anti-smoking "Truth" campaign, so these two agencies have a history together.

And Crispin has resigned the MINI account due to the account conflict. That'll be fought over, I'm sure.

September 6, 2005 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 0 Comments

Our apologies in advance. It appears something is amiss with our Permanent Arcticle Archives and Permalinks (including comments and trackbacks).

We hope to regain normal operation shortly.

UpdatePermalinks, comments and trackbacks should be back to normal. We are still addressing an issue with monthly and category archvies.

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

For 79 more wickedly insightful marketing 'toons from this artist, visit Tom Fishburne's Cafe Press store and by his Brand Camp book. It's only $15.99, and research has proven that blog readers spend more online. And you don't want to fool with that kind of research, now do you?

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

I'm kind of surprised I did not see this earlier, but today I stumbled upon B.L. Ochman's interview with Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void. Hugh supports himself with income from blogvertising. He resides in rural England, where his rent is one fifteeenth of what he paid in New York. He says he makes close to what he made in New York as a copywriter. I don't know what Hugh made, but copywriters can be paid pretty well in New York. They can also slave for tuna casserole money, but that's a story for another day. In this story, Hugh looks out his window and sees rhodendrum bushes in bloom—a marked contrast to his stark images that strike to the very core of business matter.

When you think about it, every company needs a Hugh, but Hugh's are oh so hard to employ.

Ochman calls him the "Poster Child for Unemployed Creative Types Seeking Blog Fame and Fortune." While this poster may never rival the Farrah poster I had in Junior High, it's a nice poster all the same.

She also reveals:

Blogging since 2003, and online since 2001, Macleod's blog is the fourth most popular blog in Europe, second most popular in the UK, and Number 139 worldwide. Not bad for one guy writing in an English countryside cottage.

He gets "just shy of a million page views a month," a remarkable number for a blog with 14-15,000 unique visitors a day, up exponentially from about 3,000 a day for most of last year. The edgy, often outrageous, frequently x-rated cartoons about blogging, marketing, and life that pepper his blog have earned him a virally generated, global following.

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

Displaced Designer is a new site dedicated to helping people in the industry get back on their work feet.

We reported last week on Brains On Fire's effort to help Gulf Coast agency staff relocate temporarily to Greenville, SC.

Now Adweek reports, Trumpet’s 32 employees were celebrating the agency's eighth anniversary just two nights before Katrina rolled ashore. Co-founder Robbie Vitrano said that all 32 employees are safe. Vitrano and about 10 other employees are working in Atlanta, home of clients Cox Communications and Turner Home Entertainment. Vitrano told The New York Times that he would accept an offer of office space from Atlanta’s Blattner Brunner/SRC, formerly Sawyer Riley Compton.

Ernie Schenck relays Vitrano's suggestion (via Sally Hogshead) for the ad community. He wants agencies to create local campaigns in any media that will "Rally the resolve and ingenuity of over 1 million displaced New Orleanians AND their support system of 260 million Americans and billions more around the world."

I guess it's safe to say, not all ad people are hearltess megalomaniacs.

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

Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced the availability of PANTONE UNIVERSE Stationery, a collection of stationery and office supplies. This extends the PANTONE UNIVERSE brand of colorful, design-driven consumer products.

"Hundreds of thousands of design professionals rely on Pantone for color standards and color trend direction," explained Lisa Herbert, Pantone's executive vice president of fashion, home and interiors. "With PANTONE UNIVERSE, we are able to extend Pantone's color and trend expertise beyond the professional into colorful, design-driven lifestyle items for the consumer. Our wide selection of stationery items offers a chic, fun and affordable way to brighten one's personal and business correspondence."

September 7, 2005 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 4 Comments

Apple/Cingular/Motorola just announced the new iTunes enabled phone and Cingular has their TV spots posted.

Available Here

And as a side note to any Apple/Cingular/Motorola folks who may be regular readers, David and I would be open to an ad space trade-out for a couple o'phones :)

September 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From the land of Birkenstocks, comes Bionade—the world's first purely organic non-alcoholic refreshment drink.

Hey, Heiko Hebig likes it.

September 7, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Here's some of that "dramatize the product benefit stuff" I like to talk about. This ad for Nivea self-tanning spray, care of TBWA\ Brussels does that, but in this case, one might be inclined to ask why.

Thanks to Frederik Samuel for the pointer.

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

Promo Magazine: Departing from standard practice, the National Hockey League has hired an entertainment marketing agency to help restore the brand's image and build a stronger emotional fan-player connection following a 301-day lockout during the 2004-05 season.

Conductor, a Los Angeles, CA-based agency, will serve as the NHL's lead marketing communications and integration agency to help unite fans and players for the new season.

"As we come out of lockout to a new era for the league, we recognize in addition to having the product on the ice as strong as possible, we also need to come back in a big, a bold and an innovative way," NHL Enterprises President Ed Horne, said last week. "We believe Conductor can help us do that."

Starting the third week of September, Conductor will launch a campaign using an entertainment-based cinematic approach to reveal the brand's true identity.

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

Take everything you love about iPod and shrink it. Now shrink it again. With 2GB (500 songs) and 4GB (1,000 songs) models starting at $199, the pencil-thin iPod nano packs the entire iPod experience into an impossibly small design.

September 8, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Brokerage firms are almost always eternal optimists when it comes to stocks. Even if they don't like a stock, they'll trot out a euphemism like "sector underperform" or "underweight" when they recommend dumping the stock but can't really say that due to corporate politics.

So you know this is serious:

Merrill Lynch on Thursday downgraded its rating of Interpublic Group's stock from "neutral" to "sell" with a high risk of volatility, citing the holding company's recent Bank of America loss and questions about the impact of the departure of General Motors' media duties in May.

What would the advertising landscape without Interpublic look like? Say, if they sell off divisions or dissolve the holding company altogether?

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

Need a reason to read the print version of Adweek? Here's one. They weave interesting tidbits into the print version that are not found online.

Former DDB-Dallas copywriter, Will Clark, has a new book out. It's a black comedy about a psychic ex-dot-com-millionaire who falls in with paranormal spies, a Charles Manson-loving yogi, a chubby blue incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu and a pair of mentally conjoined twins.

The Louisiana-born author says none of it would have been possible without first working in advertising. "It's really a poor man's MFA program. You have to produce everyday. And it gives you rhinoceros skin. Some people get all John Kennedy Toole when they get rejected. They want to end it all. In advertising, you don't worry about it."

In a case of sweet revenge, Clark was fired from his first job in advertising. "They said I couldn't write."

September 8, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

Mark Fenske teaches advertising in the graduate program at VCU in Richmond. He used to keep a sketch book, or what he calls a workbook. Here's a page from his workbook:

Here's some text from Fenske's blog entry about workbooks:

The job of a copywriter or art director isn't fun and it isn't easy. Jackasses often get the final say about whether our work runs or is even presented to a small group of people. Genuine hacks often are given free rein to edit our work. There is no honor in the advertising business. Although you cannot create high level work without approaching it as an artist, you will not find yourself treated as an artist. In short, you will not be able to love the job of advertising copywriter or art director as you would like to. Do not fear. Your desire is not muted. Only misdirected.

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

Henry Copeland of Blogads spoke to the IFsters recently.

I like what he said here:

Cutting edge advertisers are starting to realize that the game isnt' just "buy ads on blogs" or "buy the blogosphere" but splicing your brand/service/ideas into specific networks of blogs, specific conversations, specific blogospheres.

Second, a very few advertisers are realizing that demographics are like coal in Newcastle... everybody's got them: print, TV and online. That's a noisy metric. The unique "new" thing about new media is the social context, the collaborative brainstorming that takes place, the peer references, and mutual respect within a particular group. Understand the hive and you'll be way ahead of your competition both in terms of money spent and mind-penetration.

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

You know it's a hot story when Mia von Furstenber picks it up from Steve Hall at Adrants (who, by the way, has been showing a lot of male sexuality in advertising of late...I guess turnabout is fair play). And you know it's a story when the socialite titles her post, "The Bulge That Assaulted NYC." That's classic.

Anyway, I'd like to see this Ohio-based retailer try to pull this off in Akron, Columbus or Cincinnati. That would take balls.

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

Lewis Lazare: Oak Brook-based Ace Hardware has renewed its contract with former football coach and television color analyst John Madden for an additional six years. The 18-year association between Madden and the nation's largest hardware cooperative is the second-longest spokesperson relationship existing today, just behind Michael Jordan and Nike.

September 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

New York Times: Miller High Life, which since 1997 has been sold with a series of humorous commercials centered on a sardonic, sometimes crotchety advertising character who views the world from a distinctly male perspective. Beginning next week, the "High Life Man" campaign will give way to spots featuring a female figuratively and literally out of this world: the "Girl in the Moon" character who has symbolized High Life on packages, signs and ads since 1907, four years after the brand was introduced.

The moon maiden, believed to have been inspired by a Miller family daughter, granddaughter or goddaughter, is to be brought to life to narrate commercials that are 30, 60 and 90 seconds long, to be followed by online and retail ads. The spots, by the longtime High Life agency, Wieden & Kennedy, take a highly unusual tack for mainstream beer advertising.

Rather than adopting a hard-sell approach dominated by frat-boy humor, patriotic paeans or sex appeal, the commercials are warm, emotional, at times almost elegiac, thanks to the character's throaty narration, backed by the haunting music of Erik Satie.

While the "High Life Man" was primarily aimed at men ages 35 and up, the "Girl in the Moon" is intended to also resonate with men and women ages 21 to 34. They may not be as familiar with High Life as their fathers or grandfathers, but they are proving amenable to drinking brands like Pabst Blue Ribbon that compete against High Life. Such brands are finding new favor as part of a consumer trend called retro-chic.

In addition to the potential appeal to women and younger consumers, the commercials are almost sure to appeal to cinéastes because in using a female narrator, the music of Satie and nostalgic images, they are strongly reminiscent of the 1973 film "Badlands" by the director Terrence Malick.

September 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Guardian Unlimited: Bic, the company that has made a fortune out of things to be thrown away, has sold its 100 billionth disposable ballpoint - selling an average of 57 pens every second since it was launched in 1950.

According to the company, that is enough pens to stretch 40 times the distance from the earth to the moon if laid end to end or to fill the Arc de Triomphe 23 times over.

The transparent Bic Cristal pen first went into production after the second world war when the company's founder, Baron Marcel Bich, bought a small factory outside Paris.

The baron and his partner Edouard Buffard had planned to manufacture fountain pens. But his son Bruno, who has since taken over the company, told Reuters that the close observation of a wheelbarrow prompted his father to change his mind.

"My father told me that one day he was pushing a wheelbarrow when it dawned on him that the ball was actually a multi-faceted wheel, and this was the best way to convey ink," he said.

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

A store owner in New Orleans gets the word out.

September 9, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 6 Comments

This from Ad Age:

Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Eddie Lampert has demoted Sears CEO Alan Lacy, replacing him with former Kmart CEO Aylwin Lewis, while expanding his own role in day-to-day merchandising and marketing duties.

Analysts and industry watchers lambasted Mr. Lampert’s move to take a more active role in merging marketing at Sears and Kmart, saying the hedge-fund manager and financier, whose company ESL Investments orchestrated the Sears/Kmart merger, should stick to what he knows best.

“Lampert is a smart guy, but what makes him think he is qualified to do this?” asked George Whalin of Retail Management Consultants of San Diego. “I think this is about Lampert being a control freak. The competence of the retailers he’s competing against -- Wal-Mart and Target -- all have highly experienced people handling merchandising and marketing right now. This is clearly not for people who don’t know what they are doing.”

At this rate, who knows---maybe he'll be head of FEMA next week.

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

Given that Sir Paul has lent his name and music to Fidelity Investments and Bob Dylan is hawking lingerie, I suppose it should come as no surprise that one needs a working American Express card to buy tickets for the upcoming Cream shows in Madison Square Garden this October.

Market Wire: American Express has a long history of providing special access and meaningful experiences to Cardmembers. As part of this ongoing commitment, American Express has partnered with Cream's reunion to secure a special opportunity for Cardmembers to purchase their tickets to what promises to be three incredible shows prior to the general public on-sale.

Tickets will go on sale first to American Express Cardmembers through a special pre-sale, beginning Monday, September 12th at 9 a.m. Tickets can be purchased via www.ticketmaster.com, and there will be a 4-ticket-per-person limit.

If tickets remain, they will then go on sale to the general public on Monday, September 19, 2005.

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

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Ruth's Chris is permanently relocating its headquarters from New Orleans—the city where it got its start—to Orlando, Florida.

On Aug. 31, not long after the levees burst in New Orleans, the top executives of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse gathered in the lobby of the Orlando Embassy Suites for an hourlong, soul-searching meeting.

"It was probably one of the toughest decisions that I ever had to make: to tell my people that we are not going back," said Craig Miller, the veteran chief executive of Ruth's Chris.

Hours before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Miller and Geoffrey Stiles, the company's chief operating officer, flew with their spouses to Orlando, where each also owns a home. Eventually they established a makeshift communications center in Miller's condominium and contacted their senior management team, asking them to come to Orlando to take on specified tasks.

With temporary office space secured in Orlando, the company hired brokers to scout for a more permanent home. After negotiating tax incentives from Seminole County economic development officials and seeking approval from their board, by Sept. 2 they had the keys to a fully furnished 21,000-square-foot corporate office and training center.

The company also quickly established procedures for manually writing paychecks so their employees could immediately obtain cash.

Miller vigorously defends the company's decision. He notes that Morton's Steakhouse, a similar restaurant chain that started in Chicago and has long been identified with that city, now has its headquarters in New York.

September 9, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Idle Type points to this guy who made his prom tux out of Coke cans.

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

Danah Boyd asked herself, "What is Web2.0 and why does it matter?" It seems that's the type of thing Ph.D. candidates at Cal Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems do in their spare time.

Web2.0 is about glocalization, it is about making global information available to local social contexts and giving people the flexibility to find, organize, share and create information in a locally meaningful fashion that is globally accessible. Technology and experience are both critical factors in this process, but they themselves are not Web2.0. Web2.0 is a structural shift in information flow. It is not simply about global->local or 1->many; it is about a constantly shifting, multi-directional complex flow of information with the information evolving as it flows. It is about new network structures that emerge out of global and local structures.

In order for Web2.0 to work, we need to pay attention to how different cultural contexts interpret the technology and support them in their variable interpretations. We need to create flexible infrastructures and build the unexpected connections that will permit creative re-use.

For Web2.0 to be successful, technology and policy must follow glocalized needs and desires. This will be a complex and challenging process full of complicated issues as technologists, designers, social scientists and politicos engage in an unknown dance with very different values and pressures. This dance can and probably will disrupt nation-state and institutional structures; these groups will work hard to stop the destruction of their power. Neither China nor the RIAA really wants Web2.0 to happen and folks like them have the potential to really foul it up.

Those who believe that Web2.0 is the way to go must take on the responsibility of focusing on the people first, to keep them and their needs at the forefront of your mind while you design and build, re-design and re-build. Let the technology and business follow the desires and needs of people. Otherwise, Web2.0 could completely collapse or simply become a tool for the maintenance of structural power.

September 11, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I finished reading Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Breakfast of Champions today. Had I read it as an undergrad like a good English major, I might have been persuaded to skip out on an ad career altogether.

Critic, Marek Vit, says, "The novel attacks many things: slavery, racism, commercial greed, jingoism, ecology, capitalism, imperialism, overpopulation etc., all of these aimed precisely at modern American society." I'd add to this list, branded communications. Witness the preface:

The expression "Breakfast of Champions" is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc., for use in a breakfast cereal product. The use of the identical expression as the title for this book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, not is it intended to disparage their fine products.

Do not get lost in the author's fine manners. Few books in modern history take on brands this cleverly. His hero, Dwayne Hoover, runs a Pontiac dealership. He also owns a Holiday Inn and several Burger Chef restaurants. Hoover is convinced his assistant, Francine, wants a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in return for sex. And so on.

There are also telling passages woven throughout the text. Vonnegut's alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, plainly sees the desperate state we're in.

Trout saw a broken guardrail ahead. He gazed into a gully below it, saw a 1968 Cadillac El Dorado capsized in a brook. It had Alabama license plates. There were also several old home appliances in the brook—stoves, a washing machine, a couple of refrigerators.

An angel-faced white child, with flaxen hair, stood by the brook. She waved up at Trout. She clasped an eighteen-ounce bottle of Pepsi-Cola to her breast.

While non-fiction books like No Logo take the issue on directly and in a fashion that's hard to ignore, Vonnegut's novel has even more power. Like so many literary artists, Vonnegut spent time writing branded communications. He was a public relations writer for General Electric. Who better to "break it down" than someone who sees all sides of the issue?

September 12, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

One of the things that drew me to advertising in the first place was the ridiculously naïve idea that the business was a meritocracy. "The work is all that matters," was the mantra I gleefully chimed in the mid 1990s. I picked it up from some true believers and even with all the turmoil my career has seen, I have clung to it mightily. But I'm confident I'll get over it someday.

Adweek: Volkswagen's sweeping shift last week of its estimated $400 million North American creative account to Crispin Porter + Bogusky without a review illustrates what some say is the smartest, most efficient way to hire an agency. And it reinforces once again the notion that advertising, rather than being "all about the work," as some say, is first and foremost a relationship-driven business.

September 12, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

You've got a presentation at 10:00 am tomorrow, but all your concepts suck. What do you do? Order pizza. Have a beer to relax. Play ping pong. Blah blah blah.

Thankfully, none of these lame rituals are any longer necessary. Now, helpless creatives can simply point their trusty browser to Deutsch Inc.'s The Ad Conceptor.

September 12, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Could this be Ralph's response to Tommy's domination of the urban market?

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

A-list blogger, Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine fame, has been named director of the new-media program and associate professor of journalism at City University of New York, according to The New York Times.

Mr. Jarvis said that the media could achieve greater transparency by using blogs, podcasts and online video. "I want students to explore the relationship of the media with the public," he said.

New media, he said, breaks down the economic model of the business he has worked in all these years. "This is really the first time since William Randolph Hearst that a young journalist can think like an entrepreneur," Mr. Jarvis said.

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

Ad Age: Procter & Gamble Co.’s Secret antiperspirant may be strong enough for a man, but it’s made for a woman race-car driver -– specifically 23-year-old Indy Racing League phenom Danica Patrick, who is becoming a pitchwoman for the leading U.S. women’s deodorant.

In a deal announced today, the 2005 Indy 500 rookie of the year will bear the Secret logo and appear in still unspecified marketing efforts for the brand, likely to include TV and print ads. It’s the first marketing deal in memory between an Indy Racing League driver and a woman’s personal-care brand and also a first for Ms. Patrick, who heretofore has shunned beauty or personal-care endorsements.

“Danica really embodies the brand character of secret, which is a strong-yet-feminine woman,” a P&G spokeswoman said. “Her individuality, her persistence -– really she embodies several qualities of what the Secret brand represents.”

It doesn’t hurt, she added, that Ms. Patrick performs in a sweaty, high-risk sport where she not only competes against men but also beats them. Secret two years ago modified its longtime selling line, “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman,” to simply “Strong enough for a woman.”

Ms. Patrick finished fourth at the Indy 500 in May and led the race for 19 laps. Before that, she was turning heads with her looks, having posed scantily clad two years ago in FHM. After catching some flack for that layout, Ms. Patrick has chosen endorsement deals carefully and avoided, up to now, linking up with beauty brands.

p.s. We reported last July on Danica's endoresement deal with PEAK Antifreeze and Mr. Clean windshield wash and wiper blades.

September 12, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

Here's a new corporate image campaign from some company called Areva. Which I've never heard of, but they are apparently one of the largest producers of nuclear power in the US. So I guess we should know about what they do, and who to blame if the meltdown comes.

Click here to see their new website that's part of their campaign, and you can watch the relatively cool animated spot that uses "Funkytown" to explain, as some sort of modern-era grade school science film, just how nuclear power gets generated.

I'm always amazed to see companies with bland names like Areva come out of seemingly nowhere and blow wads of cash on image advertising.

And I can learn to like nuclear power. I'll eat some 3-eyed fish if it means cheaper gas for my SUV.

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

The New York Times: Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC's entertainment group who now oversees Yahoo's expanded media group in Santa Monica, has hired Kevin Sites, a veteran television correspondent, to produce a multimedia Web site that will report on wars around the world.

The Web site, called "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone" (hotzone.yahoo.com) will focus entirely on Mr. Sites's travels as a war correspondent and will use nearly every kind of format the Internet allows. His reports will begin Sept. 26.

Yahoo is building a large beachhead in Santa Monica to establish relations with Hollywood, both to buy content from others and to produce its own. One of its motivations is to tap into the rapidly growing demand for video advertising on the Internet.

"If we execute this the right way, it is a great first step to show people how we can present content in a different kind of way than television," Mr. Braun said. "One that embraces the qualities of the Internet." Those qualities, he said, including giving users the ability to control what they see and how they see it, and also to interact and respond.

September 13, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

"Anybody who pays big agency money to make blogs for them is either a fool, or is being ripped off. Just my opinion." -Hugh MacLeod

While I tend to enjoy Hugh's take on things, on the above point I couldn't disagree more.

Time is money, even in this post-Cluetrain epoch. A well constructed marketing blog, in my opinion, would require significant investment, not in production values (like TV), but in time. Time to source the right writers. Time to research the market. Time to write.

Imagine a group blog for a client like Coca-Cola. Let's say their blogging needs required a staff of a dozen writers. These writers might be spread out over a dozen blogs, or they might contribute to one central blog. Either way, a dozen highly skilled writers spending all day researching, writing posts, making comments, deleting comment and trackback spam, etc. is not an "on the cheap" proposal.

I believe one to five percent of a marketer's budget put toward blogs, podcasts and other conversational media would do the job. One percent of Coca-Cola's marketing budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000,000. Public relations agencies are the first (in the industry) to truly grasp this new business model and act on it. Like it or not, ad agencies won't be far behind.

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

Widespread Panic is podcasting, or Panicasting, as the case may be. Their first effort is a discussion between bass player Dave Schools and lead guitarist George McConnell. The 56-minute segment also includes live and unreleased music from the band's recent Dallas, TX performance.

Click here for the iTunes link. Or here if you want to grab the file off the band's site.

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

Ernie Schenck turned his CA column over to Neil French this issue. The results are hilarious and didactic.

There’s a Confucian saying that “he who asks humbly teaches how to refuse.” Well, “submitting” ads for approval is demanding refusal plus a damn good hiding, in my view.

And while we’re meandering down this side-road, why do agencies bang on about “serving” their clients? (Account people are in “client service” in most set-ups.) Servants are useful but not essential, can be changed at will, and treated with condescension or brutality, according to whim. They are not the folk one turns to for advice, or help in adversity. And you take care to pay them as little as possible. Is it any wonder that so many agencies not only lose money, but are roundly despised?

Next time you see the agency credentials PowerPoint, strike out every “serve” you see, and substitute “advise.” You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes to your own self-worth, for a start.

French also tells of the time he clocked a client and retained the account to boot. Heady stuff.

[update] Ignacio Oreamuno of I Have An Idea reminds us that Mr. French and his British accent will be performing live in Toronto on October 6th. If that won't do, this video, which is appropriately long on copy, might tide you over.

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

I like to see Lewis Lazare upset by a weak ad campaign. Seriously, it's a fun way to start the day.

Much as it pains us to say so, American Airlines is sticking with the mantra "We Know Why You Fly" that the carrier introduced a year ago in an ad campaign from TM Advertising in Irving, Texas. In a hugely disappointing new television, print and Internet ad campaign breaking today, American purports to build on the brand thesis that the world's largest carrier has a superior understanding of what prompts people to get on airplanes and travel somewhere.

We were taken aback last year when the first wave of "We Know Why You Fly" executions broke. Aside from their lame stabs at humor, the commercials did little to burnish American's image as a carrier peopled by experienced professionals adept at transporting both high-powered executives and leisure travelers looking for a little rest and relaxation.

Two new commercials debuting this week do not improve on what came before. They try to impress upon viewers that American intends to be price competitive with other legacy carriers like archrival United Airlines (which, at least, is on a marketing roll with its superlative advertising) and the increasingly powerful low-fare carriers such as Southwest and Jet Blue. But you won't find any reference to spacious coach seating in this new "We Know Why You Fly" work, because that's no longer a selling point at American, which has added seats in the back to increase revenue-generating potential.

On a related note, why would an agency walk away from all the equity they've built in the name "Temerlin McClain," in favor of the flavorless TM Advertising? It makes no sense.

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

USA Today: In its quest to make cars more like futuristic computer Hal 9000, OnStar, General Motors' in-car telecommunications system, now will give owners e-mail updates from their vehicles reporting problems or reminding about maintenance needs, officials said Tuesday.

The service will tell car owners how long they have until they need to change the oil, whether the air bags are working, how the anti-lock braking system is operating and when the car is due for maintenance. It detects whether a car needs an oil change through a computer system that judges how the engine is working.

It will work on any OnStar-equipped vehicle from the 2004 model year on.

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

The New York Times: The biggest problem in the newspaper industry is capturing readers between 18 and 34 years old, and now The Associated Press is looking to tackle that problem head on.

On Monday, the 157-year-old wire service is to start its "younger audience service," offering articles and "experiences" in multimedia formats, with audio, video, blogs and wireless text aimed at reaching readers between 18 and 34 years old. The service, one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by The A.P., is called asap, pronounced letter by letter, meant to evoke the wire service's legendary speed.

The pilot project for asap was approved by The A.P.'s board of directors in April. Tom Curley, president of the wire service, said at the time, "As the audience turns to new platforms and adopts new habits, the news must follow."

"We want to bring people closer to the news and closer to their world, and we do that by recognizing that there are real people who are gathering the news; they aren't simply automatic fact-gatherers," said Ted Anthony, the 37-year-old editor of asap.

"We're pushing the envelope in terms of some of the things The A.P. has done, but we're maintaining A.P. values, not being biased, getting our facts right, being fair, giving people their say," he added. "But the fact is, some of what resonates the most with this audience is not necessarily traditional journalism, and so it will be a hybrid."

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

First Jeff Jarvis launches an all out assualt on Dell. Now Sun Microsystems is getting in to the act.

Sun Censored but Not Silent

Top business publications refused to run our bold ad concepts because the headlines were thought too controversial. At Sun, we're the radical engineers that build "ass-whoopin" technology - we're not Miss Manners and we never want to be. We ask all you contrarians out there to e-mail us your own provocative ad headlines: my-headline@sun.com.

Thanks to Random Culture for picking up on this

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

Frederik Samuel kindly points out that Quark's new logo is already in market, but sadly it belongs to another entity.

Oops.

September 14, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 3 Comments

So it turns out Brownie wasn't doing "a heck of a job" after all.

Simply put, the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina showed us that if PR or advertising initiatives don't take reality into account, they won't work.

When the gloriously badass Lt. General Russel Honore rolled into New Orleans to oversee military operations a couple of weeks ago, he was asked why the response took so long. "This is a disaster," he said. "This isn't something somebody can control. We ain't stuck on stupid."

Well, there are few Russel Honores in the advertising industry. If we think we have absolute control over public perception anymore, we're stuck on stupid.

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

September 15, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

Oh, delicious irony.

Here's an article from BusinessWeek about Gillette's new Fusion razor, which features 5 blades.

And here's an "op-ed" piece from The Onion, written last year, titled...well, you just have to read it.

Life imitates satire.

September 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 22 Comments

Lewis Lazare: It's almost enough to make a grown man weep for joy. We're talking about the debut this week of a dramatically different ad campaign from trendsetting shop Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., for Miller High Life, known for many years as the champagne of bottled beers.

Miller High Life's gloriously literate "Girl in the Moon" commercial is precisely the sign we've been awaiting. Claiming the juice had drained from the rather engaging Miller High Life campaign distinguished by the crusty old codger voiceover, Wieden + Kennedy is replacing him with someone far more exciting -- someone who totally upends the conventional wisdom about what beer advertising should be.

Rather than delivering yet another beer execution with a painfully obvious male-focused point of view, the hauntingly beautiful "Girl in the Moon" spot comes at beer advertising from a decidedly female perspective, featuring, as it does, the famous girl in the moon on the Miller High Life bottle logo personified as the voiceover spokeswoman.

Beyond that startling departure from tradition, "Girl in the Moon" absolutely revels in the glory of words, a component of compelling advertising that had all but vanished in recent times.

This "Girl" is filled to overflowing with beautifully strung together, emotionally engaging verbal images that play off of, and exquisitely detail, the theme of the important and memorable moments -- both good and bad -- in one's life. The way this commercial takes that theme and weds it to Miller High Life's own 100-year history is a thrilling demonstration of the greatly under-appreciated art of copywriting.

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

Adweek: Independent TDA Advertising & Design said it has launched a $1.3 million print campaign for Crocs casual footwear tagged "Ugly can be beautiful."

For the shoemaker's first consumer advertising, Boulder, Colo.-based TDA crafted three full-page executions playfully "acknowledging Crocs strengths and weaknesses at the same time," said shop creative director and copywriter Jonathan Schoenberg.

"They are funny-looking," but people are hooked as soon as they slide their feet into the shoes, he said. "They're super-light and super-soft . . . We just want people to try 'em on."

The ads are running nationally in magazines including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, InStyle and Real Simple, as well as regional periodicals like San Diego, San Francisco and New York.

In addition, TDA has crafted city-specific wild-posting efforts in San Francisco and New York. Earlier this month, the agency relaunched the redesigned Crocs Web site.

Crocs—which Schoenberg called "extremely utilitarian"—are currently available in seven rainbow-spanning styles. The shoes are "great for sports, gardening, the beach," he said, as well as for kids ("they can put them on themselves!") and always-on-their-feet workers such as nurses, doctors, chefs and restaurant employees.

"I'm a bit of the socialist about these shoes," Schoenberg noted.

Based in Niwot, Colo., Crocs' production rate has grown to about one million pairs per month, according to TDA. The company is expected to go public within the next few weeks, and will be listed as CROX on the Nasdaq exchange.

September 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

CNET: Yahoo unveiled on Wednesday a limited public beta of its new Yahoo Mail service, featuring a new interface more like that of a desktop e-mail application and faster response time.

As first reported in June, the new Yahoo Mail beta will feature e-mail caching; message preview; drag-and-drop filing; the capability of quickly searching e-mail headers, body text and attachments; and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time.

In addition, the new version will add address auto-complete, right-click menus and standard keyboard shortcuts.

The beta will be available to a limited group of Yahoo Mail users in the United States and will be expanded to include users worldwide in coming months, Yahoo said. Users will be able to choose the new version, stick with the older version, or switch between the two.

For more information, read Charlene Li's detailed report.

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

Steve Hall at Adrants brings us this awesome out-of-home juxtaposition.

September 15, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 11 Comments

The Jackson Citizen Patriot: It is maligned, it is copied, but most importantly, it is loved by millions of Americans.

The Twinkie is celebrating its 75th birthday this year. Yet, this simple yellow sponge cake filled with vanilla cream has managed to generate interest and even a bit of controversy over the years.

Meanwhile, a number of myths have cropped up over the years about Twinkies, including that the snack is top-heavy with calories.

"A Twinkie has only 150 calories and 5 grams of fat, lower than eating three Oreos cookies," said Kevin Kaul, Hostess brand manager in Kansas City, Mo..

Another is that they are created from only artificial ingredients.

"We use eggs, flour and sugar and some preservatives to keep them fresh, but there is nothing artificial about a Twinkie," he said.

Twinkies are made in seven plants scattered across the United States, and from the time they are made and packaged, Kaul said, they have a shelf life of 25 days.

"It's one of those myths (an indefinite shelf life) we'd love to see die," he said.

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

Juicy Fruit, like several brands before it, is taking a beating in the bloatosphere for their psuedo blog.

Random Culture explains the importance of terminology in a case like this.

"This is why we talk about not every business needing a blog because if done improperly you will get some major backlash like the Juicy Fruit folks are receiving right now. What makes this silly is that if they replaced the world "blog" with something else on their site then there would be no complaining."

RC goes on to make an interesting point about how a company like Wrigley might achieve better results if they simply picked up on consumer generated modifications like the Juicy Fruit iPod, pictured below.

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

Wired: Some view blogs as being as powerful as the introduction of the printing press, ushering in a new age of citizen journalism. Others view blogging as a fad. What's your take on it?

Huffington: Simply put, blogs are the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine broke onto the scene. I've been a fan -- and an advocate -- of the fast-moving blogstream ever since bloggers took the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond story, ran with it and helped turn the smug Senate Majority Leader into the penitent former Senate Majority Leader.

When bloggers decide that something matters, they chomp down hard and refuse to let go. They're the true pit bulls of reporting. The only way to get them off a story is to cut off their heads (and even then you'll need to pry their jaws open). They almost all work alone, but, ironically, it's their collective effort that makes them so effective. They share their work freely, feed off one another's work, argue with each other, and add to the story dialectically. All of which has made the blogosphere the most vital news source in our country -- and led me to take a flying leap into it with The Huffington Post.

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

If you're feeling extra generous this Friday, why not take five minutes to fill out this University of Zurich graduate student's Corporate Blogging Survey.

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

Adweek is running an article revealing just how many agency folk reached out to help Trumpet, a New Orleans agency displaced by Katrina.

About half of Trumpet Advertising's staff is operating from space in the Blattner Brunner/SRC offices in Atlanta. Trumpet also received offers of assistance from other agencies. Young & Laramore in Indianapolis offered space; Beber Silverstein in Miami offered financial support; and Mintz & Hoke in Avon, Conn., sent a G5 workstation. GSD&M in Austin, Texas, and The Richards Group in Dallas also offered help.

"It feels damn good to have people care about you," said Robbie Vitrano, a principal and creative director at Trumpet. "It's going to be hard to thank them adequately."

Vitrano said he expects to remain in Atlanta for several months before his staff can return to New Orleans.

While the many offers of help for Trumpet are amazing and generous, I hope we're also taking care of the less well connected. This is clearly a time when it's not all about your book.

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

Podcatsing and blogs are getting all the love right now, but let's nto overlook Wiki as a premium vehicle for discussing brands.

nanoSpot, a new Wiki creating community around Apple's new iPod nano is a classic example of a customer generated media exchange. And while customer generated is the ideal, there's no reason a brand could not create, promote and learn from this type of web space.

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

Thanks to Adverblog for sharing this visually dominant ad from Biedermann/McCann-Erickson (Paraguay). After all, what's pizza without Coke?

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

Steve Hall likes Phil Dusenberry's new book.

The best thing about Dusenberry's book as that it acknowledges the basic elements of advertising which have been in place and, for the most part, have worked since advertising was invented. While some will surely take issue with this assessment, reading Dusenberry's book makes one wonder why we're all so worked up about weblogs, conversational marketing, consumer generated media, viral marketing, headvertising, behavioral marketing, contextual advertising, search engine marketing, podcasting, graffiti advertising and all other forms of "OH MY GOD NO ONE WATCHES TV ANYMORE SO WE BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW" reactionary flailings. No doubt the media landscape is changing and is nothing like the days of Apple's 1984 spot airing on the Super Bowl but many of the same basic advertising principles are still in place.

I like Hall's take on the "new this, new that" obsession, currently sweeping Ad Land. To succeed with all these new developments, blogs included, it certainly helps to be on rock solid footing with the basics.

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

Adweek: Creature in Seattle is Burgerville-izing Shakespeare for the Vancouver, Wash.-based restaurant chain. This past weekend and next, the independent agency is producing "Shakes in the Park," an outdoor theater series in Portland, Ore., in which Burgerville's signature huckleberry milkshake will serve as protagonist (and complimentary snack) in 20-minute adaptations of As You Like It and other classics.

"It's the basic Shakespeare template, with 'thees' and 'thous' and 'methinks that shake is looking good,'" says group account director Nick Hunt. "Boy meets girl, it's love at first sight, the boy is flung into exile, they reunite as things happen, the shake becomes an integral part of the story."

The free, family-friendly performances, to be held in Portland-area parks, will feature poofy-pants-clad actors from Shakesprov, an offshoot of Portland's ComedySportz improv troupe. The events are being promoted with more than 1,000 ye olde wild postings, ads in Willamette Week and e-mail blasts. An added bonus: At each show, "serving wenches" will hand out milkshakes churned on-site.

Though it be madness, there's method in it. It projects a fun, community-centric image, says Hunt, and is "a great way [of] putting shakes in people's hands."

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

"A savory sherry cream sauce, fresh mushroom and parmesan with egg noodles." -Noodles

Dooce: Tonight Jon indulged me and instead of having to throw yet another frozen Costco dinner into the oven we drove to Noodles and Co. to secure an edible meal. When people ask me if I cook I say, yes, I do, but someone else does all the prep work for me.

I wanted to order something Leta might eat so I wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of making something she wouldn’t eat anyway. We agreed that we would order Beef Stroganoff. On the menu it’s listed as Mushroom Stroganoff and you have to ask for the meat separately.

When we approached the cashier Jon said, “We’d like Beef Stroganoff…” and then he paused because we hadn’t yet decided what else we were going to order to feed the other 80% of our family, my stomach. The cashier, a pimpled kid who looked like a 15-year-old extra from Napoleon Dynamite, seized the pause to regrettably inform us that they didn’t carry beef.

“BEEF Stroganoff,” Jon repeated because we have ordered this exact meal at least as many times as years this kid has been on Earth.

“We don’t carry beef,” he assured us. And then he explained, “We only carry shrimp, chicken, tofu, and steak.”

THANK GOD I was holding Leta so I could pretend I was tickling her neck with my mouth when instead I was muffling my whooping laughter into the folds of her skin.

“Steak Stroganoff, then, Captain,” Jon clarified.

When we sat down to wait for our take-out order I couldn’t stop laughing, and Jon looked at me like, “We live here voluntarily, you know that, don’t you?”

September 16, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 18 Comments

Ok, I watched the President's speech last night. Did anybody else cringe when he said this:

Many families were separated during the evacuation, and we are working to help you reunite. Please call 1-877-568-3317, that’s 1-877-568-3317, and we will work to bring your family back together, and pay for your travel to reach them.

You know you've got a bad speechwriter when he inserts bad radio commercial cliches in there. And couldn't the leader of the free world get a more memorable phone number to use? You know, like "1-800-4BUSHIE" or something?

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

The Wieden + Kennedy creative team who gave birth to inspirational advertising for Nike's womens line in the mid-1990s are back. Janet Champ and Charlotte Moore have written a book and they have a brand new blog in support of said book. Ripe: The Truth About Getting Older and The Beauty of Getting On With Your LIfe picks up where the two left off, on womens' health and self-image issues, issues related to aging and beauty in particular.

Here's some commentary from their blog.

When Janet and I started working together, some fifteen years ago, we were in offices four doors apart. Over the next fifteen years, we were separated by different doors, longer halls, and eventually elevators and an ocean.

At first we made ads together. Janet wrote the words and I made the visuals, and we edited each other every step of the way. It was a marriage of sorts, the kind where you finish the other person's sentences. And we referred to each other as "the other half of the brain." If one of us had a bad day, the other one was fully responsible for being the entire brain. And all the while we were bound by a mode of communication we simply referred to as Back and Forth, which was, simply, the constant exchange of ideas, feelings, news and creative solutions offered as scribbles on paper or emails from our computers. Back and forth. Back and forth.

In the beginning, all the back and forth was on behalf of our client Nike. Our teeter-tottering discussions about ourselves and the world we lived in became their advertising campaign for women. We were selling athletic shoes, but first and foremost we were creating a small, public forum for talking about women, their bodies, their feelings, their self-images, and self-esteems. This is what interested us. And we probably would have been talking about it all anyway.

Then Champ chimes in.

I have never been beautiful but I've always been attractive to men. It must be my personality. And as men have always always told me, they universally like girls who look like 'they'd enjoy sex'. And I looked like that. And so men were never a problem. And I don't imagine they would be now.

It's more about showing not so much skin, as soul. At least in my life. Being 'attractive' to my nieces and nephews and having all 11 of them thinking i'm the 'cool' aunt is so, lacking a better word, cool. But then again i look at my competition - in my immediate family - and think it's not a difficult thing to be.

Okay so I've meandered. What I'm trying to get at is why I think it matters. And we can't constantly blame society. It's women who get the face lifts and the botox and the wonderbras and try to fuck younger men incessantly, as if they contain the fountain of youth and once we're juiced up we'll live forever. But even sperm fades doesn't it. I wish for once 'age' wasn't always combined with wisdom - as if when we're over 40 at least we're brilliant with experience. And that youth wasn't always equated with Lushness.

Welcome back, ladies.

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

Butler Shine's Influx Insights features a write up on Paragraph, a new work space for writers. Their interest is centered around the idea of cultural hubs and how brands might benefit from the creation of such places.

In the case of Paragraph, it's not a brand, but an entrepreneurial team of writers behind the launch of this for profit collaborative workspace. Memberships go for $132 a month. Less, if you pay in a six month block.

Lila Cecil and Joy Parisi are both writers who met at The New School’s graduate creative writing program. Tired of slogging it out in jobs they did not have their hearts in and desperate for a quiet place to write and a community of writers similar to the one they had found in graduate school, they decided to open their own writing center. A year and a half later, Paragraph was born.

I also really like the commons model. Queen St. Commons on Prince Edward Island is one such expression of this new but old ideal.

[UPDATE] See Khoi Vinh's full write up on Paragraph. His girlfriend is Joy Parisi and he created the website.

September 19, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The New York Times: Chalk up another success for McClatchy, one of the best-kept secrets in the newspaper industry. The chain, with 12 dailies, including The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The Island Packet in Hilton head Island and The Sacramento Bee, has one of the lowest profiles in the business but one of the strongest track records, both for award-winning journalism and a continuously healthy bottom line.

Sacramento Bee newsroom

At a time when many newspapers are cutting back and announcing layoffs, McClatchy is building its properties.

Through the end of 2004, the chain had 20 consecutive years of growth in circulation and 10 consecutive years in which its stock swelled with the highest growth rate of any newspaper stock, up 380 percent.

"We've out-performed the industry on revenue, circulation, not making layoffs and growing our news hole," said Gary B. Pruitt, 48, the chairman, president and chief executive of McClatchy. In July, the company, which has a market value of $3.1 billion, posted record second-quarter earnings of $44.2 million.

The chain also holds its ambitions in check. Mr. Pruitt, a First Amendment lawyer, said he wanted each of the papers to be "the best in the country for its size, or at least our version of the best." He said he had no interest in becoming the biggest.

"We look at almost everything on the acquisition front and pursue almost nothing," he said. "Only if we're in growth markets can we achieve the quality we seek on the journalistic side," he added, invoking the company's mantra that "good journalism is good business."

Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland journalism school, said that various researchers had tried over the years to find a cause-and-effect between good journalism and good business, but such proof was elusive.

"There are so many factors. It's hard to prove the point," he said. "And in the case of McClatchy, you can't sort out their success from the markets they're in." But, he added, McClatchy "is certainly demonstrating by doing things right journalistically that they have done very well."

September 19, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

Steve Hall of Adrants wrote last week about Chrysler's half-hearted entry into the bloatoshpere. Half-hearted because one must present MSM credentials to "qualify" to read Chrysler's press releases. I mean, how late 20th century can you get?

Detroit News: The blogosphere can be a jungle, as Chrysler is finding out. The U.S. division of DaimlerChrysler AG recently launched a Weblog called thefirehouse.biz designed to spark rollicking online exchanges between the automaker's executives and PR team and the news media. Well, Adrants, a marketing Web site filled with news and gossip, didn't approve of a media-only blog. "This is idiotic. This is stupid. This is insane. Completely illogical and non-sensical."

Adrants suggested Chrysler take a look at how General Motors Corp. runs its all-access blog --fastlane.gmblogs.com. Ouch.

Chrysler PR chief Jason Vines shot back on the Firehouse: "It didn't take long for the 'brave' Web-sters to direct their obviously clueless blather at thefirehouse.biz. A recent posting on another blog called our media-only site 'stupid ... insane ... completely illogical and non-sensical.' Hmmm ... I could use the same terms to describe the cowardly anonymous poster's understanding of what we're doing here ... but I won't."

Of course, we all know Steve Hall is far from anonymous. All but Jason Vines, that is. However, I have a feeling Vines is about to find out.

Thanks to B.L. Ochman and Random Culture for picking up on this story.

September 19, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

International Herald Tribune: Amsterdam is emerging as a plucky player in the global advertising market.

Amsterdam-based agencies, particularly small "hot shops" like 180 are snatching multinational clients away from sprawling agency groups based in London or New York.

"We've created a sort of mini-UN here," Guy Hayward says of 180, which is based in the house along the Herengracht canal. "We have people from all over the world under one roof, coming up with lots of ideas for the places they know."

Among the roughly 90 employees at 180, 20 nationalities are represented. That is not unusual in Amsterdam, where other hot shops attracting marketers' attention include Wieden + Kennedy, StrawberryFrog, KesselsKramer and Selmore.

But why Amsterdam? Some might joke that legal and easy access to marijuana provides the stimulus for creativity, but Amsterdam ad executives say there are more rational reasons for the city's development as a creative hub.

Agency heads say it is easy to attract employees from around the world because of the Dutch comfort wirth English, which eases language barriers that might exist elsewhere in Europe. And once they get here, it is easy to maintain an international perspective, they add, because Dutch identity does not assert itself as aggressively as, say, the French, British or American mindset that permeates agencies based in Paris, London or New York.

September 19, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Wired: Apple is ordering several online iPod accessory vendors to stop using the word "iPod" in their names or URLs.

"Although on the surface it looks like Apple is being overly heavy-handed with this approach, protection of its brand is important," Steve Hawkins, managing director of A M Micro, said. "Authorized Apple resellers, for example, have very clear guidelines to follow regarding the use of trademarks. It appears that this has not been the case for the rapidly growing number of web-based accessory e-tailers, particularly the gray market."

Earlier this year, Apple launched a Made for iPod program, which seeks to reassure consumers they are buying Apple-approved goods.

Products are certified by Apple and labeled with a special "Made for iPod" logo.

The scheme requires that manufacturers pay a percentage of wholesale earnings to Apple, and that they use certain manufacturers for some components.

Speaking to Business Week, Apple's vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, described the program as an attempt to protect consumers from second-rate devices that don't work properly. IPod cases are not covered by the scheme, but any electrical device that connects to the iPod using the FireWire connection is.

September 19, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Softpedia: Supermodel Kate Moss apologized to her bosses for using drugs and promised to enter rehab, after a British tabloid ran photos of her doing lines of cocaine in a London recording studio.

Moss, 31, who was photographed by Daily Mirror journalists snorting a line of the class A drug on the back of a CD cover in the studio where Babyshambles were recording their album, apologized to high street fashion house H&M.

Kate acknowledged that tabloid allegations about her drug use are true and promised in writing to obey the company policy that models be "healthy, wholesome and sound," H&M confirmed Saturday.

H&M spokesperson Anacarin Bjorne says, "We are very anti-drugs and insist all our models are healthy and sound. What happened is in Kate's private life, but we are all very disappointed in her. Kate has apologized and was full of remorse for her actions. She has assured us it will not happen again, and we are willing to give her another chance."

Moss, the star of the H&M autumn-winter collection designed by Stella McCartney, is also the face of Burberry, Christian Dior, Rimmel, H Stern and Chanel. She earns an estimated income of $7.2 million a year from these endorsement deals.

[UPDATE] CNN reports the Swedish clothing company, H&M, had a change of heart, and will in fact walk away from their deal with Kate Moss.

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

I haven’t been this interested in a television ad since Robert Conrad was daring us to knock a battery off his shoulder.

Danny Miller is stoked about his nephews' new commercial for Quaker Oats, which is certainly understandable. After all, it was directed by Errol Morris. And the spot serves as the television debut for The Blisters, Sam and Spencer Tweedy's band. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco is their dad. so these kids could blow up like Hanson.

Thanks to Adfreak for the pointer.

September 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

The Scotsman: Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.

The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad".

The chain is being forced to spend thousands of pounds redesigning the lid with backing from The Muslim Council of Britain. It apologised and said: "The design simply represents a spinning ice-cream cone."

The offending lid was spotted in a branch in Park Royal last week by business development manager Rashad Akhtar, 27, of High Wycombe.

He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."

A Muslim Council spokesman said: "We commend the sensitive and prompt action that Burger King has taken."

Thanks to Agenda Inc. for the pointer and images.

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

Julia Set points to this "Pop" vs. "Soda" academic study.

Using the World Wide Web to gather and process data from across English-speaking North America, Alan McConchie plotted the regional variations in the use of the terms "Pop" and "Soda" to describe carbonated soft drinks.

One of the more interesting discoveries (for me at least) is the fact that so many people in the South say "Coke" when they mean soda. I guess it shows the power of advertising, especially advertising with billions of dollars behind it.

September 20, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

The Independent: Unilever disclosed yesterday that its global expenditure on traditional television advertisements had dropped by one-fifth over the past three years and was set to plummet further.

Alan Rutherford, the vice-president of global media at Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, said the value of television advertising was dropping in the face of audience fragmentation and the proliferation of new channels.

Speaking at the biennial Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, Rutherford said that advertisers have to spend 10 per cent more in the US to achieve the same 'weight' of impact available five years ago. 'Advertisers cannot continue to fund that [traditional] type of television,' he said, pointing to new platforms available to advertisers and their ability to create their own content. 'The advertiser-dependent model can not survive. Those broadcasters who cannot resolve this will die.'

Mr Rutherford said Unilever would look at product placement in television programmes " currently constrained by regulations " or branding shows. He gave the example of Unilever's Dove soap and beauty range as a product that could be incorporated into storylines. 'Advertisers are rethinking the mix and that's where the danger comes for traditional TV.' John Pluthero, the chief executive of Energis, told the conference: 'It's about time TV came up with some ideas or it will keep going down 20 per cent.'

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

Bangor News: Using a photograph of a twentysomething Lycra-clad man climbing the rock face of a mountain to sell a Maine vacation is just wrong, Bob Hastings believes.

Hastings, 57, the CEO of the Rockland-Thomaston Area Chamber of Commerce, has nothing against men in Lycra, or courting them to come and visit Maine. It's just that there's other people, with bigger wallets - and maybe bigger waistlines - and more time on their hands, for whom tourist marketing ought to be geared.

"Follow the boomers, follow the bucks," is how Hastings puts it.

The Rockland-Thomaston Chamber's Web site - www.therealmaine.com - depicts the midcoast as a place of friendly small villages with vital downtowns featuring nonchain restaurants and shops, galleries and museums.

The "real Maine," Hastings argues, is a place where couples in their 50s might have breakfast in a downtown diner and hear lobstermen gripe about the fishing in the next booth.

It's a place where a couple in their 40s on an anniversary weekend can have a nice dinner in a fine restaurant or a drink in an atmospheric pub, then retire to a quiet lakefront cottage a 20-minute drive away.

"We should try to create travelers, not tourists," with the distinction being that travelers want to become part of a place, not just gawk from the outside.

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

Business Week's The Tech Beat blog reports that professional podcasting services are starting to sprout.

One of my favorite geek news sites, TheInquirer.net, has hired a company called Podcast Voices to do its broadcasts. Basically, Podcast Voices' professional readers will read the podcast and make it sound no less professional than BBC's podcast. Independent, amateur podcasters are starting to contract for such services, too.

Indeed, Podcast Voices is not the only start-up trying to build a sound business on improving the quality of amateur broadcasts. A slew of start-ups and individuals, some of them listed on voice-over online marketplace Voice123.com, are offering voice, podcast editing and other services.

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

Thanks to Seth Godin for seeding this image of a unique outdoor board from Bloom, a Food Lion concept store aimed at providing a "simple, uncomplicated and hassle-free shopping experience."

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

USA Today: Federated Department Stores said on Tuesday it is planning to cut up to 6,200 jobs beginning next year and change all 62 Marshall Field's stores to the Macy's name in the fall of 2006 in its biggest steps yet since completing its acquisition of May Department Stores.

The job cuts are the first announced since Federated completed in August its $11.9 billion acquisition of rival May, creating a combined retailing powerhouse better able to compete against industry leader Wal-Mart Stores and upscale merchants. The deal for May combined more than 1,000 stores with $30 billion in annual sales.

The retailer said previously that it was eliminating 10 May nameplates and that it was studying whether to keep the name of Marshall Field's, a Chicago landmark. "We have great respect for the legacy and traditions of Marshall Field's, and we carefully researched customer preferences and studied alternatives before making this decision to incorporate Marshall Field's into the nationwide Macy's brand," Federated Chief Executive Terry Lundgren said in a statement.

Marshall Field's traces its roots to 1852.

September 21, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

Andreas Duess, a Toronto-based creative director knocks Seth Godin's Purple Cow thesis. In a nutshell, Godin says stop worrying about how to market inferior products and services and put everything into making remarkable products or services, or Purple Cows, to use the author's vernacular.

Does being remarkable guarantee success? We all know that it doesn't. Take the portable mp3 player as an example. Apple's iPod is the market leader, with a 75% share of the market. But was Apple the first company to make portable mp3 players? Not at all. Is the iPod the most feature rich player with the best battery life? Not by a long shot. The companies that pioneered the technology are being left behind or are abandoning the market altogether, despite having created a purple cow if ever there was one. Their mistake? Not communicating that fact effectively. Not becoming part of popular culture.

So what's responsible for the success if the iPod if it's neither price, nor features? In a word: Marketing. Advertising. Advertising and marketing that is creating an emotional attachement. People choose the products they buy - apart from price - for three reasons, how they see themselves, how they want to see themselves or how they want to be seen.

Successful advertising, in all it's incarnations, including blogs, including WOM, is all about creating the emotional attachment. It's about becoming a part of who the customer is, or wants to be, or wants to be seen as. It's really that simple.

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

Toshiba Corporation has developed two prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) units and begun tests to validate their operation with mobile audio players, bringing its practical use a major step closer.

The new fuel cell units have an output power of 100mW and 300mW (providing up to 35 hours of device usage) and have been applied to a flash-memory-based digital audio player and an HDD-based digital audio player, respectively.

The two prototype players and their methanol cartridges will be exhibited at the CEATEC JAPAN 2005 which will be held at Makuhari Messe, Chiba Prefecture, from October 4 to 8, 2005.

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

Image of "Flickr's Love Board" courtesy of Flickr user Miss Rogue.

Thanks to Horse Pig Cow for the pointer.

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

The New York Times: Three authors filed suit against Google yesterday contending that the company's program to create searchable digital copies of the contents of several university libraries constituted "massive copyright infringement."

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, is the first to arise from the Google Print Library program, the fledgling effort aimed at a searchable library of all the world's printed books.

Google intends to make money from the project by selling advertising on its search pages, much as it does on its popular online search-engine site.

The suit contends that Google knew or should have known that the Copyright Act "required it to obtain authorization from the holders of the copyrights in these literary works before creating and reproducing digital copies of the works for its commercial use and for the use of others."

Google has said from the beginning that its program is covered by the "fair use" provision of the copyright law, which allows limited use of protected works. In a statement issued in response to the suit, Google also said its program respected copyrights.

Some aspects of the Google Print program have encountered relatively little opposition, particularly one that invites publishers to submit their books to Google for scanning and inclusion in the Google search engine. Most of the large commercial publishing houses have submitted books to Google for scanning, in the hope that the program will lead users to find and buy their books more easily.

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

Anil Dash has an interesting take on Google's corporate mantra.

Now, I'm as skeptical as the next person in regard to Google's "Dont Be Evil" mantra, which makes me snicker just because, well, it seems like an awfully low bar to set for a company. It's like saying my personal motto is "don't kick kittens". Easy!

That being said, Bill Gates' reaction to Google's motto seems tone-deaf even by his near-autistic standards of interpersonal communication.

Q: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point?

Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that.

Wait, what? You disagree with the idea of not being evil? Somebody get this guy a speaking coach!

September 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 13 Comments

The New York Times: The Publicis Groupe has approached a competitor, the Aegis Group, to discuss a possible takeover bid valued at around £1.56 billion, or about $2.8 billion, people close to the companies said yesterday.

One person cautioned that the talks between the two advertising companies were preliminary, but a takeover would accelerate the consolidation of the ad industry into a handful of global players.

It could turn Publicis, based in Paris, into a formidable rival to the three biggest advertising companies: the Omnicom Group and the Interpublic Group of Companies, both based in New York, and the WPP Group, which, like Aegis, is based in London. A combination with Aegis, which specializes in planning and buying ad space and broadcast commercial time, would make Publicis the global leader in media services, several analysts said. Publicis already owns media agencies like the Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia.

Aegis, which owns the Carat and Vizeum media agencies and an Internet agency named Isobar, said that it had received an "approach at an indicative level of 140 pence per Aegis share."

Aegis has been seen as a potential takeover target for some time, given that it is one of the last independent players of significant size left in the advertising industry. Its areas of expertise, which also include market research, are in demand at a time when marketers are seeking to spend their ad budgets more efficiently, particularly as ads in traditional media like TV and newspapers are not always as effective as they once were in reaching consumers.

Until this week, most speculation about a possible bid for Aegis had centered on another French company, Havas, which owns the Euro RSCG advertising agency as well an Aegis competitor, MPG. As a company smaller than Publicis, Omnicom and the rest, Havas, based in Suresnes, France, has been under pressure to grow or to find a partner.

"A tie-up between Aegis and Publicis would put Havas even more on the spot in media buying and planning than it is today," Nicolas Gindre, an analyst at Kepler Equities in Paris, said in a note to clients.

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

Market Watch: McDonald's Corp. said Wednesday that it will offer a minority interest to the public in the popular Chipotle Mexican Grill chain.

Chief Executive Jim Skinner told analysts at a conference at the company's Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters that the prospectus would be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of October.

Shares of McDonald's fell 87 cents, or 2.7%, to $31.74 in afternoon dealings on a down day for restaurant stocks.

Skinner expects the initial public offering to debut some time in the first quarter of 2006. He did not, however, indicate how much of the company would be sold to the public.

"This action will optimize Chipotle's potential and create additional value for McDonald's shareholders," he said.

McDonald's own 90% of Chipotle, while the remaining piece is closely held by investors including the chain's founder and chief executive, Steve Ells. There are 450 outlets.

The company had said earlier this year that it would consider "strategic alternatives" for Chipotle, including selling a chunk of the chain.

Chipotle has been a fast-growing concept for McDonald's, ringing up a 34% increase in sales to $430 million in 2004. On average, restaurants deliver $1.2 million in annual sales, according to Technomic Inc., the restaurant-consulting company.

September 22, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Dave Gray of Communication Nation has some excellent advise for transitioning from a worker who does to a worker who directs. In advertising, going from senior art director or senior copywriter to creative director is one such switch.

Do any of these things sound familiar?

1) You do work that your employees should be doing because “It’s easier to do it myself than hand it off"?

2) You work long hours, getting in early and staying late

3) Your team lacks morale, or seems stressed out most of the time, or both!

You may be suffering from the craftsman-to-manager paradox. Here’s how it works:

If you are a craftsman, you were probably promoted because you are highly productive. Most likely you are productive for a few reasons:

You manage your time effectively

You require minimal supervision

You are reliable

You take pride in a job well done

Here’s the paradox: You meet the above criteria because you are a self-reliant perfectionist: your philosophy might be summarized as “Do it right the first time” and “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”

As you move into management, the very things that made you effective as a craftsman are now deadly threats to your success as a manager. Your independence and self-reliance, which was an asset, is now a liability.

As a manager you need to change your focus, from being productive to making other people productive, which requires a wholly new set of skills.

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

Associated Press: The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world.

Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.

The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow, JAXA said.

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

Benjamin Rogovy of Bumvertising (a scheme to get the word out about Poker Face Book) appeared on the The Daily Show Tuesday night, which may be the best place for him, given the hard-to-take-serious nature of his enterprise.

Here's some of his flimsy argument.

Bumvertising™ does not take advantage of beggars; it makes them more legitimate. Many homeless advocacy groups argue that Bumvertising™ is terrible for the homeless community at large. So far, their greatest complaints point to the use of the word 'bum', the theory that these individuals are being exploited, and the theory that Bumvertising™ contracts make it easier for a person to remain destitute.

Bumvertising™ very well might be exploitation. Instead of bums holding one sign, they are now holding two and getting paid more money, thus exploiting their own talents.

The important thing to remember is that these are individuals entitled to make their own lifestyle choices. The beggars that are able to sell their Bumvertising™ space are coherent, semi-responsible, and are often quite savvy in their own business world. They usually have a good claim on a corner, and understand the fundamentals of high volume, low conversion advertising. Unfortunately, due to alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental illness many of these people have no choice but to be independent contractors, since conventional employers would shy away from them.

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

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania has a clever development director.

Every time protesters gather outside of our Locust Street health center, our patients face verbal attacks from them. They see graphic signs meant to confuse and intimidate. They are sometimes blocked from entering the building and occasionally they are videotaped. They are offered anti-choice propaganda and free rides to the closest "crisis pregnancy center."

Staff and volunteers are also seen as targets. We are all called murderers, are lectured to about committing sins, and are told we will pay the "ultimate price" for our actions.

You can stand with others in the community against these acts of intimidation and harassment.

Here's how it works: You decide on the amount you would like to pledge for each protester (minimum 10 cents). When protesters show up on our sidewalks, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania will count and record their number each day from October 1 through November 30, 2005. We will place a signoutside the health center that tracks pledges and makes protesters fully aware that their actions are benefiting PPSP. At the end of the two-month campaign, we will send you an update on protest activities and a pledge reminder.

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

Heather Armstrong is one of the funniest people writing on the web. And her traffic is huge, which used to make me wonder why there was no advertising on her site. Recently ads started to appear on her site and in her RSS feeds. Yesterday she explained the reason for the change.

My husband does not suffer from any mental illness other than Likes Steely Dan Disorder, but I’m fairly certain that he is on the verge of a breakdown. We’ve been trying to figure out how to prevent that breakdown from happening and we keep coming back to the fact that his day job is killing him. I’m not going to go into any of the sordid details about his job because THOU SHALT NOT WRITE ABOUT WORK ON THE INTERNET is the one commandment the Lord can count on me to obey. But I will say that we’re going through a transition right now, and during this transition my website is going to feed us, no pun intended.

I also think that right now is a perfect time for me to go for it, to publish myself and make a living while doing it. There are examples out there of “publishing empires” where one person owns several Internet properties and hires people to maintain those properties for him: car sites, gossip sites, gadget sites, your garden variety boobie sites, etc. You know who they are. What’s so exciting about technology and the state of the Internet RIGHT NOW is that I can hire myself and maintain my own property. And so can anyone else, it’s just matter of working to make it happen and taking control of the power like you would a big hard cock, and there I said it.

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

Christian Science Monitor: The role of the US Internet firm Yahoo in helping Chinese security officials to finger a journalist sentenced to 10 years for e-mailing "state secrets" is filtering into mainland China. The revelation reinforces a conviction among many Chinese "netizens" that there is no place security forces can't find them.

Yet if netizen reaction in China is resignation, the story of Yahoo's complicity in the arrest of Shi Tao, a journalist with the Contemporary Trade News in Hunan, brought a spontaneous uproar among Western human rights and business watchdogs.

They say the case of Mr. Shi, convicted for e-mailing comments made in a newspaper staff meeting to a democracy group in New York, and whose IP Internet address was given to Chinese officials by Yahoo - highlights both a deepening US corporate acceptance of illiberal Chinese laws and a little-noticed rise in the jailing of journalists in China over the past two years.

Yahoo Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong worked with mainland Chinese police to find Shi, according to court documents. So far, Yahoo has refused to offer details beyond this statement released Thursday: "Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the [local] laws, regulations, and customs."

When queried whether Yahoo gave Shi's address to police after a court request, or whether police simply phoned Yahoo offices on the mainland to get help, Hong Kong Yahoo marketing spokesperson Pauline Wong said she was "unable to give out any information like that."

"For Yahoo to say it only must abide by 'customs,' well, that opens the floodgate," says Nicolas Becquelin of Human Rights In China. "Anything can be called a custom."

In the past year, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been in competition to attract China's 95 million Internet users. They have been pressured to comply with local laws that restrict news and discussion. Google has agreed with authorities to censor its Chinese search engine, for example, as has Yahoo. Microsoft launched a Chinese blog service that forbits users from using certain words.

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

Ron Huey of Huey+Partners was kind enough to send this print ad for Weather Bug our way. For the record, the ad was completed prior to Katrina and Rita, so there are no bandwagons being jumped on here.

Mike Hayes, Director of Marketing at the Germantown, MD internet news and weather site said, "The team at Huey+Partners has an uncanny ability to get under the skin of their client's communication objectives." With this ad as evidence, the shop also has a knack for creating timely and relevant communications.

Huey+Partners occupies new office space on Lambert Drives next to Atlanta's Creative Circus, where Huey teaches and serves on the school's board of directors.

September 23, 2005 by Wade Sturdivant | Permalink | 1 Comments

Today’s Common Sense Response To Corporate Stupidity (which results in the unsatisfying acronym CSRTCS, but I digress) is brought to you by the people who created this. A comprehensive list of codes to get around the “customer service” phone trees that permeate the increasingly annoying consumer landscape we all find ourselves in. It’s also a perfect example of what every company should expect any time the gulf between what they promise (insert customer service cliché here) and what they actually deliver gets this wide. And while I’m sure much of this list is already out of date and that the latest phone systems at most companies randomly change to thwart any attempts at finding a touch-tone shortcut to an actual human being, you gotta love the fact that someone took the time to compile this list and post it. It’s like the consumer version of a raised middle finger à la the mouse on those classic Last Great Act Of Defiance t-shirts from the 70s. Awesome.

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

Having spent a good many years in this business working for promotions agencies, the paragraphs below are certainly a pleasure to read, especially in the Journal.

Wall Street Journal: Proctor & Gamble Co. believes shoppers make up their mind about a product in about the time it takes to read this paragraph.

This "first moment of truth," as P&G calls it, is the three to seven seconds when someone notices an item on a store shelf. Despite spending billions on traditional advertising, the consumer-products giant thinks this instant is one of its most important marketing opportunities. It created a position 18 months ago, Director of First Moment of Truth, or Director of FMOT, (pronounced "EFF-mott") to produce sharper, flashier in-store displays. There's a 15-person FMOT department at P&G headquarters in Cincinnati as well as 50 FMOT leaders stationed around the world.

P&G's insight is helping to power a shift in the advertising business: the growth and increasing sophistication of in-store marketing. Almost a centruy ago, P&G popularized the concept of mass-market advertising. Now, in response to the fragmentation of televison and print ads, it wants to tout its brands directly to consumers where they're most likely to be influenced: the store.

In part for this reason, the decades-old hierarchy that rules the ad industry is under assault. Previously, ad executives who designed TV commercials looked down on those who worked on in-store promotions. (my emphasis) Now, executives with retail experience are gaining clout as the world's biggest advertising firms build up departments to handle an area in which they have little expertise.

Hopefully, the promo people can respond to this fortuitous sea change with more class than their above-the-line cohorts have shown.

On a related note, this paradigm shift neatly mirrors the emergence of blogs and podcasting, in that citizen's media is also a ground up phenomenon. What smart brand managers are finally saying is let's build our ad campaigns from the ground, or point-of-sale, up. The top down model, which has reigned supreme all these years, has allowed arrogance the air it needs. Building marketing campaigns from the ground up honors the customer, and makes the ad industry a degree more honest and a tad more humble—positive developments all.

September 25, 2005 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Back in 2002, as we were preparing to go to war in Iraq, I showed my book at an agency who had a branch of the military as one of its accounts. I asked the CD point blank, "So how is impending war affecting the account? I mean, it'll get harder to meet recruitment goals with this current ad campaign." He replied "It's not really changing anything, but it is getting harder to get on the bases--security is a lot tighter."

I knew right then he was full of shit, or living in a dreamworld, either one.

Today's New York Times has a fascinating look at the military's marketing efforts:

The war in Iraq represents the latest watershed in the shaping of public perception of the military and military service. But as the government and ad agencies gear up their marketing machinery to stave off the recruitment shortfall and avoid possibly having to resurrect the draft, they are encountering a promotional hurdle: the perception that serving in the armed forces means more than merely coming in harm's way. Service, in the eyes of many potential recruits and their families, may mean death.

Check out the article. Because I can't think of a tougher marketing challenge. For any client. Ever.

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare: Most advertising goes out of its way to ignore any and all troubling aspects of a product, so it's a treat to come across an ad that plays up the negative and boldly tries to turn it into a positive. That's real chutzpah for you.

A new print execution from the Walrus Agency in New York City tries to make light of the fact the product it is promoting, a Grand Marnier liqueur called Cuvee du Cent Cinquantenaire, is a genuine tongue twister almost certain to intimidate foreign-language-challenged Americans.

The headline in the advertisement doesn't at all shy away from this concern as it declares the product's name "impossible to pronounce."

A certain number of high-end liqueur afficionados might indeed respond favorably to the ad's implicit challenge, but we could just as readily envision many more consumers opting for Bailey's instead.

Still it's encouraging to see advertising dealing with reality and trying to make that the foundation for an effective advertising strategy.

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Pro Blogger has an interview with The Manolo. In said interview said shoe blogger talks about revenue garnered from the site, use of the third person and other oddities.

The ProBlogger - What are the main ways that the Manolo makes income from the Shoe Blog?

The Manolo - In the order of importance, the affiliate sales of the shoes and the fashion, the contextual ads like the google and the chitka, the blogads, then the Amazon, and then the tshirts and the miscellaneous. This, of the course, does not count what the Manolo receives for writing his new column in the Washington Post Express.

The ProBlogger - Why does the Manolo write in the third person on Manolo’s blog? How do readers respond to this?

The Manolo - On many of the occasions the Manolo he has been asked about this, all the Manolo can say is that this it is the authentic voice of the Manolo.

The Manolo he is the Manolo, it is not more complex than this. And, of the course, the readers of the Manolo they react most favorably. One need only look at the comments section in his blog to see the response.

The ProBlogger - How much does the Manolo make from blogging?

The Manolo - The Manolo he is the six figure blogger.

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Izod Lacaoste wannabe, Le Tigre, has partnered with CollegeHumor.com to help find America's hottest college girl.

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Inc.: They worked around the clock or slept on the floor, ate a stash of food, and watched the streets break out into chaos below.

But resilient Web hosting firm directNIC.com, a New Orleans branch of Intercosmos Media Group, kept much of Louisiana online at the height of Hurricane Katrina and through its aftermath.

Holed up on the 10th floor of a downtown office tower, directNIC, which hosts some 800,000 Web sites and is responsible for a further 1.2 million domain names, "didn't lose service once during this entire disaster and has three weeks of backup power secured," CEO Sigmund Solares said in a statement issued last week.

Solares thanked the firm's customers for "overwhelming support and inquiries into our well-being." None of the workers who stayed behind were injured, he said.

"We have people depending on us and we are not going to let them down," Michael Barnett, the company's crisis manager, wrote in his Web journal last week.

Barnett said they were also running out of fuel for the generator, but risked being "robbed and killed" in the streets trying to replenish supplies. "It's that bad," Barnett said in his blog about the breakdown in civil disorder last week, likening it to the Lord of the Flies.

Barnett called his boss, Solares, the most "organized, stockpiling human being on earth, and we all love him for it."

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

For years, big brands have shunned unsolicited ideas due to the legal issues associated with their implementation. It seems the times they are a changin'.

Two Fortune 100 companies (in beverages and health & beauty respectively) want to meet people with superb ideas in early October to help bring your ideas to life.

PSFK has been asked to help find 25 clever persons to attend a round of 'speed-investing' in early October in New York City. Each person will get about 5 minutes with an executive from one of the major brands in attendance before moving on to the next. You get about 6 to 8 sessions.

Note, you must fund your trip to NYC if chosen to attend. See PSKF for all the juicy details.

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Thanks to Frederik Samuels for posting the following ad, created by Heye + Partners.

Translation: Nice Try, Mom...

September 26, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Cincinnati Enquirer: American teenagers spend more than $150 billion a year - more than the gross domestic product of Finland, Ireland or Chile.

These eager young consumers are the darlings of marketers, who pump more than $15 billion into getting them to buy everything from Louis Vuitton purses - de riguer for back-to-school this fall - to BlackBerry personal digital assistants.

But their freewheeling spending is causing more than just fights with Mom and Dad over the "need" for that hot new $249 T-Mobile Sidekick cell phone. It's setting them up for a future financial fall that experts say will reverberate through the economy.

Early overindulgence is leading teens to unrealistic lifestyle expectations, weakening their work ethic and plunging them into disastrous financial practices that will haunt them for life, economists and employers say.

"There's a disconnect between effort and reward," said Florida psychologist Gary Buffone, author of the book "Choking on the Silver Spoon: Keeping Your Kids Healthy, Wealthy and Wise in a Land of Plenty." "Over time kids don't learn to deal with frustration well. They're used to getting what they want when they want it. And there's a loss of energy, ambition and motivation."

Buffone said families of all incomes succumb to overindulgence. "Spoiling kids isn't tied to a parent's net worth as much as to a style of parenting," he said. "It's where parents rely more on things and money than on direct involvement with their kids. It's a kind of selling out."

Former Texas A&M University marketing professor James McNeal said it starts early, when babies are first taken to the mall at the median age of two months. It bears fruit when they begin asking for brand-name cereal at age 2, and gathers clout in primary school when 92 percent of their pestering is name-brand requests. By high school, it's in full bloom when teens trek to the mall 54 times annually to everyone else's 39 times, and know that an average of nine "nag attacks" will lead parents to reach for the plastic.

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

Philadelphia Daily News: Seen those posters for Moosehead around town? They've been popping up on telephone poles on South Street, Old City and elsewhere. No names, no ad copy, just a green silhouette of a moose head.

You're witnessing the start of a quirky marketing campaign to revive one of Canada's classic but forgotten lagers. Whether it works or not, Moosehead's effort to rebuild its brand reveals much about how beer-makers struggle to win hearts and mouths in a world dominated by BudMillerCoors.

Twenty years ago, Moosehead was the No. 3 imported beer in America, behind Heineken and Lowenbrau. Today, unless you live near the brewery in St. John's, Canada, it's practically extinct.

Moosehead faded till it became almost a nostalgic thirst-quencher. According to Shamus Hanlon, brand group director of marketing for its current importer, Gambrinus Co., the average Moosehead drinker is 42. Its biggest fans are guys who guzzled it with abandon in college but who now have gray hair, a mortgage and a wife who's on his case to lose that gut.

When the brewery's marketers and ad agency, Tom, Dick & Harry of Chicago, asked its target audience what one image they had of Moosehead, they kept coming back to the damn moose. Not the goofy one in Saturday morning cartoons. For younger people, there was something appealing - positive and independent - about a 7-foot tall creature with skinny legs and a rack of antlers the width of a Winnebago.

Moosehead's moose is meaningful, intelligent and... horny.

A copy on one upcoming ad explains, "Before mating, a male must follow a female around for a week. One night in a bar doesn't seem so bad." Another says, "During courtship, a moose's neck becomes swollen, his eyes bloody and his temper short. But at least he doesn't have to dance."

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

Steve Rubel brings up an excellent question for marketers. Do they presently have a budget allocated for blogs, podcasts and other micro media applications?

Yesterday I moderated a panel at MediaPost's Forecast 2006 conference. The challenge before the panel was to resolve this question: how can advertisers, agencies and the media restructure to deal with a micro media universe? The consensus we reached was that TV creates awareness, but the Web influences behavior.

While the panel agreed that micro media is going to become increasingly important to marketers, during the session the question arose - who pays for this stuff? What bucket of the money is allocated to pay for blogs, podcasts and other micro-media advertising campaigns? It's not like companies have this money allocated right now in their media spend.

My gut is that the money will come from either budgets set aside for television advertising or search marketing. However, Bob Liodice, President/CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, raised an interesting point. He believes that marketers will create a new budget line in their marketing spend just for advertising in micro media.

As more marketers dabble in this new world the question of who pays is crucial. The precedents set will determine which agencies will be able to win additional business. Right now, the PR agencies seem to be ahead of the media buying and ad agencies, but I certainly wouldn't count them out. They're very good at selling ancillary services.

I've said before, and will surely say again, one to five percent of a marketer's budget needs to be put against citizen's media, conversational media or micro media as it's called in this instance. Brands and their agency partners will also need to start investing in the people who truly understand this new game.

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

Adfreak reports Pants, the house band from McKinney + Silver won the Fluid Battle of Ad Bands III last night in NYC.

“There’s no winning and losing in rock,” Alex Bogusky told us moments before the Crispin Porter + Bogusky band, Ironic Trucker Hat, took the stage at the Supper Club last night.

And when you have competitors with names like The Shameless Haxx and The Happy Endings (to say nothing of the acts mentioned above) in the running, everyone truly comes away a winner.

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

Ad Age: Internet advertising revenue for the first six months of 2005 hit a record new high, according to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, released at the Mixx Conference and Expo yesterday in New York.

For the first six months, ad revenue reached about $5.8 billion, which is a 26% increase over the first half of 2004.

“The consistent growth in overall revenue shows marketers may be shifting more of their total advertising budgets to online,” David Silverman, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said in a statement.
Results show that advertisers feel the interactive channel is an effective vehicle for both direct response and brand advertising, as shown by the continued strength in search and rich media advertising.

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

American Copywriter points out that fashion designer, Betsey Johnson, is bringing her Fall Fashion Week designs to O-Cel-O™ brand scrub sponges.

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

The article below is a good read--it's both funny and provocative.

Reuters: Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned on Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about.

A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.

"When I asked the panel whether people were talking about blogging, they thought I meant dogging," said Sarah Carter, the planning director at ad firm DDB London.

Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.

More people (56 percent) understood the phrase "happy slapping" -- a teenage craze that involves assaulting people while capturing it on video with their mobile phones -- than podcasting (12 percent) or blogging (28 percent).

"Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people have no understanding of what the words mean," Carter said. "It's a real wake-up call."

A blog, short for Web log, is an online journal, while podcasting is a method of publishing audio programs over the Internet -- a name derived from combining iPod, Apple's popular digital music player, with broadcasting, even though portable devices are not necessary to listen to a podcast.

DDB, a unit of New York-based advertising group Omnicom, said the survey results indicate that agencies may be pushing their clients to use new technology -- that is, to advertise on the new media formats -- too quickly.

"We spend too much time talking to ourselves in this industry, rather than getting out there and finding out what's really going on in the world," DDB's chief strategy officer David Hackworthy said.

It should be noted that DDB has an interest in sustaining mass media tools like TV. And while London taxi drivers, pub owners and hairdressers have important perspectives, there are many products and services that sell well to sophisticated audiences online. Having said that, the bloatosphere, like agency culture itself, can be an insular scene with a wicked echo.

I know for myself, I find the long tail of micro markets more interesting and satisfying. Plus, blogs and podcasts don't need to match TV's reach. It's an all-of-the-above argument. Mass marketers will continue to use mass media to gain awareness, and the same brand managers will increasingly turn to micro media to engage their best customers.

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

The Times is running a piece on Maidenform's new ad campaign, but what intrigues me is their old campaign. "Hold it, I know...our Maidenform lady is really a firewoman."

The New York Times: Maidenform ladies are dreaming again.

Many of those too young to remember probably know about the ad campaign that Maidenform ran from the end of World War II up through the mid-1960's. It was the one with gorgeous ladies, their bottoms modestly clad but their tops ensconced only in their bras, dreaming they "went shopping" - or rode fire trucks, or crossed the Nile on Cleopatra's barge - "in their Maidenform bras."

It was shockingly risqué for the time - in fact, Mad Magazine spoofed the campaign in 1962, with "I dreamed I was arrested for indecent exposure in my Maidenform bra." But, it sure sold a lot of undergarments.

The company was founded during the Flapper Era of the 1920's, on the then-radical premise that women who were routinely binding and flattening their breasts would really rather have them lifted and contoured. Its founders were right - women bought bras in droves, and the company took off.

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

According to Church of the Customer, Southwest Airlines is lobbying customers and staff to help abolish the Wright Amendment with its Set Love Free campaign.

In 1979, Congress passed a federal law making it illegal to fly from Love Field in Dallas to points beyond the states surrounding Texas. It was meant to protect Dallas' other airport, Dallas-Ft. Worth International, but has primarily been a lollipop for D/FW and American Airlines.

This summer, Southwest asked gate agents to dream up creative ideas to engage customers about the grassroots effort. Employees responded like fired-up high school spirit cheerleaders, creating homemade signs that showcase the company's Kelleherian humor.

September 28, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 9 Comments

Adland and The Telegraph point to this brilliant advertising idea from 21-year old university student, Alex Tew.

Tew, 21, who is due to go to Nottingham University next month to study business management, launched www.milliondollarhomepage.com in an attempt to raise enough money to pay for the three-year degree course.

Companies can buy one or more boxes for $100 each (£54) and cover it with a logo, which, when clicked on, transports web users to the customers' own site.

Within days of the website being set up the address began appearing on chatrooms, and dozens of firms had signed up. The site now carries 240 advertisements and has 30,000 hits a day.

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

Savannah Morning News: "Georgia on My Mind" leaves everyone with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

About Ray Charles, not Georgia.

That's what surveys told Georgia Department of Economic Development Commissioner Craig Lesser about the state's slogan.

So for the first time in two decades, Georgia now has a new tag line.

At a Thursday "State of Economic Development" luncheon at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center, Lesser unveiled the slogan "Put Your Dreams in Motion."

"This gives us more flexibility," Lesser said. "'Georgia on My Mind' is great, but it doesn't drive people to do what we want them to do, which is invest money and visit Georgia."

The new slogan will be accompanied by a new logo: A more colorful, active version of the Georgia peach.

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

Om Malik: Palm, the company that ignited the handheld computer market, capitulated, and switched away from its own house OS to a Windows Mobile operating system. In other words it has just become yet another Windows-handheld device maker, and lost its “unique selling point.” Proof, that Microsoft eventually wins. Microsoft’s in-house spin-meister won’t even have to spin this one. For this highlights the miscues and missed opportunities for a company that at one point was the market.

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

There's a Cowboy Junkies song that goes, "Good news always sleeps 'till noon."

So when IPG posts its restated financial figures for the last 4 years on its website, they're going to post them at 6 in the morning on Friday.

That can't be good, can it?

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

This is the coffee I like to drink. I got hooked on it in Chicago, first at MoJoe's in Roscoe Village then at The Grind in Lincoln Square.

Here's how Intelligentsia (the roaster) describes it:

A combination of coffees from Latin America and Indonesia, the Black Cat blend is a result of our fanatical quest to build the perfect espresso blend. Exceedingly heavy in body, earthy, spicy, and bold, this blend is exotic and powerful with a sweet finish. Black Cat produces a sublime shot of espresso, and is equally dazzling for traditional coffee.

Last Saturday, in St. Augustine, we walked into Rockin' Bean for the first time and ordered iced espresso. One sip told us it was our long last Black Cat from the beloved northside roaster. The barista confirmed our assertion and looked dumbfounded, but pleased. Turns out, Iwona and Tom Pietrucha, both 26, are recent transplants to St. Augustine from Chicago and the owners of newly opened Rockin' Bean. Hence, the Black Cat.

Great coffee really does bring a higher understanding and fellowship among men and women.

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

The New York Times: Marketers spend a lot of time figuring out what teenagers want. Teenagers are their most desirable and fickle demographic, the arbiters of cool who set trends, influence brand health and part with their discretionary income most freely.

So as part of Advertising Week 2005, interactive advertising agencies tried to answer the question last Tuesday of what teenagers want. The Interactive Advertising Bureau gathered 10 teenagers onstage at the Millennium Broadway Hotel to informally evaluate the creativity and effectiveness of three teenager-oriented interactive marketing campaigns, all before an audience of hundreds of industry executives.

Designed by the Atlanta-based agency Studiocom, Coke Studios is an online chat game that encourages visitors to create their own music, make friends and decorate an interactive personal studio. Since its creation in 2002, the Coke Studios Web site has logged more than seven million registered users, a large percentage in their early teens.

However, the teenagers on the panel, who ranged from 15 to 18 years old, were not impressed. "I thought it was a really good idea if I was, like, 12," said Haley Ratner, 15.

"The cartoons reminded me of those kids who dress up like vampires," said Jill Moskowitz, 18.

After the teenagers disbanded, Juan Pablo Gnecco, the chief executive of Studiocom winced at the reaction to Coke Studios. "They destroyed me," he said.

September 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Spurred on by hurricane coverage, Experiential Marketing guru, Katherine Stone, asks, "Do I seem stupid to you?" in a poignant defense of her native Southland.

I was born in Baton Rouge. I lived in New Orleans for the first decade of my life. I spent my summers in Mississippi with my grandmother in Vicksburg. I now live in Georgia. I'm a true Southerner, and proud of it.

Let me assure you much of the South is nothing like the recent portrayal by Christopher Hitchens in his article My Red-State Odyssey in the September 2005 issue of Vanity Fair. Hitchens makes sure to mention NASCAR, creationism, gun ownership, the confederate flag, and lest we forget, [Southerners] offenses against chastity with either domestic animals or (the fact must be faced) with members of their immediate families. That about covers it! Thanks Chris!

Thats it. I've had enough. The truth is, until now, almost nobody has given a crap about Louisiana and Mississippi. Or Alabama for that matter. Admit it. They never have. These states get little investment and little attention. They're red states, God forbid. They're even referenced in political discussions as "flyover" states -- as though they're simply taking up space between the important places. Their residents are considered poor and uneducated and oddball, and the rest of the United States usually uses them as the punch line in jokes. It's simply unfair.

During the height of the last election, I actually sat in a marketing meeting at a major corporation next to an account planner who said she thought only residents of New York and Los Angeles should be allowed to vote for the president of the United States -- as if the rest of us have no business choosing our government. Enough already. The people of the South and the rest of the "flyover" U.S. are regular, hardworking people and in most ways are no different than everyone else. The stereotypes need to end, as they only serve to perpetuate the feeling that money and resources would be better spent elsewhere. I have lived throughout the South, as well as in New York and DC. There's no more or less stupidity or quirkiness in the South than there is anywhere else, I promise you.

Of course, my Midwestern state is equally maligned. And like Katherine, I've lived in the coastal cities--Philly, D.C., San Francisco and Portland--and experienced the same kind of geo-cultural snobbery. At the fancy schmancy East Coast liberal arts college I attended, one fellow student asked me if they had paved roads out there. It seems the very people who claim cultural superiority based on their obvious intelligence and sophistication are often just dumb asses.

What does any of this have to do with advertising?

It has everything to do with advertising. How can cultural elites, or industry elites for that matter, truly relate to "average" Americans?

Dean Gemmell in Michigan wrote this in an email the other day about Advertising Week, a topic we've basically passed on.

Could this whole New York-centric (and I used to work there?) be any more hopelessly out of touch? I'm sure I'll be writing about it a lot this week the material is just too rich.

Personally, I feel better equipped to make authentic communications, having been brought up in the bread basket. "Will it sell in Peoria?" Quick. Ask someone from Peoria.

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

MediaPost: Despite their relatively low reach compared to mass media outlets, blogs and other consumer-generated media channels can be extremely cost-effective in driving Web traffic to campaign sites and creating interest, said panelists at the OMMA East Conference on Wednesday.

Panelist Brian Clark, the CEO of GMD Studios, recounted a campaign that his agency ran for Audi, titled "The Art of the Heist." Just one-half of one percent of the media buy budget, Clark said, was spent on BlogAds--a firm run by panel moderator Henry Copeland, which sells ad space on some of the highest-trafficked blogs. Those ads, Clark said, ended up accounting for 29 percent of the traffic sent to the campaign's landing page.

Another panelist, John Hiler--CEO of Xanga--cited an advergame campaign run on his site. Xanga users were encouraged to host the game on their Xanga blogs--which garnered 250,000 posts containing the game, and 3 million interactions with the game. He said, "You kind of have to become an anthropologist and study this new digital generation."

September 29, 2005 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

USA Today is running a story on Michelle Wie, the 15-year old golfer being compared to Tiger Woods, and NBA star LeBron James, particularly when it comes to potential earnings through endorsement deals.

She can generate more endorsement money than any woman in history," says David Carter, a sports business professor at Southern California and principal of the Sports Business Group in Los Angeles. "She's going to be in front of us for decades."

Wie's earning power initially could reach an estimated $8 million to $10 million a year through her contract with the William Morris Agency, based on similar golf and tennis deals. Included is about $3 million to $5 million as part of a deal with Nike.

Even before she competes for her first paycheck, Wie would become the highest-paid female athlete on Forbes' list behind tennis' Maria Sharapova ($16.7 million in endorsements) and Serena Williams ($11.6 million). Wie would replace Annika Sorenstam as the top female golfer, almost doubling the Swedish star's $5.4 million.

And that's just upfront money. If she can successfully launch an apparel line with a personal logo, she could earn another $15 million to $20 million a year in royalties.

Wie was born in Hawaii and has Korean heritage, an ethnic background expected to drive even more deals in Asia. She has prepared to handle language barriers, too Wie speaks fluent Korean and has taken Japanese for three years and Chinese for two years among her high school classes.

Carter believes Wie is positioned to develop into an international icon such as Woods or Yao Ming, the Chinese center for the NBA's Houston Rockets: "Her talent and poise is what's very compelling for companies. Her ethnicity is icing on the cake."

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

Ad Age: Demonstrating against the practice of product placement in TV programs, a group of protestors armed with Writers Guild of America West literature disrupted the Madison & Vine session of Advertising Week at New York University's Skirball Center in Greenwich Village this morning.

Owned by Advertising Age, Madison & Vine is a program of annual conferences as well as a weekly publication focused on the emerging business of mixing advertisements into various kinds of entertainment and journalistic content including TV programs, movies, radio shows, Web sites, video games magazines and other media.

One protestor disrupted the discussion inside, a Socratic debate led by Harvard Law professor Arthur Miller, accusing the panelists of not conferring with the creative community when brands are integrated into TV shows.

Panelist Michael Davies, chairman of TV production house Embassy Row, shot back at the heckler by saying hes a Writers Guild member and that producers and their staffs are intimately involved in brand-integration discussions.

Mr. Davies said after the panel that the protestor was misguided about brand integration, especially in reality series. If it werent for marketers stepping up for these shows, they wouldnt be on the air, he said. Theyve picked the wrong argument.

The protestors outside the conference, dressed as Donald Trump and covered in corporate logos, handed out fliers that detailed some of their complaints. The literature said the WGA West had polled more than 400 members, with 73% saying they found product integration not too acceptable or not at all acceptable. About the same percentage of members said that the line between content and advertising needs to be more firmly drawn.

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

Wired: What do high-definition video of seafloor volcanoes and avant-garde Japanese digital cinema have in common? They're both examples of the kinds of bandwidth-intensive information that can be streamed live from remote locations, over ultra-fast optical networks.

And both were demonstrated this week at iGrid 2005. The week-long computing conference, which showcases research in high-performance, multi-gigabit networks, was held at UC San Diego's new Calit2 (California Institute of Technology and Information Technology) facility.

"When you can stream content this high-resolution, you can start thinking about movie theaters as a place where live events can be displayed -- sports, fashion, politics, anything," said Laurin Herr of Pacific Interface, an Oakland-based tech consulting firm that produced the demonstration. "What color film did to audiences used to viewing black and white, what stereo sound did to audiences used to hearing mono, high-definition digital cinema will do to us."

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

According to New York Times, brokerage house, Charles Schwab, has introduced a new ad campaign from Euro RSCG Worldwide in New York, the Havas agency that was awarded the company's brand and retail advertising account in December.

The campaign is directed at current and potential Schwab customers in a way meant to echo the informal yet focused approach of Mr. Schwab.

"It's a bit of a risky move," said Marc E. Babej, president of Reason Inc. in New York, a brand and corporate strategy consultant. " 'Talk to Chuck' sounds like, 'We love you, man.' " But, he added, "it stands to get attention," and "if Chuck becomes an icon for the company, in a 'What would Chuck do?' way, it would help set Schwab apart in the marketplace."

The campaign is part of intensive efforts by Schwab to regain its footing after major missteps after the dot-com bust. The overhaul has included bringing back Mr. Schwab as chief executive, extensive cost-cutting and reducing trading commissions.

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

Piers Fawkes of PSFK and IF spoke to Carl Johnson of Anomaly recently. Here's a fraction of what was said.

Q. You say Anomaly is not an ad agency - surely that's what all the agencies are saying these days. What sets you apart from the rest?

A. Two big things:

1. A true multi disciplined team including design, technology, licensing, NPD, media as well as advertising all under one profit centre. This prevents recommendations being corrupted by the almighty dollar as we have no vested interest in what the answer is for a client.

As they say, 'To a man with a hammer every problem is a nail'.

2. A different business model: value pricing and the ownership of intellectual property. We don't sell time. Ever. We believe in the power and value of ideas.

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

I know agencies love to trumpet their proprietary processes until everyone in the room is blue in the face, but this slide from R/GA takes the cake.

Learn more about R/GA's process over at Jack Cheng's place.

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

At long last, Coors Brewing has found a way to make their key point-of-difference relevant to young male beer drinkers.

Beer Drinkers Against the Mistreatment of Beer Mission Statement

Imagine being packed by the hundreds, even thousands, into un-refrigerated or un-insulated trucks and rail cars for days on end. Standing in up to 100 degree heat. No windows, no air-conditioning. It sounds like a scene from a horror movie, but for millions of beers it's a grim reality.

Fortunately, there is hope.

Our organization is dedicated to the welfare of beer - a voice for the silent masses. We are dedicated to educating the public and pressuring breweries that fail to adopt cold-friendly practices through, commercials, concerts and acts of non-violent civil disobedience and on the world wide web at www.beerdrinkersagainstthemistreatmentofbeer.com. We shall not rest until we have put an end to the unnecessary practice of hot shipping. Because I think we can all agree. Beer deserves better.