I've been giving the Cluetrain crew a hard time of late, so I'll flip the script this time and give them a shout out. One of the Cluetrain's guiding principals (no. 14 to be exact) says, "Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman." Here's a splendid example. Castrol has signed Funkmaster Flex to …
Bud Conducts Taste Test At The Times
Chicago Sun Times advertising columnist, Lewis Lazare, got a little hot under the collar this week when Anheuser-Busch used Stuart Elliot of the New York Times to screen, approve and promote their upcoming Super Bowl ads. "Upending what had long been a strict rule of not allowing anyone in the media to see complete versions of its Super Bowl ads before they air, A-B chief marketing pooh-bah Bob Lachky presented more …
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Cluetrainers Need To Get A Clue
One of the blogerati's heavyweights weighed in today on how amazing the Cluetrain Manifesto is, and how clueless VW is for not understanding its inner most workings. "If I were you, VW, I would hold a contest to get people to create the best damned VW commercial anywhere and promise to spend big bucks to air it on, say, the Oscars. You don't have to pick the terrorist commercial. You'll be making clear that the thing …
For Lovemarks To Count They Must Be Genuine Article
The anti-Lovemarks argument just found its voice (or at least one I can readily comprehend), thanks to Rob at Bad Marketing. He writes: "Lovemarks isn't complete bunk. The vitriolic response comes because this ad agency has created and hyped the idea, and pretends they can recreate, even manufacture it. Most of us probably have some brand that we have an irrational attachment to, and see the same behavior in people …
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Currying Favor
MicroPersuasion is running a piece on podcasting pioneer Adam Curry. Curry recently spoke to Fortune about the podcasting network he's launching. Just as blogs have challenged mainstream media, Curry predicts that podcasts will take on radio and satellite. "With podcasting, people can tune out the world and listen to whatever they choose," says Curry. "In a way we're really looking at the dismantling of the …
Land Lines Put Out To Pasture
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY For some workers, the desktop telephone is joining the adding machine and typewriter on the list of obsolete office equipment. In a move that other companies might soon follow, Sprint announced Monday that about 8,000 employees at Ford Motor will jettison their desktop phones and use cell phones exclusively. Ford joins a few mostly small or midsize businesses around the nation that have …
Buzz Marketing Causes Bit Of A Headache
Like the VW suicide bomber spot I've tried to avoid, I also intentionally passed on the "Andrew Fischer's head as clever media buy" story. So, why cover either story now? Because it's believed both are hoaxes. According to comments made on Adrants, the wining eBay bidder for ad space on the Omaha man's head, Melody de Rivel, is the daughter of Snore Stop's CEO. de Rivel's winning bid totaled $37,375. Now rumor has it …
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Old Boy Gets All Visceral
MIAMI, Jan. 26 /CNW/ -- Bob Jeffrey, Worldwide CEO of JWT, the largest advertising agency in the U.S. and the fourth largest in the world, today introduced a new agency point of view that recognizes that time is at a premium, and advertising needs to focus on buying people's time. "Time is the new currency," said Jeffrey. "Our job is to ensure that more people spend more time with our clients' brands. We need to …