National Semiconductor capped off its most successful fiscal year in history by equipping every one of its 8,500 employees with a 30-gigabyte video iPod. While designed for personal entertainment, the popular Apple MP3 player will be used as a new training and communications tool at National, providing a convenient method for employees to download National podcasts and other employee communications. The analog …
Swinging For The Green
USA TODAY reports on a unique promotion from Hilton Garden Inn, designed to increase customers length of stay. Taking a swing at attracting business travelers who can't stay away from their golf game, Hilton Garden Inn has partnered with 330 golf courses across the USA and Canada to offer free rounds. 13,000 Garden Inn guests used their vouchers in 2005, and the mid-price chain thinks it has a winner. Garden Inn …
Will Advertising Be Reduced To Pimping Parity Products?
Now, more so than ever, an interweb company with a compelling product or service, need not advertise. Or so says Bruce Sterling in Wired: It’s good to see Internet entrepreneurs grinning again. Web 2.0 makes them happy in several ways that its bubble-era forebear did not. Here’s a critical one: The new breed of online business has no need to advertise. Have you ever seen an ad for Skype? Any kind of pitch, anywhere? …
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Holiday Inn–Where Road Warriors Rest Their Sleepy Heads
What do you think about when you think about Holiday Inn? According to Landis Global Market Research, consumers most often think about amenities like the hotel pool. Fallon is launching a new campaign to counteract this pattern. The agency's "Look Again" campaign aims to round-out consumer perceptions of the brand so they view it as a first option for business travel as well as leisure. The campaign--with broadcast, …
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If The Shoe Fits
One advantage of rising through the ranks at a big time ad agency is the ability to buy nice shoes. Elizabeth Brady, senior VP-account director at DDB Worldwide, Chicago, takes it a step further. She makes her own nice shoes. According to Ad Age, Ms. Brady traces her interest in cobbling to her grandmother, who made sandals by hand and sold them to Saks Fifth Avenue, Marshall Field's and other department …
Technorati Has Company
Technorati is the de facto leader in blog search, but there's a bright new kid, with a much clearner user interface on the scene today. Blog search engines look at how many incoming links a site has. Technorati says Adpulp currently has 811 links from 304 sites. On the other hand, Sphere counts 1323 links. Clearly, counting links is an inexact science. [via Blogspotting] …
Once Again, The Cool Kids Are Voting
In a big red box on its site Adweek is once again letting you choose superlatives and not-so-superlatives from among a handful of agencies in various categories. Last year, Grey was the default choice in many of the "worst" categories, which led to the creation of WorstAgencyReel.com. Seems like the same 25 or so agencies are back in the contest. So vote early, and vote often. …
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Dos Bistec Con Queso (On The Double)
According to Associated Press, the customer is not always right. Not in South Philly, at any rate. An English-only ordering policy has thrust one of Philadelphia's best-known cheesesteak joints into the national immigration debate. Geno's — which together with its chief rival, Pat's King of Steaks, forms the epicenter of an area described as "ground zero for cheesesteaks" — has posted signs telling customers, "This …
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