I like good logos and all, but I don't quite get why people obsess over them. And I can't imagine the decision-making process that went into Walmart's new logo. Plus, they're dropping the hyphen.
So, what do you think?
My new column on Talent Zoo won't be on the home page until Thursday, but you can check it out now.
I take a closer look at the BBDO/Big Spaceship/HBO/Cannes credit kerfuffle, as was discussed here.
We all know the MO of lead agencies—and by “lead agencies” I mean the brand agencies, traditional agencies, “big dumb agencies,” whatever you want to call them. They want control. Over ideas, money, credit, over everything. They’ll control it all until they die.So it’s time for interactive agencies to step up. And open up. Or step back.
How? Start hiring idea people. Hire strategic thinkers. Look at brands from a more complete perspective. And offer more services to clients.
It’s gotten to the point where interactive shops hire people who’ve spent much of their careers doing online work. Which is doable given that marketing on the Internet has been around for 14 years or so. Those people are in demand.
But there’s a host of people who aren’t given a second glance, and they could potentially be the most valuable people to an interactive agency with dreams of growth and glory. The idea people aren’t always still thinking in strictly old media—TV, print, etc. They’re more open to new media than you might think, and they're out there experimenting with everything from blogs to web videos to social media apps in their spare time.
Pemco Insurance is proving that insurance advertising doesn't need to be so serious all the time.
Their site We're a Lot Like You provides "a helpful guide to the people of the Northwest." Because "the people of the Northwest deserve an insurance company as different as they are."
Some of the profiles include:
-Smug Hybrid Driver
-White-Bearded Bainbridge Architect
-Obsessive Compulsive Recycler
-Accidental Tech Millionaire
-Sandals and Socks Guy
and many more...
Starbucks is hating it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the coffee retailer will close 600 stores and cut back on opening new ones.
As many as 12,000 full-time and part-time retail positions will be eliminated with the store closures.
Starbucks is closing locations that are either not profitable now or are not projected to provide acceptable returns on the investment in the future, the company said.
The Bush administration's economic stimulus package is far from enough to drive Americans into their local car and truck dealer.
June's sales numbers, compared to June 2007 are horrible and a sign of a seriously weakened economy.
According to The Wall Street Journal, American consumers long enamored with trucks and SUVs are now looking for fuel-efficient cars. Sales of Ford's SUVs fell 55%, and its formerly top-selling truck line dropped 38%. Toyota sold about two-thirds fewer light trucks than it did a year earlier.
To help offset these declines, GM introduced zero-percent financing for 72 months on many 2008 models. Without this incentive, Toyota would have likely overcome GM in the market share department.
Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools
It's a parody from The Onion.
According to Internetnews.com, Google and Yahoo spiders will begin to crawl sites built with Adobe's Flash.
"Improving how we crawl dynamic content will ultimately enhance the search experience for our users," said Bill Coughran, senior vice president of engineering at Google.
Google will be going live with the new SWF indexing technology this week, while Yahoo plans to release it at an undetermined point in the future.
Omnicom is forming a new consultancy to help marketers reach women. The new unit is named G23 — G as in Group, 23 as in the pair of chromosomes that carries the sex differences between women and men.
The power of women in the marketplace is undisputed. Surveys indicate that female consumers in the United States buy or influence the buying of more than 75 percent of all goods.
“Targeting women is something that is at the core” of the industry, said John D. Wren, president and chief executive at Omnicom, but at the same time “the need has always existed to do it in a fashion that adds value.”
At lunch today I was reading The New York Times business section. On the front page of that section there's a big photo of Rush Limbaugh (not available online) and an article that reveals his newly negotiated income. I don't mind saying it grossed me out.
Limbaugh, who has 20 million listeners a week on 600 stations, signed a new eight-year contract for $400 million. His $50 million a year paycheck represents a raise of about $14.4 million a year over his current contract.
Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, conservative mouthpieces number two and three, respectively, also make insane salaries. It's not the money that bothers me. It's just hard for me to understand how their brand of conservative vitriol is so attractive to a mass audience, and thus to advertisers.
Although I might choose a different font. You know, for legibility's sake...
Sid Lee, an agency in Montreal and Amsterdam, has won duties on the Adidas Originals streetwear brand according to Ad Age.
As global creative agency for the Adidas Originals brand, the agency will be tasked with handling a variety of marketing duties including advertising, branding, retail design, and experiential and interactive communications.
Hermann Deininger, chief marketing officer of Adidas Sport Style, said, "Sid Lee rejects boundaries between disciplines and assembles multi-disciplinary teams to a groundbreaking extent. This holistic approach is what we need in order to connect with consumers in the ever-evolving post-advertising marketplace."
For more information on Sid Lee, see the shop's WOM blog at Conversational Capital.
Lee Gomes of The Wall Street Journal explores a Harvard Business School professor's challenge to Chris Anderson's 2006 book The Long Tail.
The Long Tail theory holds that society is "increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail." The reason involves the abundance of easy choice that the Web makes possible.
Gomes condenses the opposing view for his readers:
Anita Elberse, a marketing professor, looked at data for online video rentals and song purchases, and discovered that the patterns by which people shop online are essentially the same as the ones from offline. Not only do hits and blockbusters remain every bit as important online, but the evidence suggests that the Web is actually causing their role to grow, not shrink.Elberse describes research showing that even in our cultural consumption we tend to be intensely social folks. We like experiencing the same things that other people are experiencing -- and the mere fact that other people are experiencing and liking something makes us like it even more. Far from being cultural rugged individualists, most of us are only too happy to have others suggest to us what we'd like.
Interestingly, open-minded Anderson welcomes the challenge on his blog.
But this video demonstrates that where you grow it makes a difference:
According to Ad Age, Belgium-based, Brazilian-run InBev not only has largely succeeded in controlling the media's narrative of its $46 billion takeover bid for Anheuser-Busch, it's also managed to emerge looking more sympathetic in the process.
Public-relations experts, analysts and journalists covering the saga attribute InBev's public-relations coup to an open and aggressive approach that has involved a barrage of well-placed leaks, public appearances and online video messages from its CEO, Carlos Brito, as well as a torrent of public letters to A-B and its board making a case for the deal. By contrast, A-B resorted to a reactive, bunkered-down posture. And when it has spoken out, it hasn't always helped itself.
InBev even has a site--Global Beer Leader--dedicated to the takeover bid.
Fans of media brand, MSNBC, can now enter the brand's cafe in Midtown Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza.
According to Adweek, MSNBC has opened "a sleek, oh-so-stylish cafe. It's a comfortable place to unwind, grab a sandwich or a coffee, check e-mail, surf the Net via free Wi-Fi or check the news on MSNBC.com."
Catherine Captain, vp, marketing for MSNBC.com said, "What we really discovered about the MSNBC.com consumers -- what they love about us -- is the journey of news discovery in and of itself."
She said the digital cafe "gave us an opportunity to quite literally bring exploration to a physical space."
SS+K is working with MSNBC to develop these non-traditional ideas.
Rob Walker points to an interesting response to the above t-shirt.
According to The Wall Street Journal, General Motors would be happy to consider an offer for its Buick, Saturn and Saab brands. It's Hummer brand has already been placed on the auction block, but no takers have yet to emerge.
In the past few weeks, GM stock has tumbled dramatically, falling below $10 a share and hitting lows last seen more than 50 years ago.
Hyundai has managed to appeal to more upscale consumers. Now Kia wants in on the action.
Thus the new Kia Borrego, a mid-size SUV with an impressive list of features, standard three row seating, and an available 337hp V8 engine.
According to Colin Jeffery, ECD at Kia's agency, David&Goliath, "After spending time with the Borrego, it became very clear to us what the positioning and creative platform should be. The first time we took the Borrego out for a drive people were staring. At a traffic light in Manhattan Beach, a fellow driver actually asked us what kind of SUV we were driving. He was genuinely impressed."
Joe Erwin of Greenville, SC agency, Erwin-Penland wrote a piece for Ad Age on attracting creative talent to smaller markets.
He suggests mining the local talent pool for all its worth and employing PR tactics. He also suggests "investing considerable resources in promoting the surrounding area" as Erwin-Penland has done with "Food for Thought: A Convention of Unconventional Creativity." This three-day celebration, co-sponsored by Michelin and BMW, brought together innovators from across the country.
I don't have a problem with Erwin's suggestions, but I do have some additional thoughts on the subject. The number one consideration for people considering a small market is quality of life. In Greenville, SC and other markets like it one has room to breathe, it's easy to get to and from work and most importantly, it's affordable.
The big drawback, as I see it, is there's typically only one or two places to work in a small market. Technically, there are many more, but for top tier talent there's one or two. Even bigger cities like Austin and Portland are one horse towns. So, if something goes wrong in a smaller market, you're SOL.
Chicago interactive shop Design Kitchen, has been bought by WPP Group's Wunderman, an agency network busy employing revisionist history.
According to Adweek, Wunderman has made a series of acquisitions over the last year-plus to increase its digital heft. These include purchasing Blast Radius last October and six interactive firms in international markets. Wunderman also bought Web site optimization specialist Zaaz in July 2006. Other digital shops in the Wunderman network include VML.
Designkitchen's clients include Bally Total Fitness, Coventry Health Care and Oprah's Angel Network.
Designkitchen, founded in 1992, had $7.5 million in revenue in 2007, according to WPP. The purchase price was not disclosed.
Pop17 is a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity.
TechCrunch, Virgin America and Perkett PR sponsor the show.
The show's host, Sarah Austin has an extensive Wikipedia entry. The sentence on Wikipedia that got my attention is: In the tradition of Paul Krassner, she sometimes combines legitimate news coverage with personal journalism and prankster activities.
Reid Hoffman is an interesting guy. He's head honcho at LinkedIn, and an investor in Facebook, Digg, Flickr and Six Apart.
According to Los Angeles Times, he's also an Oxford-trained philosopher who peppers his conversations with lively references to literature and film.
Hoffman became self-reliant at an early age, persuading his father to send him to boarding school in Vermont, where, in addition to classwork, he learned how to blacksmith, drive oxen and farm maple syrup.
At Stanford University, he studied symbolic systems and was fascinated by the scientific examination of human and artificial intelligence. A Marshall Scholarship took him to Oxford. But he decided that academia didn't touch enough people's lives.
"I lose interest when things don't have scale," he said.
[via Nike Vintage]
I'm impressed with the efforts of T. Boone Pickens to help solve America's energy crisis. Given his wealth and first-hand knowledge of the subject, he's in a better position to move us in the right direction than anyone in Washington.
"This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats," Pickens says. "This is about saving our country from the ruination of spending $700 billion a year on oil imports. Ninety days after the oil hits our shores, it's all burned up, and we've got nothing to show for it. But they (foreign oil producers) still have our money. It's killing our economy."
See PickensPlan.com for more.
[via Todd Dominey]
I gotta admit, I love me some magazines. Lots of 'em. And I really dig this idea:
Magazine buying may get an Internet-era makeover in September when Time Inc. launches Maghound, a service that promises to blend the convenience of subscriptions with the flexibility of newsstand sales.Customers will pay a monthly fee for home delivery of the publications they want. But unlike with subscriptions, which typically run for fixed terms, users can go online and swap one title for another whenever they want.
Users will pay about $5 a month for three magazines, $8 for five, $10 for seven and $1 for each additional. About 10% of titles, including some weeklies, will cost more.
I'm not sure it saves money in the long run considering that many magazine subscriptions are pretty cheap, but still, this could juice up the magazine biz.
A broad range of titles will likely be available. Would you sign up for this?
AMP Energy must be a fun account to work on.
[via Sunil Shibad]
One of the things we rarely see in consumer advertising is a back-and-forth message sparring between 2 brands. That's why the political season is so fascinating to me. And while I'm not a McCain supporter, this is a pretty sharply written spot:
UPDATE: Well, maybe the McCain team isn't deserving of all the credit. The line "don't hope for a better life, vote for one" is a direct lift from a Saatchi & Saatchi ad in the 70's for the British Tory party. (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.)
According to The New York Times, Getty Images will scour Flickr for images it might be able to sell.
Getty editors will comb Flickr in search of interesting images. They will then invite photographers to participate in the program and ensure that their images have the proper releases to be licensed legally. Those who are included in the program will get paid at the same rates that Getty pays photographers who are under contract with the company.Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive of Getty Images, said, "Because the imagery is not shot for commercial services, there is more authenticity. Advertisers are looking for authenticity.”
[UPDATE] Photo Shelter, a competitor and thorn in Getty Image's side, is flattered that Getty is validating their approach. "No other competitor in their history has forced Getty to change their model. This is a great sign of encouragement for us."
For much more on Photo Shelter's side of the story, see their blog.
Digg's founder, Kevin Rose, wonders if blogs have jumped the shark. I wonder if the phrase "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark, but I digress.
Picking up on this is Kansas City-based creative generalist Jeremy Fuksa.
It seems there’s a better way to share information. I hardly read RSS feeds anymore. I get all my links and information from tweets. All the blogs I truly care about tweet links to their posts, so RSS reading has almost fallen by the wayside for me as well.So, you tell me. Am I jumping the gun here, or have blogs as we know them begun to lose their relevancy?
I'll try to answer that. Linking to stories on Digg or another site isn't the same as commenting on stories, or writing original pieces on one's site. And microbursts on Twitter are not comprehensive enough to replace more in depth posts on one's site. It seems to me that these things work best, when they work together.
When you work in advertising you sit at a lot of conference room tables. But what do these tables say about the organization in question? According to Ruth Haag, president and CEO of a hazardous-waste consulting firm, the tables say a great deal.
• A round table hampers decisions.
• A long, thin table encourages cliques.
• Face-to-face at a distance encourages rudeness.
• The basic solution: A rectangular table about five-feet wide.
• The perfect solution: A one-ended rectangular table.
Posterous is a new blogging service that has taken the "Simplify" process to its ultimate conclusion, and given email a much needed boost in the process.
Interactive agency Big Spaceship is on board, and Newsweek is writing about it.
The new kid on the block is Posterous, which made its debut last week and is already making Tumblr seem archaic by bypassing the need to go to a Web site to write a post—or even embed a video. On Posterous, users start an account and publish new posts entirely via e-mail. All you need to do to launch a new blog—and update it—is send an e-mail to post@posterous.com. In its first week 6,000 bloggers registered with Posterous, according to cofounder Sachin Agarwal.
Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times is in Sun Valley, Idaho for Allen & Company’s annual confab.
Yesterday, Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen, who now runs the social networking site Ning, sounded his alarm.
In a morning panel session titled “Looking Around the Corner to the Future” – which, like all meetings here are closed to the press – Mr. Andreessen told the audience, which included many executives from the so-called “old media” world (including Rupe), that non-digital businesses are toast.“He said, ‘If you have old media, you should sell,’” according to one attendee, who spoke anonymously because the sessions are off-the-record. “If you own newspapers, sell. If you own TV stations, sell. If you own a movie studio, sell.”
I'm probably not as smart as Andreessen, and nowhere near a rich, but his words of doom sound absurd to me.
Allen & Company is a boutique investment bank based in New York was founded in 1922. The firm has quietly become the premier investment house in the media and entertainment sector.
The Republican National Committee has dropped $3.4 million to blast Barack Obama's energy policy on television in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Brad Todd, with the firm OnMessage Inc., created the spot and said it would air through next week.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan slapped back, saying McCain promises to "continue the Bush approach of trying to drill our way out of our energy crisis." Obama, he said, is offering "historic investment in alternative energy development."
[via Los Angeles Times]
Dave Linne, 47, a former creative director at Leo Burnett is now in a new role at ConAgra. That's right, he is now a client.
As senior VP-advertising, global market strategy, Linne believes he will have more impact on the work, according to Ad Age.
Creatives at Nitro, DDB/San Francisco, Venables Bell & Partners, Element 79 and Wondergroup will now be dealing with one of their own. Could be interesting for all involved.
Omaha-based ConAgra has many iconic brands under its umbrella, including Pam cooking spray, Reddi-Wip, Egg Beaters, Chef Boyardee, Hunt's tomato products and Orville Redenbacher.
Converse is an iconic brand. Which leads me to wonder why they would choose to lean on a young woman who needlessly claims to be "hot" on five interlinked microsites—outofyourleaguegirl.com, outofyourleaguegirlonbeingcreepy.com, outofyourleaguegirlonconfidence.com, outofyourleaguegirlonpassion.com and outofyourleaguegirlonmotivation.com.
According to Adweek, Converse's agency, Anomaly, declined to comment on the effort.
According to Ad Age, Holiday Inn Express and its digital agency, Digitas, are embarking on season two of "The Smart Show", a branded entertainment offering.
The 40 new episodes of "The Smart Show" will appear twice a week on blip.tv, and will air through October. 76% of the first season's viewers indicated they would be more likely to stay at a Holiday Inn Express based on the show.
Digitas is also launching a new branded-content unit, The Third Act, which is currently in active conversations with clients looking to go beyond the sponsorship model for web-based video content.
Kara Swisher of All Things Digital is reporting that Rafat Ali of paidContent is about to come into to some serious coinage.
Britain’s Guardian Media Group is set to announce this morning that it will buy the company that runs the high-profile digital media news site paidContent for a price “north of $30 million.”The paidContent site is owned by ContentNext and was founded by Publisher and Editor Rafat Ali in 2002.
ContentNext has offices in Santa Monica, Ca. and Manhattan and operates several other sites, and also runs several conferences.
Ali and paidContent was one of the inspirations for our own micromedia startup. So, it's great to see them succeed.
or do most of the viral/microsite/buzzworthy things get most of their traction because of ad industry publications and blogs?
I'm wondering because of the Converse discussion, and it occurred to me that I'd never hear about 95% of the viral stuff unless I read it on a blog or in Adweek or something.
Seems that intra-industry PR fuels the perception that this stuff is successful. Are all these viral things just a big ad industry circle jerk? If you didn't work in advertising or marketing, would you hear about these viral/buzz-type efforts?
Maybe I just need some new, hipper friends.
Mercury Advertising in Bozeman has the right idea. They know advertising is a powerful medium that can (and should) be used to help people. At least some of the time.
By the way, Mercury is looking for a new copywriter and art director to join their activist team.
Ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, asserted happiness was the result of friendships, freedom and an analyzed life.
Modern day British philosopher Alain de Botton, takes these Epicurean tenets and expounds on them in relation to the pursuit of happiness in today's consumerist society.
This video plays for 24 minutes, but it's well worth the investment. Near the end, de Botton visits London agency, St. Lukes and asks them to create an ad that supports Epicurus' ideals. He then places the ad inside a Manchester mall, mirroring the actions of Diogenes of Oenoanda. Diogenes, one of the wealthiest citizens of his town (the ruins of which are in modern day Turkey), constructed a wall 80 metres long and more than 3 metres high, containing approximately 25,000 words, made up of a wide range of Epicurean writings. This wall sat in the middle of the town's marketplace, reminding 2nd century Greeks that happiness would not be found in the acquisition of material goods.
[via Fresh Creation]
