February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre for The New York Times: Sure, Disney's deal last week to acquire Pixar is about big money — how Steven P. Jobs turned a fledgling outfit that he had bought for $10 million into a juggernaut valued at $7.4 billion. And, yes, it is about a big strategic shift at the Walt Disney Company, as Robert A. Iger, the chief executive, exorcises the ghost of his predecessor, Michael D. Eisner. But it is also about the potential for big changes in how the entertainment business operates — specifically, in how major studios organize talented people to do their best work.

In the Hollywood model, the energy and investment revolves around the big idea — the script — and the fine print of the deal. Highly talented people agree to terms, do their jobs, and move on to the next project. The model allows for maximum flexibility, to be sure, but it inspires minimum loyalty and endless jockeying for advantage.

Turn that model on its head and you get the Pixar version: a tightknit company of long-term collaborators who stick together, learn from one another and strive to improve with every production.

Randy S. Nelson, dean of Pixar University said, "We've made the leap from an idea-centered business to a people-centered business. Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We're trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It's no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it's a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people."

February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

I was surprised last night to hear President Bush freely admit that our nation is addicted to oil and that we need to correct that problem in a hurry. He aslo admitted that we're falling behind in math and science, and that we need to address this problem to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Naturally, these issues are plain as day to anyone paying attention, but to hear the President admit to our collective weaknesses was refreshing, to say the least.

Today, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, shares his company's story:

c|net: Starting in Mississippi, Cisco is funding a $40 million program to provide technology, world-class curriculum, process changes and professional development for teachers. The ultimate goal is to use technology to create a new classroom experience where students will find that learning is a way of life. Imagine what would happen if every Fortune 500 company adopted a local region or school system?

Using the bully pulpit as only a president can, George Bush has thrown down the gauntlet on what America needs to do to remain competitive: namely, a good education system, supportive government, focus on innovation and the proper infrastructure. The metrics for success are clear. Now it's a matter of doing it.

As a professional communicator, I'm prepared to do my part. In particular, I'm highly motivated to help advance alternative energy solutions. If you know of any solar, wind or biodiesel operations that need integrated communications programs, please let me know.

February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Advertising for Peanuts brings our attention to yet another medium for advertising—eggs.

EggFusion of Boulder, CO seeks to "promote freshness with every impression."

With most marketing communications, consumers may briefly see or hear a message, but rarely do they tangibly engage with it. Yet with eggs, consumers hand-select, feel, break and interact with the message several times. This engagement becomes especially valuable in the kitchen as moms and dads grab eggs to use in meals and recipes for themselves and their families. It's an intimacy few mediums can match.

February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 19 Comments

Live Science: After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams.

On the company's web site, if you click on "Telegrams" in the left-side navigation bar, you're taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible:

"Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative."

The decline of telegram use goes back at least to the 1980s, when long-distance telephone service became cheap enough to offer a viable alternative in many if not most cases. Faxes didn't help. Email could be counted as the final nail in the coffin.

Western Union has not failed. It long ago refocused its main business to make money transfers for consumers and businesses. Revenues are now $3 billion annually. It's now called Western Union Financial Services, Inc. and is a subsidiary of First Data Corp.

The world's first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor Samuel Morse. The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. In a crude way, the telegraph was a precursor to the Internet in that it allowed rapid communication, for the first time, across great distances.

On Jan. 26, the last day you could send a telegram, First Data announced it would spin Western Union off as an independent, publicly traded company.

[via Kottke]

February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

You'd think newspapers would jump for joy when Google picks up their content and links back their original article, thereby driving mass traffic to their sites. Yet, this Reuters article shows that's not always the case.

The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers, whose members include dozens of national newspaper trade bodies, said it is exploring ways to "challenge the exploitation of content by search engines without fair compensation to copyright owners."

Web sites like Google and its specialized Google News service automatically pull in headlines, photos and short excerpts of articles from thousands of news sources, linking back to the publishers' own site. Google News does not currently carry advertising.

"They're building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content," Ali Rahnema, managing director of the association, told Reuters in an interview.

"The news aggregators are taking headlines, photos, sometimes the first three lines of an article -- it's for the courts to decide whether that's a copyright violation or not."

[via Random Culture]

February 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Marc Babej asked Douglass Rushkoff about Saatchi & Saatchi CEO, Kevin Roberts, a.k.a. "Mr. Lovemarks." Rushkoff interviewed Roberts for his PBS/Frontline documentary "The Persuaders," so it was a question, he was prepared to handle.

Kevin seems like a smart and sweet guy to me, for sure. I’ve got no problem with him. I just think his company - what’s left of the ad agency that used to be Saatchi and Saatchi - really lost its way. Their original error was leaving the ad business to become an ad conglomerate. They weren’t experts at being a holding company - the Saatchi’s were experts at shmoozing clients. So they lost the plot of their own business, and lost it.

Now, Roberts is in charge of what amounts to a boutique agency. And his way of marketing his skills is to brand them as “lovemarks.” At best, he’s doing for brands what Aristotle did for plays. Still, it has nothing to do with creating them.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 13 Comments

Piers Fawkes got his panties all up in a wad last night.

Check this out:

What the heck? Steve Hall and gang spend Wednesday posting about a "new advertising" opportunity: advertising on eggs. Woo hoo, let's write that into the media plan shall we? Or maybe not.

I really belive that the 'Ads On Eggs' articles that have run on AdPulp, MIT, AdRants reflect the misservice that the ad blogs are providing the advertising and marketing community. First of all, advertising on eggs is not new. It's been around for years - couldn't any of the experts writing the ad blogs remember that? Secondly, it's dull. Thirdly - and most importantly - 'Ads On Eggs' is another celebration of what's wrong with advertising - disruption and personal intrusion.

As a new batch of young recruits enter the industry, you know where they're getting their industry info - from the ad blogs. I know there's lots of people working hard behind the blogs but all ad blogs seem to do is celebrate the latest (non) viral and shiny ad. While innovative voices in the industry call for the development of intelligent conversation in the marketing process, the ad blogs tend hold up any intrusive ad method as leading example fo their industry's work.

No wonder no-one likes us.

This critique is so off-base, I hardly know where to begin, or what to say. I'm shocked that it's coming from Piers, I will say that. It seems so out of character. I wrote to him and asked him what his deal is, but no response as of yet.

Normally, I would not feel the need to explain my rather obvious technique, but given the situation I feel the need. I rarely say what I think about the ad news of the day. Yes, I hint at what I think in the headlines I choose. But I leave it to you to decide. I consider that good journalism. In this specific instance, Piers must think the headline, "How To Crack Consumers Up" is an endoresement of advertising on eggs. It is not.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare: In the increasingly suffocating world of corporate sponsorship, it's been a dangerous and dirty little secret for sometime now: Just about anything can be had for a few lousy dollars. On Wednesday, that truism was reaffirmed in a heart-rending way in what may well be the most repellent sponsorship deal so far in marketing history.

Desperate for funds to prop up a sagging horse racing industry, Louisville's Churchill Downs has sold -- for what amounts to a pittance -- the dignity of the Kentucky Derby, one of Churchill Downs' and the world's most historic horse races, to a Louisville-based conglomerate called Yum! Brands, that peddles, among other things, fried chicken, pizza and tacos. The publicly traded Yum! (don't forget that exclamation point!) was formed in 1997, when KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell were spun off from PepsiCo.

In his remarks Wednesday, Churchill Downs CEO Thomas Meeker tried to make much of the fact the Kentucky Derby was smartly teaming up with a company that includes among its holdings another famous Kentucky-focused brand, namely KFC. Meeker never mentioned, however, that Yum! several years ago yanked the "Kentucky" out of the chicken chain's name and rebranded it as the horrendously bland KFC.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY: Blogs. 99-cent music downloads. Podcasts. Phoning home via the Internet. Online social networking. It's the golden age of the Internet.

But you wouldn't know it if you've just been watching Internet stocks. Outside of Google and a few other choice names, it's hard to find an Internet company that gets investors' juices flowing — let alone gets them to pull out their wallets. From a technological standpoint, the Internet has lived up to and even surpassed its wildest expectations. But investment-wise, the recent results have been a disappointment at best.

That's completely opposite from six years ago, when dot-com stocks were exciting, but the companies themselves were largely duds. Today's environment says as much about the Internet itself as about the harsh lessons investors have learned. In 2000, investors were willing to buy an Internet stock on the hopes the company, some day, might have a breakthrough product — or any product at all — and make money. That was before the bubble popped. Now investors need to see real products, real cash flow and real earnings before they'll make a move. Internet stocks have become the ultimate "show me" plays.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY: Car-rental giant Hertz has changed its contracts to make customers responsible for damage from acts of nature.

It told its best customers last month that they'll be responsible for auto damage from natural causes such as windstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes. In the past, it was the rental firm's responsibility. Avis and Budget are moving in the same direction.

The general principle has always been that the renter is responsible for vehicle damage, Hertz spokeman, Richard Broome says. Since renters are already liable for unavoidable road accidents, it follows that they also should be liable for acts of nature, which often are foreseeable, he says.

"It's outrageous," says consumer advocate Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety, a group founded by Ralph Nader. "Just because it's an industrywide practice, it doesn't make it fair."

California and Wisconsin have laws prohibiting rental companies from placing liability on consumers for acts of nature, Broome says. New York and Indiana have laws prohibiting the placing of liability on consumers for flood damage.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

USA TODAY: Critics must be thrilled that the splashiest Oscar nominations Tuesday went to high-minded yet low-budget and mostly R-rated films.

But those who follow the money gave mixed reviews to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' best-picture finalists: Brokeback Mountain; Capote; Crash; Good Night, and Good Luck; and Munich.

The films, targeted to relatively narrow audiences, might not attract lots of fans to the March 5 Oscar show on ABC with first-time host Jon Stewart.

Some on Wall Street say that overlooking big films with big stars — such as Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds, Johnny Depp's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's Mr. & Mrs. Smith— also risks leaving audiences yawning at the awards. The broadcast could suffer if such celebrities merely walk the red carpet or don't show up at all.

Yet, Coca-Cola, back on the Academy Awards after seven years' hiatus, is unfazed. "We view the Oscars as destination programming and a great place to feature advertising for our brands," says spokeswoman Susan McDermott.

Others say the famously box-office-minded Academy for once might be ahead of the curve by spotlighting films about complex issues and people.

"One of the biggest complaints about 2005 was that the movies weren't that good," says Exhibitor Relations President Paul Dergarabedian. "But these movies highlight the fact that Hollywood does have something to offer."

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Budweiser does not get everything right. They've run countless lowest-common-denominator commercials, of late. They've engaged Miller in a battle they have no business taking part in (only challenger brands stand to gain from such activities). But this latest piece of news from Media Daily News reveals that someone in St. Louis "gets it."

In a move that's sure to cause a stir at ABC, as well as the other major networks, long-time Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser-Busch will use its buy in ABC's coverage of the game on Sunday to launch its own direct-to-consumer network. Details of the strategy are still under wraps, but the new channel, code-named "The Bud Screen," will debut sometime during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XL, offering viewers the opportunity to download advertising, programming and branded entertainment content directly to their computers, iPods and other devices.

"This changes the whole concept of broadcasting out to consumers. Typically media companies have done that. With the Internet, we blow out that old model and enable advertisers to reach consumers directly without having the media companies sell the ad space," says Hilmi Ozguc, CEO of Maven, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company that will power the new Bud channel.

If you're going to do branded entertainment, why not own the distribution channel too? I've said for years that projects like a branded internet radio station presents a huge opportunity to deliver brand-relevant content, 24/7, at a cost light years away from traditional media buys.

I'll be interested to see what kind of content Bud begins this journey with, but even if it sucks, it doesn't matter all that much. What matters is the fact that a beer behemoth is now also a media company (something former Coca-Cola COO, Steven Heyer, called for in 2003).

[via Adrants]

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Adweek: Users receiving RSS feeds are much more likely to click on feed advertising than regular Web ads, according to a new study.

Pheedo, a San Francisco company that helps publishers put ads in their Really Simple Syndication feeds, found that RSS ads received a 3.2 percent to 8 percent click-through rate during a study of traffic during the fall. Banner ads typically receive a click rate of less than 1 percent.

The best-performing RSS placements, Pheedo found, were stand-alone ads that represented the entire post, rather than embedded ads placed below editorial content. Standalone ads were clicked 8 percent, compared to .85 percent for the embedded approach.

Pheedo said the highest RSS ad click rates were gained by placing ads in every other post, a tactic it found three times more effective than one ad per post.

[In Related News] Pheedo and PRWeb have agreed to place press release headlines in Pheedo RSS ads.

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Ad Age: Coke may think the monster truck-cum-pied piper in its Full Throttle spot plays the hero, but America’s truckers are calling it reckless and have begun a letter-writing campaign to Coke demanding the ad be changed or dropped.

The spot was created by Mother/New York.

“Every year somebody in Madison Avenue gets lazy and does the old scary truck cliche. This year it was Coca-Cola,” said Mike Russell, VP-public affairs for the American Trucking Association. He cited a blaring air horn, a rearview mirror filled with a Peterbilt grill, a larger truck tailgating and forcing a smaller truck -- adorned with rival Red Bull -- off the main road and a driver yelling "Yahoo!” as the truck drives by.

“It’s taking every negative stereotype about the trucking industry and using it to sell a product,” continued Mr. Russell. “It totally ignores the trucking industry and the 3 million drivers who do their job safely every day. It’s the same as putting billboards on the sides of our truck and saying ‘Coke makes you ill. Drink Pepsi.’”

Since truckers have helped make energy drinks the hottest segment of the non-alcoholic beverage industry, the pushback is serious. Mr. Russell said he contacted Coke last week about the spot but got a “lukewarm” response as Coke claimed the truck was a hero and a pied piper.

“It’s more of a demolition derby with a truck leading it,” he added. “I fail to see how this sells Full Throttle.”

February 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

[via Ilya Vedrashko]

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Average humans who start a blog load the software to their server, or if that's too complicated they sign up for one of the hosted services. Then they commence posting. And that about wraps up the startup.

the Trotts

Nick Denton and his Gawker crew are an entriely different beast. When they launch a new media prop, it's drinks for everyone. Everyone that's anyone, that is.

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Adfreak's Tim Nudd points to AOL's new instant messaging campaign, which makes use of the phrase, I AM.

Clever, right? Maybe. But it's none too appealing to the devout, who listen to the thunder shout, "I AM!"

World Net Daily: AOL customer, Ian Millar wonders if any of AOL's marketing and planning directors ever went to Christian Sunday school or attended Jewish services.

He points out to AOL executives that "I AM" is the English translation of YaHWeH, the self-proclaimed name of God.

"He is the Creator and Savior of the world," explains Millar. "He alone is to be worshipped. To take His name in vain, or use as a common thing is blasphemy, a vulgar sin of offense. Perhaps you have not read the Third Commandment, since they have removed it from so many public monuments in the last decade. But breaking it as a means of marketing your products offends the mind of everyone who worships Him."

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Brandweek: The Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau wants to get the word out that the Texas city welcomes everyone unconditionally.

The bureau's new Web site launched this week, glbtdallas.com, features content for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travelers including GLBT TAG- (Travel Alternatives Group) Approved hotels—now standing at 16 properties—and other gay-friendly restaurants, art museums and cultural venues. Other information includes GLBT resources, event calendars, photo posts and nightlife features.

"Oak Lawn, our GLBT neighborhood, is out, proud, always bustling and full of things to do," said Ross Crusemann, svp-marketing for the Dallas CVB. "Our city has the sixth-largest gay population in the United States, and we score the highest among the nation's 10 largest cities based on the gay index."

The gay index is a study published by Gary Gates, a demographer at the Urban Institute.

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Bart Cleveland, of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, sounds like a good boss.

One of my daily goals is to take a walk around the agency and talk to everyone. I really just want to observe how they’re feeling. I want to encourage an excitement within each of them to do something great. Going from good to great is like growing apples, you have to prune and fertilize and water and wait. The waiting part is really hard for me. But if you do all of the things that help, you don’t have to wait long.

Bart has worked at Fahlgren and Saatchi and Saatchi, and in 1998 joined Sawyer Riley Compton as Sr. Vice President, Executive Creative Director. I'm not sure when he moved to New Mexico.

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

I wonder if the mucky mucks at Avon read Beauty Dish, "true underground adventures of an Avon lady." If they read it today they'll see that men have a hard time navigating Avon.com.

My Turkish friend, Ulak, called me early this morning.

"Birdie! I need more of that cologne!" His voice sounded husky, swollen with sleep. "The Avon. Please, Birdie. I need it now. The RPM cologne."

I inhaled, watched my youngest son swallow oatmeal, remembered how Ulak used cologne under his arms in place of deodorant.

"Ulak, just order it online. If you input my telephone number at checkout I'll get the credit. You'll probably get it quicker than if you get it through me as my order went in last night."

I should have known better. Ulak called back ten minutes later, a Turkish tornado of stress and confusion.

"Birdie. Have you been to this Avon.com site? Have you? This is no place for a man. I can not find any section for men. I do not wish to look at all the items for women."

I sighed, accused Ulak of exaggerating, of morning fuzz, of tired eyes. I clicked over to the site myself, Ulak's breath in my ear, and blinked with surprise.

"Wow, Ulak. You're right. I never noticed this before. No section for men."

I stared at the home page, at Salma's pristine celebrity smile, clicked over to "online shopping" only to be greeted with Avon's top female goodies, no link for a man, no shaving cream or soap-on-a-rope or cologne icon to make a guy feel at home.

Well damn, Avon. What's up with that?

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Golf Today: Tiger Woods, 30, has agreed to buy a 10-acre oceanfront estate on Jupiter Island, Florida, for 38 million dollars.

Woods, a 10-time major golf champion, led all US athletes with 89.4 million dollars in endorsements and prize money in 2004 and set a record sale price for a property in what Forbes magazine calls the nation's "Most Expensive ZIP Code."

The 400 block of South Beach Road that Woods would own extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the nearby Intracoastal Waterway. It includes a main house, two guest houses and a beach house plus two boat docks.

Woods' 155-foot yacht "Privacy", which the golf star now docks in North Palm Beach, could be docked in one of the deep water docks, sources told the newspaper.

Woods and his wife, Swedish model Elin Nordegren, became interested in the area because Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik and his wife Mia live nearby. Nordegren had been a nanny for Parnevik when she met Woods in 2003.

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Marc Babej has skills. Few people have ever interviewed David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves and Bill Bernbach in one sitting, and no one has done so posthumously. Until now...

Babej: What do you think of advertising that sells lifestyles or attitudes?

Bill Bernbach: “The magic is in the product… No matter how skillful you are, you can’t invent a product advantage that doesn’t exist. And if you do, and it’s just a gimmick, it’s going to fall apart anyway.”

Rosser Reeves: “The writer must make the product itself interesting. Otherwise, a great part of his ingenuity and inventiveness will be used in devising tricks which lower the efficiency of advertising, rather than raising it.”

David Ogilvy: “If you spend your advertising budget entertaining the consumer, you’re a bloody fool. Housewives don’t buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night. They buy the new detergent because it promises a benefit.”

February 3, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

I'm so glad they've cleared this up. From Ad Age, although it's a subject that seems ripe for The Onion:

It’s now officially OK to show people drinking and people flirting in beer ads.

The Beer Institute, as part of its move toward industry-self regulation, is modifying its advertising code for the first time since 2003. The changes allow brewers to show drinking and “romantic interactions,” within limits, in advertising. The new code also defines humor, parody and satire for the first time as something “readily identifiable as such by reasonable adults of legal drinking age” and requires brewer audits to assure placements are in media reaching a 70% adult audience.

“Advertising and marketing materials should not depict situations where beer is being consumed rapidly, excessively, involuntarily, as part of a drinking game or as a result of a dare,” the new guideline says.

And while continuing to ban suggestions that sexual conquests could be a result of beer drinking, the code now draws a tighter line. Ads “may contain romantic or flirtatious interactions but should not portray sexually explicit activity as a result of consuming beer,” the code now says, replacing the previous guideline that “beer advertising and marketing materials should not portray sexual passion, promiscuity or any other amorous activity as a result of consuming beer.”

Picture, if you will, an executive boardroom at The Beer Institute, where smartly dressed professionals with legal pads and PowerPoint slides were discussing the Beer Advertising Code. With a straight face.

They must've been smoking something.

February 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Flickr founder, Caterina Fake, defends Yahoo (her employer), while perfectly summing up the frustrations I too feel around various aspects* of an open system media.

I've been watching all the blathering about Yahoo! giving up search dominance to Google, which, I might add, is bullshit. Quotes taken out of context by company executives do not an overarching business strategy make. This is exactly the kind of thing that most annoys me about blogs (and, I guess, media in general): the piling on, as also noticed by Jeff Clavier and Thomas Hawk, among others. Based on this sensationalistic headline, Steve Rubel says he has stopped using Yahoo! Search.

People!! Try to keep your knees from jerking! Of course, doing the legwork is a lot harder than jumping to conclusions, in the Olympiad of life.

*Trackback spam, handmade comment spam, churlish comments from anonymous sources and the biggest problem of all--jumping to conclusions without a firm grasp of the facts

February 4, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

I'm an unabashed Apple fan and Mac user, but this column on Wired News by Leander Kahney is quite an interesting read, talking about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, their success, their charitable works, and their images.

Gates is the cutthroat capitalist. A genius maybe, but one more interested in maximizing profits than perfecting technology. He's the ultimate vengeful nerd. Ostracized at school, he gets the last laugh by bleeding us all dry.

On the other hand, Jobs has never seemed much concerned with business, though he's been very successful at it of late. Instead, Jobs has been portrayed as a man of art and culture. He's an aesthete, an artist; driven to make a dent in the universe.

But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. It's Gates who's making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who's taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society.

Gates is giving away his fortune with the same gusto he spent acquiring it, throwing billions of dollars at solving global health problems. He has also spoken out on major policy issues, for example, by opposing proposals to cut back the inheritance tax.

In contrast, Jobs does not appear on any charitable contribution lists of note. And Jobs has said nary a word on behalf of important social issues, reserving his talents of persuasion for selling Apple products.

While Kahney admits it's certainly possible that Jobs may be more private in his giving, he believes there's a disconnect there--especially considering Apple's past advertising.

To the best of my knowledge, in the last decade or more, Jobs has not spoken up on any social or political issue he believes in -- with the exception of admitting he's a big Bob Dylan fan.

Rather, he uses social issues to support his own selfish business goals. In the Think Different campaign, Jobs used cultural figures he admired to sell computers -- figures who stuck their necks out to fight racism, poverty, inequality or war.

This brings up lots of interesting questions. Has Gates' very public charity efforts been his way of making Microsoft seem less evil? Should Jobs do more personally to reflect the iconoclastic Apple brand he's built? Do either of these guys have any responsibility at all to give back to the community?

February 4, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Naturally, twice today I've seen this spot for Vermont Teddy Bear. It's a one-minute direct response spot narrated by Adam Corolla: "For about the price of a dozen roses, a Vermont Teddy Bear keeps giving and giving."

This is just so...so...direct. Does it work on you?

February 5, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Spike Jones points to this iMedia Connection article on Super Bowl expenditures--a cool $2.5 mil per 30 second time slot. The writer, Brad Berens poses the question, "How might this money be better spent?" It's far from a rhetorical question, for Berens asks 28 qualified people to respond.

Gay Warren Gaddis, President and CEO of T3 (The Think Tank) says:

Instead, take what is more like $4 million ($2.5 in media plus another $1.5 for production) and put it into an online experience that generates a deeper engagement with a more select group of individuals -- something people will spend minutes with, visit again, and forward into their social networks (adding the credibility of a personal endorsement). For that budget, you can build one amazing online experience with video, audio, games, transactional elements, talk value, and media support. You'll make a deeper impression. You'll leave change on the table, too.

I couldn't agree more. Although, I might drill deeper and specifically say I'd spend the money to create a branded internet radio station, complete with blog and all variety of podcasts. Under "normal circumstances" that would not require $2.5 mil. But what I have in mind will take that kind of money, because the station will develop original programming. Hence, most of the money will go to the talent--writers, DJs, musicians, etc.--needed to make it great.

February 5, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Ernie Schenck is up by 34 votes in Ad-Rag's Battle of the Adblogs. The score is currently AdPulp 203, Ernie 237.

Frankly, I'll be glad when this beauty contest is over on Friday. I'm tired of clicking over there to see the score.

Isn't vanity a sin? I'm pretty sure it is, although I'm rusty in theology.

Anyway, what is this common yen for recognition? I have it, Ernie has it, George has it...

February 5, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Salt Lake Tribune: Football fans have always enjoyed watching replays, especially during the Super Bowl. Now they will be able to watch replays of the Super Bowl's commercials, among other special treats.

New technologies are changing how marketers are approaching the game - typically the biggest day of the year for Madison Avenue. The roughly 40 glossy big-budget spots to run during the game on ABC today - at a record average cost of $2.5 million for each 30 seconds - will also be available on Web sites such as espn.com, nfl.com, video.google.com and video.yahoo.com; as video-on-demand programs on digital cable; for downloading to PCs and video iPods; and on Sprint cell phones.

In the past, fans of the commercials could see only pirated versions, posted haphazardly and clandestinely. Now advertisers, seeking to capitalize on that interest, want to make the spots widely and easily accessible.

February 5, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

[Pre-Game Pre-Ramble]

USA TODAY provides a list of Super Bowl ads, complete with a one-line synopsis for each.

Some of the spots don't sound too good.

Ameriquest: Patient's family walks in on medical misunderstanding.

Budweiser: Sheep is a big fan of big game.

CareerBuilder: Chimps celebrate strong sales quarter.

Gillette: Five-blade razor is a top secret until now.

GM Hummer: Monsters marry and have a Hummer baby.

Michelob Ultra Amber: Touch football gets ugly.

Paramount: Ads promote Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible III.

[1st Quarter Stats]

- Crispin Porter's "old Hollywood" Burger King spot. Mildly humorous in an over-the-top fashion. But where's the flame-broiled burger?

- Fed Ex caveman spot. I like it. Best spot so far. It dramatizes the brand promise in a smart, memorable manner. Love the line about Fed Ex not being invented yet not being an acceptable excuse (for not sending the package via Fed Ex).

- Diet Pepsi's "brown and bubbly" P. Diddy spot. Catchy tune that fans can sing along with.

- (3) Bud Light spots. Sophmoric humor is alive and well. No surprise there.

[2nd Quarter Stats]

- Caddilac couture. Escalade as fashion icon. Whatever. It's a truck.

- Dove's self-esteem campaign. Great message. Good to see during the testosterone fest.

- Ford's Kermit the frog spot for its new hybrids. Interesting approach--if you grew up watching Sesame Street, buy Detroit green.

[3rd Quarter Stats]

- Fabio's Nationwide Insurance spot. A gross way to say time flies (so you better buy insurance).

- Hummers little monster. Clever and dramatic, but strange, maybe even a little disturbing.

[4th Quarter Stats]

- Emerald Nuts. Winner of the "We're weirder than those other nuts!" award.

- HeresToBeer.com. Preaching to the choir in this context, but the spot delivers an effective, believable message--that beer is the universal beverage.

[Post-Game Recap]

This year's commercials were uneventful through and through, with only a few bright spots, which is hard to understand on some level. When you have 90 million viewers paying attention, you better have something to say. Go Daddy, a firm that made a bang last year with their Congressional hearing spoof, had nothing coherent to say this year. What a waste.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare also liked the Fed Ex "stick" spot from last night's big game.

But Lazare loses me soon thereafter, as he believes the Escalade spot, and the Ameriquest Mortgage hospital spot are "touchdowns." Ameriquest's key message, "don't judge too quickly" does come across loud and clear in the spot, but I question the appropriateness of death bed "humor" used to deliver the message.

Stuart Elliott of The New York Times, was also more generous than I.

The Burger King Corporation offered a twisted, over-the-top tribute to Busby Berkeley, the movie musical maven, by way of "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers." The hilarious spot presented chorus girls dressed as Whopper ingredients, piling atop each other to simulate the making of a sandwich. Let's hope there is a sequel next year honoring Berkeley's big number from "Dames," retitled "I Only Have Fries for You."

Elliott redeems himself somewhat with this critique:

The creation of the new Gillette Fusion razor, sold by Procter & Gamble, was compared to the effort of master fusion, the process that powers the sun. Really. No kidding. This smug, self-important spot may be the most bombastic since a campaign that peddled the 1957 Mercury as "dynamite from Detroit!"

USA TODAY readers liked the Bud Light "secret fridge" spot best. While there have been many funny executions in this campaign over the years, the idea that Bud Light is so good it needs to be hidden and/or horded is ludicrous.

For the crowning achievement in Super Bowl 40 ad criticism, you'll need to jump over to Soxaholix. Believe me, it's well worth the click.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

John Bell, Vice President and Creative Director at Ogilvy PR, invited me to take part in Morph, a new group blog sponsored by The Media Center, a provocative, future-oriented, nonprofit think tank. Part of the American Press Institute, The Media Center agitates for dialog and action towards the creation of a better-informed society.

In my initial post, I talk about trust, honesty and authenticity being on the rise.

For years, we've concerned ourselves with the brand's image. We've been obsessed by the face, when it's the heart that matters most. Today's personal-media environment forces us to be also concerned with the brand's true identity and "real voice," the one its customer-facing employees use every day.

The blog is organized in four parts—We Influence, We Lead, We Imagine and We Live. I post to the We Influence section, along with Steve Rubel, Russell Davies, Ilya Vedrashko, Hans Kullin, Birdie Jaworski, Kelly Mooney, Chris Perry, Jeremy Wagstaff, Alison Byrne Fields, Paul Rand and David Vinjamuri.

There are several other interesting writers contributing to the other sections of the Media Center blog.

API is also behind BusinessJournalism.org, LearningNewsroom.org and NewspaperNext.org.

Supported by media companies like Reuters and Associated Press--API is a place for sharing of ideas, of experiences, of the most successful strategies and operating techniques from the best news companies in the world. At the heart of this process are hundreds of women and men - an experienced, talented collection of media professionals, management consultants, executives and academics. They volunteer their time and talents for the benefit of those dedicated to this business of news.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Barbara Lippert: Let's start with the lowest of the low: GoDaddy.com. Talk about a $5 million vanity project (so bad they had to run it twice). This complete mess was what it took Bob Parsons 14 tries with ABC to get through—a bunch of cliché-smarmy boy executives rehashing the wonder of last year's GoDaddy commercial? Message to clients: ad agencies actually supply an idea and a framework for a spot, so maybe you should use them. Was the geezer senator getting a second round of oxygen this year or last year? It doesn't really matter: he might have required oxygen, but this "sequel" was D.O.A.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Money: In its ad blitz announcing the first ever Intel-based Macs, Apple skewers PCs -- which happen to be Intel's biggest customers.

While Apple is known for controversial ads, the newest spot puts Intel in a potentially uncomfortable spot. Clearly, Intel is happy that its newest customer -- one that's especially rich on cultural cachet at the moment -- wants to celebrate the partnership, and gets some extra advertising to boot. But the commercial also takes a swing at Intel-based PCs, which some analysts believe could alienate Intel's other customers.

In the spot, an announcer intones that for years, Intel chips have been "trapped" inside "dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks," and concludes with the announcement that Intel chips have finally been "set free, and get to live life inside a Mac."

But those "dull little boxes" -- PCs -- are still Intel's bread and butter.

Intel spokeswoman Claudine Mangano declined to discuss the reaction to the commercial from Intel's other customers, including Dell and HP, citing a policy of not publicly discussing the details of relationships with their customers. She wouldn't address the issue of whether the ad created any friction, and maintained that Intel is pleased with the commercial.

"We think it's a cool ad," she said, while taking pains to point out that the commercial was created by Apple alone, without any input from Intel. "We're pleased Apple featured Intel in the ad; we think it's a great way to let people know there are new products available that feature our technology."

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

NYT: Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers.

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam.

Yahoo and AOL say the new system is a way to restore some order to e-mail, which, because of spam and worries about online scams, has become an increasingly unreliable way for companies to reach their customers, even as online transactions are becoming a crucial part of their businesses.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Tim Redmond of San Francisco Bay Guardian is not a big fan of Craig, nor his list.

Craig Newmark, the stumbling, self-effacing creator of Craigslist, was the keynote speaker at last weekend's Association of Alternative Newsweeklies conference in San Francisco. It was an odd choice: Most trade associations don't invite someone who is costing members millions of dollars and who is often described as the number one enemy of their profession to show up and give an address. But AAN is an unusual trade group, and there he was.

So I made sure I got to ask a question.

How, exactly, does a San Francisco outfit moving into, say, Burlington, Vt. and threatening to eviscerate the local alternative newspaper, help build community?

Craig's answer: I only go where people want me.

I've got no problem with Craig making money. He revolutionized advertising, and that's not entirely a bad thing. If he wants to build an empire, that's his right under the (warped) rules of American capitalism.

But don't give me this community-building bullshit.

Anil Dash calls Redmond's editorial "a blatant example of scapegoating horseshit."

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Pocket Lint: Google has flexed its muscles and dropped BMW Germany from its search engine following the German car manufacturer’s attempts to artificially boost its popularity ranking.

The move is likely to send shockwaves through the Internet industry over fears that one company has such power and affect over a website's access to the public.

The delisting was reported by Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, who works to stop websites tricking the system by featuring hidden text or different content from what the website visitor sees.

In his blog, Cutts wrote that the methods used by BMW were a violation of the search engine's guidelines, and that a second company, camera maker ricoh.de will be removed soon for similar reasons shortly.

Moreover, bmw.com.de's PageRank, the algorithms that assign every page on the web a sort of popularity ranking, has been reset to zero.

BMW is thought to be one of the highest profile companies to have a website blacklisted by Google.

February 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Caterina points to the launch of Web 2.0 firm, Plum.

Hans Peter, Plum's founder, said this about the launch:

There are many reasons to start companies. Perhaps we observe inefficiencies and opportunities in the market and realize that we can build a better solution. Or we see how something could work so much better and try to make it happen. Or we want to work in an environment where we can have real influence or hope to make lots of money. All perfectly legitimate reasons.

I start companies for two reasons. First, because I want to change the world for the better—even just a little bit—and second, because it lets me work with dedicated, great people.

Caterina also shares this about the founding of her company:

When we were trying to explain Flickr, we'd tell a story of Stewart's grandmother's 80th birthday party, where the photo albums were spread out across the table from the 20s, 30s and 40s, and how everyone would say things like "That must be the house on St. Lawrence Street just before the War" and "That was Tom's girlfriend Katie from 1974..." -- and how the conversations around the images were the metadata, but after the party was over, and everyone went home, everything was lost; no one knew where the albums were anymore -- obviously they had to be online, where everyone could get to them, and shared...thus, Flickr.

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

Lewis Lazare: Last spring, Jerry Dow flew the coop at United Airlines, where he helped orchestrate the debut of the carrier's glorious "It's Time to Fly" campaign, to become chief marketing officer for the National and Alamo car rental companies.

It took only a few weeks for Dow to initiate an agency review for the two car rental brands that resulted in Fallon/Minneapolis becoming the new ad agency of record for both National and Alamo. The same Fallon, by the way, that handles United's advertising.

After that turn of events, we were hopeful Fallon would muster the same brilliance it brought to United's advertising for the National and Alamo brands. But our hopes were dashed in the worst way late last week when we got our first look at the new campaign Fallon has cooked up for National, which debuts this week. The campaign tagline is "green means go." And it doesn't work. At all.

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Martin Nisenholtz, Senior Vice President of New York Times Digital speaking to Rafat Ali of Paid Content:

"We also acquired BlogRunner last year, which is a news aggregator. We discovered it on the Web because the guy who was running it created the Annotated Times. The site took the blogosphere and organizes it by article content, so if the top story in NYTimes is about social security, then it would take all the conversation around that on the Web and organize that. It creates this nexus of content and community which we think is very powerful. We are taking that and we are adding that back into our website."

At the bottom of the Annotated Times front page it says, "NOT affiliated with The New York Times." Time for an update to the legal line.

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

This Adweek article claims, "Selling Out Is Now In." Somehow, I doubt that. Even in Hollywood.

As those of you who have unsuccessfully courted A-list celebrities for your U.S. campaigns know, despite being offered beaucoup bucks, incredibly short working hours and ridiculously lavish perks, many of these famous folk have said no way for fear of tarnishing their images.

But in recent years, American advertising has been looking more enticing to once-uninterested glitterati. Top-tier talents who either shunned advertising entirely or snuck abroad to sell out are warming up to the idea of appearing in U.S. ads, according to industry insiders, from the executives who negotiate the deals to the directors who shoot the spots.

Maybe most movies are so bad these days, the big name actors are desperate to do work they can be proud of. I don't know if DeNiro is proud of his American Express spot, but he has every right to be--it's one of the best spots on TV.

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Visible World is "the leading provider of technology, tools and services that enable targeted customized television advertising." In other words, they're promising direct mail-style pinpointing for the world's favorite medium.

According to Wired:

Targeting cable TV ads to a particular neighborhood has always been tricky. In the past, if a local gas station wanted to advertise only to nearby households, the ad had to be cued up manually in the equipment shed where the area's cable lines met. But Ted (a Visible World client) used a clever trick. The airline embedded every version of the ad into a single metacommercial and sent it out over Comcast lines like a "choose your own adventure" book. When the file hit special routers that Comcast installed at the edge of Schaumburg, for example, the commercial morphed into "Viva Las Schaumburg." The ad also responded to commands from headquarters: When seats on the Vegas routes filled up, the destination was easily changed to Florida.

Seth Haberman of Visible World says his technology will redefine TV ads the way cheap laser printing revolutionized direct mail. But the underlying concept is even bigger than that. Advertisers won't be limited to just toggling between offers - no money down versus two years of free parts and labor. Now they can dial in different themes. Volvo doesn't have to bank an entire campaign on "safe and stodgy" or "fun and sporty." It can deploy a dozen appeals and drop the ones that don't work. Shooting a dozen spots may be expensive, but it's cheaper - and certainly more effective - than blanketing the airwaves with a single ad that's irrelevant to most of the audience.

By changing the creation equation, Visible World's adaptive ads adopt the "permanent beta" ethic of online marketing - advertisers can continually refine their message, swapping out offers in response to what works. "On the Internet, marketers love their dashboards, their control panels, the ability to see results and to make changes based on those results," Haberman says. "When you look at offline advertising research, it's like going to the morgue. They cut the guy open and tell you why he died. But that's worthless unless you can make a change. The real opportunity is in coordination and feedback."

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jennifer Rice: One of my favorite posts over the past two years is titled Blogging and the Singularity. If you're not familiar with the Singularity, it's the point when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot imagine what will happen from our present perspective. The idea is based on the premise that the rate of change is exponential, not linear; the rate of change in the past is a snail's pace compared to what we'll see in the next 10, 20, 50 years.

Humans don't like change. We hunker down in our comfort zones and don't see change until it hits us over the head... and at that point it's usually too late. I just finished reading Seeing What's Next: How Theories of Innovation Predict Industry Change by Clayton Christensen. If you've never read anything by Clayton, I encourage you to do so. (He also wrote The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution.) His fundamental premise on industry disruption is one that, IMHO, every business person should be familiar with.

How current are you with fundamental consumer and technology trends? With the tenets of the grassroots economy such as co-creation, transparency and customer/employee empowerment? With the opportunities among underserved or unserved customers that cry out for disruptive innovation?

None of us should be in any business but the change business. We must not only keep up with the facts of change, but also (and perhaps more importantly) release our death-grip on the way things are right now. It's completely futile. Is your business structured for flexibility and change? Are you?

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

from Brett's "Google Food" Photo Blog

[via Kottke]

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Those Bastards, the meanest weblog on the web, has given birth to the Dave Winer "Bastards of the Blog" card.

[via Blogebrity]

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

[via Darren Barefoot]

February 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

BMW Audiobooks: Put on your seatbelt and prepare for highs, lows and plenty of twists and turns. BMW, in conjunction with Random House, brings you BMW Audio Books, a unique series of specially-commissioned short stories showcasing the work of some of the finest contemporary writing talent. Each gripping tale is yours to download for free and a new book will be available to download every two weeks. Listen to them on your MP3 player, your laptop or ideally, in the car. So sit back, hit play and enjoy the ride.

[via Random Culture]

February 7, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

Over at BusinessWeek, there's a podcast where Steve Hayden, who wrote the Apple "1984" spot, talks about all the challenges and controversy surrounding the spot's creation.

Honestly, I haven't listed to this podcast, so I don't know if Hayden mentioned that when it was first introduced, the Macintosh was an insanely overpriced, underpowered box of silicon that really couldn't do much of anything, and was really underwhelming to most of the world who were playing with their Apple IIs or IBM PCs.

But it was a cool TV commercial that no one seems to be able to get over.

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

Evan Tishuk of Orange Coat pointed us to this Seed Magazine article which looks at the Super Bowl spots consumers truly liked, not the one they said they liked.

UCLA neuropsychiatry researcher, Marco Iacoboni, scanned the brains of people while they watched commercials from Super Bowl XL and observed their neural activity. Iacoboni and his team focused on activity in mirror neurons, which are associated with social behaviors such as imitation and empathy.

"Mirror neurons, we believe, are a key neural system for social behavior." Iacoboni said.

Iacoboni said one subject exemplified the discontinuity between the commercials people said they liked and those they neurally responded to. The women in question was unable to mask her innate inclination toward enjoying ads whose message went against her conscious and vocal political correctness.

"She came out of the scanner and she said all the right things, the things that you expected to hear from her," he said. "For instance, she didn't like any of those commercials in which females are treated mostly as objects of sexual desire.

"But guess what? Her mirror neural regions were firing out like crazy when she saw those."

Inversely, the same subject didn't get a rise out of Dove's campaign for self-esteem.

"That ad is really nice because it had a very important social message: You don't have to be beautiful to be successful, and you don't have to be insecure if you're not beautiful," Iacoboni said. "And she loved that one, and everybody loved it. We loved it, too. But guess what? Her brain didn't react too much to that ad. All the regions that we think are important for social behavior, the reward system, mirror neuron system, they really didn't show a strong response to that ad."

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Adweek: Maybelline is launching a Web site Tuesday for its new makeup line, Pure, that takes a novel approach to engaging teenage girls and young women. Instead of focusing on its products, the cosmetics company is taking a page from MySpace's playbook and inviting visitors to create and share content.

Built by aQuantive's Avenue A/Razorfish, the site, WhatisPure.com, will debut with polls on issues close to the hearts of the 18- to 24-year-old female target: beauty, fashion, music and Tom Cruise, among others. Visitors will be encouraged to create their own topics, share them with friends and upload personal photos.

One thing the site will not do much is hawk products. Instead, it will carry only a small link to product information at the bottom of Web pages. "We were thinking of the ways to talk to our consumer that she's not accustomed to being spoken to by a CPG (consumer packaged goods) brand," said Kristen Yraola, director of Internet at Maybelline New York.

Print ads for Pure will follow later this month.

Yraola said the average Maybelline Pure customer is a typical MySpace user: young and comfortable with the Web as a two-way medium. To reach her, Maybelline is advertising WhatisPure.com with a two-week blitz on MySpace, featuring rich-media ads with poll questions for girls to answer. It is relying on visitors to spread word of the site to their friends to build an audience, Yraola said. One concession to the freewheeling nature of such sites: Maybelline will screen all content before it goes live.

Gary Stein, director of client services at BuzzMetrics, a word-of-mouth research firm partly owned by Adweek parent company VNU, warned that advertisers need to tread carefully when trying to be the hub of pop-culture chatter. "Do [young girls] want to have that conversation with the brand?" he said. "It's tough, particularly if you're a CPG company."

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Adweek: Visa today unveiled its first new branding direction in 20 years, according to Suzanne Lyons, its executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

The tagline, ending the decades-long reign of "It's everywhere you want to be," is "Life takes Visa," Lyons said.

This marks the first major Visa effort from Omnicom's TBWA\Chiat\Day in Playa del Rey, Calif., since the client moved to that agency from sibling BBDO in November.

The "Life takes Visa" tag was chosen by TBWA\C\D creative chief Lee Clow," Lyons said. "He walked into a room in his sandals and shorts where we had hundreds of taglines posted all over. He pointed to 'Life takes Visa' and said, 'That's a good one.'"

February 8, 2006 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 0 Comments

Technorati's CEO, David Sifry just release his latest State of the Blogosphere Report

Among the highlights:

• Technorati now tracks over 27.2 Million blogs
  
• The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a half months
  
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
  
• On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
  
• 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
  
• Spings (Spam Pings) can sometimes account for as much as 60% of the total daily pings Technorati receives
  
• Sophisticated spam management tools eliminate the spings and find that about 9% of new blogs are spam or machine generated
  
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
  
• Over 81 Million posts with tags since January 2005, increasing by 400,000 per day
  
• Blog Finder has over 850,000 blogs, and over 2,500 popular categories have attracted a critical mass of topical bloggers

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jason Calacanis on Gawker Media's latest media property and what it means for the future sale of Nick Denton's company:

I never believed Nick when he told me he wouldn't sell Gawker (especially not after all my pals at the big portals told me that he was meeting with them). However, watching Valleywag alienate 90% of the industry over the past couple of days in such a personal and vicious way, Nick's convinced me that he could really care less.

I mean, how long can Gawker Media have a business relationship with Yahoo or Google at this rate?

In the comments on Calacanis' site, Denton responds:

Jason, that's the sweetest thing you've ever written. I think of Valleywag as Gawker Media's poison pill. No way any media company would want to own Gawker and Defamer given the sites' tendency to dwell on the embarrassment of the moguls. With Valleywag, now we should be safe from the attentions of the tech companies too. And if none of those sites are sufficiently off-putting, there's always Fleshbot.

Thanks to Blogebrity for the chart.

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

I've had a Yahoo email address for years. I use it whenever I buy something online. Recently, I've been reading about the company's beta release of its new Yahoo! Mail product. The more I hear, the more patience I lose with the existing model. Come on Yahoo, help a brother out.

Here's what Khoi Vinh of Subtraction is saying:

For security reasons, POP3 traffic is restricted to me during the workday now, so now I have to rely on Web-based email clients, a genre of net software for which I’ve never managed to drum up very much enthusiasm. Managing my email box over the Web is a bit like providing technical support to my mother over the phone; it’s halting and inelegant at best, and frustrating and time-consuming at worst. No matter how many gigabytes of free storage and no matter how much Ajax-goodness is conscripted into the service of the user interface, Web-based mail clients can’t hold a candle to the experience of a desktop email client — even one as convoluted and inscrutable as Microsoft Outlook. And that’s saying a lot.

However, the beta release of Yahoo Mail comes close. To amend my unfortunate workday exile from POP3, I started to use this stunning online email client last week, thanks to a scarce beta invitation rounded up for me by my friend Richard. Having been in a private beta testing phase since last fall, it’s by now the consensus that this version of Yahoo Mail will be, once it’s released, the best Web client available — I happen to agree.

You’ve probably heard that the new Yahoo Mail goes to extraordinary lengths to approximate the interaction behaviors of a desktop email client. It’s something altogether more amazing, though, when you see it and use it for yourself: messages can be dragged and dropped into folders, email addresses are auto-completed as you compose new messages, and right-clicking produces true and useful contextual menus. It’s a uniformly well-executed experience that’s far and away superior to the whiz-bang eyesore of its most obvious rival, Google’s Gmail. This is due in no small part to the fact that the new Yahoo Mail is hugely more beautiful than all of its competition; its aesthetic is first-rate and realized with aplomb. Fit and finish counts.

February 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 11 Comments

BL Ochman wrote the following text (all I did was write the headline): Never mind not integrating their campaigns with new media, several advertisers didn't even include a URL in their multi-gazillion-dollar Super Bowl commercials!

That's completely ridiculous in light of comScore Networks research showing that some advertisers, led by Budweiser, saw huge spikes in website traffic while and immediately after their commercials aired.

Not on the traffic spike list: Burger King. How come? Crispin Porter's ad sent viewers to the easy-to-misspell whopperettes.com instead of Burgerking.com.

You gotta sell the product guys, not your own cleverness. Doh. And, hey, the King is just creepy.

Madison Avenue, especially some of the planet's largest ad agencies, has had 10 years to get the Web, and it's still a wild frontier to them. Wake up you guys. Get over yourselves!

Start talking to customers, bloggers, and consultants with new media experience. Get with the program. Or you can just keep talking to yourselves.

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Lewis Lazare: With loud praise for the success of its Super Bowl commercials for Anheuser-Busch still ringing, DDB/Chicago took a huge hit Wednesday: Computer behemoth Dell is moving its domestic consumer advertising account to BBDO/Atlanta. The lost business is believed to be worth a whopping $250 million.

The Dell move also is an ugly mark on the report card of DDB/Chicago President and CEO Dana Anderson, who jumped from Foote Cone & Belding/Chicago nearly two years ago to take the helm at the city's second-largest shop. Lauded at the time for her management and pitch skills, Anderson, who has been largely out of sight since then, seems to have failed in large measure to significantly boost DDB's fortunes after assuming the top job there.

By all accounts, Dell can be a difficult client. And it didn't help that the computer company has had some earnings issues of late. But DDB's relationship with the client certainly wasn't helped either by the fact the agency's consumer-focused creative has been mostly a big bust since the popular Dell Dude was retired several years ago.

But even the Dell Dude wasn't DDB's invention. He was inherited from Dell's previous agency, Lowe/New York. Last year there were rumors the Dude might return to give Dell's ad profile a lift, but it didn't happen.

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ad Age: Madison Avenue needs to figure out emerging media -- fast -- or lose billions of dollars to someone who will, warned one of the nation’s top marketing executives.

“Major money is going to be in motion in the next decade and yet no one really understands exactly where it will land, or even if it will land, or just disappear altogether,” John Stratton, VP-chief marketing officer at Verizon Wireless, said in a stirring address to 400 marketing, media and content producers at Advertising Age’s Madison & Vine Conference at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Mr. Stratton, who controls a budget of more than $2 billion, exhorted agencies to take action: “Your clients are in trouble. They are looking to you to save them.” He said the ad inventory that has been sold for the last 50 years “no longer works,” and marketers “have started to figure that out.” In the process, “your clients will fire, hire, fire, and hire agency after agency ... seeking someone –- anyone! -- who can help them perhaps on where to go next.”

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Forbes: Why should grownups be the only ones getting the good investment advice?

Warren Buffett, a.k.a. the Oracle of Omaha, has signed on to do an animated children's TV program called The Secret Millionaire's Club. The show, which is being produced by DIC Entertainment of Burbank, Calif., will focus on financial literacy--hoping no doubt to stave off the poor money choices of later life. In the short run, it may keep a few more coins in the piggy bank.

Now if you're worrying that Buffett is becoming one of those have-your-people-call-my-people, glam-Hollywood types, relax. DIC Entertainment apparently finds much of the voice-over talent for its other kids' shows in Buffett's home town.

And it should be noted that the DIC deal is not the billionaire investor's only appearance in cartoon form: His life became the subject of a Japanese manga, translated into English and published by John Wiley in 2004. The Japanese cartoon honor has been bestowed on only a few business icons, to wit, Microsoft Chairman (and Buffett bridge partner) Bill Gates and Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan Motor.

[via Jonathan Hernandez]

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Adweek: Frito-Lay has awarded its Doritos ad account to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the client has confirmed. Estimated billings exceed $30 million.

"The Doritos brand is a true icon and we look forward to being part of the Frito-Lay team," said Jeff Goodby, shop chairman and co-cd. "This is a chance to put Doritos front and center in people's minds where it belongs."

BBDO remains the client's worldwide partner and continues to handle its Lays and Cheetos products in the U.S., which had estimated 2005 media spends of $70 million and $15 million, respectively.

Plano, Texas-based Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo, consolidated all of its advertising work at Omnicom shops in 1998.

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

[via Snark Hunting]

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Katie Foley, a student at UGA in Athens, is blogging from Torino as one of six members of Coca-Cola's new Torino Coversations.

I just arrived in Torino last night, and as I took my first walk through town, I found myself in awe of this beautiful city. I've been to Italy once before, and everything about Italian culture inspires me to step back and appreciate the small things in life, like bumping into a friend on the street, or getting a cup of coffee. Europeans simply love life and cherish family, friends and food above all else.

It might have been nice had Coca-Cola recruited six great writers from the college ranks. Even so, this is a move in the right direction for Coca-Cola.

[via Micropersuasion]

February 9, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Since Yahoo is my browser's home page, I can't help notice the ad banners on there. Today it's for The Beverage Institute For Health And Wellness.

Which is Coca-Cola, in other words.

I suppose this is a new tack as Coke tries anything and everything to position itself as more than just a soft drink maker. But this site, an ersatz hydration nutrition portal with a MD advisory board and all, is just weird. Sections entitled "Are You Thirsty?" and "Hydration and You" in particular crack me up.

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

A writer on the Fallon Planning Blog explores the continued need for traditional advertising agencies in the wake of so many upstart services intent on helping clients help themselves.

The days (and fortunes) grow shorter for the traditional ad agency as nimble upstarts leverage technology advances to subvert our long-held business models. Below are some examples that traffic in client self-sufficiency.

The post goes on to list Spot Runner, blogads, Google's AdSense and others currently offering clients their version of the DIY ad model.

I'm all for disruptive innovation, but blogads is not going to replace agency media buyers. And AdSense is not going to replace the need for "creative" web banners.

In my little corner of the ad world, I'm intent on helping introduce clients to blogvertising in particular, and conversational media in the broader sense. Since blogs are all about self-publishing, does this mean I ought to simply load the software to the client's server, then stand back and let them fire away? No. First, a prospective client needs to explore these issues:

Will it be a PR blog, marketing blog, CEO’s blog or some other creation yet to be invented?

Who will write it?

Who will manage it?

Will the blog allow comments?

If so, do you want to moderate them?

In other words, blogvertising is slightly more complicated than it seems on the surface.

The rise of citizen's media is not a threat to the agency business. Brand managers still need consultants or "partners" to help them create content and place it in the right spot, at the right time. It seems to me, this is true now, more so than ever.

February 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 15 Comments

Did I miss the mandatory ad blog etiquette meeting? I must have, because not one, but four, prominent ad bloggers have gone out of their way to school me recently.

Ad-Rag's DaBitch wanted to know why I felt the need to "take" copyrighted photos from Flickr.

I thought

"Additional Information

This photo is public © All rights reserved "

Meant that you can't repost it. Or shant rather, because clearly, you can.

Then, Piers Fawkes of PSFK objected to my coverage of the ads-on-eggs story, while questioning why I could not recall every last bit of ad trivia.

It's not "yet another medium for advertising" - it's an old medium whose time came and went. Remember?

Piers went on to say much nastier things on his IF blog. But none of this compares to today's admonition from Steve Hall, the king of all ad bloggers.

I've refrained from saying anything about this for a long time, your practice of pasting content from other's blogs and news organizations without adding much, if any, of your own words is, well, troubling.

Sure blogging is about linking and all that but many bloggers, myself included do a lot of hard work to write original stories that, while yes they may link to other content, provide the reader with something new, informative, insightful and hopefully rewarding.

Your blog is getting a lot of notoriety now and sooner or later people may not take kindly to this editorial approach.

And he was correct, for BL Ochman added her two cents in a timely manner.

It's not that I don't want you to point to my stories. It's that you used my post verbatim but did not put it in quotes and say "B.L. Ochman wrote:....

That is what I do on my blog and what I would appreciate you doing when you quote me in the future.

That is also what my and a lot of other bloggers' Creative Commons licenses require when our content is used.

What you wrote is the headline, and it's a good one. There is a way to do this that is fair, and it's not the one you have chosen to use.

I work in advertising. Thus, my skin is elephant-like. In other words, I'm open to criticism and regularly learn from it.

I always link back to the content I lift. How that violates the nonexistent style guide we're all working from, I'm still trying to understand. But with all the help I'm getting, I'm sure it'll become clear in no time.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare reports that U.S. Cellular has signed a five-year, $5.2 million agreement with the St. Louis Cardinals that makes U.S. Cellular the exclusive wireless sponsor of the team.

Let's keep this strange world of sponsorship straight, if we can. The world champs from Chicago's south side play their home games at U.S. Cellular Field, but the red birds to the south are now U.S. Cellular's team du jour.

This is sports! One team at a a time, please.

Otherwise people might start to think sponsorship doesn't mean anything.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Courtesy of Tom Asacker: Abraham Lincoln on chopping down a tree

"If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe".

Instead, what do most marketers do? They take a whack at the tree, put down the axe, measure the cut, pick up the axe, whack the tree in a different spot, and repeat ad nauseum. Exhausting, to say the least.

But it looks like a few marketers may be catching on. This just in from BtoB Online:

Marketers say intellectual capital key in �06

Feb 8, 2006 New York�A renewed investment in intellectual capital and less of an obsession with return on investment are among the major themes that will dominate the marketing landscape this year, according to panelists who spoke at the Business Marketing Association�s What to Expect in 2006 event Wednesday in New York.

Read the rest at acleareye.com.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The New York Times: An investigation by the WPP Group into its own operations in Italy is pitting its pugnacious chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, against an equally aggressive Italian businessman and casting light on a disorderly corner of Sir Martin's normally tightly controlled empire.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: That's a great lead. I don't want to mess with it. I want to show it to you. Okay, back to the story.]

Early last month, WPP fired Marco Benatti, a consultant who was in charge of acquisitions in Italy, as part of a continuing investigation into suspected fraud. Other executives in Italy will also be dismissed soon as a result of the inquiry, according to a person close to that investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears of legal action.

Mr. Benatti has already called the firing "brutal" and "unjustified." He plans to file a lawsuit soon against WPP, contending that he was treated unfairly, said an executive briefed on his plans.

The dispute between Sir Martin and Mr. Benatti is turning into the advertising industry equivalent of a street fight, where blows and counterattacks are not landed with fists. Instead, they are being carried out through press releases and by public relations executives who are whispering to journalists.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Bozeman Daily Chronicle: The Bozeman City Commission overturned an ordinance allowing private advertising on city-owned vehicles Monday night.

In a 3-2 vote commissioners Kaaren Jacobson, Steve Kirchhoff and Jeff Rupp voted to overturn a previous ordinance allowing businesses to advertise on city-owned vehicles -- specifically the city's fleet of garbage trucks.

City Manager, Chris Kukulski, said advertising could have generated as much as $150,000 toward the city's recycling program.

Since the city's landfill was closed down, Kukulski said, the recycling program has been "in the red" by as much as $150,000.

"I'm not intending this as a way of cheapening the city," Kukulski said. "I'd just like to try it."

[via Adfreak]

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Can this guy sell, or what? Look at this spin on his agency's ambidexterity.

Adweek: Mike Musachio will run TracyLocke's Wilton, Conn., and New York offices as president and chief creative officer, the agency said.

With twin headquarters in Dallas and Wilton, Omnicom Group's TracyLocke is an agency that offers equal emphasis on promotion as well as traditional brand advertising, Musachio said. When the agency pitches an account, it does not distinguish between the two headquarters, he said.

"Most traditional agencies build brands, but they don't do much to build volume," he said. "Promotions agencies build volume, but they don't do much to build brands. We do both."

[EMPHASIS ADDED]

TracyLocke chief executive Ron Askew called Musachio "a proven leader who has brought growth from new and existing clients."

Some old-schoolers still scoff at their below-the-line cohorts. But here's the bottom line on this argument—money talks and bullshit walks.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Chris Perry, Senior Vice President at Weber Shandwick is one of the PR heavyweights laying it down on Morph, "the Media Center conversation."

Are you listening to the market and adapting your communications to become part of the conversation? Or are you even looking in the right places to understand where your message may be heard?

We need to make sure our colleagues aren't sitting comfortably at their desks thinking what they did even six months ago is adequate to handle business today. If we don't push our industries, and our people, to evolve with the times the relevance of our methods and trust in our counsel will evaporate overnight.

As Jennifer Rice said, change is the only business to be in right now.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

I believe what is not said is often just as important as what is said. Therefore, I leave a lot out of my writing. This post is meant to fill a few holes.

Yesterday, Steve Hall made a public cry for me to write "original" material in this space. Like he does in his.

I have nothing against that approach, but I have other ideas about what we're up to with AdPulp. As some of our supporters have said, they find a good mix of news clips, commentary, interviews, etc. here. I'm heartened by that, but let me throw this at you: part of what spurs us on is the simple act of gathering the best bits of news and making a shared "scrapbook" or collection, for all to use.

Even if all we did was clip, there's still an art to the process. With open-source media like this, we have the audacity to edit, not only ourselves, but the entire world of written matter. That's bold. It's also the reality of the day.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Economist: "News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising,” said Reuven Frank, a former head of NBC news. So what sort of business is public relations (PR), which spends half its time huffing about bad news; and the rest puffing politicians, companies and celebrities?

The answer is that, for business, PR is an increasingly vital marketing tool—especially as traditional forms of advertising struggle to catch consumers' attention. The goal of PR is usually to secure positive coverage in the media, and the well-worn tactics include calling a press conference, pitching stories directly to journalists, arranging eye-catching events, setting up interviews and handing out free samples. But as PR profits from advertising's difficulties, it is taking up a host of new stratagems—and seeking to move up the corporate pecking order.

Some journalists regard PR people as a nuisance, or worse. Even so, PR is surprisingly effective, at least according to a recent study by Procter & Gamble, the world's biggest consumer-products group. P&G is a firm that marketers pay a lot of attention to, not least because of its advertising budget of some $4 billion. It has always been at the cutting-edge of marketing—P&G is credited with inventing the television soap opera as a new way to sell goods. But with fewer people watching television and the circulation of many papers and magazines declining, the firm has become pickier about where it spends its advertising budget. Increasingly, it wants a measurable return on investment from its campaigns.

In a recent internal study, P&G concluded that the return was often better from a PR campaign than from traditional forms of advertising, according to Hans Bender, the firm's manager of external relations. One reason is that in comparison with many other types of marketing, PR is cheap. In P&G's case, it can represent as little as 1% of a brand's marketing budget.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Geek Entertainment TV is "an emerging global media empire, reporting three times a week from deep inside the bubble as it re-inflates. GETV covers buzzword compliant topics such as web 2.0, tagging, AJAX, social software and the bubble juice known as VCs. We like robots, so you'll hear about that too."

GETV was founded by Irina Slutsky and Eddie Codel. Irina is a writer, blogger and bubble know-it-all who once covered bubble 1.0 stories for a big Internet magazine that still publishes today. Eddie is a contract systems geek by day, conference organizer, people connector and robot lover.

[BLATANT PLUG] Irina, like me, is also a contributor to Morph, "the Media Center conversation."

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

This is what Amersterdam, Holland looks like to two reformed Mormons, in the country for a week as guests of the tourism office. See the rest of the Flickr set here.

Oh, Heather and Jon, be good secularists and get thee to a hashery.

February 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

By Chris Isidore for Business Journalism: Reporters who want to cover the business side of the Olympics will find it's easier to do than covering the dollar and cents of most professional American sports, whose team owners are far less forthcoming about opening their books.

The International Olympic Committee releases its finances every four years. The most recent report, which covers the period from 1997 through the 2000 games in Sydney, can be found on the group's Web site, www.Olympics.org, under the heading of Organization.

For the record, the IOC will see broadcast revenue this year of just under $1.5 billion, up from $1.3 billion it got at Sydney in 2000 and $738 million it got from the less lucrative Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 1998. Of TV rights fees for Athens, $798 million, or just over half, comes from NBC Universal, the General Electric unit that is broadcasting the games in the United States.

NBC has the U.S. broadcast rights through the 2012 games in a yet-to-be-selected city. Its rights fees for the upcoming games are as follows:

$614 million for the 2006 Torino Winter Games.

$894 million for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

$820 million for the 2010 Vancouver, B.C. Winter Games.

$1.181 billion for the 2012 Summer Games.

Despite the steep rights fees, General Electric has been able to report a profit from its Olympic broadcasts, unlike the losses reported by networks paying top dollar sports rights fees, such as the NFL, Nascar or Major League Baseball.

February 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Radical Careering is not a book. It is, in fact, a multi-media experience.

Sure, it looks like a book in this photo, but trust me on this, it's not. Not in the traditional narrative sense. It's much more poetic and random. The randomness is by design, and gives the book a kinship with Medicine Cards or tarot.

The book looks and acts like a web site. It has that flip through feel scrolling provides.

RadicalCareering.com, which offers a ton of stuff to look at and play with also has 20 microsites. Not all are currently active, but most are. The sites have names like Forehead-Smack.com, Ramen-Noodles-Again.com, Portable-Equity.com, Ultimate-Competitive-Advantage.com, Anti-Vanila.com and Divorce-Lawyers-R-Us.com.

On Forehead-Smack, this advise is freely offered:

- I will not call someone an idiot while on speakerphone

- I will not let other people take the blame for my flatulence

- I will not accept lies from a boss in exchange for a paycheck

Pretty solid stuff with a slice of Onion, in other words.

In the book, Hogshead gives 100 radical truths to help move one's career forward. Many of them speak to me, but this one particularly so:

Radical Truth #99 Expressing your truest self is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Traditional corporate culture induces mind-numbing homogeny. Success requires fitting in. The game is to get the "right" suit, the "right" handshake, the "right" letterhead. Hundreds of books tell you how to be right.

But "right" is standard. Boring. And frankly, beneath you.

Sally Hogshead tells it like it is and challenges all who come into contact with her neatly packaged ideas, to be honest with themselves about work. There's bravery here, along side common sense. Work is what we do all day, we had better be brutally honest with ourselves, or be prepared to suffer the humiliation, insanity, alcoholism, etc. that comes with repeated and fearful attempts to just laugh "the bullshit" off.

February 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

In the middle of a meditation on MySpace's role in breaking out new bands, Syd Schwartz looked into his crystal ball...

From my perspective, the landscape shift in social networking will be primarily based on one thing–portability of the user investment. It should be easy to simply pick up your lists of friends, bookmarks, tags, blog posting, favorites and other social networking assets and move them to a NEW social network, or to simultaneously belong to several at once, with a single interface that connects all your touch points. At that point, social networks become another media outlet, with content driving membership and exclusive content as the most valuable currency. With AOL about to enter the space and companies like Google and Yahoo making investments and innovations in their social networking platforms, a shakeout is inevitable.

Schwartz is Vice President of New Media for Virgin Records America. He is responsible for managing the creative planning, technical development and strategic direction of all Virgin Records America artist websites and Internet Marketing initiatives, including artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Robbie Williams, Janet Jackson, Stacie Orrico and Ben Harper.

February 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

BL Ochman and her buddy Steve Hall, believe blog space is sacred space. That it need only be filled with precious "original" content.

Adrants' Steve Hall told me yesterday that he believes Technorati and others are "measuring the wrong thing." What they should measure, he says, is how much original content is on a blog.

A large percentage of blogs just aggregate other bloggers' content, or provide links to articles of interest. But the meat in the blogosphere is the original thought -- and there's very little of that going around.

If the blogosphere is to continue to grow, and to have impact as a communications medium, more bloggers have to do the work to create more original content.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: There is further edification from Hall on Ochman's site. Please read it there.]

Let me ask you, what is this purely original matter? Is it the reworded press release that passes for a blog post? Is it the hard-scrabble journalism of old? Uh, not exactly.

It's perplexing to me that Ochman and Hall want to dictate such stringent bloatospheric standards, while the story of the day in marketing circles is customer empowerment. I know it has, in part, to do with competition for ad revenue. These two A-listers are looking over their shoulders (and down their noses) at so-called "aggregators" that would dare tred on their turf.

So, BL and Steve, I get that it's just business, and nothing personal. I'm sure we can all have a beer or two someday and laugh about it. In the meantime, I'll continue looking to our customers here to tell us what's working, what's fair and exactly how they take their content.

February 12, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

"I think technology is going to wreak havoc on the agency business."

So says Robert Greenberg, the President of R/GA in New York City, in this lengthy profile in today's New York Times.

It has become fashionable, and maybe largely accurate, to look at advertising of the last several decades as an opiate to help brainwash Americans into becoming avid, mindless shoppers. Mr. Greenberg's new equation offers a brighter insight: Technology has put consumers in the driver's seat by giving them a vast array of new choices and better information — and corporations and agencies that want to succeed had better get on board.

This new dawn in consumer power is consoling, perhaps, but a nagging existential devil remains. Does all of the spinning and coaxing that surrounds America's love affair with buying and selling — our carnival of consumption — really matter? Does it make us better people?

Well, yes, Mr. Greenberg says, it does.

"It's not just that the interactivity and creativity is about commercials, TV and advertising," he replies. "The development that comes out of it all is about how people interact and communicate. It's about how they learn."

Greenberg himself may be all about new media, but still, when you get 2 pages in the Sunday New York Times, you've made it to the big time. The article is a good read.

February 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Nike does not just want you to buy its soccer gear, it wants to reform the very game of futebol.

Ambition has never been a problem for the Beaverton crew.

But does the use of a dramatic skit--wherein journalists lose control of their live broadcast to a terrorist cell--seem rather insensitive and tasteless at the moment? I'm not saying it's not the right scene. I'm asking.

The spot is incredibly well done and the point is beautifully made. It's just that journalists are dying in war zones today. They are being captured and sometimes gruesomely beheaded.

The video was produced by Wieden & Kennedy and F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, who handle work for Nike in Brazil.

February 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Are you up on vlogger du jour Amanda Cogdon? She has a site called Rocketboom and her ship is preparing for blast off.

Cogdon recently conduced an eBay auction for the first ad on Rocketboom.

Business Week reports that the winning bid was $40,000. The winning bidder is TRM, an ATM and photocopy services company.

Andrew Baron, the co-founder of Rocketboom says they aren't saying more about the ads right now, but are "scrambling around to try and work another couple of deals from some of the other bidders."

He says he's amazed by how many major US brands stepped forward.

This news made Jeff Jarvis blow a gasket.

This is bad for big ad agencies and big advertisers who missed this boat bigtime. I’m not talking about any specific brand or company. They should have been falling over themselves to grab this unique bargain. And they should be slinking off with their long tails between their legs now. Advertisers constantly whine that they want to do something new, but when something new comes along, they freeze because they can’t fit the new thing into their definitions of old and safe.

Big advertisers and big agencies are chickenshit. They need to grow some balls or else they’ll find new competitors running circles around them. The explosion — the rocketboom — that has already come to newspapers, magazines, TV networks, the music industry is coming next to the ad business.

Please take this, advertisers, as a friendly kick in the pants.

Okay, so Coca-Cola didn't lock up the media buy. Maybe they'll get it next time. Baron did say he's working on some deals. Anyway, let's not overlook the move by TRM, a firm I'd not heard of, until now.

February 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Ray Edwards is a direct response copywriter. In fact, he's textbook. If this is your thing, go study this man.

My copywriting colleages are going to be angry. They're going to call me a "renegade" for letting the secrets out. For giving away our tricks.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

In this quick, FREE video I'll show you specific changes that will improve the response rates and sales from a real-life salesletter-style website... and I'll explain the reasons behind every change. 

Some of the things you will learn in this 23-minute video:

The best way to layout a website for maximum sales and conversions. You'll be surprised at how this simple layout converts better than others.

Which elements of a website can be tested and which can't. 

The font and color that makes headlines convert best.

Yep, I'm outraged.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY: Starbucks said Friday it would stop selling Chantico, a rich chocolate drink introduced with much fanfare last year, because it was not adaptable to different customer tastes.

In a rare flop for the fast-growing No. 1 coffee shop chain, Chantico was pulled from Starbucks' menu in January, a year after its introduction, spokesman Alan Hilowitz said.

Described as "a drinkable dessert," Chantico resembled the thick, sweet hot chocolate found in European cafes but was only available without any variations in a 6-ounce size.

In the end, that limitation irked customers who are used to dictating not only the size of their lattes and cappuccinos, but also whether they want regular or decaf coffee, non-fat, whole or soy milk, sugar-free or regular flavor shots, and even extras like whipped cream and caramel.

"It was something that customers did like, but they wanted to be able to do something else with it," Hilowitz said.

The chain is testing other kinds of chocolate beverages and food offerings, Hilowitz said, but added that they were unlikely to resemble the now-defunct Chantico.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

The New York Times reports that Sports Illustrated is taking its franchise--the always anticpated swimsuit issue--to the new media tree.

In addition to the magazine, which appears on newsstands tomorrow, and on the Web site at sportsillustrated.com., fans will also be able to purchase any of eight specially produced videos from iTunes.com, Apple's online store, for $1.99 each, or download content to a cellphone or to a hand-held device, through a partnership Sports Illustrated has made with American Greetings Interactive.

Mark Ford, the president and publisher of Sports Illustrated, estimates that newsstand sales of the issue will be around 1.5 million copies, which, when added to the 3.3 million subscribers, is a paid readership of 4.8 million. Mr. Ford said that 60 million people or so would read the issue, however, making it the most widely read single issue of any magazine in the world. The swimsuit issue sells for $5.99, compared with the magazine's regular price of $3.50.

"It is the mother ship of what we do. We want to leverage the power of that franchise," said Mr. Ford, "Sports Illustrated is a multimedia brand. It's a magazine, it's online, it's mobile, it's an event." Additionally, the magazine has promotional events planned around the country with the beer company, Anheuser-Busch, and with Jay Leno, who will unveil the issue on the "Tonight" show tonight.

Way to keep your head in the game, SI.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to The New York Times, Americans under the age of 17 dug the Super Bowl spots from Bud Light. In fact, Bud Light ads ranked first, second and fourth in popularity for the under 17 demographic.

Bud Light's brand team should feel good that they're connecting with this crucial segment of emerging beer drinkers. There's only one problem--beer ads are not supposed to appeal to underage drinkers.

Amon Rappaport, a spokesman for the Marin Institute, an industry watchdog based in California, objected to an Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl ad in which a young Clydesdale pulls its first wooden beer cart. "Using a baby Clydesdale to sell beer to kids is just like using Joe Camel to sell cigarettes," Mr. Rappaport said.

A 1996 study by the Center on Alcohol Advertising in Berkeley, Calif., found that Budweiser's talking frogs were even more familiar to children aged 9 to 11 than Tony the Tiger, Smokey Bear and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Mr. Rappaport would like beer ads to go the way of cigarette commercials. "As a society we recognize that tobacco advertising has no place on TV where kids will see it, but somehow we still allow beer ads," he said. "Without beer advertising on TV, underage drinking would drop significantly."

Given that brewers self-regulate, they naturally find it hard to steer clear of such sophmoric humor.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I'm from Nebraska. I grew up hunting Bobwhite quail in the rolling farmhills of the southeast part of the state. I recall a Saturday long ago when one of my grandfather's hunting buddies accidentally shot his own dog. The dog lived, but this man's horrid form made my grandpa irate. Needless to say, we never hunted with the man again.

Now, this news from south Texas...

Corpus Christi Caller- Times: Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally fired upon and injured a hunting companion during a weekend trip to the Armstrong Ranch in Kenedy County, peppering the 78-year-old with shotgun pellets while stalking quail.

The vice president sprayed prominent lawyer Harry Whittington with pellets from a 28-gauge shotgun while shooting quail at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the ranch, where he is a frequent visitor.

Whittington is in stable condition in the hospital's intensive care unit, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial.

Lea Anne McBride, spokeswoman for the vice president, who confirmed the accident Sunday around noon, would not comment on whether the White House would have released the information had the Caller-Times not contacted them. The Caller-Times received a tip from a member of the Armstrong family Sunday morning, 18 hours after the incident occurred.

For a man who is a poster boy for the National Rifle Association, this hunting accident is a slip I don't see him fully recovering from. I'm sure the NRA people already have a spin on it, but whatever it is, it is wrong.

When your sport involves loaded guns there is NO ROOM for a mistake of any sort, ever. Period.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adweek: Procter & Gamble has shifted global creative duties on its Old Spice brand to independent Wieden + Kennedy from Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi after a pitch, the company confirmed.

P&G spends about $80 million on Old Spice in the U.S. alone, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

"We're always seeking best-in-class agencies to bring expertise and creative energy to our brands," said Paolo deCesare, president, global skin care, personal cleansing and deodorants, in a statement. "Wieden has an impressive brand-building track record, particularly with men. We look forward to having their fresh thinking applied to the business."

The account move marks the third assignment from the Cincinnati marketer for the agency. The shop already handled Eukanuba pet food globally and a project for Ivory soap in Canada, according to a company representative.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Scobleizer's buddies know how to milk Google AdSense for all it is worth.

Some of my blogging friends make more money off of Google ads than I am paid by Microsoft (you’ll note that lots of people in my comment regularly question my ability to report honestly about things Microsoft related, why don’t these same people raise heck when employees of Google — and that’s what you are when you put a Google ad on your blog — give Google better PR than it deserves?). I notice that the press loves to go into a tizzy everytime a company sends out a free product, or takes bloggers on a free trip, or signs them up for a director or advisory role. Why isn’t anyone looking into the effect of on-blog advertising on our belief systems and reporting quality?

I'm not sure I'd like it if my friends made more from Google AdSense than I made at my day job. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

As for Scoble's call for an investigation, please. With that line of reasoning, we'd also need to investigate all mainstream media. Ad revenue floats everyone's boat in the media sea.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Spike Jones at Brains On Fire recently wrote about the Master/Slave relationship. He believes too many creative firms find themselves beholden to it.

If an equal relationship and rules of engagement aren’t put in place from the beginning, then the client thinks that they can tweak umpteen-million times or call to have you place an ad the day it’s due. And it’s not their fault. It’s yours.

Rock on with your bad self, Mr. Jones!

In the comments on Spike's post, a man named "Billy" makes it even clearer.

There is a fine line between "making the client happy" and "making the client great." Being belligerent and proud of your work is wrong for everyone, but being restless and genuine (and proud) is sometimes rewarded with trust. I think it more-often-times-than-not comes down to the whole "kindred spirits" working relationship. Respect breeds trust breeds great work breeds more respect breeds trust...

Sadly, the picture Billy paints is all too rare. I've worked for seven agencies in five states and freelanced for several more. What most agency types in positions of power are restless for is the elusive "make the client happy" tonic. Yet, look at the avalanche of client defections. Clearly clients are not happy. Maybe agency types could begin to make the customer (and themselves) happy, first. It would lead to better business and better communications all around.

February 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Doc Searls is considering the big bloatospheric issues again.

I have this idea that the blogosphere is the one place in the world — or perhaps an entirely new world, or a part of a new world, created on the Net — where there is no need for class, for caste, for gates or keepers of anything.

To me this is a world where the only success that fully counts is in helping move good ideas along, in helping make this new world a bigger, better and more open place. And in helping others enjoy the privilege of participating in it.

I see this world as a place built on credits given, taken and passed along. I see this world as a place where it is at least possible to overcome disagreements, and to come to new agreements that would not be possible without the protocol, both technical and civil, we call the hyperlink.

I've always thought the most important thesis in Cluetrain was not the first, but the seventh: Hyperlinks subvert hierarchies.

However, Seth Finkelstein isn't prepared to drink the Searls' Kool-Aid.

This is an idea that goes way back in a certain type of mythologizing - whether it's called the Classless Society, The New Socialist Man, The Wild West, The Wide-Open Frontier, etc. - of a New Era where rank and privilege have been abolished, and all is based on individual merit. I wish it were true too. But sadly, wishing won't make it so (and mistakenly believing it can get people deeply hurt in various ways).

There's then some particularly pernicious implications which flow from the above myth. If there is in reality a vast inequality of status, yet the theory is that the new world is merit-based, that provides a lot of disturbing tension, cognitive dissonance. There's some obvious ways to resolve it. One immediate method is to say those lower down the hierarchy must be un-meritorious in some way - whiners, as a cognate A-lister has expounded elsewhere. Another method is simply to deny that inequality exists. And these are where the cruelty manifests.

This world is exactly the same as *every* *other* *media* *world*, in that there's a few participants who have enormous reach, while most have little to none ("Power Law"). That's just a mathematical fact.

One thought...it seems the bloatosphere is fast becoming mainstream media, thus the very idea that it is revolutionary, as opposed to evolutionary, needs to be questioned.

[UPDATE] New York Magazine talks to Clay Shirky about the Power Law.

“It’s not about moral failings or any sort of psychological thing. People aren’t lazy—they just base their decisions on what other people are doing,” Shirky says. “It’s just social physics. It’s like gravity, one of those forces.”

First-movers get a crucial leg up in this kind of power-law system. This is certainly true of the blogosphere. If you look at the list of the most-linked-to blogs on the top 100 as ranked by Technorati—a company that scans the blogosphere every day—many of those at the top were first-movers, the pioneers in their fields.

[via Gaping Void]

February 13, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ah, the perils of celebrity endorsers. They don't always perform the way the advertiser hopes.

From the AP:

Michelle Kwan's withdrawal from the Winter Olympics forced two major television advertisers who were featuring the figure skater in their campaigns to reevaluate their plans.

Coca-Cola has decided not to go ahead with one of its two ads that reference Kwan, while Visa USA is sticking with her.

A series of Coke ads that feature rabid fans cheering for their favorite athletes included one in which they were rooting for Kwan. The skater is not seen in the ad.

"Given that it's cheering her on to win, hopefully, and she is not competing, we didn't think the ad was still relevant," Susan McDermott, a spokeswoman for the soft drink company, said Monday. Coke will simply substitute ads featuring other athletes in the spots.

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will not stand for re-election to Coca-Cola's board of directors, the world's biggest soft drink company said Tuesday.

Buffett, who has been on the board since 1989, told the company his decision was because of increased demands on his time resulting from acquisitions by his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. He said Berkshire Hathaway intends to keep its Coca-Cola stock.

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

David Sifry of Technorati shares some thoughts on niche publsihing.

This realm of publishing, which I call "The Magic Middle" of the attention curve, highlights some of the most interesting and influential bloggers and publishers that are often writing about topics that are topical or niche, like Chocolate and Zucchini on food, Wi-fi Net News on Wireless networking, TechCrunch on Internet Companies, Blogging Baby on parenting, Yarn Harlot on knitting, or Stereogum on music - these are blogs that are interesting, topical, and influential, and in some cases are radically changing the economics of trade publishing.

At Technorati, we define this to be the bloggers who have from 20-1000 other people linking to them. There are about 155,000 people who fit in this group. And what is so interesting to me is how interesting, exciting, informative, and witty these blogs often are. I've noticed that often these blogs are more topical or focused on a niche area, like gardening, knitting, nanotech, mp3s or journalism and a great way to find them has been through Blog Finder.

From the above selections, Sifry appears to have great taste in blogs.

According to Sifry's Technorati profile, he is a serial entrepreneur with over 19 years of experience. Before founding Technorati, Dave was cofounder and CTO of Sputnik, and cofounder of Linuxcare, where he served as CTO and VP of Engineering. He has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.

AdPulp currently has 850 links from 253 sites. It's fair to say we're in the middle of something.

[Micropersuasion]

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Washington Post: What if the federal government were about to give away more than $400 billion in grants, but only people whose computers ran on Microsoft software could apply?

That is the predicament that many scientists, scholars and others say they are in as the government enters the final phase of its five-year effort to streamline its grant-application process.

The new "Grants.gov" system, under development at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, aims to replace paper applications with electronic forms. It is being phased in at the National Institutes of Health, Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies. All 26 grant-giving agencies are supposed to have their application processes fully online by 2007.

The problem: Although many U.S. scientists and others depend on graphics-friendly Macintosh computers, the software selected by the government is not Mac-compatible. And it is expected to remain so for at least a year.

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Financial Times: An Ohio company has embedded silicon chips in two of its employees - the first known case in which US workers have been “tagged” electronically as a way of identifying them.

CityWatcher.com, a private video surveillance company, said it was testing the technology as a way of controlling access to a room where it holds security video footage for government agencies and the police.

RFID chips – inexpensive radio transmitters that give off a unique identifying signal – have been implanted in pets or attached to goods so they can be tracked in transit.

“There are very serious privacy and civil liberty issues of having people permanently numbered,” said Liz McIntyre, who campaigns against the use of identification technology.

But Sean Darks, chief executive of CityWatcher, said the glass-encased chips were like identity cards. They are planted in the upper right arm of the recipient, and “read” by a device similar to a cardreader.

“There’s nothing pulsing or sending out a signal,” said Mr Darks, who has had a chip in his own arm. “It’s not a GPS chip. My wife can’t tell where I am.”

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

MSNBC: Adidas, the German sporting goods company that recently acquired US rival Reebok, plans to reposition Reebok as a performance brand, said Herbert Hainer, Adidas's chief executive.

While Adidas is known for engineering athletic shoes – last year it launched Adidas I, a $250 high-tech wonder dubbed "the world's first intelligent shoe" – Reebok has emphasised casual footwear.

Endorsement deals with rappers Jay-Z and 50 Cent have given the Reebok brand broad appeal among the more fashion-conscious urban consumers.

Speaking by satellite to a strategic footwear forum hosted by the World Shoe Association, Mr Hainer said: "There is no doubt that we will position Reebok back more to a performance brand than it has been over the last two to three years. Reebok was one of the first to bring a lot of technology into the market."

February 14, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

Here's to all the writers and designers at Hallmark in Kansas City. Today's your day. And it's a well-researched one, too. From BusinessWeek:

The world's largest greeting card maker, Hallmark Cards Inc., has for the first time analyzed individual cities' data for top-selling Valentines, and it yielded a surprising result. They were all the same -- a result of the exhaustive research Hallmark carries out before any card goes on the shelf. It's a process of analyzing sales numbers and trend hunting in search of the perfect valentine.

Researchers at the Kansas City-based company expected the choices of customers to be as different as the cities they call home. But it turned out V330-5, one of the thousands of options Hallmark offered last Valentine's Day, was the top choice of consumers in New York and Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Miami, and virtually every other city in the country.

The card's face is a deep red foil, with "For the One I Love" across the top in black script, a large picture of a red rose in the center, and a thick black ribbon cutting through the middle. Inside, it simply states: "Each time I see you, hold you, think of you, here's what I do ... I fall deeply, madly, happily in love with you. Happy Valentine's Day."

The card's designer, Marcia Muelengracht, said she was not at all surprised the card sold five times better than the average Valentine -- so well it's being offered for a second year.

"I cut to the chase -- what I would want to give and what I would want to receive," Muelengracht said. "A guy wants to say he still loves her. A gal wants to know he still does. She wants to get goose bumps. He wants to think he'll get lucky."

February 14, 2006 by Matt Bergantino | Permalink | 5 Comments

The Onion landed an exclusive with Gillette CEO James M. Kilts, who had this to say about his new Gillette Fusion razor:

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.

Read the rest of this explosive article on The Onion.

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

High Jive is exploring Black History Month ads, which he says are "a pain-in-the-ass to produce, given the politcally correct nature of it all."

Here's one sample from 2005.

The ad reads, in part:

In 1913, One Ad Changed The Face Of America's Middle Class.

Henry Ford recognized the value of a skilled workforce—regardless of race. And when Ford Motor Company became the first major corporation to pay African American workers equal pay for equal work, it helped give birth to the Black middle class.

According to Hugh Jive, the Black middle class eventually returned the favor by loyally purchasing competitors’ cars.

February 14, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

A new book by the kings of customer satisfaction surveys, JD Power & Associates, looks like an interesting read.

Satisfaction: How Every Great Company Listens to the Voice of the Customer probably has some lessons the ad industry could use as we try to make our clients value our services more, and help our clients become better companies all-around. From the Amazon description:

Satisfaction offers tactical advice for companies large or small, for product manufacturers, service providers, and retailers alike. It delivers not just a stockpile of customer research, but a road map to developing specific policies and processes. It also tells fascinating stories of companies that don't just talk the talk, but walk the walk every day-and of other companies that ignored the voice of the customer, with dire consequences.

As company founder J. D. Power III writes in his introduction: "The consumer is no longer the passive recipient but has been transformed by the Internet and the availability of knowledge into a powerbroker for him or herself. Buyers in auto dealerships, patients in hospitals, travelers in hotels are now unwilling to compromise. They have high expectations and the data to back them up. The customer's voice is louder and clearer than ever, and attention must be paid."

You can read some excerpts here.

February 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jason Kottke points to this article on New Yorker editor, David Remnick. It's an interesting counterpoint to much of the discussion you will find here and on other media and marketing blogs, as Remnick is a traditional journalist with a conservative view of the business.

"I don't lose sleep trying to figure what the reader wants. I don't do surveys. I don't check the mood of the consumers. I do what I want, what interests me and a small group of editors that influences the way of the magazine.

We are unique, and I know in my heart that we have a big and very serious market for what we are giving: Depth, humor, and if I may add, beauty. And I am referring mainly to literature and poetry. There are enough people that want this. In spite of everything we are being told about the death of reading, I am convinced that we are not at all close to exhausting this market."

Remnick says that in the long run, The New Yorker will have to invest further in its Web site.

"There is already a migration from the world of cutting down trees and print journalism to electronic reading," says Remnick. "But in the meantime, it seems obvious to me that this magazine, which I hold in my hand and leaf through, is still much more beautiful and desirable."

One might think Remnick's "screw what the customer wants" attitude, would be a major problem. It's not. He has successfully revived the magazine after it fell on tough times in the 1990s under Tina Brown.

February 14, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

From AP:

Thousands rampaged through two cities Tuesday in Pakistan's worst violence against Prophet Muhammad caricatures, burning buildings housing a hotel, banks and a KFC, vandalizing a Citibank and breaking windows at a Holiday Inn and a Pizza Hut.

At least two people were killed in Lahore, where intelligence officials suspected outlawed Islamic militant groups incited the violence to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's U.S.-allied government.

These are very powerful images, and in today's world of instantaneous communication, they're hard to put into context. But as globalism becomes more prevalent, some powerful brands leave themselves vulnerable, particularly if they're American. And that's despite the fact that the original cartoons that upset Muslims were printed in Denmark. How did KFC, McDonalds, etc, become targets for protests? Is there such as thing as too much branding? Should American companies be more reticent to expand overseas?

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From The New York Times:

Trade organizations for the newspaper and magazine industries plan to introduce elaborate and expensive campaigns that tackle a daunting task, persuading marketers and agencies to think better of print as an ad medium. Both are suffering from sluggish growth as they face off against the Internet, e-mail marketing and other, newer rivals.

The focal point of the magazine campaign will be ads for eight brands and products like Altoids, sold by Kraft Foods; Cover Girl, made by Procter & Gamble; the Infiniti car line, sold by Nissan Motor; and J. C. Penney. The ads are slyly designed to look as if they have been ripped from the magazines in which they appear. Text next to the torn-out ads makes the point that magazines engage readers with "ideas that live beyond the page."

The mock torn-out ads will also appear in the thousands of free copies that agencies receive of more than 30 magazines, including BusinessWeek, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Fortune, Maxim, Men's Health, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and Woman's Day.

Reminding media professionals that consumers rip ads out of magazines "is very visceral," said Nina B. Link, president and chief executive at the magazine association in New York. "They get it immediately."

"We want to show that magazines are where consumers are going to engage in the advertising," she added, "and that engagement leads to action."

On the interweb, one needn't rip a page. One may print the page, unless it's built in Flash. But the point is well taken, nonetheless. There will always be value in the tactile media experience.

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From USA TODAY:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday launched a task force to counter efforts by other nations that use U.S. technologies to block the free flow of information across the Internet.

That came on the eve of a congressional hearing Wednesday on Internet companies — including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft — that cooperate with China's government in censoring or handing over information government officials deem objectionable.

Rice's office said it would study a bill Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting to force companies to move computer servers out of China. That would limit governments' ability to ferret out of servers such personal data as e-mail addresses, which can identify dissidents. "We think this is a serious area of concern," Josette Shiner, undersecretary for economic, business and agricultural affairs, told a news conference.

Internet companies are expanding deeper into China's fast-growing economy, and they are seeking White House help in navigating the crosscurrents of foreign policy and commerce. Yahoo, for one, says, "Private industry alone cannot effectively influence foreign government policies on issues like the free exchange of ideas."

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Hugh MacLeod is driving his "marketing disruption" machine across America this spring and summer. He's helped turn "Geek Dinners" into an event marketing campaign for his South African wine client, Stormhoek.

We like sponsoring geek dinners. We want to do more. Lots more.

Ergo: 100 Geek Dinners in 100 days. Starting in May.

Are you a U.S. blogger? Fancy throwing a geek dinner? Big or small, it doesn't matter. Let us know and we'll try to send some complimentary wine your way.

As with the 2005 European blog promo, the idea is not to turn bloggers into wine pimps. It's more a case of what I call "marketing disruption".

The wiki sign up page already has yes votes from bloggers in Minneapolis, Cincinnat, NYC, Mountain Home, San Mateo, Seattle, Denver, Madison, Ypsilanti, Pittsfield, Bellingham and Flagstaff.

I like to give Hugh a hard time from time to time, but this idea is rock solid and a home run for Stormhoek.

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Last night, during a comemrcial break from the Olympics, Wendy's showcased their tripple hamburger and asked me to "Do what tastes right."

Wendy's is so enamored of their new tagline, they've trademarked it. What a waste of legal fees.

How about "Listen to your stomach" or some other anti-hunger message? What do you think? Do you have a better tag in mind?

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

CNN reports on Boston Beer Company's latest innovation—Utopias, a $100 a bottle of 25 percent alcohol beer.

"My goal was to raise beer drinkers' expectations," says Master Brewer Jim Koch, 56, founder of The Boston Beer Company and creator of Utopias. "To break the boundaries of what people traditionally think of as beer.

"I wanted to brew something comparable to the finest cognacs and ports in the world, to push fermentation beyond what were considered acceptable limits.

"Everybody thought that you couldn't ferment a beer beyond 13 or 14 percent alcohol. We discovered that if you push fermentation up above 20 percent you encounter an entirely new world of flavors."

"I started brewing a very early form of it back in 1993," explains Koch. "That first incarnation was called Triple Bock. That developed into a beer called Millennium which in turn became Utopias.

"It's been an evolution. The flavors are changing all the time, getting fuller and more complex."

I don't know that this entry into the marketplace will move people from spirits to beer--something many brewers are deeply concerned about--but it will help the maker of Sam Adams firm up its reputation as one of the world's premier brewers.

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

ValleyWag brings to our attention three defections from Technorati, the blog tracking site.

Jason DeFillippo, Derek Powazek and Niall Kennedy all are heading for the exit. None of the men publicly claim this has anything to do with Technorati. In fact, DeFillippo goes out of his way to say what a great boss, mentor and friend Dave Sifry is.

Here's what DeFillippo has planned:

What am I doing next? Well it’s been over 2 years since Sean Bonner and I started our little project Blogging.la. It has grown into the Metroblogging network with 40 sites in cities all over the world with hundreds of amazing bloggers contributing every single day. Soon I will be dedicating the majority of my waking life to taking Metroblogging out of the world of the side project and taking it to the next level and dedicating the time to it that it deserves.

Making the side project the mainstay...I can relate to that need.

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From News.com:

A U.S. security expert who devised an application that can fill an iPod with business-critical data in a matter of minutes is urging companies to address the very real threat of data theft.

Abe Usher, a 10-year veteran of the security industry, created an application that runs on an iPod and can search corporate networks for files likely to contain business-critical data. At a rate of about 100MB every couple minutes, it can scan and download the files onto the portable storage units in a process dubbed "pod slurping."

To the naked eye, somebody doing this would look like any other employee listening to their iPod at their desk. Alternatively, the person stealing data need not even have access to a keyboard but can simply plug into a USB port on any active machine.

"This is a growing area of concern, and there's not a lot of awareness about it," he said. "And yet in 2 minutes, it's possible to extract about 100MB of Word, Excel, PDF files--basically anything which might contain business data--and with a 60GB iPod, you could probably have every business document in a medium-size firm."

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Los Angeles Times:

Levi Strauss & Co. posted a fourth-quarter profit as the jeans maker ended an eight-year sales slide marked by fashion missteps, mass layoffs, plant closures and accounting troubles.

The San Francisco-based company said it earned $43.6 million during the three months ended Nov. 27.

Levi is privately held but discloses its financial results because some of its debt is publicly traded.

The company has spent most of the last decade scrambling to survive as trendsetters shunned the Levi's brand and cost-conscious customers snapped up lower-priced clothing made overseas.

Levi is hoping to spur more sales by opening about 20 of its own stores this year, more than doubling the 18 currently operated by the company.

February 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

For lawyers, like ad pros, there is seemingly no end to the abuse that must be endured at cocktail parties, on the golf course, etc.

Huey Partners in Atlanta helped its media client, The Daily Report, come to terms with this fact. Actually they did more than that, they sold this ad, which is likely to generate some letters, and more importantly some buzz for their trade journal client.

The Daily Report, often referred to as the Fulton County Daily Report, is Fulton County's official legal newspaper and Georgia's leading source for legal news and information. The newspaper was established in 1890.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

For the past month, McKinney Silver's viral campaign for Oasys Mobile has been bandied about in the bloatosphere.

Here we have a clear case of mainstream media following blogs to the story.

Oasys, based in Raleigh, N.C., enlisted the advertising firm McKinney & Silver, in Durham, N.C., to introduce its brand inexpensively — with a nontraditional campaign that it hoped would grab the attention of its desired 18-to-24-year-old demographic.

"You have a brand that nobody knows what it is and you have a consumer that's very specific," said David Baldwin, the executive creative director at McKinney, a unit of Havas. "They don't engage in traditional marketing. But they live online and they live with their cellphones."

The Times reports that the character blog in question now receives 10,000 visits a day, placing it among the top 10% of blogs worldwide. If those numbers are accurate, we better brace oursevles for more of the same.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From USA TODAY:

If it's true that opposites attract, then a licensing agreement between Harlequin Romance novels and NASCAR Inc., should be a marriage made in heaven.

The first offspring of this new union, a racetrack romance entitled In the Groove by Pamela Britton, goes on sale just a few weeks before the Daytona 500 on Feb. 19. Two other NASCAR-themed love stories will be published this year: On the Edge by Britton in September and A NASCAR Holiday by Kimberly Raye, Roxanne St. Claire and Debra Webb in November. At least 17 more, by various authors, are planned for 2007.

"It's a partnership between two extremely brand-loyal groups," says Kerry Tharp of NASCAR. "We're trying to reach out and do more to appeal to our female fan base."

NASCAR fans buy $2 billion in licensed products annually. Harlequin devotees bought 130 million books last year.

"It's a very good fit," agrees Marleah Stout of Harlequin, pointing out that women account for 40% of the sport's fan base.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Snickers is running some great TV ads from BBDO/New York.

In particular, I enjoy "Bald," a spot where a man wears a toupee made of Snickers bars, only to be confronted by his co-workers.

"Um, Steve, we just want to let your know, we know you're bald. We think you should stop wearing the Snickers."

It's ridiculous, of course. Yet, it's also sublime.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Steve Rubel is moving to Edelman (from CooperKatz) and taking Micropersuasion with him.

According to Ad Age:

Rubel is taking a senior VP role at the much larger Edelman, where he’ll craft word-of-mouth and social-media campaigns for a consumer-client list that includes Unilever and Microsoft's Xbox.

Edelman paid CooperKatz so Mr. Rubel could keep the name and URL. He won’t, however, be able to carry over the MicroPersuasion service offering he launched at CooperKatz. The parties wouldn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal.

It remains to be seen, however, how a big-agency environment will change MicroPersuasion. Edelman has a long list blue-chip clients that presumably wouldn’t be happy seeing their marketing and PR faux pas dissected on the blog. Asked about this, Mr. Rubel, whose blogging day begins at roughly 4:30 a.m., laughed and said, “I’m not going to be calling out as many companies as I used to.”

His new boss, Rick Murray, Edelman exec VP and general manager of its diversified services group, said, “We don’t intend to censor him. I don’t anticipate reviewing his posts in advance.” He said the Edelman Web site will link to MicroPersuasion.

Edelman recently has also hired Michael Krempasky, a public-affairs blogger, and Phil Gomes, who writes about online communications.

CooperKatz said it will rename its MicroPersuasion practice Cogence, a sort of acronym for “consumer-generated intelligence,” said principal Andy Cooper.

Public realtions executives are currently far ahead in race to put blogs to work for their clients. Let me give you an example from my own life. A little more than a year ago, a prominent ad agency in Chicago asked me to consider helping them start a PR practice. I was stunned, for I have zero experience in PR. The agency principal didn't see it that way. He was looking at this blog, which was only three months old at the time, and thinking what I might be able to achieve for his clients. In the end, I did not get the offer, but the lesson remains.

Today, we're 16 months into this project, and the idea of taking this blog and the nascent blogvertising practice behind it, to a firm on our wavelength is something we consider daily.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From Phil Gomes:

A whole bunch of people are talking about this article from a magazine I don't read.

Reminds me of something that started early in my career. Something I called "Wall Street Journal Syndrome."

Even as a junior employee, it astounded me how a PR team could pole-vault over every expectation and every conceivable measuring stick, only to allow themselves to get beaten up for not getting a "hit" in the corner office's favorite elite publication.

I thought things would've changed. I mean, the advent of social media is what kept me in PR.

Nope. You see, these days, we have the so-called blogger "A-list," a desire to achieve same, and, as Henry Rollins once said, it's just a case of the mouthwash swishing over to the other cheek.

Sure... On one hand, people who "get it" say that it's not about pitching "elites" and such but, on the other, there's just so much energy about "A-listers" or "influentials" or what-have-you. Compound that with some fairly insincere denials that such status matters, and you've got a recurring cerebellum-itch that vexes this funny-looking bald man to no end.

I love that Rollins quote! And the Gomesian wisdom.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

John Condon, Leo Burnett's new chief creative officer recently spoke with Adweek. See the Jan. 23rd print edition.

Q. How do you get past a creative block?

A. I go for a walk. And if that doesn't doesn't work, I can flush it out with scotch.

I'm a bourbon man myself, but I appreciate a leader with Condon's candor.

February 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

I-Am-Bored posted this hand-written consumer complaint against Continental Airlines last year.

I was unawre of it until today, when Consumerist picked it up.

It begins, "Dear Continental Airlines, I am disgusted as I write this note to your about the miserable experience I am having in seat 29E on one of your aircrafts. As you may know, this seat is situated directly across from the lavatory, so close that I can reach out my left arm and touch the door."

It ends with, "I suggest that you initiate immediate removal of this seat from all your of your crafts. Just remove it and leave the smoldering brown hole empty."

I wonder if Continental took this hilarious, but serious, complaint seriously.

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From USA TODAY:

The first worm targeting Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system has surfaced, though it does not appear to be widespread or especially dangerous.

Its emergence, however, could indicate that hackers — who have almost exclusively targeted the much-larger Windows PC market — are expanding their attacks, computer-security experts say.

The so-called OSX.Leap.A worm is designed to spread over iChat, Apple's instant-messaging system. Security experts call it the first notable Mac worm in several years, surfacing in a forum on the popular MacRumorswebsite on Feb. 13.

When launched, it can damage software applications and the operating system, says Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec Security Response.

Writers of malicious software code have historically ignored Macs because about 95% of the world's PCs are Windows-based.

There are hundreds of thousands of viruses and worms aimed at Windows machines.

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 64 Comments

From The New York Times:

Volkswagen may have retired its unwieldy "Fahrvergnügen" slogan, but a quirky new ad campaign for the struggling carmaker is once again invoking its German heritage.

Along with faux-German catch phrases ("Straight outta da Autobahn" and "Fast as schnell"), the campaign introduces Helga, a blonde in white go-go boots who demonstrates the features of the redesigned Volkswagen GTI Mk V hatchback.

"We're going to celebrate our Germanness," said Kerri Martin, the director of brand innovation for Volkswagen of America in Auburn Hills, Mich.

Revisiting the national origin of a brand is a technique other car companies have used with significant success. Last year, Mitsubishi Motors played up Japanese pop culture in a campaign for its redesigned Eclipse sport coupe.

The target audience for the GTI is undeniably male: Volkswagen chose to unveil the new campaign on Thursday by holding a news conference at the office of Playboy magazine in New York. Print ads for the GTI are scheduled to run in magazines like Maxim, Spin, ESPN, Wired and Autoweek.

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ben Popken, of The Spunker has a new gig—editor of Gawker Media's The Consumerist.

Joel Johnson will be moving up to Executive Editor of the site.

Hit me up at ben [the darn at sign] consumerist.com with your consumer kvetching, hot ads and dishy industry dirt.

You may recall Ben was recently looking at becoming a copywriter. I think he made a wise turn. I mean, why be told what to write by uncaring clients, when Nick Denton is empowering you to write what you want? And for a huge audience, I might add.

Congratulations, Ben. And good luck.

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

[via Copyranter]

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Dawn Anfuso, senior editor for iMedia Connection spoke to Kevin Doohan, director of web marketing for Omaha-based ConAgra Foods, a Fortune 100 company.

iMedia: Consumer-generated content is scary for many brands because of their inability to control it. How do you view the topic? Have you had much experience dealing with it yet? Any advice for other marketers?

Doohan: I believe consumer-generated content is best when it is authentic, unfiltered and about a subject that inspires passion and participation. We're in the middle of an inexorable shift toward consumer control. I have experience with consumer-generated content. My opinion is that the value created by active consumer participation is greater than the downside reduced control creates. My advice is just do it.

February 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From Christian Science Monitor:

Offer to buy the world a Coke and you'll probably find plenty of takers. But try to sell the iconic American drink, and you might meet with some ambivalence among youths these days, particularly abroad. That's according to a recent study that compared big global brands it considered "teen relevant," gathering feedback from thousands of youths in 13 countries - including the United States.

Coca-Cola still topped the chart in terms of name recognition, followed by McDonald's. But Coke fell to eighth place when it came to likeability, and the burger chain dropped all the way to No. 32. Disney and America Online also nose-dived in appeal.

The top three affinity slots went to Sony (Japan), Nokia (Finland), and Adidas (Germany). Top US finisher: Nike at No. 4, a somewhat surprising result given that US firms have traditionally wielded a collective hegemony with this very desirable demographic.

The study suggests that control is slipping from brands that try to impose images on teens rather than reflecting teens' perceptions of themselves. Smart brands win teen market share by allowing teens to be part of a brand "story," experts say.

[via Kottke]

February 19, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Eva Barboni on the Swarthmore lawn

While Rocketboom looks to fill its tank with an estimated $2 million in ad sales--a lot of money for a video podcast--a group of students at Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia are deeply immersed in another sort of podcasting venture. War News Radio is a news program on conditions in Iraq today.

We at War News Radio are trying to rediscover the voices of real people. Our show fills the gaps in the media's coverage by airing new perspectives, both personal and historical, in a balanced and in-depth manner. We hope our broadcasts will engage our listeners and inspire them to engage critically with the rest of the world

Ben McGrath of The New Yorker profiled the station in a "Talk of the Town" piece last December.

“We thought we were at a disadvantage not being on the ground in Iraq,” Eva Barboni, a junior poli-sci major, said. “But when you hear from reporters there that they can’t even leave their hotels you start to think.” The sound quality afforded by Skype, it turns out, is often better than what can be achieved over the weak landlines in the Green Zone.

“If you’re working for a big American network, with a film crew following you, you’re not going to get out on the streets in Baghdad,” Wren Elhai, a sophomore, said. “We can do a lot from here that the networks can’t do.”

War News Radio also manages to do stories of local interest. In the latest segment available for download (which I'm listening to now as I type), WNR reporter, Amelia Templeton, speaks to actor and playwright Heather Raffo. In her play 9 Parts of Desire--which is currently showing at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia--Raffo presents a portrait of nine Iraqi women from all walks of life.

This news show is an outstanding public service, and an great training ground for these students, some of whom we may be hearing on NPR in the near future.

February 19, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

"Blogging is the closest literary culture has come to instant obsolescence." -Trevor Butterworth

Mainstream journalist, Trevor Butterworth, delivered a thought provoking but ultimately dismissive article on blogs called "Time for the last post" for the weekend edition of Financial Times. In an ironic twist, FT set up a blog, where readers can chime in on the story.

One of the more interesting aspects in the piece is commentary from Choire Sicha and Ana Marie Cox, two bloggers who've cashed in.

Sicha, senior editor at The New York Observer, who Butterworth describes as, "dressed in a pink shirt and blue jeans, and unshaven to the point of looking like a young Bee Gee gone preppy," said:

The word blogosphere has no meaning. There is no sphere; these people aren't connected; they dont have anything to do with each other. The democratic promise of blogs, he explained, has just produced more fragmentation and segregation at a time when seeing the totality of things - the purview of old media - is arguably much more important.

As for blogs taking over big media in the next five years? Fine, sure, he added. But where are the beginnings of that? Where is the reporting? Where is the reliability? The world of blogs is like an entire newspaper composed of op-eds and letters and wire service feeds.

Cox, former editor of Wonkette, who left Gawker Media's politcal gossip rag to write books full time said:

There's always going to be a New York Times. As a culture, we like to have a narrative that we kind of agree on. You and your cohorts may believe that its liberal elitist propaganda - or you may think its corporate, conservative hegemony. But theres a sense in which its good to have The New York Times because we need to know that this is the dominant storyline right now. Cable news has the same function.

Butterworth also checks in on Madison Avenue, for their take:

There is a certain loss of control when it comes to advertising on blogs, said Mark Wnek, chairman and chief creative officer of Lowe New York. The connection the most popular citizen journalists cultivate with their devotees is through an honest, uncensored, raw freedom of expression, and that can be quite uncomfortable territory for a traditional marketer.

We all pass what we do and think through a given lens or filter. Butterworth is a Columbia J-School educated writer and editor. He's looking at the bloatosphere as a flimsy cretin, when compared side by side with mainstream news. The problem with that framework is blogs and mainstream media are an an apples-to-oranges comparison. Very few bloggers break news on their site. What blogs can do is push a story in new directions. Blogs can also add depth to a story via the comment string and hyperlinking.

Then there's the ever-looming question, "What will corporations (and their brand managers) make of blogs?" A few have begun to find out. I have no doubt many more will endeavor to discover how social media can be a successful component of their overall communications plan.

[UPDATE] Former Gawker.com editor, Choire Sicha, reports that he's been called a sell-out in response to his comments in the article above. He goes on to say Gawker Media now pays four times what it did in his time.

February 19, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Hugh's buddy, The Head Lemur, really let one fly today.

Marketeers always deny that what they do is harmful. They create the most convoluted and 'plausable' justifications for what they do. They will tell you that marketing is good for you. They will tell you that you can't live without them and you are somehow incomplete without them. They are wrong. Not because of the creativity, but because of the format of the internet.

Traditional Marketing Wisdom stated that a bad customer experience would only lose you 7 customers. That was in the days of Monologue. This is age of Dialogue. The Internet and Blogs can cost you all of them. This is age of Dialogue. Genuine Dialogue. Every company who has tried ghost blogs has had their asses handed to them. We are smart and getting smarter every day. Our bullshit detectors will ferret you out and thousands of voices will point and laugh. You cannot spin your way out of this.

Marketeers call us Reputation Terrorists. You always denigrate what you fear. We are your best hope to sell things that work, the fastest product testers, and will probably tell you things about your products you never thought of.

If you want to find out what your customers want, just ask. Because we don't take dictation anymore.

The truth is people have a right to be mad. 99% of all marketers are rude as hell. And 99% of the messages they send are utter crap.

With the advent of push button publishing (some call it blogging), the average citizen has found a way to be heard above the din. Found a way to fight back. A way to go to the window and yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From The New York Times:

To promote their upcoming season of "The Sopranos," HBO, a division of Time Warner, and Deep Focus, an online marketing agency, have created an interactive map of New Jersey, using satellite maps from Google, and have highlighted important points of the most recent season's storyline. The map has about 15 icons in specific areas where scenes took place. When the user clicks on an icon, the scene plays in a pop-up window, which also supplies a description and a list of characters.

Ian Schafer, the founder and chief executive of Deep Focus, said Google gave permission to use its satellite maps, which have detailed satellite imagery of the earth, without charge.

Seth Godin, an author and speaker on marketing, called HBO's interactive map a perfect example of a way to get online users excited about a TV show. "The real home run, and the reason this isn't just a silly stunt, is that ideas no longer spread directly from mainstream media to individuals, there's a middleman now and that middleman is word of mouth."

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

According to this article in Ad Age, branding guru, Al Ries, wants Guatemala to change its name to Guatemaya.

Guatemala is a country rich in heritage. It was the cultural center of the Mayas, the most advanced civilization in all of North and South America. Even today, 43 percent of Guatemala’s population of 14 million people are of Maya descent. Many still speak dialects of the Maya language.

With mountain ranges as high as 10,000 feet and a culture seemingly unchanged for 500 years, Guatemala is a tourist paradise. Scattered throughout Guatemala are hundreds of spectacular Maya ruins. Cities, temples, houses, playing fields. The relics of a glorious past. More spectacular than the Pyramids of Egypt or the Taj Mahal of India, and built for the living rather than the dead.

It makes sense, on paper. But we're talking about a nation here, not a brand.

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Guy Kawasaki's post "How To Suck Up To A Blogger" offers some good advise to PR flacks.

Blogging has flipped traditional PR on its head. It used to be that ink begat buzz. Life was simple then: you sucked up to the Wall Street Journal, one of its reporters wrote about your product, and the buzz began.

Nowadays buzz begets ink. Journalists no longer anticipate or create buzz--rather, they react to it.

Guy lays out a nine point plan for acquiring this highly desired buzz. His seventh point is one I fully endorse.

7. Use a rifle, not a shotgun. Any company that carpet bombs bloggers should be shot. The effect is the same as sending two dozen people the same email requesting help. Not only will this approach fail, bloggers will conclude that you're a bozo to boot. Your job is to find out exactly who you are relevant to. It is not the blogging community's job to sort through your bull secretion.

[UPDATE] Guy also mentions it can't hurt to send bloggers some schwag, which is precisely what Josh Hallet received from Potato Finger, Decatur, Georgia's purveyor of "old school thin & crispy potato chips."

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Creative director, copywriter and communications strategist, Bob Cargill, is seeking a new job.

Perhaps, I ought to rephrase that. He's seeking a new post that truly fits his vision.

Wherever I land, I hope it’s a place that recognizes the need to leverage the effectiveness of traditional, time-tested marketing principles with the power of the latest new conversational media tools, consequently embracing a sense of both immediacy and transparency, two of the most important hallmarks of successful brand communications campaigns today.

In exchange for such synergy and simpatico, I vow to give my next employer every last ounce of my whole professional being.

I vow to wield my skills in the areas of creative direction, communications and strategic consulting to help lead this organization through the minefields of change and into the promised land of new marketing nirvana, where it can be gleefully at one with its employees, partners and constituents alike.

This, as I stand at the crossroads of change in an industry that has been surprisingly slow to adapt and adopt, is my career imperative, my own personal brand mantra, my clarion call to any potential employer who will listen and accede to my dream of a new and even better way of doing my work.

This is not your typical appeal, as you may have noted. And while there's a touch of New Age rhetoric in Bob's appeal, I think it works. Agencies that want to tread water need not apply is what he's saying.

I hope he finds what he's seeking. Real leaders with heart (and the balls to go with it), are not always welcome in corporate culture.

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Buzz Machine and Fresh Inc. are running stories on the rumored sale of DailyCandy, a free daily e-mail newsletter and website, that purports to be the "ultimate insider’s guide to what’s hot, new, and undiscovered — from fashion and style to gadgets and travel."

Bob Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, bought controlling interest in Daily Candy for $3.5 million. The rumored sale price is $100 million.

Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine says:

There’s a syncopation at work here. Email is still hot with advertisers, who finally understand it, and so they value it and pay. They will understand and value the distributed web next.

Whether this deal gets done remains to be seen. But the valuations, while specualtive at this juncture, appear to be another sign that Bubble 2.0 is on the horizon.

February 20, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 1 Comments

I'll admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Radio Shack. I used to be the king of radio and cassette "Y" adapters. My grandfather was a loyal member of the free battery club. So it pains me, a bit, to read this story from the AP:

Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. on Friday said fourth-quarter earnings dropped 62 percent and said it plans to close 400 to 700 underperforming stores and distribution centers in Charleston, S.C., and Southhaven, Miss., as part of a plan to improve its financial performance.

And on top of that, their CEO has a truthiness problem:

RadioShack Corp. Chief Executive David Edmondson said he lied about his academic record, leading the electronics retailer's board to hire a lawyer to advise it on the matter, according to statements released by the company late on Wednesday.

The questions about Edmondson's education — and the revelation that he has been involved in several alcohol-related driving incidents — left analysts wondering if he could survive in his position.

I think there still may be a niche for Radio Shack these days, but I'm not sure exactly what it is, especially now that I get all my little electonic accessories from eBay, and I really don't need a WeatheRadio. So I've got a question. Do you have an answer for Radio Shack's future?

UPDATE: David Edmondson resigned today.

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Last month, Adweek spoke to Steve Stone, president and creative director at Heat/San Francisco.

Q. Why do you give your agencies names rather than calling them Stone & Elder, etc.?

A. I have always wanted aplace where people could feel like they could be part of a bigger entity, to emotionally feel like they belong to something. When the partners' names are on the door, it's hard for people to feel a true connection that lasts.

Here's more on Stone's naming conventions, from The San Francisco Chronicle:

The Black Rocket founders had taken the name of a steam locomotive, Rocket, built by a British engineer, George Stephenson, that won a race in 1829. They liked the analogy: Stephenson had come from big companies, while they had come from large agencies to try to make it on their own.

"Heat,'' said Stone, offers itself to "clients ... who may have brands or products that have gone cold.''

February 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Seth Godin hit a nerve with his anti-Vegas rant. I've never liked Vegas much. The place seems flimsy and unreal, like a Hollywood set that will be gone tomorrow, after a big dust storm blows it up into Utah.

Las Vegas is an epicenter of a trend that is accelerating through every market and community on Earth.

A rapid increase in dissatisfaction.

If you don't have enough money, you can fix it by gambling. It's okay to be dissatisfied with your job and your boss and your income, because someone in Vegas has more, and they got it the easy way. I don't think it's an accident that we've got record PowerBall prizes and record PowerBall sales.

The problem with this emerging culture, aside from the fact that we're unhappy all the time, is that it doesn't give marketers a chance to build products for the long haul, to invest in the processes and products and even operating systems that pay off over time. The problem is that when brands fizz out so fast, it's hard to invest in anything except building the next hot brand.

Is there an answer?

It seems to me that insulation from discontent comes from building a relationship. Relationships that make us feel counted upon, respected, trusted and valued cut through the ennui of dissatisfaction. We got ourselves into this mess by acting like smart marketers, and as marketers we can get out of it by acting like people.

February 20, 2006 by Steve Gordon | Permalink | 9 Comments

No doubt that during the two week span of Winter Olympic coverage you will have seen a small black Gremlin-like creature with a menacing evil grin and a movie bad guy voice gracing your television screen. Say hello to "Fast", VW's newest personality in the American auto landscape.

The campaign springs from Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the same shop that brought us the new Burger King spots. While he may look the part of a tiny villain, the real purpose of Fast is to take a humorous yet quasi-realistic stab at a the "truth in advertising" motif. VW's previous "Drivers Wanted" campaign still rings true as the underlying theme, but merely as a more serene back-story to the more in-your-face "Fast". With a decidedly young male audience in mind and a tagline to "Make friends with your Fast", Fast acts as a car driver's alter-ego instilling performance-laden thoughts into more pedestrian situations. And you can throw propriety and etiquette right out of the the proverbial window. In one ad, while being heavily influenced by his Fast, one driver tells his girlfriend "Sweetie, it's really hard for me to enjoy the sound of the engine with all that yakking.", to which Fast chimes in proudly "Sometimes my Fast doesn't get along with my girlfriend." Now, I ask you guys out there, sad but true... how many of us have thought that very thing when we get a bit of side-car driving advice?

As an added treat, for GTI fans out there, you may notice that Fast is actually a black bunny with sharp features and a thin red grin on his grill. I can only guess that this is a tribute to the GTI's origins as a VW Rabbit and the original colorway of black and red. Subtle and pointed squarely at VW loyalists, this also highlights what is being touted as "unpimping" your ride or "Ünpimp Mein Auto" and returning to the clean lines and simplicity of design that are hallmarks of German auto-crafting.

Are you friends with your Fast?

Publisher's Note: This is a guest post, meant to add to the previously discussed "Crispin Puts On Lederhosen For VW" post, which currently has an interesting comment thread going on.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA TODAY reports on AOL's efforts to keep pace with its fleet footed rivals.

This week, AOL begins integrating video search from Truveo, which it bought in December. The big push will come in mid-March, when 14,000 Warner Bros.-owned classic TV shows become available on AOL for free, supported by ads, as part of its new In2TV service.

AOL's No. 1 instant-messaging service — AIM — has 43 million active users. AOL will use that clout, and AOL's substantial music and video offerings, to compete with the red-hot MySpace, owned by News Corp.

Clicking on a name in a Buddy List, for instance, could take you directly to that person's personal website.

"It makes perfect sense," says Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research. "The key is making a strong link with AOL Music. Part of the reason MySpace works so well is it has music."

Google's and Yahoo's instant messengers already offer voice. But tech analysts say AIM would quickly become a force in cheap Internet phone calling — a market now led by eBay-owned Skype. The service should roll out in late spring.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From The Chronicle Herald:

Following complaints from a feminist group and incensed customers, New Brunswick’s Moosehead Breweries has pulled an ad that implied women should speak no more than 50 words a day.

The ad, which appeared in The Onion, a U.S.-based satirical magazine, read: "The average woman speaks 10,000 words in a day. Roughly 9,950 too many."

The brewery, based in Saint John, N.B., has pledged to introduce a policy to avoid publishing similar ads in the future.

"Moosehead Breweries will not tolerate this type of sexism and tasteless work again," Joel Levesque, the company’s vice-president of public affairs, wrote in a letter to a woman from New York who complained about the ad."

Levesque said the ad appeared only once last March in The Onion’s Minneapolis, Minn., edition, where the company was conducting some test marketing.

The ad was commissioned by the company’s U.S. distributor, which is in charge of U.S. advertising. Levesque said no one in his office saw the ad before it was published.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Wieden + Kennedy/London seems surprised to find their work for sale on eBay.

The Impossible Making of the Impossible Dream TV Campaign

This DVD is an official press release from Honda and provides an insight into the recent "Impossible Dream" Honda TV advertisement campaign's production, so you can learn more about the brief, what happened behind the scenes, the featured products and examples of how Honda generators ensured the film was made.

February 21, 2006 by Matt Bergantino | Permalink | 2 Comments

In Say Anything, John Cusack says he doesn’t want to sell, buy, or process anything as a career. What Cusack means is that he doesn’t want to kiss ass.

We kiss ass in advertising. Of course, pretty much anybody who works for a living does. But it’s the kind of ass we kiss that makes ass kissing in advertising so distasteful (and perhaps so ineffectual).

Kissing ass becomes a farce when the participants look so different from each other. I mean, creatives and clients appear to be of entirely different species. We tend to be neo-hippies, art school people, NPR listeners—you know what I’m saying. Many of our clients do math in their heads and make analogies between golf and life. I think some of them always wanted to be businesspeople, even as teenagers (imagine!).

Maybe our fundamental differences are one reason why client/agency relationships in ’05 weren’t so cozy.

Any thoughts on how ass kissing can be executed with a bit more verisimilitude?

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jason Calacanis speaks fondly of his Engadget man, Peter Rojas.

Peter Rojas is on the cover of New York Magazine this week--right where he belongs. Seeing him get such major recognition got me to thinking about my history with Peter.

One of my favorite moments came a month or two after Peter Rojas had jumped ship from Gawker to Weblogs, Inc. Nick Denton and I were having drinks and he told me that I would never be able to manage Peter. Denton then went into great details about how he couldn't manage Peter, that he was demanding, and that he would never compromise his vision.

I thought for a second and said to myself "hmmm... that sounds like a description of me."

I knew we had done the right thing in courting Peter to join WIN. The truth is Peter Rojas is one of the hardest-working and most brilliant people I've ever worked with.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Computer security (to say nothing of Armegeddon) is not exactly a humorous topic, but Fortify Software manages to make it so in this new effort from Hanft Raboy.

Of course, the pitch is meant to be serious, but the weighty nature of the topic is delivered with pithy copy like this:

6 Hours from Now

An unholy war is unleashed on the world. The computers now rule, and we are all slaves.

The campaign will run in CSO, Software Test & Performance, Software Quarterly, Financial IT Security and CIO magazines.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The Manolo has a copycat. And you know what they say, flattery is the sincerest form of imitation, or some such thing.

The new third person blogger is known as "The Rahulio," and is in the employ of Ice.com, an online jewelry merchant.

Here's a sample of The Rahulio's prose:

The Rahulio knows that maybe you are reading the Sparkle Like the Stars lately and you are saying “Rahulio and the Icegrrl! Already there is so much sadness in the world! I am coming to the Sparkle to be reading about the glamour and the fame and the blingy blings, I come for the ray of the sunshining, and here you are telling me about ‘le divorce’! Rahulio, I am already knowing of these things! You must be telling me something that will make me be a smiling person!”

[via B.L. Ochman]

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From News.com:

The Ricky Gervais Show, one of the most popular podcasts on Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, is moving to a paid-only format to be sold by audio book specialist Audible.

Audible plans to announce on Tuesday that it will start selling episodes of Gervais' show beginning with a new "season two" collection of episodes, which will begin next week. Audible will charge $1.95 per episode or $6.95 for the season, which will include at least four episodes by the creator and star of British television's "The Office."

The move is the first major example of a free podcast attempting to go paid, said David Joseph, Audible's vice president of corporate communications and strategy. "We're helping Ricky to build a business so he can pay his people."

"There will be a little bit of controversy because everybody wants something for free," Joseph said. Gervais' half-hour show was the No. 4 most popular in Apple's Top 100 rankings on its podcast directory as of Monday. Audible said it expects to be able to sell the show through iTunes in addition to its own Web site. Apple partners with Audible to stock the audiobook section of iTunes.

Currently, Apple provides its podcasts and video podcasts for free, though it charges $1.99 an episode for TV shows and other video programs and 99 cents for music tracks.

Gervais' show will not carry advertising, Joseph said.

February 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 10 Comments

Tom Sherman recently wrote a great post on blog comments and the various problems they encourage, expose and amplify.

One of the biggest potential problems with the weblog format is also a hallmark and defining aspect of the blog: comments.

Most blogs allow comments. Most blogs encourage comments. But comments are limiting, (usually) non-hierarchical, and almost always disorganized. A blog is not a message board. A blog is not a forum.

Since the weblog phenomenon now appeals to an audience far broader than techies and niche readers, the pitfalls of blog commenting are exposed to every lackey Google searcher. This broader audience often has no real concept of what a weblog is and lacks the etiquette and/or technical skills to compensate for the poor technical architecture of blog commenting systems.

Tom cites Amy Gahran's write up on the subject, which is equally telling. If this topic is one you find interetsing, her post is a must read.

There is a reason A-listers like Seth Godin and Heather Armstrong do not have comments on their site. If they did, their inboxes would overflow. And they'd spend half their time striking innapropriate or rude comments (something I've had to contend with, of late).

This issue is a real struggle. I put a lot of faith in our comments. Since, I do not like to approach each post with a heavy hand, I trust that my thoughts on an issue and yours will come out in the comments. Sometimes this works perfectly. Just as often, it does not. It's no one's fault. As Tom says in his post, we're dealing with an imperfect system.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

One of the first things you learn in "How To Make Ads 101" is the need to let copy, or the visual, lead. One or the other, not both.

Lewis Lazare notes in his column today, what happens when you have a strong copy campaign that's executed in a design heavy manner.

Ah, the urge to be arty. It must be tough for many creatives at ad agencies in Chicago and around the country to resist the inclination to let their creative instincts run wild when designing print campaigns.

We quickly got the feeling that the creative team from BBDO/Chicago that was responsible for a new print and outdoor effort for Knob Creek bourbon were in something of a show-off mode when they created the new campaign breaking this week.

Our first reaction was "too busy." Each execution is a collage of images, including a bourbon glass, the distinctive Knob Creek bottle itself, a bar scene and some other bits and pieces. While each of the images by itself has merit, putting them together leaves the eye struggling to decipher the overarching message.

The potent copy helps, though it isn't really as directly connected to the visuals as we'd like. We especially appreciated the strong stand for individuality expressed in copy lines such as "At some point in time, a man switches from 'I'll have what he's having to 'I'll have what I'm having,'" and "The presence of a barstool shouldn't prevent you from standing for something."

With copy this strong, why was the ad rendered in type so small that it seems an afterthought in relation to the visuals?

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Rishad Tobaccowala's star, already bright, is rising even higher.

Publicis Groupe today announced the launch of Denuo, a major new strategic initiative designed to anticipate and exploit the rapidly changing digital, interactive and mobile communication environment.

Denuo is not based on any pre-existing industry model. Denuo’s model rests on three pillars, and will function simultaneously as a strategic consultant, an inventor of solutions and as an investor in partnerships. The unprecedented new venture [“denuo” = ‘afresh’, ‘anew’ in Latin] will be led by Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer of Publicis Groupe Media and celebrated industry visionary who was identified by Business Week as one of the top business leaders in 2005.

Denuo aims to partner with new companies and individuals who are inventing future pathways to elusive consumers. By so doing, Denuo earns first-mover rights for clients in these ventures.

“There is huge market demand for expertise that can serve clients as sensors, editors and collaborators, and who can work in a plug and play world,” said Rishad Tobaccowala.

Denuo will operate from offices in Chicago and New York.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The New York Times reports that The Sporting News is for sale. The current owner--Paul Allen's investment arm, Vulcan--bought the media business for $100 million five years ago.

Jay Kirsch, a vice president of AdMedia Partners, an investment banking and advisory firm for media companies, estimated that The Sporting News magazine was worth $35 million to $40 million.

The magazine provides slightly less than 50 percent of the company's revenue of approximately $60 million a year, while the other half comes from its books, online and radio divisions.

Founded in 1886 by Alfred Henry Spink, a Canadian-born sportswriter, The Sporting News is the oldest sports publication in the United States. It focuses on news and is generally devoid of long features and personality profiles.

The Sporting News has a circulation of 715,767, placing it far behind Sports Illustraed and ESPN Magazine with 3.23 million and 1.89 million, respectively.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

[via We-Make-Money-Not -Art]

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Jason Kottke quit his day job over a year ago in order to blog full time.

His large and loyal following, helped him achieve this via 1450 micropayments totalling $39,900 (collected in the first three weeks of the drive). Of course, he's thankful, but he won't be asking for more of the same.

I'm not going to be asking for contributions again. I haven't grown traffic enough or developed a sufficient cult of personality to make the subscription model a sustainable one for kottke.org...those things just aren't interesting to me.

I'm glad he revealed his figures, because I had a similar thought last Friday night while seeing Yonder Mountain String Band play in Charlotte. My thought was this: a head-to-head contest between me and Alex Bogusky, called "Beat Bogusky To Boulder."

I'm not ready to pull the trigger on it, just yet. But it's a fun idea, so I thought I'd share it with you.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Do you know about the First Things First manifesto? I did not, until today.

According to Wikipedia, this is what it's about:

The First Things First manifesto was written 29 November 1963 and published in 1964 by Ken Garland. Today we may not understand the significance of the document which at the time caused consternation. It was backed by over 400 graphic designers and artists and also received the backing of Tony Benn, radical left-wing MP and activist, who published it in its entirety in the Guardian newspaper.

Reacting against a rich and affluent Britain of the sixties, it tried to re-radicalise design which had become lazy and uncritical. Drawing on ideas shared by Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School and the counter-culture of the time it explicitly re-affirmed the belief that Design is not a neutral value-free process.

It rallied against the consumerist culture that was purely concerned with buying and selling things and tried to highlight a Humanist dimension to graphic design theory. It was later updated and republished with a new group of signatories under the First things first 2000 Manifesto.

Here's a clip from the manifesto:

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Human beings hungry for rapidly made imitation Mexican food, must be computer literate to place an order*.

Courtesy of Flickr user, "maju6406."

*at participating locations, offer not valid via email

[via Random Culture]

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Prime Pearl Street "office space"

Om Malik's place has a guest piece from Jackson West. Mr. West's topic is coffee houses as Web 2.0 office spaces.

Forget Palo Alto garages — San Francisco coffee shops are where to get your startup off the ground. Internet cafes are emerging as an important place to get work done, hold meetings and network. Since writers, designers, developers and anyone else who can work from their laptop are going to show up, you can even recruit talent, publicize your project and even demo your product for potential users and investors.

I like this bootstrapper's model much better than working from home. Working from home is too isolating. Plus, I'm addicted to espresso.

February 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

In the sexually repressed North American nation where I reside, alcohol advertisements can not make claims that one's sexual attractiveness or performance will be heightened by the selection of the correct beer, wine or spirit.

Apparently, Japan has no such controls. Witness this Ogilvy Japan ad for Corona:

In case you missed it, the copy says, "Grind it in deeper."

[via Hidden Persuader]

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Lewis Lazare:

Macy's department store chain, a division of Federated Department Stores, has completed a national media-buying agency review and named Starcom USA/Chicago, as the retailer's first national planning and buying agency, effective immediately. Starcom's assignment includes more than $200 million a year in media planning and buying for Macy's television, radio, print, out-of-home and Internet advertising in the United States. Starcom won out over other finalists, including Initiative and MPG. The addition of Starcom means two Chicago agencies are now at the center of Macy's national marketing initiative set to begin in earnest in September. JWT/Chicago is developing the launch national ad campaign next fall that coincides with the folding of the Marshall Field's chain into Macy's.

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From The State:

South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford, vetoed a bill meant to prevent local governments from removing billboards that don't comply with city or county laws.

In a letter to House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, Sanford said he vetoed the bill because it favors the outdoor advertising industry over other types of businesses and property owners.

Conservationists and scenic highway activists were elated with Sanford’s veto Tuesday night.

“I can’t believe he did it,’’ said Van Kornegay, a member of Citizens for a Scenic South Carolina. “I know he faced intense pressure from a lot of different quarters.’’

There are about 6,500 billboards on interstates, U.S. highways and other major thoroughfares in the state, according to the S.C. Department of Transportation, which permits those signs.

Thanks to Evan Tishuk for the tip.

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Los Angeles Times:

Here in remote West Texas, where rodeo means bulls and broncos, is a tiny store adorned with canvas awnings carrying the logo of the Italian fashion house Prada. On view inside are 20 women's shoes and half a dozen handbags — some in the four-figure price range.

But the "store" is not a store. It's a work of art called "Prada Marfa." And the place turns motorists' heads as they speed along this wide-open, desolate stretch of U.S. 90.

A pair of Berlin-based artists, Danish-born Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset of Norway, designed the art as a "snapshot" in time meant to succumb naturally to the elements over the years.

Milan-based Prada SpA has supported contemporary art for years. Miuccia Prada, the fashion house's chief designer and granddaughter of company founder Mario Prada, selected the items displayed at the Marfa project. She says the work illustrates "a deep-seated anxiety, as well as an extricable link, between art and fashion.

"It is an intelligent work, and rather than shy away from it, we recognize the strength of its statement," she said. "Seen from a distance, the structure seems more like a simple cube set in the desert than it does a boutique. While 'Prada Marfa' may overtly comment on fashion, it also refers to the influence of minimalist art, as well as to vernacular architecture."

Art Review magazine described the project as causing "aesthetic friction in an iconic wilderness."

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Doodle courtesy of Hugh MacLeod

For more on the long tail, see Chris Anderson's bloggy goodness.

I think we already know all there is to know about evil big heads.

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Silicon Beat, Vizu, a San Francisco-based start-up that does interactive Web-based polling, has raised $1 million in a first round of funding.

John Keehler of Random Culture says, "When a company that produces web-based polls can get 1 million in funding, we're in a bubble."

That may be, or the people at Vizu may simply be well connected. After all, the world of venture capital isn't exactly a meritocracy (contradictory as that may seem).

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From Star-Telegram:

Anheuser-Busch Cos., the United States' biggest beer maker, next month plans to roll out Peels, a line of fizzy, alcoholic fruit drinks in such flavors as strawberry with passion fruit and cranberry with peach. The St. Louis company recently invited editors at some of the nation's top women's magazines for free manicures and facials at a Manhattan spa, where they sampled the drinks.

The products are backed by a barrage of ads aimed at women. In the past two years, Diageo PLC, Pernod-Ricard SA and Mark Anthony Group, the maker of Mike's Hard Lemonade, all have run commercials on the top U.S. cable programs among 18- to 24-year-old women, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Promoting alcohol to women is even more intense in the United Kingdom. In the past two years, 81 new versions of premixed bottled drinks such as Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezers have hit U.K. shelves, including a diet version of Bacardi Breezers launched last summer. Sometimes called "alcopops," because they resemble alcohol-spiked soda pop, the drinks first took off in the U.K. in the early 1990s before becoming a world-wide hit for the industry. Global sales of alcopops were $22.7 billion last year, up 6 percent from 2004 and more than triple the level of 1997, according to market-research group Euromonitor.

In targeting women, alcohol firms are taking a page from tobacco companies, which for years tried to lure more female smokers with female-friendly "smooth," flavored and mild-tasting cigarettes, and ads conveying an aura of refinement and independence.

February 23, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

This article in BusinessWeek doesn't deal with creativity as the advertising business knows it, but the idea that kids today need to be taught to be innovative thinkers. In an interview with Sir Ken Robinson, he talks about the importance of nurturing innovative solutions in the classroom:

Creativity is the latest buzzword in the corporate world. What's your explanation? The world is changing so quickly that promoting the ability for creative thinking and promoting cultural adaptability is essential. Remember that kids starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. We don't have a clue about what the world will be like then.

The trouble is that the educational system isn't designed to promote this sort of innovative thinking that we need. It is designed to promote uniformity and a certain type of narrow skill set. Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy, and I actually think people understand that creativity is important -- they just don't understand what it is.

School reforms always emphasize standards and standardized testing, as if it's akin to a McDonald's franchise. But standardized testing demoralizes teachers, demoralizes students, and incents people to teach to the test. Standardized testing is based on the idea that we have to make education teacher-proof and I think we have to do the reverse.

What does that mean for business?
A lot of the secret of the creative corporation is looking hard at employees and realizing their strengths. When companies first start thinking about becoming creative, they tend to start thinking about hiring people from outside. They don't think about the people they already have. And a lot of creativity is in helping people, whether students or employees, to find their talent -- the way they are creative. Because most everyone is.

I'm still not convinced the large majority of institutions in our society are all that comfortable with the idea of creativity, because it digs right into the heart of challenging norms and disrupting conventional wisdom.

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

The Bonnaroo Music Festival is looking for submissions to create a Bonnaroo logo or design. Take a little time to show us what you've got, and we may use your artwork for some Bonnaroo merchandise. There are no guidelines for the actual artwork, except that it have some tie to The Bonnaroo Music Festival.

Please submit your designs (maximum 1 megabyte) or questions about the contest to design@bonnaroo.com or send to the address below. Final artwork is not needed; just an optimized picture is fine (72 dpi JPEG or GIF preferred).

The winners will receive a pair of tickets to Bonnaroo 2006!

See Bonnaroo's official site for full details and rules.

[via Live Music Blog]

February 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From Ad Age:

Troubled by the worsening reputation of drug companies that is ranked just above tobacco and oil manufacturers, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is out to win over a skeptical public -- by turning its entire sales force into a PR machine.

In an unprecedented mission, the $35.4 billion pharmaceutical giant has quietly anointed its 8,000 U.S. sales representatives as “public relations ambassadors” to lift its image and that of the beleaguered industry with grassroots PR. The initiative, dubbed the ”Value of Medicine,” was created by Michael Pucci, GSK’s VP-external advocacy, to respond to overwhelming criticism and negative perception of the pharmaceutical industry.

“What we’re leveraging here is asking our employees to talk to people, even if they just start with their family members,” he said.

“I understand pharma does feel they’ve been picked on, but I’m not sure this is the best way to go about changing that image,” said Dr. Donna Sweet, chair of the Board of Regents for the American College of Physicians, which is on record as opposing direct-to-consumer advertising.

Alison Byrne Fields, VP of Social Marketing at Ogilvy PR wonders, "Are there other, more credible voices that the industry could be tapping into in order to enhance their reputation? The days of blind faith in your doctor (or even having a regular physician!) have diminished the medical field's credibility."

February 23, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 0 Comments

I'm taking a new ad gig in Detroit. Just wondering if we have any faithful (or unfaithful) readers up there. Drop me a line if you're there, at dgoldg@mindspring.com. Thanks!

February 23, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 26 Comments

I don't know how much entry fees are at the Tampa ADDYS, but local Tampa agency Pyper Paul & Kenney hauled in 127 ADDYS this year. Someone must've sold a boat or two to pay for all those entries, but nevertheless, congrats to the folks there. That's a sweep and a half.

PP+K's honors included 63 gold, 55 silver and seven of the 13 Best of the Bay awards, the judges' prize for copywriting and overall best of show. The work represented 14 different clients.

"What we're most proud of is the fact that we won awards for fourteen different clients," said Tom Kenney, executive creative director of the independent Tampa, Fla., shop. "Many times an agency will have a showcase client that they win awards with. We work hard to ensure that every client is a showcase client."

Story in The Tampa Bay Business Journal and Adweek.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Lewis Lazare reveals that during 2005, Staples sold no fewer than 500,000 replicas of its Easy Button as a desk accessory.

When this happens--a genuine viral response driven by TV--you know your work is working. Conversely, when one of your peers gives you a little trophy for your desk, all you know is some ad people liked it, one hungover Saturday morning long ago.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Adweek:

Rawle Murdy has been hired by SunTrust Banks to help the company promote its expansion into the Charleston, S.C., market, the shop said.

SunTrust has announced plans to open seven branches in the area in April and several more during the next 12 months.

The independent Charleston shop will coordinate events and sponsorships for the Atlanta-based bank in addition to community and public relations. WPP Group's Young & Rubicam in New York is providing advertising for the market expansion. Y&R won the $40 million ad account in a review last November.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Ad Age:

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the U.S., with the Census Bureau pegging its population at slightly over 2 million. But it’s the 18th largest ad market, much to the dismay of local marketing executives.

“We’ve taken a major hit,” Lou Congelio, president of Stan & Lou Advertising, told his local brethren at a Houston Advertising Federation luncheon last week. “McCann is gone. Ogilvy is gone. BBDO is gone. Bates is gone. NW Ayer. And when they left, so did their clients, one way or another. Exxon. Texas Instruments. Texaco. Six Flags. Compaq. The list goes on.”

Yes, Houston has a problem -- and it also thinks it has a solution. The town’s newly feisty marketing and production communities hope to exterminate the perception of the city as an also-ran with “Only in Houston,” a campaign designed to call attention to what its boosters believe is a vibrant creative community. The push is thought to be the first of its kind from a major U.S. city’s marketing community and is being conducted entirely pro bono.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." -Steve Jobs

Thank You Steve is a new site commemorating Apple Computer's 30th anniversary. One of the nicer features of the site, is the "Daily Steve Quote," from which the one above was pulled.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Peer-to-peer is so much more than file swapping. It's people helping people is what it is.

Prosper, America's first people-to-people lending marketplace, was created to make consumer lending more financially and socially rewarding for everyone.

The way Prosper works is intuitive to people who have used eBay. Instead of listing and bidding on items, people list and bid on loans using Prosper's online auction platform.

People who want to lend set the minimum interest rate they are willing to earn and bid in increments of $50 to $25,000 on loan listings they select. People who lend can easily diversify using "standing orders", which automatically make many small loans to different borrowers.

Business Week calls it a bold idea, bound to attract some naysayers. BW also makes the citizen empowerment point here:

It could also turn anyone with a little money into a banker. Potentially, lenders can earn an annualized 6%-and-up in monthly interest payments from a range of borrowers, providing an addition to stocks, bonds, real estate and the like. People who have money can invest directly in other people and diversify their investments.

Stanford Business School grad, Chris Larsen, who co-founded online loan broker E-Loan, makes his second big play with Prosper.

Prosper launched Feb. 13th, 2006.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Consumerist points to a maddening customer service story.

Matthew Ghali created GoldenGateVW.com, to share his poor customer experience with Golden Gate Volkswagen, and its owner, Mathew Zaheri.

In May 2003, my fiancee (now my wife) and I took her Jetta to Golden Gate Volkswagen for a few simple repairs.

This experience at Golden Gate Volkswagen turned out to be unpleasant. While the car was at Golden Gate Volkswagen it was damaged, and we believe that we were charged much more for services than we were quoted.

Zaheri then sued Ghali for $1.5 million. I'm not sure what settlement was reached, but Ghali told Consumerist he paid $40k to his lawyers, allowing him to keep the current content on his site in place for all to see.

February 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Hilton Head Island, SC is a ritzy enclave with exacting planning standards. Overt signs of commerce are frowned upon. After all, the Yankees who troll its shores and explore its golf courses, toiled mightily to leave all that sordidness behind.

Which brings us to Island Packet columnist, David Lauderdale, and his piece today on Cracker Barrel closing up shop locally (and the problems they faced 19 years ago in front of the local zoning board).

The story of the Cracker Barrel sign can serve as a guide in a community that still struggles to find a balance between commercial and residential factions.

The story shows that both sides have to give some. It shows that citizens need to stand up for what they think is right, and they must take an active role in shaping the community. It also shows that corporations must understand that the Lowcountry is special. Southern Beaufort County is not the same as suburban Atlanta, and the business world should plan accordingly.

According to the story, the island's Corridor Review Committee objected to the mustard color of Cracker Barrel's logo and the fact that it depicts a folksy character, something they wanted none of in the former rice fields.

It led to a momentous showdown between a little old lady on the Corridor Review Committee and the president and founder of the Cracker Barrel Corp., Danny Evins.

The man in the sign, he told them, was modeled after his own Uncle Herschel, who helped shape the Tennessee company's image and values.

According to a 1987 Packet story headlined "Panel says sign still doesn't cut the mustard," Evins told the group, "The gentleman next to the barrel represents an era. He suggests a slow tempo." He is supposed to represent someone conservative, almost religious, Evins said.

Despite the restaurant's downturn on Hilton Head Island, 535 Cracker Barrels are going strong in other, presumably more commercial, locations.

February 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

In a case of extreme customer empowerment, Paul English really "started something" last fall when he published a directory of unlisted 1-800 customer service numbers on his blog.

According to The New York Times, following more than one million visitors to his blog in January alone plus appearances on MSNBC, NPR and the BBC, "Mr. English has transformed his righteous indignation into a full-blown crusade."

He started Get Human, which he calls a grass-roots movement to "change the face of customer service."

"I'm not anticomputer," Mr. English explained over lunch near his office in suburban Boston. "I've been a programmer for more than 20 years. I'm not anticapitalist. I'm on my fifth start-up. But I am anti-arrogance. Why do the executives who run these call centers think they can decide when I deserve to speak to a human being and when I don't?"

The Get Human cheat sheet makes for entertaining and mystifying reading. Want to reach an operator at a certain major bank? Just press 0#0#0#0#0#0#. Want to reach an agent at a big dental insurance company? Press 00000, wait through a message, select language, 4, 0. Want to reach a human at a leading consumer electronics retailer? Press 111## and wait through three prompts asking for your home phone number.

It would be funny if it weren't so depressing and such bad business.

People talk. That's always been true. But in today's hyperlinked world, the conversations are logged, and easily called up by anyone, at anytime, via search. Which is to say, all businesses must have near perfect customer service, because whatever problems are unresolved will find their way into the public record.

February 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I was made aware of Zoom Info the other day. It's "the search engine for discovering people, companies and relationships."

According to their site, "ZoomInfo continually scans millions of corporate Web sites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other public online sources. From these Websites ZoomInfo automatically compiles a person's Web Summary, which focuses on their professional achievements and background – the stuff they are proud of…"

No doubt some, at first, will be creeped out by finding cached web pages with details of their lives so readily displayed without their prior input or knowledge.

Money puts a more positive spin on it:

If you recoil from networking events, never get around to putting out feelers and have no clue how to "work a room," congratulations! You're the ideal candidate for a terrific new job.

In human-resources lingo, you're a "passive" prospect -- and a hot commodity these days because employers know that top workers are often treated well and thus may not be looking around.

So-called passive recruiting isn't new, of course. It's what executive recruiters have always done.

But the tactic is increasingly being used for positions lower down the corporate ladder, and that trend is being facilitated by giant databases of employment data gleaned from publicly available sources like press releases, SEC filings and articles in trade publications.

The industry leader, ZoomInfo in Waltham, Mass., has 27 million profiles in its database, while lesser-known competitor Ziggs.com has about 3 million.

Upon finding that Zoom Info had data on me, I joined so I'd be in a better position to shape "the report." Thus far, Ziggs has nothing on me.

I'd like to hear what others think about these services. They are clearly different from social networking sites like LinkedIn, where one's info is volunteered, not mined. Perhaps, the mined data is more accurate, if not as up to date.

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits is teaming up with Wrestle- mania for a promotion developed jointly by Pepsi-Cola and DiMeo & Co./Chicago, ad agency of record for Chicago-area Popeyes outlets. Starting Wednesday, Popeyes customers who purchase a combo meal will receive a package of World Wrestling Entertainment trading cards.

[via Lewis Lazare]

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Blog Media, Inc. has acquired The Blog Herad from Australian entrepreneur and blogger, Duncan Riley.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

BlogMedia, Inc., headquartered in Minnesota, is a privately owned online publisher of a unique variety of content. Jack of all Blogs, ProBlogging, BloggerJobs and Major League Blog are some of their other properties.

An earlier deal for that would have paid Riley $76,000 fell through.

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Adweek reports that Stacey Lynn Koerner, evp, director of global research integration at Interpublic Group's Initiative, has been named president of the Consumer Experience Practice, a newly formed unit within IPG Media.

"Consumers are moving fluidly and dynamically through media and content today," Koerner said in a statement. "Our challenge is to create brand experiences that move with them in ways that heighten their engagement rather than disrupt it."

This, on the heels of Publicis Group's announcement last week of Denuo, their entry into the new media lottery.

Eric Mattson, an American marketer and entrepreneur currently living in Stockholm, Sweden points out that "Interpublic Group has 91 companies, $6 billion in annual revenues, 43,000 employees and 3 corporate blogs."

Hugh MacLeod reasons that IPG is slow to blog, because, "Blogging, when done correctly, is CHEAP and EASY. Ad agencies are in the business of selling stuff that is NEITHER."

As I've said in this space before, conversational media needn't by definition be cheap, nor easy. It can be, and for bootstrappers it presents a wonderful means of connecting. Hugh has proven that can be done with great success. I'm still interested in seeing how it might be done with bigger budgets.

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Dallas-based, Moroch, created a new web site for McDonald’s.

WWW.FILETOFISH.COM encourages visitors to play an interactive game to save their Filet-O-Fish Sandwich from swimming sharks. The top 50 player’s scores from around the country will be displayed ongoing while game “codes” to circumvent levels can be accessed by passing the link along to friends, taking a survey or through successfully completing levels.

Market intelligence firm IDC, said over 84 million people visited online gaming sites in 2003, with over 104 million projected by 2007.

The online game, titled “Shark Bait”, is part of comprehensive and integrated multimedia campaign including Spanish and English language television and radio spots, rich-media banner ads, outdoor and point-of-purchase. The campaign will run in 50 U.S. media markets and over 2,700 restaurants.

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

If I was a rainmaker, I'd go to Chicago next month and back slap at IEG's 23rd annual Sponsorship Conference. It looks to be a client-side festival of some magnitude.

Here's one session, I'd attend.

Spreading the Wealth: The Strategy Behind ConAgra’s Shift to Multi-brand Sponsorships Mike Hargrave, Vice President, Sponsorship and Event Marketing, ConAgra Foods, Inc.

The packaged goods giant’s new sponsorship focus is on finding broad platforms that can promote multiple brands and be leveraged to benefit ConAgra’s retail customers. In addition to allowing the company to share costs across multiple brand budgets, a key driver of the strategy is gaining support from the grocery trade, which wants large-scale, impactful programs. Hargrave will delve into how the strategy is working with ConAgra’s first-time Six Flags and minor league baseball deals, as well as its reworked tie to NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing, including activation ideas that involve interacting with consumers in ways that enhance their on-site experiences.

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Alex Bouldergusky talks to a guy with a camera at Future Marketing Summit in New York City last week.

[via Random Culture]

February 27, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Philippe Lacoste, grandson of Izod Lacoste founder René Lacoste, spoke to Business Week recently.

What's the story behind that alligator, logo?

It was the nickname of my grandfather, René Lacoste, who was a tennis champion who won three French Opens, two Wimbledons, and two U.S. Open titles.

In 1927 my grandfather made a bet with the captain of the French Davis Cup team, after they both saw a suitcase made from alligator skin in a Boston storefront. His captain promised to buy it for my grandfather if he won the next day's match for the French team. René didn't win the match, but in reporting it one newspaper said something like: "Young Lacoste didn't win the game or the alligator-skin suitcase, but he certainly fought like an alligator."

The name stuck with René, as he later continued to win matches and display his tenacity on court. So, René had a friend who embroidered the crocodile on his blazer, which he wore to the tennis courts.

René and his friend founded a company in 1933, marking the first time that a brand name appeared on the outside of an article of clothing.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Remember CD-ROM?

According to The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News does. The paper will begin to distribute CD-ROM copies of Hollywood Previews magazine in certain Sunday issues.

In the 1990's, CD-ROM's were seen as a viable new venue for media, but they never flourished.

Hollywood Previews, produced by iMedia International, began appearing in 2001, but this is its first permanent partnership with a newspaper.

Simply publishing a Web site address in the paper and expecting readers to visit that site "is really a leap of faith," said Henry Williamson, the president of newspaper syndication for iMedia. "We want a captive audience, we want a tangible product."

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Courtesy of Flickr user, "edelman_talkshop"

TalkShop is a blog about word-of-mouth and the Me2 Revolution, published by Edelman and hosted by Phil Gomes, the company's Senior Counsel, Online Communications.

The blog pulls in thoughts and opinions from members of the worldwide Edelman network.

Edelman is public relations giant. They made news recently by hiring Steve Rubel, a.k.a. Mr. Micropersuasion.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

The house above is a 827 sf shack in Cupertino, CA (the peninsula town that Apple Computer calls home). The asking price is $764,900.

From San Francisco Chronicle:

You're not the only one dreaming of ditching the Bay Area for a Midwestern college town or a coastal city in the Southeast.

Two out of five residents of the nine-county region have given serious thought to moving away -- mostly because of high housing costs, according to a survey released today by a business and public policy group.

The Bay Area Council's annual poll found that concerns about housing ranked as the region's second-most-vexing problem, behind transportation woes.

Even with some recent cooling in the local housing market, the price for a middle-of-the-road single-family home hovers around $628,000, or about triple the national average.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

In a comment seeming to stary from their party line, Consumerist says:

Normally we’re not into anti-consumer agitprop but this one butters the biscuit.

You can't see it in the photo, but this stencil is directly adjacent to a brand-spankin'-new, soon-to-open Starbux. Click over to Consumerist for more photos.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

From Jakob Nielsen's Alterbox:

I worry that search engines are sucking out too much of the Web's value, acting as leeches on companies that create the very source materials the search engines index.

There's no doubt that search engines provide a valuable service to users. The issue here is what search engines do to the companies they feed on -- the companies that fund the creation of original information. Search engines mainly build their business on other websites' content. The traditional analysis has been that search engines amply return the favor by directing traffic to these sites. While there's still some truth to that, the scenario is changing.

I predict that liberation from search engines will be one of the biggest strategic issues for websites in the coming years.

In the dot-com bubble days, it was fashionable to discuss website stickiness. Now, stickiness must be reconceptualized for the real world rather than the bubble. It's not a goal to make users spend hours on your site. Let them go about their business.

The real goal is to make users come back, and to have them come directly to your site instead of clicking on expensive ads.

Neilsen suggests that email newsletters, RSS, affiliate programs and mobile communications will increasingly be called upon to drive traffic, that search drives today.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Karl Lagerfeld is Podcasting. Lagerfeld closed New York’s Fashion Week with a runway show that one didn't need a ticket to experience.

CORE’s motion design division, COREaudiovisual, created brand-oriented content that was seen by audiences both inside and outside the show’s venue, and produced a video Podcast of the event that was available minutes after the show concluded. According to Apple, this was the first fashion show available for download on the iTunes Music Store, making the Lagerfeld experience available to consumers around the world.

CORE has steadily moved away from its origins as an ad agency to a new business model based on developing innovative and culturally relevant ways to connect consumers with brands.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

From Austin 360:

The Thermals, a rambunctious rock band from Portland, Ore., were en route between gigs last year when they got a phone call from their label, Sub Pop. Hummer wanted to pay them $50,000 for the right to use their song "It's Trivia" in a commercial.

"We thought about it for about 15 seconds, maybe," lead singer Hutch Harris said.

They said no.

Washington D.C.'s Trans Am were offered $180,000 by Hummer for the song "Total Information Awareness."

"We figured it was almost like giving music to the Army, or Exxon," guitarist Philip Manley said.

They said no.

The post-punk band LiLiPUT, who broke up more than 20 years ago, could have pocketed $50,000 for "Heidi's Head" after making close to nothing during their five-year existence. But they, too, said no.

"At least I can sleep without nightmares," Marlene Marder reasoned.

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Noah from 88Slide wrote in. He says:

88SLIDE is a daily one minute info-challenge format (read: game show), distributed via the Internet at 88slide.com, and through iTunes as a video podcast. Cell phone users can also download the 3GP formatted series at 88slide.com.

We release original episodes M-F, and outtakes and bloopers from the previous week on Saturday/Sunday. You can view the archives in the meantime.

Our mission is to entertain, interact, and enlighten you, daily, in 60 seconds.

It's like Rocketboom with a quiz. Players submit their chosen answer from the multiple choice list before 9:00 pm. A winner is randomly selected from the correct answers pool, and he or she receives a $10 iTunes gift certificate, plus a mention on the next day's cast.

Oh, did I mention the show's host, Rachel Smith, was raised on a strict diet of musicals and country western music?

February 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Darren Barefoot picked up on this new way to move money around.

Text Pay Me allows users to send and receive payments via text messaging.

No more verbal IOUs!

- Split your restaurant bills right then and there!

- Pay your team or club dues anywhere and anytime

- Pitch in real money instead of IOUs for a shared gift

- Settle your roommate's rent and utility bills on the spot

Text Pay Me users can also buy and sell on Craigslist.

February 28, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 3 Comments

With Delta in bankruptcy and Northwest headed for a possible strike, this New York Times article on tiny jets sounds like good news to me.

In its annual aviation forecast, the F.A.A. projected sharply higher levels of non-airline flights in coming years because of the new planes, called "very light jets," which will seat four to six passengers. The new planes can fly almost as fast as an airliner, and at even higher altitudes, but will land easily at fields with 3,000-foot runways, half the length of those at big airports. With a range of 1,000 miles or more, proponents say the new jets will spawn a new generation of air taxis and charters that will carry travelers to airports within 20 minutes of their homes or destinations, at a price comparable to a coach airline ticket.

This could also be a boon for small, out-of-the-way ad agencies, who may have the ability to reach clients more easily, and also get some chances to do cool advertising for startup jet services. The concept possibilities are endless.

February 28, 2006 by Shawn Hartley | Permalink | 110 Comments

Major League Baseball launched MLB.TV last year as the first major sport to make a push into live webcasts of their games last season for the low price of 14.95/month for access to over 300 games.

The quality was adequate over a broadband connection unless one was trying to watch the Yankees broadcasts, in which case it was usually obvious there were server load issues. As a Yankees fan, that was my primary purchase factor and I was a bit disappointed with the frequent quality issues on those games. I stuck with it through the season expecting my recurring billing to end with the end of the season. My only other complaint was their automatic 'subscription abuse' policies: if I was watching a day game at the office, I would frequently be locked out when I was attempting to watch a game later that day at home. Resulting in a 24 hour lock on my account.

Then the extra billings happened for 'off-season content,' albeit at a reduce 9.95/month rate. My first attempt at cancellation was met with 45 minutes of hold time, a promise (and confirmation number) of a credit, and assurance my account was indeed cancelled.

30 days later. Same story but with a combined hold time of 1 hour - 35 minutes before a human picked up and another 25 minutes while he processed the cancellation. Twenty minutes after my call ended I received an email from the customer service rep letting me know that in order for my credit to be process ed, I needed to fax my credit card statement for verification because they don't maintain customer billing records. What? I have to do the legwork to get my $20 refunded? $20 is $20, but I'm not going to fax a copy of my credit card statement - even heavily protected with black magic marker - for something that should be as easy as pressing a button on their end.

Fast Forward to Today's Inbox (emphasis mine)

Dear MLB.TV Subscriber:

LIVE baseball is back for the 2006 regular season on MLB.TV, and this year's subscribers will experience baseball as it's never been experienced before. For starters, watch all 2,430 games online, LIVE or on-demand, at the same low rate as last season -- just $14.95 a month.

There is no action required to continue your subscription. The credit card you have on file with us will be automatically billed beginning in mid-March. If you have any questions about your subscription, please e-mail MLB.com Customer Service at customerservice2@website.mlb.com.

Tactics like these drive me nuts and I have to question who in their right mind puts together marketing plans of this nature.

Anyone want to post odds on whether or not I get charged in March?