from Haaretz: Seeking to improve its image among Palestinians, the United States has launched an advertising campaign in the West Bank, using billboards and television commercials filled with grinning children to tell Palestinians they have cleaner water and more classrooms thanks to its generosity. But the U.S. government's campaign is off to a tough start: No Palestinian entertainer or athlete was willing to serve …
Tobacco Companies Went A Long Way, Baby
A new report, after examining thousands of documents, says that tobacco companies went to great lengths to increase smoking among women. Here's the story from the AP. You'll have to see it to believe it. But here's a choice nugget: One of the documents, a 1987 internal report from Philip Morris, extolled the virtues of making a longer, slimmer cigarette that offered the false promise of a "healthier" product. "Most …
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Every Product Has A Story To Tell
At Peet's we take great pride in offering our customers coffees of uncompromising quality. One coffee that embodies this commitment is Las Hermanas, produced with great skill and care by a sisterhood of growers in Nicaragua - 184 women strong-on their own plots of land. These extraordinary women are part of a larger 650 member co-operative called Soppexcca. In 1998, F …
Caught In The Spokes Of The Sell In
Rich...! at Hello World waxes poetic on an issue close to all our ad world hearts. People are like dogs, they need to mark their territory, sadly for anyone who ever has to present creative/strategic ideas, in the land of men, outright acceptance is not seen as a sufficient marking tactic. Right or wrong, people will generally want to criticise your product in some way, this is how they prove to themselves (and …
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Smells Like School Spirit
from Forbes: Branded products have long been a strong draw in college stores, where they represent 10% of sales to identity-seeking students and nostalgic alums. But recently other consumers are buying into college brands as well. "Here's what I think is interesting," says Find/SVP analyst Kate Pennell, "foreign tourists are now snapping up college logos the way Americans go for Herm …
Off The Shelf Off The Table
from Reuters: Nike has a message for shoppers looking for the hottest shoe design: Just do it -- yourself. The world's largest athletic shoemaker has relaunched a web site where shoppers design their own shoes, choosing everything from the color of the famous Nike swoosh to personalizing the tongue with a word or phrase. The bid to target shoppers who want to stand out marks part of a growing trend toward …
Times Says Fast Company Is Done
from New York Times: When the Meredith Corporation announced its purchase of Gruner & Jahr's women's magazines last Tuesday, Meredith said that Gruner's business magazines, Fast Company and Inc., were not "material" to the sale. What that means is that two magazines that sold for more than half a billion dollars four years ago now have a value of zero. As it flees toward its exit from a billion-dollar experiment gone …
Northwest Cancels The In-Flight Pretzels
I didn't travel this weekend, but I'm sure some of you did, so I hope you enjoyed those free in-flight snacks, because they might be disappearing. According to this article, Northwest Airlines will stop offering free pretzels on its flights in coach class. America's 6 major airlines have a tendency to quickly copy each other's ideas, so this one might catch on. The airline says no more pretzels will save the airline …
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