Publicis Mojo, with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane plucked a cherry assignment from Coca-Cola.

According to Ad Age, the shop prevailed in an internal Publicis review to land global duties on Diet Coke.

The global strategy will be implemented by local agencies already handling Diet Coke, known in some countries as Coke Light, either in the original format or adapted for the local market. In a handful of cases, such as France, that means other offices in the Publicis Worldwide network will handle, but in the U.S., an independent, Wieden & Kennedy, works on the brand's creative.

Diego Rodriguez, a partner at IDEO, endeavored to define marketing recently.

He came up with a short version:

Identifying desirable experiences, then delivering them.

And a longer one from Harvard Business School:

Marketers concern themselves with acquiring and retaining customers, who are the lifeblood of an organization. They attract customers by learning about potential needs, helping to develop products that customers want, creating awareness, and communicating benefits; they retain them by ensuring that they get good value, appropriate service, and a stream of future products. The marketing function not only communicates to the customer, but also communicates the needs of the customer to the company. In addition, it arranges and monitors the distribution of products and/or services from company to customer.

Avenue A | Razorfish suggests we "treat every page like a home page."

Every page is now a home page, each of which will have a wider reach, a lasting shelf life, and the ability to attract a new audience like never before. To capitalize on this, ensure that every page has a strong, clear global navigation scheme and related content that is visibly promoted. And don’t forget to make sure that display advertising gets prominent, above-the-fold, home-page-like treatment (300×250 rectangles and 728×90 leaderboards). Remember, every page can be accessed in any conceivable manner and in any conceivable order. You can’t design properties to control user flow anymore.

[via coolz0r]

PR man and Ad Age columnist, Steve Rubel, envisions a world where agencies are disintermediated by media companies.

Today nearly every media company (91%) offers some kind of "agency-like" services. This includes former untouchables like idea generation (88%) and creative development (79%).

The image of media companies as lumbering dinosaurs lingering toward extinction in a world of infinite content is downright wrong. They are more in sync with consumers than any other contingency in the marketing ecosystem. Their entire DNA is digital.

...it's clear that as they get smarter the risk to agencies has never been greater.

According to Ad Age, Booz Allen Hamilton asked marketers which organizations would become more important to them by 2010, media companies, media planners and communications planners topped the list, with 52% believing they would be more integral. Ad agencies of record? Only 27% thought they would be more integral.

In the wake of Paul Tilley's suicide, advertising industry blogs are getting a closer look, including some quotes from George Parker.

From today's New York Times:

After Mr. Tilley’s death was reported, the comments beneath the AgencySpy blog posting turned sharply to recriminations from people identifying themselves as friends, colleagues or relatives of the DDB executive. “You should all be ashamed. Because you contributed to this,” a message from someone who signed as LSA said.

A similar post on AdScam said: “I knew him. And I know that the vile attacks inflicted on him by you and others tortured his soul. He told me so.”

Advertising blogs have a reputation, even among bloggers, of being particularly wounding — in part, Mr. Parker said, because of conditions in the business.

“They do tend to be a little more acidic than general informational blogs,” Mr. Parker, a former ad executive who now works as a consultant, said. Since many agencies are now part of publicly held companies, he continued, employees are under increasing pressure to show short-term results, where in the past they might sometimes have had more than a year or two to build a successful campaign.

Asked if posters on ad blogs sought to gain competitive advantage by disparaging rivals, he replied: “It’s more than possible. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

It's worth noting that the NYT article also has a section for open and anonymous commenting.

According to The Washington Post, Marriott.com is one of the top 10 e-commerce sites for sales, bringing in more than $5.2 billion in 2007.

Not bad for a firm whose CEO, Bill Marriott, does not use a PC.

According to World Advertising Research Center, marketers worldwide believe that 65% of their marketing spend had no discernible effect on consumers in 2007.

Asi Sharabi of No Man's Blog believes "marketers are trapped in a vicious negative feedback of ineffective campaigns and ineffective measurements."

What's your read? Would improved measurement allow you to get more creative?

Good luck to our friend David Esrati, running for Congress in Ohio's 3rd district (Dayton & surrounding areas).

Seeing as how his major opponent is giving out literature from 2004 with a new date penciled in, it's clearly time for someone with fresh thinking.

Cons are 100 this year.

Gary Koepke, the cofounder and executive creative director of Boston-based ad agency Modernista! says, "They've always been around in my life. They're a fixture, like family . . . it's like an archetype now - like a cross or an old Coca-Cola label."

[via The Boston Globe]

Just how typical are guys like Mark Penn in your industry?

'Cause the controversy du jour today is this story in the LA Times about Penn's role in the Clinton campaign:

As the campaign faces a make-or-break moment, some high-level officials are trying to play down their role in the campaign. Penn said in an e-mail over the weekend that he had "no direct authority in the campaign," describing himself as merely "an outside message advisor with no campaign staff reporting to me."

"I have had no say or involvement in four key areas -- the financial budget and resource allocation, political or organizational sides. Those were the responsibility of Patti Solis Doyle, Harold Ickes and Mike Henry, and they met separately on all matters relating to those areas."

Howard Wolfson, the campaign's communications chief, answered that it was Penn who had top responsibility for both its strategy and message. Another aide said Penn spoke to Clinton routinely about the campaign's message and ran daily meetings on the topic.

He's the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a big-time global PR firm and WPP subsidiary, so I'm sure he's got some skills, but watching this election season I've never seen anyone try so hard to convince the world that up is down, night is day, and 1+1 is 3 -- and be so seemingly bad at it.

I mean, PR people are usually incredibly effective at what they do. What am I not getting here? What's the deal?

According to BusinessWeek, big brands are looking to widgets to cure some of their banner ad ills.

A&E, Electronic Arts, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Gap, Hewlett-Packard, Hallmark, and Blockbuster are among the businesses hoping to spread a marketing message or raise brand awareness through widgets.

"Content and functionality are the new creativity—it's not about whether you have a whiz-bang rich media banner running," says Andy Bateman, CEO of brand consultancy Interbrand New York. "Are you doing something that's actually helpful and useful to people?"

A&E's Parking Wars widget on Facebook has attracted more than 198,000 unique users and generated more than 45 million page views since its Dec. 17 introduction.

Agencies are regularly asked during new client presentations, or offhand over dinner, if they have experience marketing to the Hispanic community.

It's "the other" hot topic, along with online ad spending.

Lou Lopez, VP, consumer and business insights at Synovate told Ad Age:

"A big thing is how you treat Hispanics," Mr. Lopez said. "Hispanics expect to form a relationship with their bank. American consumers are transactional. With Hispanics, I want [bank employees] to know who I am. I want to be friendly with them and go to them if something happens. We tell banks you can't just do advertising. You have to back it up with Spanish-speaking personnel, an 800 support number."

In other words, translating your ads into Spanish ain't gonna work. It's a cultural bridge that needs to built. Then the advertising can support that.

Brian Morrissey of Adweek reminds us that ad peeps are often restless souls with gigantic ambitions.

A half-dozen executives from the London operations of DDB, Naked Communications, Isobar, Tribal DDB and Diageo have joined forced to launch AnalogFolk, a shop that is dedicated to what it is calling "communications products" that meld digital technology with real-world interaction. Unlike regular bits of ad messaging, a communications product is sought out by consumers, even bought, the shop believes.

"We need to be thinking of communications as a product rather than something that has finite value that decreases over time," said Matt Dyke, a founding partner and head of planning at DDB London. "You do a Super Bowl ad, then it loses value and eventually peters out."

Actually, thanks to YouTube, Super Bowl spots don't "peter out." But I get his point, just the same.

Tim Brunelle is calling for executive-level participants in this Participation Age thingamajiggy.

It's not enough to trot out the resident one or two social media experts inside the agency, and have a pleasant forced laugh around how "the kids" in your agency are "participating." I truly believe the CEO, President, Chairman, CFO, CCO, ECD, Head of Planning, Head of Media, Head of Production, Head of HR — the people running the agency — absolutely need to be participating themselves; so when they speak about social media, they speak from personal experience. You wouldn't accept anything less from an agency when they're discussing TV, print and radio. ("Hey, I've never created or been involved with producing a TV spot myself, but some of our juniors have, so you can really trust me as we discuss this new TV campaign...")

I agree, but I can't quite envision a scenario whereby these busy department heads regularly set aside the hours necessary to become socially active online.

Bloviation from The Bobosphere:

What passes online for opinion, analysis, criticism and commentary too often lacks logic, coherent argument, evidence, intellectual rigor or even simple honesty. It wallows instead in snide cheapshots and ad hominem bile, scurrilousness and schadenfreude, free-floating hostility and bullying disguised as wit. We'd like to imagine the internet as a tool for democracy and Platonic justice. But the blogosphere isn't exactly Plato's "Republic." It too often "Lord of the Flies."

Character assassination is not only a subculture of the internet, it is an industry; Gawker and its many churlish imitators have turned it into cheap entertainment. They may see themselves as shining light on hypocrisy, deflating pomposity and other time-honored justifications for satire, but the supply of stuffed shirts and hypocrites simply doesn't meet the demand, so everybody is at risk.

Will you look at all those big words? Churlish. Pomposity. Scurrilousness and schadenfreude. The Ad Age copy editing team must take a hands off approach to the site's blahgs.

[via Adscam]

Mike Smock has some strong opinions about the Obama campaign. Since the Ohio and Texas returns are coming in, this seems a good time to explore Smock's thinking.

It's interesting to see many in the marketing, advertising and creative communities lining up to support Barack Obama's version of "hope". Interesting because these are many of the same folks who peddle 'hope" in the form of predatory loans to low income households "hoping" to own their own home, $200 sneakers to inner city kids "hoping" they will make them the next Michael Jordan, and lottery tickets to single moms "hoping" this ticket holds the key to her personal happiness.

In other words, the creative community likes Obama because he's a promotable product (the collective) we can hang our dreams on.

What an incredibly cynical point of view.

Barack and his current cast of supporters do not have the skills or the experience to deliver his notion of "hope" any more than NIke sneakers can turn a "hopeful" kid into the next Michael Jordan. But most importantly, for all Americans with really great hopes and dreams for America - whether for strength, faith, prosperity, innovation, or service, Barack's brand of hope is a cynical manipulation of the folks who need "hope" the most.

Cynical manipulation is tough talk from a cynic. But is it warranted?

I've seen Obama as a mainstream candidate from the beginning. A fact which prevents me from believing too deeply in his words. I too am a cynic, it seems.

At the same time, I want to believe. I want to know hope is not lost. I want to see cynicism put in its place. I want millions of smart people to honestly critique our societal ills and find creative ways to fix them. In short, I want to be an idealist again. Not a cynic.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on poor promo planning from Verizon.

To promote its FiOS offering--an $18 billion gambit that delivers higher-speed Internet, television and phone service via a fiber-optic line connected directly into the home--Verizon blanketed the airwaves in select markets with an offer of a free Sharp Corp. high-definition television set.

Unfortunately, Verizon had difficulties obtaining enough Sharp TVs to meet demand (which you might say is a good problem to have).

FiOS customers can now wait an additional five weeks for a Sharp, or as an alternative, Verizon customers can have a similar-model Magnavox TV or a $200 gift card for Best Buy Co.

Agency Spy ran with a piece about John Rausch, formerly a Group CD at Euro RSCG/Chicago, running amok and causing a "mini-coup" in the agency's creative department.

Which isn't that big of a deal, I suppose. What I like about this post is the fact that the shop's Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Steffan Postaer--who is in South Africa on a shoot, according to his blog--stepped up to the plate in the comments.

The post's first comment in the string comes from Pete Shotton. He calls Postaer "one of advertising’s great poseurs."

Postaer responds with this:

Mon dieu! We have been found out! Let this serve as my confession. Shotton is correct. I was “posing as an intellectual.” It was intended as a ruse to fool certain liberal factions of our company. Alas, it became an obsession. When Shotton revealed the “sane people were trying to escape” I ordered the exit doors barred. This action was impetus for the “revolution” Agency Spy reported. Unfortunately, the “coup” left several brave creative directors mortally wounded and they had to be taken out. May the Gods of Advertising have mercy on them… and on my soul. So say I, on this the 5th day of March, 2008. -SRP

Hey, at least Postaer's having fun with it all.

Charles Handy, an Irish author specialising in organisational behaviour and management, used the stage NPR's Marketplace provided him to call for reform.

The tall towers that house our corporations are the new palaces of our day, the places where real power resides, but those towers are full of paradoxes. Made of glass, you can't see inside. They're pillars of our democracy, but they are run as totalitarian states. Their names are reduced to a set of initials. Their leaders are unknown to those outside. They are accountable, for the most part, to other institutions that sit in similarly anonymous towers. To the average person, they are foreign entities shrouded in mystery. It is no wonder that we look at them with suspicion, touched with envy.

When you see it laid bare like this, it's hard to justify what we in Adlandia often do. Namely, the putting of a pretty face and a nice voice on top of these lurking, shadowy entities.

American entertainment companies are lining up to deliver their brand experiences in a land far far away.

Mark Shapiro, Six Flags' CEO

According to Los Angeles Times, Six Flags Inc., will develop a thrill park in the United Arab Emirates as part of a massive entertainment and amusement complex in the country known as Dubailand.

The Six Flags park is the latest addition to Dubailand, a 3-billion-square-foot project that will include restaurants, hotels, Universal Studios Dubailand and DreamWorks Animation Park. Groundbreaking on the Six Flags portion is expected to begin in 2009.

This is the first Six Flags project to be developed outside North America. The company operates 21 theme parks in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Heng Yuan Xiang Group, a top Chinese wool producer, wanted to celebrate its sponsorship of this summer's Beijing Olympics. So the wool company began running a 60-second ad in February, during the celebration of Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday.

When the Chinese public first saw the ad, some people thought their TV sets were broken. Viewers savaged the commercial in print media and online, some calling it intolerable or singling it out as the worst spot they had ever seen.

The backlash suggests that increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers are rejecting low-budget, low-quality marketing.

The arrival of foreign ad agencies in the 1990s, together with the rapid expansion of the nation's middle class, altered Chinese consumers' expectations, the Journal surmises.

Is the web a place best suited to brand building or to direct marketing?

It's a popular debate inside agencies and client boardrooms.

According to The New York Times, Alaska Airlines is on the DM side of this equation.

Alaska Airlines is introducing a system on the Internet to create unique advertisements for people as they surf the Web. The company is combining data from several sources to paint a picture of the consumer sitting on the other side of the screen, clicking past the airline’s ads. Then, as each Web page loads, an ad is swiftly assembled.

“What’s the right one to show you? The permutations are just enormous,” said Marston Gould, director of customer relationship management and online marketing for Alaska Airlines.

Mr. Gould is quick to admit that data drives online marketing, and does not mince words when asked about his view of other marketing professionals who are more focused on tag lines or catchy videos.

“I think they’re very afraid of getting into the data,” he said. “It’s either overwhelming, or it will tell them something other than what they actually believe.”

I've been working on some "green" intiatives for a client of mine this week, so this story caught my eye:

British environmentalists say a Chicago-to-London American Airlines flight was "obscene" because it carried only five passengers.

The Feb. 9 flight used 22,000 gallons of fuel to carry the passengers on the trans-Atlantic route, a decision Friends of the Earth said was environmentally irresponsible, The Telegraph reported Wednesday.

"Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel," said Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth's transport activist. "Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full."

American Airlines officials said it was forced to cancel one of its four daily fights from Chicago to London. While it was able to place nearly all of the canceled flight's passengers on other flights, five couldn't be accommodated.

Then there was the London-to-Chicago flight to consider.

Canceling the flight "would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded at London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the U.S. on the same aircraft," an airline spokesman said.

This is an interesting dilemma. I have some questions, after the jump:

Ad Age looks at the LA Times use of digital outdoor boards.

Los Angelenos plagued by traffic delays or seeking a productive roadside distraction will be able to catch exclusive news via 10 digital billboards placed across the city by Clear Channel Outdoor. The Los Angeles Times is the first newspaper to use the company's digital billboards and web-based interface for news alerts and branding.

The editorial content will be comprised of mostly regional sports, politics and entertainment stories, as well as promotions for local events the paper hosts annually, like next month's Festival of Books. "You're not likely to see a story about some breaking news that happened in Iraq. We're definitely focused more on signature pieces, content elements, blogs, columnists, stories, products and events that are unique to us," John O'Loughlin, Los Angeles Times' president-targeted media and senior VP-marketing said.

The billboards' content will rotate roughly every eight seconds, and can be updated at any time from the Times' digital newsroom. An eight-second spot will be displayed on the 10 boards 70,910 times per week, reaching a combined total of 455,300 people per day.

I don't understand how this got by legal. You can't overtly market beer to kids, including college kids. Everyone knows said demo is a must have, but rarely do you see it called out like this.

[via Your Monkey Called]

Shawn Waite brings this retro-feeling print campaign for Nocona Boots to our attention.

I don't like that these cowboys are messin' with a bear. Bears are my peeps. However, if I allow myself to overlook this fact and to overlook the fact that the other ads in this campaign also glamorize man conquering nature, I can see what nice work this is. From a visual storytelling point-of-view these illustrations are wonderful. And brand building. Should I ever want to have nature-conquering boots on my feet, I'll consider purchasing Nocona.

See more ads from this campaign after the jump.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the lengths YouTube is going to help make Toyota's wishes comes true.

The car maker paid $4 million for a new destination on the site, dubbed "Best in Jest." Special algorithms created by YouTube find up-and-coming comedy videos on the site each week and feature them in Toyota's designated space. "Best in Jest" rolls out next week.

Toyota also is sponsoring a sketch-comedy contest on the site called "Sketchies," where users can post funny videos with the chance to win as much as $25,000.

The article also mentions something called a contest-maker program, which pops out custom-made contests.

"The contest platform is like an empty vessel for a great creative idea," says Jamie Byrne, client solutions lead for YouTube.

Here's LisaNova explaining the Sketchies 2 contest rules.

The New York Times is busting out dairy industry advocacy group, American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact. The paper says Afact likes to present itself as a grassroots organization of dairy farmers, when it's actually a lobbying effort backed by Monsanto and their St. Louis-based ad agency, Osborn & Barr.

The battle is over Posilac, the brand name of a Monsanto synthetic hormone used to increase milk production in cows. Cows typically produce an extra gallon a day when they are treated with Posilac. That can translate into serious money for dairy farmers.

Monsanto's and the farmers' problem? To meet consumer demand for natural foods, everyone from Whole Foods Market to Wal-Mart Stores now sells milk labeled as coming from cows not treated with the hormone.

Politicians have also entered the fray. Last fall in Pennsylvania, Dennis Wolff, the agriculture secretary, tried to ban milk that was labeled as free of the synthetic hormone because, he said, consumers were confused. In recent months, labeling changes have also been floated in New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, Missouri and Vermont.

Monty G. Miller, a Colorado consultant who was hired to organize Afact believes that the push for milk from untreated cows is being driven by advocates like Consumers Union and PETA, “who make a profit, living and business by striking fear in citizens.”

I'm attending SXSW this week with my colleagues from BFG. Discover our reporting on the panels, keynotes, parties, live music and Austin flavor throughout the week on the BFG Blog. You can also follow my Twitter feed and see pix on my Flickr page. I'm also adding content to Leftover Cheese, my music site.

I'm in Austin this week and so are 1500 bands, a great majority of whom hope to be discovered by fans and by industry insiders who can help further their musical careers. Given that preoccupation, I found it interesting that Ad Age is running a feature on music licensing opportunities.

According to 2006 Enders Analysis data, the market for commercial music licensing is in the neighborhood of $3 billion. So while artists in nearly every genre have opened their arms to corporate America, shifting from the polarizing world of "selling out" to the nuanced galaxy of "musical branding" is a challenge many still struggle with.

According to an executive familiar with music-licensing deals, for U.S. rights, marketers typically pay $150,000 for the master recording of a song and another $150,000 for synchronization -- the right to put the composition in a TV ad.

The Ad Age article points out that Apple tends to cut those numbers in half, a fact that probably doesn't bother too many artists or their management teams, since the association with Apple works to significntly elevate an artist's visibility. For instance, when Apple picked Yael Naim's song "New Soul" for its MacBook Air spot earlier this year, the Israeli singer-songwriter didn't even have a record out in the U.S. But thanks to a single in the iTunes Store, the song made its debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 9 with 135,000 downloads

Lindsay Campbell, formerly of Wallstrip, has been charging around Austin this week with her camera crew in tow. Her goal? To better understand the mind of an SXSW attendee.

Her new show, which is backed by CBS, is called Moblogic. It's a news, culture and politics program.

Since Steve Hall is busy attending panels and such at South By, I thought I'd offer up a post in his honor.

In PETA's latest bid to arouse interest in the many sexy alternatives to leather, adult film icon Jenna Jameson -- donning a black wig and pleather bikini — evokes screen siren Bettie Page in a sin-tastic and pro-synthetic new PETA ad called "Pleather Yourself: Discover the Pleasure of Pleather." Jameson recently unveiled the new campaign — shot by top celebrity photographer Gavin Bond — as part of Los Angeles Fashion Week.

"I've worn a lot of pleather in my life," says Jameson. "Anybody who knows me knows that I've kind of lived half my life in it. I love the idea of having choices outside of leather. The outfit that I'm wearing in the ad is so sexy that I suggest if people want to have a better time in the bedroom — then please explore the pleather side."

Increasingly, branded utility is the big topic of the day.

Brian Morrissey of Adweek is on it and so are members of the digerati.

Here's what Jeff Benjamin, interactive cd at Crispin has to say:

Rather than craft a one-off Web site, advertisers want to build brand loyalty by providing utilities that both improve people's lives in some small way -- even if it's simply a tool for customizing pizza -- and directly pad corporate bottom lines.

"The new 'viral' is going to be a business solution for clients."

Morrissey also speaks to several other people in agreement with this line of thinking.

It's worth a close read.

Tomorrow marks the official launch of Hulu, which is the latest move to provide full-length TV shows and movies via the Web. And it has some big names behind it:

Hulu, the online video joint venture of News Corp and General Electric's NBC Universal, will make its public debut on Wednesday with programming from Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros Television Group, Lionsgate and from sports leagues.

Missing from the list of providers are media mogul Sumner Redstone-controlled companies Viacom Inc, which continues to hold discussions, Viacom said recently, and CBS Corp, which has said it was not averse to a licensing deal.

At launch, Hulu will offer full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series from current hits such as "The Simpsons" as well as older shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It also will offer 100 movies including "The Big Lebowski" and "Mulholland Drive."

Hulu said it has signed licensing deals with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.

Hulu's launch is a big bet by big media companies that consumers are as eager to spend long periods of time watching TV shows and movies in front of their computers as they are in front of their televisions.

That last sentence is an interesting one. I tend to drift (or click away) from long-form content when I'm on the net. What about you?

According to the Online Publishers Association's Internet Activity Index, 42.7% of consumer time online is spent with content sites, 28.6% is with communication sites, 16.1% with commerce sites and 5% on search sites.

The OPA describes content sites as those designed primarily to provide news, information and entertainment. Examples of those included in this segment are CNN.com, ESPN.com and MapQuest.

[via Ad Age]

I attended a SXSWi panel with a dubious title yesterday, "Online Adulation: Use Don't Abuse Your Fans." Look at those verbs. "Use." "Abuse." Not good.

There was one true blogebrity on the panel and sadly she conveyed, perhaps unintentionally, what a hassle it is to be so popular. I don't doubt for a second that it is a hassle, for blogebrities don't have people around them to deflect the constant stream of requests on their time and attention like an actor or rock star might.

Yet, because blogs are the centerpiece of social media today, we expect bloggers to be social. Thankfully, the moderator of this panel, Tom Merritt of c|net, provided a nice counterbalance to the blogebrity.

Merritt said he responds to critical emails, which often makes for better fans. He also said, "Good audience relations is good customer service."

Of course, Merritt is representing a business, not just himself, so he has the additional responsibility of speaking for the c|net brand. But I get the sense that he'd go the extra mile, even if he wasn't.

If you’d like a free sticker, send a standard-sized self addressed stamped envelope to:

Hug Nation
PO Box 264
Solana Beach CA 92075

I'm not a NASCAR fan, but apparently, Goodyear makes all the tires that the drivers use, and of course, in the world of car buffs, that's a huge coup.

Unless the drivers bitch about the tires. From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

On Monday, Goodyear was peddling a feel-good story: "Goodyear tops Fortune magazine's most-admired list."

But 24 hours earlier, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart was peddling his own story.

"Goodyear can't build a tire worth a crap," said the mouthy fireplug of a man known for saying exactly what's going on inside his racing helmet. A frustrated Stewart was speaking after a race Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway about newly designed tires that forced drivers to drive like grandmas.

But he was just getting started.

"I'm going home and taking everything that has Goodyears off and put Firestones on and feel a lot safer," Stewart said in another interview.

"It's a shame these teams that work so hard are being dictated by a company incapable of building tires fit for a street car."

Ouch. These celebrity endorsements and sponsorships can really boost a brand's sales. They can also backfire.